A Look Back: The Building is Five

Flow. It’s uncanny how well Tod Williams and Billie Tsien anticipated the many needs of the new Hood Museum during the design process that led up to the 2019 opening of the expanded and renovated building. Every day, the staff flows through spaces that are both graceful and efficient, performing all the various duties of museum professionals. We move art from storage to the galleries for installation or to the Bernstein Center for Object study for classes. Visitors meander through the museum, enjoying galleries that are architecturally “quiet” to allow for the art to sing out from the walls. Students and community members alike spend time in the atrium, enjoying the atmosphere over a cup of coffee. Regardless of who we were or what we needed, it seems that the architects were always one step ahead of us, designing for our needs while creating a lasting testament to the creative spirit.

Three traditional African masks are inside a brown cardboard box and set into gray foam, that has been customized for them, and tied down in white cloth. — Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

[Above:] In February 2016, Hood Museum art handlers, registrars, and exhibition preparators began packing up the collection.

A bird's eye view of a construction site. There is a man in a yellow vest and white hard hat standing on a giant iron beam. He is putting another smaller, but still huge, iron beam into place. — Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

[Above & below:] March 8, 2017: Construction begins!

A building construction site. There is a large area that has been dug out and fitted with concrete walls and floors. Steel or iron beams are being raised as construction begins on a building expansion. — Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

A large construction crane is lifting an iron or steel beam, that has been painted white and has a tree and American flag attached to the top, high into the air. Behind the beam with the tree and flag on it is a skeletal iron or steel of a building. The sky is clearing and emerging from clouds behind the beam as well. — Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

[Above:] On April 28, 2017, a lone pine—Dartmouth’s symbol—sat atop the final steel beam as it was put into place during the Topping-off Ceremony.

An iron or steel skeleton of a newly constructed building. — Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

[Above & below:] April 2017 to April 2019, from skeletal to complete!

View of a building from a higher vantage point than the ground. The building is constructed of light gray bricks and is rectangular. The photo is taken at an angle of the building's main entrance. Above the front doors, on the facade, is a square window. — Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

The Hood Museum’s new façade is visible from the Dartmouth Green, raising our profile as a distinctive pillar of the arts at Dartmouth. The vitrine window activates the museum’s façade and helps us engage campus. Visitors can glimpse artwork from the Green or enjoy a view of Baker Tower from inside the galleries.

A white man in his 60s, with a blond beard, wearing a baseball hat, green polo shirt, and teal rubber gloves, works with traditional African objects and art that are laid out on a table in front of him. In the background is a white museum gallery partially installed with objects from Africa. There is also a woman in her 20s with light brown short hair talking on the phone in the background. — Photo by Rob Strong.

July 2018, In preparation for our reopening celebration on January 26, 2019, museum staff worked long hours to install the sixteen new galleries. Pictured above, former museum preparator John Reynolds installs works of traditional African art in Albright Gallery.

A dimly lit museum gallery installed with antiquities. On the wall on the left are three Assyrian stone reliefs. — Photo by Jeffrey Nintzel.

[Above & below:] Kim Gallery’s transformation from 1985 to 2019!

A brightly lit museum gallery with light deep green walls and wooden floors. The gallery is installed with antiquities from Greece, Rome, China, Egypt, and Assyria. — Photo by Michael Moran.

An iconic gallery in the museum, it is home to our Assyrian reliefs and once served as the museum’s reception space. Thankfully, the expansion included the Russo Atrium, where we now hold receptions and so much more.

A room with light gray walls and carpeted floors is set up with high stools and art on easels and a long counter. — Photo by Bruce White.

[Above:] May 2012, Before the expansion and renovation, the museum was fortunate to have Bernstein Study-Storage to utilize as a classroom within the museum.

Three large doorways are open and leading into rooms installed with original works of art. College-aged students are in the spaces and walking in the hallway between the three study galleries. — Photo by Michael Moran.

Enhancing the Hood Museum’s teaching capacity was a principal objective of the project. We now have the Bernstein Center for Object Study (above), which includes three smart study galleries that hosted 5,548 Dartmouth students over the past academic year.

A photograph of a brick building from a low vantage point. The building winds around to the right until you approach a door. — Photo by Bruce White.

The museum’s once quiet outdoor courtyard (above) has been transformed . . .

A gray bricked rectangular building situated between two red bricked buildings. People are walking around in front of the building. It is a sunny day with a blue sky in the background and wispy white clouds. — Photo by Michael Moran.

. . . Into a welcoming entrance to the galleries and a lively social and event space.

A large atrium space filled with college-aged adults. They are smiling and talking in variously sized groups. — Photos by Rob Strong (left) and Lars Blackmore (right).

Over the past five years, Russo Atrium has hosted many programs and events for departments across campus. It has also been a place for students to meet, study, and socialize.

A group of college-aged students in their 20s sit around a table with art supplies atop it. They are decorating canvas bags with ink, markers, stamps, and paint. — Photo by Lars Blackmore.

Thank you to all of our supporters of our expansion and renovation project. What a success it proved to be! We hope you will return again and again and continue to share our Hood Museum experience with us, and on social media, as we realize our vision of advancing learning, care, and connections through the reach and relevance of visual art and material culture.

This post was authored by: John Stomberg, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director

A middle-aged white man wearing a blue button up shirt under a blue suit jacket. He is bald and clean shaven. He's standing in front of a grey brick wall and smiling at the camera. — Photo by Rob Strong.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John R. Stomberg is the Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. Before joining Dartmouth in January 2016, he served as the Florence Finch Abbott Director of the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum and the Joseph Allen Skinner Museum, and held leadership positions at the Williams College Museum of Art and the Boston University Art Gallery. He holds a B.A. from Georgetown University and both an M.A. and Ph.D. from Boston University—all in art history. The primary focus of his curatorial work is American art and culture since 1900. Moving between photography, prints, paintings, sculpture, media art, and installation work, his exhibitions have been conceived to broaden our understanding of how art operates in, and often shapes, society. He publishes on modern and contemporary art and issues directly related to museums, education, and academia.

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