On June 20, 1927, 86 years ago today, the Fogg Museum opened its majestic new building to the public at 32 Quincy Street. The dedication ceremony was presided over by Abbott Lawrence Lowell, former president of Harvard University. Bishop William Lawrence read a prayer, Harvard professor Charles H. Grandgent recited a poem, the Harvard Glee Club sang a song, and a quintet called the Eighteenth Century Ensemble performed Bach’s Suite in B Minor. The next day’s edition of the New York Times reported that 300 guests watched as President Lowell handed Fogg Museum Director Edward Forbes and Assistant Director Paul Sachs keys to the building’s door (New York Times 1927).

We are eager to once again open the doors to our renovated and expanded facility, which will bring together the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler museums, including a new entrance on Prescott Street. This entryway, one of the many features of the new Harvard Art Museums, makes our building more accessible and welcoming. This entrance is also where the adjacent Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts—the only building in the United States designed by Le Corbusier—will be physically linked to the Harvard Art Museums by an extension of Corbusier’s ramp, connecting Harvard’s visual art institutions.

“Harvard Museum Opened,” New York Times (June 21, 1927): 11, https://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/104167223?accountid=11311.