When I lived in Cambridge during the early 1980s, I can only recall venturing into the Fitzwilliam once. And once was enough: its grand façade on Trumpington Street never tempted me back in. By contrast, my first visit to Kettle's Yard (the other major gallery in town) was an illuminating experience, which was followed by almost weekly returns.
Everyone working at the Fitzwilliam to whom I relate this unflattering comparison is eager to reassure me: they have heard its like before.
The museum clearly had a problem with its image and the accessibility of its collections and something needed to be done. The answer for Duncan Robinson (the Fitzwilliam's director) and his team lay in a building project that would reclaim and exploit a space all but lost within the museum's structure: a hidden courtyard.
The parallels with other recent capital projects are unmistakable, and metropolitan snobs might be tempted to think that the Fitzwilliam has attempted a provincial imitation of the British Museum's Great Court. This would be unfair.
What has emerged after some three years and £12m of building work, masterminded by John Miller and Partners, are almost 3,000 sq meters of new space, spread over four floors. The project has rather subtly integrated the new elements into the old, enabling what was already there to be thoroughly reinvigorated.
At ground level, visitors who might be daunted by the classical grandeur of the Founder's Building can now slip in through an altogether more accessible entrance and find their bearings in a new orientation space. Below in the basement is a new education suite, which will come into full use in the next academic year.
On the first floor, in a mix of new and redesigned spaces, are galleries that will be used to present both temporary exhibitions as well as the museum's eclectic range of 20th century works.
Though never quite magnificent, the layout and presentation of new spaces is neatly configured and elegantly finished. If forced to confess a general reservation about the architecture, I would question whether too much has been squeezed into too small a space.
But this is a minor quibble, when set against a series of more significant successes. For the mix of limestone, glass, pale wood, brickwork and plaster walls really does capture and then enliven an important series of ideas.
Three of the biggest that face any museum these days are particularly well resolved in the new Fitzwilliam, one for each of the main floors in the new building.
Starting at the top, the first bold gesture taken by the new building relates to the importance of temporary exhibitions as engines of change and drivers of visitor loyalty. A lively programme of temporary exhibitions can do so much to rejuvenate a museum.
According to Robinson, the programme of planned exhibitions will draw on the collections, the range of curatorial expertise at hand, as well as local research and teaching energy. What the Fitzwilliam now has is an adequate space in which to channel all this, so that the museum can advance its own thinking, but also, crucially, do so within a public arena.
Everyone working at the Fitzwilliam to whom I relate this unflattering comparison is eager to reassure me: they have heard its like before.
The museum clearly had a problem with its image and the accessibility of its collections and something needed to be done. The answer for Duncan Robinson (the Fitzwilliam's director) and his team lay in a building project that would reclaim and exploit a space all but lost within the museum's structure: a hidden courtyard.
The parallels with other recent capital projects are unmistakable, and metropolitan snobs might be tempted to think that the Fitzwilliam has attempted a provincial imitation of the British Museum's Great Court. This would be unfair.
What has emerged after some three years and £12m of building work, masterminded by John Miller and Partners, are almost 3,000 sq meters of new space, spread over four floors. The project has rather subtly integrated the new elements into the old, enabling what was already there to be thoroughly reinvigorated.
At ground level, visitors who might be daunted by the classical grandeur of the Founder's Building can now slip in through an altogether more accessible entrance and find their bearings in a new orientation space. Below in the basement is a new education suite, which will come into full use in the next academic year.
On the first floor, in a mix of new and redesigned spaces, are galleries that will be used to present both temporary exhibitions as well as the museum's eclectic range of 20th century works.
Though never quite magnificent, the layout and presentation of new spaces is neatly configured and elegantly finished. If forced to confess a general reservation about the architecture, I would question whether too much has been squeezed into too small a space.
But this is a minor quibble, when set against a series of more significant successes. For the mix of limestone, glass, pale wood, brickwork and plaster walls really does capture and then enliven an important series of ideas.
Three of the biggest that face any museum these days are particularly well resolved in the new Fitzwilliam, one for each of the main floors in the new building.
Starting at the top, the first bold gesture taken by the new building relates to the importance of temporary exhibitions as engines of change and drivers of visitor loyalty. A lively programme of temporary exhibitions can do so much to rejuvenate a museum.
According to Robinson, the programme of planned exhibitions will draw on the collections, the range of curatorial expertise at hand, as well as local research and teaching energy. What the Fitzwilliam now has is an adequate space in which to channel all this, so that the museum can advance its own thinking, but also, crucially, do so within a public arena.
