The once and future Art Gallery
January/February 2004

The main building of the Yale University Art Gallery, shown here lit up at night soon after it opened 50 years ago, was the first major commission of the preeminent U.S. architect Louis Kahn. It became an internationally known landmark of Modernist architecture -- Paul Goldberger '72, architecture critic for The New Yorker, has called it "the first great postwar modern museum" -- but the building was vitiated over the years, its open floors partitioned into smaller exhibition spaces that closed off the flow of light. The gallery is now undergoing a renovation that will restore much of Kahn's vision. A symposium on January 23-24 will mark the 50th anniversary of the gallery and the 25th anniversary of Kahn's final work -- the Yale Center for British Art. (For information, e-mail diane.bowman@yale.edu.)