Word: fogg
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...CONTROVERSY over President Bok's decision to cancel a major addition to the Fogg Art Museum remains somewhat unclear behind a haze of contradictory accounts and official "no comments." Harvard art patrons and Fine Arts faculty charge that the sudden end to a three-year dream came as a result of mysteriously timid planning and an underlying insensitivity to the needs of the nation's most prestigious college art collection and fine arts training facility. They add that at least $11 million in contributions and pledges solicited for the expansion project will be withdrawn...
Administrators and members of the University's governing Corporation respond that they intend to alleviate the Fogg's severe space shortage--but several have displayed an oddly cavalier attitude toward the fears that without prompt action the museum's prestige, ability to attract donations and teaching quality will begin to deteriorate...
...private letter to donors and faculty last week. Bok explained that almost the entire $16.5 million needed to build the new Fogg wind had been pledged or collected. However, he stressed stumbling blocks including a possible rise in brick prices, a relatively small increase in architectural fees, and potential difficulties with a proposed bridge that would have connected the new Fogg wing to the original building. Above all, he emphasized that generally hard economic times have precluded projects that ma entail unforeseen construction cost overruns and high operating expenses...
Other disturbing details enter this story as well. Later in the planning process--after the University had repeatedly forced the Fogg to raise additional money independent of the ongoing Harvard capital fund drive--a plan surfaced to sell Fogg artworks to provide insurance against the operating costs so feared by University officials. It remains unclear who first suggested the idea, but Fogg Director Seymour Slive eventually convinced the Corporation and moving ahead with crucial expansion...
...seems clear that pressure from the Corporation made the scheme unavoidable. Bok is using a problem he and his cohorts nurtured as an excuse not to move ahead with the expansion. Ironically, people close to the committee searching for Slive's replacement report that apparent University indifference toward the Fogg's pressing expansion needs may now become the chief obstacle to finding a suitable new director...