Salvaging A museum

THE CONTROVERSY over President Bok's decision to cancel a major addition to the Fogg Art Museum remains somewhat unclear behind a haze of contradictory accounts and official "no comments." Harvard art patrons and Fine Arts faculty charge that the sudden end to a three-year dream came as a result of mysteriously timid planning and an underlying insensitivity to the needs of the nation's most prestigious college art collection and fine arts training facility. They add that at least $11 million in contributions and pledges solicited for the expansion project will be withdrawn.

Administrators and members of the University's governing Corporation respond that they intend to alleviate the Fogg's severe space shortage--but several have displayed an oddly cavalier attitude toward the fears that without prompt action the museum's prestige, ability to attract donations and teaching quality will begin to deteriorate.

The very confusion surrounding Bok's last-minute decision represents a failure on the part of the University, but we find several more specific aspects of the situation unsettling as well.

In a private letter to donors and faculty last week. Bok explained that almost the entire $16.5 million needed to build the new Fogg wind had been pledged or collected. However, he stressed stumbling blocks including a possible rise in brick prices, a relatively small increase in architectural fees, and potential difficulties with a proposed bridge that would have connected the new Fogg wing to the original building. Above all, he emphasized that generally hard economic times have precluded projects that ma entail unforeseen construction cost overruns and high operating expenses.

Why did Bok raise these potential problems only in the final week before the formal go -ahead had to be given and not earlier so that plans could have been modified and compromises reached? And, since major construction project always involve unforeseen expenses and often begin before total funding is in hand, why was this carefully planned, generously supported and desperately needed undertaking dropped?

We fear the answer may be the one suggested by several longtime museum donors, the Corporation is still financially shell-shocked after its $230 million disaster with the Medical Area power plant and seems hesitant to take necessary, limited risks.

Other disturbing details enter this story as well. Later in the planning process--after the University had repeatedly forced the Fogg to raise additional money independent of the ongoing Harvard capital fund drive--a plan surfaced to sell Fogg artworks to provide insurance against the operating costs so feared by University officials. It remains unclear who first suggested the idea, but Fogg Director Seymour Slive eventually convinced the Corporation and moving ahead with crucial expansion.

Ignorant of the details of the limited, one-time art sale proposal, an organization of prominent museum directors lumped Live. Bok and Harvard together and publicly lambasted them as villains willing to auction off masterpieces to pay for plumbing and wiring. This well-intentioned but clumsy interference apparently gave Bok the final push toward a move he may have already favored: He cancelled all expansion plans, contending that the art sale proposal would scare away any possible replacements for Slive, who announced last year that he would relinquish the directorship this fall.

Regardless of who introduced the possibility of selling art it seems clear that pressure from the Corporation made the scheme unavoidable. Bok is using a problem he and his cohorts nurtured as an excuse not to move ahead with the expansion. Ironically, people close to the committee searching for Slive's replacement report that apparent University indifference toward the Fogg's pressing expansion needs may now become the chief obstacle to finding a suitable new director.

To salvage what is left of the money pledged to improve the Fogg and to reassure scholars and patrons that the University has not forgotten its proud heritage of leadership in the fine arts, Bok must clarify his reasons for killing the expansion plan and they allow museum officials to proceed with a comparable alternative. Millions may have already been lost, but what remains at stake in the future of a unique and invaluable Harvard Treasure.