Museum of Fine Arts (1909)

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Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts began in 1870 with space in the Boston Athenaeum. In 1876, the museum moved to a Gothic building on Copley Square. In 1907, the museum began planning its next move to a new location on the Fenway, where an interconnected building complex would be constructed over several years. Designed by Guy Lowell, the first section of the Classical Revival structure to be completed was the one on Huntington Avenue (above), finished in 1909, which features a central Greek temple portico with two symmetrical wings on either side. The next section was the Robert Dawson Evans Wing on the Fenway (below), completed in 1915, which features a long Ionic colonnade. Between 1916 and 1925, the John Singer Sargent created the art for the central Rotunda and Colonnade. Various additions have been made to the museum over the years, including the Decorative Arts Wing in 1928, the Forsyth Wickes Addition in 1968, the George Robert White Wing in 1970, and the I. M. Pei-designed West Wing in 1981. Currently, the museum is undergoing a new renovation and expansion.

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