Rosenfield explains that Stirling's conception of the Museum included "adventurous and advanced" experimentation with proportion and scale. Stirling compares the structure to a car battery, in its density and compactness.

Like an ugly child that only a mother could love, the Sackler is most often praised by its parents in the Museum staff and by members of the architecture community.

"Most people who just come in to visit think it is hidcous," says Sackler security guard Michael Pelham, "The design students and professors come over from Gund Hall to laugh at it."

Pelham says that the only parts of the building he truly likes are the galleries and the entrance, where he sits. Even the entrance, he says, "they could liven up with some plants or something."

But Museum officials defend the structure vehemently. Rosenfield says, "We at the Fogg love it. I think it's just gorgeous. Of course, my friends and fellow academics hate it and think it looks like a parking garage."

Levine agrees, "Lots of people are looking for something more assertive, like the Science Center. You call that good architecture? I think it has a lot more dignity than that or, say, Gund Hall."

"Some say it looks like a warehouse or a garage. If it is the garage and the Fogg is the house, then they need to be connected," adds Levine, "I personally think the exterior looks fine, but the interior is much the more splendid part."

Although the banded brick exterior, with its randomly placed windows and oversized entryway, may not be very popular, the staff hopes that the inside will win people's hearts. Philip Parsons, assistant director of operations for the Museum, says, "What you see from the outside looks like a human habitation, not a museum. But almost everyone who comes to know the inside grows to understand the outside."

The Sackler Itself

The museum's peculiar exterior is delusive. The deep bands of brick glazed in earth tones correspond to analagous bands of color inside, where they denote the building's five stories. What appears to be an irregular window pattern from the outside makes sense upon entering the building, since the windows are placed to give maximum illumination for the rooms behind them.

The architect's play with scale is apparent in the monumental entrance to the building, which rises 57 feet and leads into a foyer of heroic proportions. This light, open area includes an enormous staircase that rises to the top floor of the building. Alongside the stairway, early Christian Coptic reliefs are inset in the bands of color--these are the only pieces of art currently inside the Sackler.

"The entryway provides a sort of intimate type of monumentality," says Parsons.

The stairway divides the building in half, with one side containing five levels of administrative offices, and the Rubel Asiatic collection (a part of the Fine Arts Library), and the other side comprised of three levels of galleries. Downstairs, there is a lecture hall that will be used by Fine Arts classes as early as next semester.

According to Parsons, the gallery on the first level will be reserved for temporary and loan exhibitions. It contains movable partitions to vary the design of the exhibitions, and has a complex system of both natural and artificial lighting. The gallery on the second level has little natural light, and will be reserved for light-sensitive objects on paper from the Museum's permanent collection.

The gallery on the third and top level is also reserved for items from the permanent collection; the four spacious rooms have skylights that will cast natural shadows on the artwork. These rooms will house Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Mesopotamian art.

Now, a series of cutout cardboard models of sculptures--labelled "Aphrodite" or "Panathenaic Amphora" or "Southern Italian Vases"--occupy the rooms. The Museum staff is experimenting with the new space and deciding which display cases to order, Parsons says.

Despite its lack of popular approval, this muticolored, asymmetrical giant will soon contain some of the finest art objects in the Boston area.

Levine advises, "It's something people should look at and learn from rather than criticize immediately--like all new art.