News
Aug 3, 2021 _ news
Taft Museum’s Bicentennial Infrastructure Project Breaks Ground
The Taft Museum of Art has kicked off an extensive rehabilitation project to ensure the future of the 200-year-old house that holds its collection.
A National Historic Landmark, the house was built in 1820 as a private family residence before becoming a museum in 1932. The historic home will undergo work to increase the performance of the exterior enclosure and replace the outdated HVAC/sprinkler systems to better protect its priceless art collection.
To prepare for the project, we studied 36 different areas of the historic home’s exterior that revealed widespread water penetration. “Museums require tight control of air temperature and humidity levels,” says Chris Magee, part of GBBN’s design team working on the project. “Our unique strategy to rehabilitate the exterior enclosure dovetails with the replacement of the new HVAC system,“ he says. The exterior siding and windows will be removed entirely to stabilize the wood structure underneath, insulate the wall cavities, and reapply the wood siding with a new rainscreen (a moisture resistant barrier).
To keep the elegance of the Taft house front and center during the renovation, we worked with the Taft and the construction manager, HGC, to produce tarps printed with architectural drawings of each side of the house, which will be draped over the exterior scaffolding throughout construction – a fun, visual reminder of the historic home being restored within.
Construction is expected to be complete in the spring of 2022.
