Collections To Find New Home in Northwest Science Building

Five departmental collections in the Museum of Comparative Zoology are facing a yearlong move from their age-old home on Oxford St. into the basement of the Northwest Science Building, after a series of clouded administrative indecisiveness that prompted some confusion among the staff.

Though the move has been under discussion for more than ten years, the museum only won a month and a half ago the approval of Faculty of Arts and Sciences Divisional Dean of Sciences Jeremy Bloxham and FAS Dean Michael D. Smith to move into three rooms—measuring out to 50,000 square feet—in the Northwest Building.

The MCZ hopes to renovate and move into their state-of-the-art facilities in early 2011—a project that will cost more than 18 and a half million dollars, with the move itself costing one million dollars, according to MCZ Director James Hanken.

Faced with a constant stream of acquisitions while housed in a “substandard” facility, the museum has long run out of space, Hanken said.

“We’ve been increasingly cramped in the present case—the specimens have been packed together, making it hard to access and work on them,” Hanken said. “We’ve needed to decompress them.”

With the move now seemingly definite, the MCZ staff is finalizing plans for the renovation and move of at least 10 million artifacts one tenth of a mile down the street—a move that will allow the MCZ to continue growing without worrying about the condition of its specimens.

THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY

The space in Northwest can be likened to a blank slate upon which the MCZ can construct the very conditions that its current home—which was built according to 19th century standards—cannot provide.

The Oxford St. residence lacks humidity control and centralized air conditioning—which bodes poorly for delicate specimens—and its flimsy upper floors are in danger of collapsing from too much weight, Hanken said. Leaks in the roof need to be mended, and the building supports very limited information technology infrastructure.

“Everybody’s recognized this for years, that we needed better quarters,” Hanken said. “When the Northwest lab was being designed, it was recognized as an opportunity to accommodate a lot of the MCZ’s collections.”

Most museum staffers agree that the new state-of-the-art space in Northwest has clear functional advantages over the aging facility it currently occupies: foremost, a new heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system that will keep temperatures and humidities stable throughout the year to protect sensitive specimens like skins and skeletons and to prevent insect infestations.

Hanken said that on certain occasions, the museum has had to turn down specimens because “we simply can’t accommodate.” And if a researcher wants to come to work in the museum building, “we don’t really have anywhere to put them, at this point,” said Alana V. Rivera, a curatorial assistant.

At the moment, three large rooms in the basement of Northwest await refurbishment—and the potential is almost tangible. “They could be wonderful,” said Hanken, who noted that the space would give the museum the capacity to grow for another one to two decades.

The planned renovations include equipping the space with stainless steel cabinetry to accommodate specimens and greater storage space that would be especially useful for oversized items in the paleontological department. During the move itself, the museum can also rearrange its collections in better taxonomic order.

The impending renovations—which will occur in three installments over the course of three years—will also include the installation of lighting and the construction of specimen preparation labs, teaching space, and curatorial staff area, according to Hanken.

AN UNCERTAIN TIMELINE

Five of the ten departmental collections are slated to move underground—invertebrate paleontology, vertebrate paleontology, malacology, mammalogy, and ornithology, according to Hanken.

He said the museum’s “spirit collections” that preserve specimens in alcohol—invertebrate zoology, herpetology, and ichthyology—will not move because alcohol cannot be housed below grade, in accordance with fire regulations.

Hanken added that the MCZ relinquished ownership of the remaining space in the building on Oxford St. The Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology is rumored to fill the vacancy, with OEB Professor John R. Wakeley getting a small office in the space. What is certain is that the space will not be used for laboratories.

“I won’t doubt that other departments in FAS might look longingly at the space available,” said William Amaral, former preparation facility manager in the vertebrate paleontology collection, in an interview with The Crimson last year. Amaral has since retired from the University.

Amaral noted that the top floor of the building—which is currently occupied by the ornithology division—is prime property: “It’s a nice spot. I’d have to know what the museum was getting in return for giving up that space.”

The planners of the Northwest specifically earmarked basement space for MCZ during the design process, according to Hanken. Still, months passed before FAS gave its official approval for the move, leaving Hanken concerned before the decision was made formal.

Spaces are “real premium” at the University and generates “competing uses for space,” Amaral said.

“That’s why I’m very anxious to get the decision made,” Hanken said in an interview last year, adding that there was “always the chance” the allocated space could have ended up in the hands of a different University interest unless the current plan met definite approval.

SENTIMENTAL PROGRESS

The MCZ has called its building on Oxford St. its home since the edifice was established in 1859.

“I think there’s a bit sentimentality,” said Linda S. Ford, Director of Collections Operations. “Even with all the problems because this building’s age, all the people love this building.”

“It was designed and built as a zoology museum, and now it’s going to be split in half and other departments are moving in here—and that to me is really sad,” said curatorial associate Judith Chupasko in an interview last year. “I really love the space here...It bums me out.”

Chupasko, who believes that the mammology collection has space to grow after renovations, said she does not think the current MCZ building is necessarily impeding growth of the collections. “I don’t think it’s that,” she said regarding the primary reason for the move. “I think it’s bigger than me and what I’m informed about.”

“I get a little scared. Is it that ‘divide and conquer’ thing? They’re dividing it up so it’s easier to—I don’t know—feed me to the lions?” Chupasko added. “I think the main reason for the move is to store the collections better...but I don’t know what the bigger forces are behind the move.”

Amaral said that initially, the ornithology and mammology collections were “definitely slated” for a move into the basement space because of their liability with potential infestations, but “they kept adding more and more departments.”

“I suspect, as I see it, that the birds and mammals were the first concern, and as they got along with that plan, they realized how much space would be available when those departments moved,” Amaral said. “It snowballed to FAS or OEB saying, ‘Wow, look how much space we could get if this department and this department move.’”

—Staff writer Gautam S. Kumar can be reached at gkumar@college.harvard.edu.

—Esther I. Yi contributed to the reporting of this story.