Docomomo Rehabilitation Award (DRAW) 2021

Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT, USA
1969-74 Louis Kahn

Conservation Plan and restoration works
Inskip Gee Architects (London) and Knight Architecture (New Haven)

Client: Yale University

The Yale Center for British Art is Kahn’s last mature work and one of his finest buildings. Commissioned in 1969, and Paul Mellon’s gift to Yale University along with his outstanding collection of British art, it was nearing completion when the architect died in 1974. The building represents the development of one side of a city block in New Haven. It is very much an urban structure with commercial shops on the ground floor fronting the surrounding streets. A single-storey portico cut deep into one corner leads the visitor into the core of the building where the triple-height Entrance Court introduces the academic institution on the upper floors, culminating with double-height, top-lit galleries running across the whole of the fourth floor. It is the partis of the Roman Palazzo providing a world of calm above the bustle of the urban street. An external court extends the building to the adjacent 19C church that completes the block. In contrast to Kahn’s monumental work based on massive forms, and the play of light and deep shade, the Yale Center is clad in metal with sheets of glass set flush pewter-coloured panels.

The building was considered by the Center as a primary exhibit in its collection and had been well cared for. However, small-scale, accumulative changes had compromised Kahn’s design and represented drift from his carefully considered concepts. Galleries were subdivided, display pogos replaced with walls, and the external courtyard colonised by ad hoc structures. Views from the galleries onto the courts were blocked in and the closing-up of windows gained additional display space but ran counter to the architect’s belief that works of art should be seen in changing daylight and that long views relieved museum fatigue. Technical problems were leading to the corrosion of fixings within the external walls and the monumental flight of steps in the external court needed stabilising.

The preparation of a Conservation Plan by Peter Inskip and Stephen Gee Architects from London allowed the thorough understanding of the Place, leading to an assessment of cultural significance, and the agreement of Conservation Policies that resulted in the restoration of the building working in collaboration with Knight Architecture from New Haven.

Exemplary practices that consider conservation and maintenance plans as key tools for defying the effects of time.