Fogg Could Find Temporary Home In Allston Tower Bought by Harvard

An office building that Harvard recently purchased in Allston is being considered as a site to house some of the University’s art collection during a future renovation of the Fogg Art Museum.

The 75,000-square-foot red brick building, just south of Soldiers Field Road and west of the Brighton Mills Shopping Center, could also permanently hold some of the Fogg’s burgeoning collection of artifacts, according to Luann Wilkins Abrahams, the assistant director for administration at the Harvard University Art Museums.

But Sean Buffington, the associate provost for arts and culture, said the use of the building as an art space would not replace plans for another cultural facility in the heart of the new campus across the Charles River.

The Fogg Art Museum on Quincy Street has not been renovated since its construction in 1927. It is not handicapped-accessible or climate-controlled, and only 1 to 2 percent of the museum’s collections can be displayed for visitors.

But a prerequisite for any renovation project is the identification of a building to hold at least some of the art during the work. In addition to the Soldiers Field Road building, more than 25 other locations have been examined in the area, Abrahams said.

“In the short term everything has to move,” she said. “In the long term, some stuff will move and some stuff will come back.”

Buffington said a decision about the temporary site would be made this semester. He said a renovation of the Fogg is slated for “sometime in the next five years,” but the temporary space would be needed sooner.

“You can’t close down one day and move the next day,” he said.

One advantage to the Soldiers Field building is that it is owned by Harvard, unlike some of the other sites under consideration, Buffington said. In July, the Boston Globe reported that the University bought the building from Citizens Bank for roughly $22 million. University spokeswoman Lauren Marshall would not confirm the figure this week.

The purchase extends Harvard’s holdings in Allston farther to the west. Even before this acquisition, the University’s land holdings in Allston were greater than the size of its properties in Cambridge.

Science buildings, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health, student housing, and arts space will occupy the new campus, according to a preliminary report released by Harvard in June.

But Buffington said the Soldiers Field Road building was too far away from the center of the Allston campus to be considered as a principal art space.

“We are currently planning for that space only to be swing space,” Buffington said. “The plan was always that there would be cultural facilities in the main part of the Allston campus. We are expecting ultimately that a site would be there on the main part of the Allston campus and not out where Citizens is.”

But Abrahams said space at the Fogg Art Museum is so limited that it was only natural to look at the possibility that the Soldiers Field Road building or whichever temporary space was chosen could play a longer-term role.

“Every museum is faced with growing collections,” she said. “One solution is to have a second facility. That may be this building or a different one.”

­—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.