RAPID PROGRESS ON NEW ART MUSEUM

The Walls of the new Fogg Art Museum, begun last July, have reached the third floor line and at the present rate of construction, the contracting firm of Hegeman and Harris of New York City expects to have the building completed by next fall as first planned. The museum, which will combine facilities for class room and laboratory instruction in Fine Arts as well as for the public exhibition of art collections, was designed by Charles A. Coolidge '81, of the firm of Coolidge, shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott of Boston.

May Abandon Quincy Street

The principal front of the structure is on Quincy Street with the main entrance facing the rear of Sever Hall. It is probable that Quincy Street may be abandoned in the future, in which case the museum will be included in the Yard. Its completion next fall will provide the fourth side of the quadrangle composed of Emerson, Sever and Robinson Halls and the Fogg Museum. If Quincy Street goes into disuse it is planned to move the Yard fence from the west side of this street to the east side of the Museum.

The two fold utility which is aimed at in the new structure has presented a special problem of construction differing from that employed in the building of an ordinary museum. The proper correlation of the teaching and exhibition functions has been carefully studied and will be embodied in many individual features. (Professor M. R. Rogers '15, of Smith college, has been associated with Edward W. Forbes '95, Director of the Fogg Art Museum, and Professor P. J. Sachs '00 and Professor Arthur Pope, officials of the Fogg Art Museum, in working out the details of fitting the new structure to the wants of the Division of Fine Arts.

Design Harmonious

As regards the general appearance special emphasis has been placed on the necessity of making the building harmonize with the best traditions of Harvard architecture. The material is red "brick with the central doorway and cornices of limestone. The window trim and the doors will be of wood similar to that used in the older buildings of the Yard.

The museum is 234 feet across the front and 123 feet deep. The front portion along Quincy Street will contain two stories of exhibition galleries with a top light furnishing the light for the upper story. Behind the exhibition part of the building is an in interior court, 57 by 44 feet, surrounded on four sides by two stories of arcades built of Italian Travertine. The rear portion will contain the library, Class 'rooms, and executive offices. A night entrance in the rear of the building will make it possible to open the lecture hall in the evenings without throwing open the museum proper.

The large lecture hall has been designed to accommodate 400 people and there will be three or four smaller lecture rooms in addition. The laboratory instruction department will include rooms for students to practice painting. A Print Room which will contain prints and ongravings relative to courses of study and a room on the top, floor for students of technique have been provided for.

A new feature of the museum will be the separation of the works of especial distinction from the inferior ones in order that visitors will not have to go through masses of uninteresting pictures to find the most distinguished ones.