Once the web of scaffolding that scales the interior of the Harvard Art Museums is removed, natural light from the building’s glass roof will flow down unimpeded to the floor of the Calderwood Courtyard, diffusing into the surrounding galleries. Renzo Piano dubs this space the “Light Machine.”

During a recent tour of the building site, we got a glimpse of what’s in store: like a plane rising above the clouds, we stepped onto an elevated platform that rests above three stories of scaffolding and just below the roof. In a flood of light we discovered that the Machine was already in operation, getting ready for the museums’ reopening in the fall of 2014.