PaintingsDirect.com - Art in the News

by Jane Harris
		Malcolm Rogers, the new Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, recently announced his plan to radically restructure the museum. He affirmed his appointment of London-based architect Norman Foster, whose firm won the prestigious 1999 Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest accolade.
		Amidst controversies over Rogers's initial internal "house-cleaning", which included the firing of certain curatorial personnel, the integration of the once independent School of the Museum of Fine Arts with the museum's general Education Department, and the consolidation of the Asian and African Art Departments, the decision to commission Foster without a customary public competition has brought further criticism.
		Nonetheless, Foster and Partners' expansion and renovation plan is underway. The firm's projects are many in Boston, and include Trinity Place; the historic Suffolk County Courthouse; the Nike Building at 200 Newbury Street; and Harvard University's Memorial Hall Tower. Although well-known for their sensitive preservation and creative reinterpretation of historic architecture, one of the primary additions to the museum will be a bridge or tunnel that will join it to the Museum School. Other structural changes will facilitate the institution's reorganization, and the need for further research and conservation.
		Other Art News... The Met Affair
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