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Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
550 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Online Editor: Mark Kendall
For editorial matters:
Editor: Mark Wood
Phone: (909) 621-8158
Fax: (909) 621-8203
PCM Editorial Guidelines
Contact Alumni Records for changes of address, class notes, or notice
of births or deaths.
Phone: (909) 621-8635
Fax: (909) 621-8535
Email: alumni@pomona.edu
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Art Space
Renovation / Museum of Art
By Marjorie Harth
While the nature of the College's curriculum is to develop, expand and
change over time, that of the buildings that house its classes and
programs is to remain as they are. Irresistible forces thus meet
immovable objects on a regular basis, and, as the lyric goes,
“something’s gotta give.” The most recent structure to cede to this
process is Montgomery Art Center, which has housed Pomona’s Museum of
Art since the 1950s. In the admittedly biased view of one who lived with
the building for two decades, this comes not a moment too soon.
 That the Museum’s renovations last summer should include both visible
and less apparent changes is fitting in a facility that plays more roles
and requires more specially equipped spaces than most visitors imagine.
And because college museums bear curricular responsibility in addition
to the universal mandates to collect, preserve, exhibit and elucidate
works of art, the demands on their facilities are particularly complex.
Like many academic museums, Pomona’s began as a function of the art
department and shared space with it in
Rembrandt Hall. As it grew, becoming increasingly independent and
professional, the Museum’s special requirements led to renovations and
additions, including the large gallery on the north, that ultimately
resulted in the structure that has served, with few visible alterations,
since the 1970s. Since then, expanding collections and programs have
challenged the resistant confines of the existing building and spawned a
laundry list of problems great and small—among them visibility;
accessibility; classroom, storage and office
space—that, when renovations were approved last year, became project
goals. Many of these have been successfully addressed.
The Museum’s prominently sited but unprepossessing College Avenue
elevation has been enhanced with identifying banners and a concrete pad
for temporary sculpture installations, the first of which will appear in
the spring. The old public entrance, which had an unfortunate tendency
to appear impenetrably dark even when open, has been replaced by a glass
facade that communicates spatially with Lyon Garden and allows those
passing to see into a welcoming foyer. Inside, the north gallery has
been upgraded with a more flexible
lighting system made possible in part by closing in a half-wall that
offered interesting
views from the foyer but limited hanging space and made illumination
difficult to control.
 Throughout, carpets and tile have been replaced with polished concrete,
which has brightened and updated the look of the galleries and,
paradoxically, given its contemporaneity, transformed the narrow ramp
gallery into an appropriately cloister-like environment for the
College’s Kress collection of early Renaissance paintings. The Museum’s
office and support
spaces have long presented a conundrum. For years, the director was
housed atop a
quirky and hazardous spiral staircase while other staff carved niches
for themselves in storage areas. Post-renovation, the director’s office is adjacent to
the fully accessible foyer; and the provision of off-site storage has
made room for staff offices and, perhaps most important, enabled the
Print Room to return to its intended function as a study/seminar
space. Although, as Museum Director Kathleen Howe points out, “there
isn’t much one can do to change substantially a cast concrete building,”
thoughtful planning has resulted in a more effective balance among
public, curricular and backstage functions. If the upgraded facilities
do not answer every need, they enable the Museum to offer its public a
clearer sense of the enormous potential of its unique collections and
programs—a tantalizing
taste of tomorrow.
Marjorie Harth is emerita professor of art history and director, Pomona
College Museum of Art. |
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