HAM’s educational division has continued to facilitate and encourage use of original art objects as a medium for instruction within the university. Historically, the museum and the HAA department were very closely related, to the extent that most faculty members also served as curators. “The museum and the department of art history were in one building and very much imbricated into one another,” says Henri Zerner, a professor in the HAA department since 1972. “The office of the director and the office of the department chair were not only adjacent, but they had a door in between and they also had a bathroom that they shared. This is symbolically very important because it meant that the faculty and the institution were... communicating on a daily basis.”

Though HAM will continue its commitment to supporting scholarship in HAA, it also hopes to work with faculty across a broad range of disciplines in the coming years. The HAA department office complex, currently located in the Sackler, will not move back into the Fogg upon the building’s completion. Instead, the museum will act as an autonomous and central entity at the disposal of students in all concentrations.

While students acknowledge the unfortunate inaccessibility of the museums, there is a widespread agreement that renovation is necessary. Aside from a single teaching gallery on the fouth floor of the Sackler, and a few niches with rotating artworks, temporary exhibitions have been put on hold. However, in the fall of 2011 the Sackler will house a show entitled “Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe,” while groups like HAMUC help to maintain the connection between students and the art still available to them. Perloff-Giles maintains that the long-term benefits outweigh the temporary loss. “When Renzo Piano surveyed the grounds, he said the Sackler didn’t look like a museum,” she says. “The new Fogg will definitely look like a museum.”

In the end, Perloff-Giles adds, even the simple fact of renovation will help to attract attention to the museum. “If our goal... is to increase visibility, the new building will start to do that just with its physical presence.”

—Staff writer Sally K. Scopa can be reached at sscopa@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following corrections:

CORRECTIONS: September 22, 2010

An earlier version of the Sept. 21 arts article "Fogg of the Future" incorrectly referred to the Harvard Art Museums as the Harvard University Art Museums.

The article also reported that the exhibition "Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe" will be showing at the Sackler in fall 2010. The correct time is fall 2011.