Center for British Art gives its roof a break

After 20 years of showcasing British art and creative architecture, the Yale British Art Center (BAC) will undergo $3 million renovations to refurbish its roof, carpets, and walls.

Located at the corner of Chapel and York Streets in a building designed in the 1970s by renowned architect Louis Kahn, the BAC boasts the largest British art collection outside England. Kahn designed the building as a permanent home for the British art collection Paul Mellon '29 donated to Yale in 1968. Many of the structural choices in the Center reflect the specific features of Mellon's collection. In order to invoke a domestic feeling, many of the galleries were constructed with low ceilings so that the art could still be viewed as if it were part of a private collection.

The only painted surfaces in the entire center are the works of art themselves--the building is made exclusively from wool, linen, wood, steel, glass and concrete.

One of the most unique aspects of Kahn's work is the structure's roof, which is made of 56 individual glass domes, arranged in square sections above the top floor. The natural light, which comes through the domes, lights the galleries to varying degrees depending on the weather and season. When asked what the building would look like upon its completion, Kahn said, "On a gray day it will look like a moth; on a sunny day like a butterfly."

Over the past 20 years, however, the domes have become clouded and now comprise a major part of the renovation plans. "They all need to be lifted up, repaired, and then replaced," Senja Foster, the Center's Public Relations Manager, said.

Other signs of wear and tear abound. "If you look at the floor," Foster described, "you can see how this striping appears. The rubber backing of the carpet is starting to show through because it's worn so much." Foster added that the linens on the walls also will need to be overhauled, due to age and water damage.

Although the galleries will be closed until next January, the BAC will not be shut down entirely. The museum will continue programs for training docents and cataloging and researching the collection. In addition, the department of prints, drawing and watercolors, the department of rare books, the reference library, and the museum shop will all remain open during special hours.

"When people come in, they can request to see, for example, Morgan Blake's watercolors, sit down at a table, and the watercolors are brought directly to them," Foster explained. "It gives a sort of intimacy with the artwork, an immediacy that you don't otherwise get."

Additionally, two special exhibitions will travel from the BAC to other museums. From Thurs., Feb. 12, through Sun., Apr. 26, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Conn., will present "Canaletto to Constable: Paintings of Town and Country from the Yale Center for British Art."

A second exhibition, "This Other Eden: British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale" will appear in three different Australian cities. "These particular exhibitions are spectacular, and they're very unusual for the British Arts Center," Foster said. The one that's going to Australia is 80 of our greatest pieces "They've never been sent en masse to another venue, let alone another country. It's such a comprehensive collection."

These traveling exhibitions are one positive outgrowth of otherwise inconvenient renovations. Like its neighbor, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Paul Mellon Center for British Art has long been an important resource for Yale's art history students and professors.

Visitors to the museum will sorely miss the first-hand experience of many important works. They can console themselves with the anticipation of a major exhibition planned for the Center's reopening next year.

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