HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

When is a Squash Court not a Squash Court?

In an unusual exchange, unused squash courts become site of new artists' studio space; old studio space returns to gallery use

By Ken Gewertz
Gazette Staff

The Linden Street squash courts have not reverberated with the sound of ricocheting balls or the squeal of skidding sneakers since May 1997. Very soon, however, they will reawaken to the less raucous sounds of charcoal on newsprint and brushes against canvas.

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts has taken over the venerable athletics facility and is turning it into much-needed studio space. How much renovation will it take to complete the transformation? As Ellen Phelan explains, less than you might think.

"How it happens that the ideal viewing place for contemporary art is generally considered to be a white cube is something I'm not sure I could explain, but what is a squash court but a white cube?" said Phelan. "So when I saw this building, I said, 'Yes, yes, we need this facility desperately.' "

Phelan is professor of the practice of studio arts in Visual and Environmental Studies and director of the Carpenter Center. Her concern is for senior studio arts concentrators working on final projects, teaching assistants trying to launch themselves professionally, and visiting artists eager to pursue their own work and share their insights with students.

Currently, the majority of Harvard's creative artists work under less than adequate conditions in the Carpenter Center on Quincy Street, the only building in North America designed by the influential modernist architect Le Corbusier. Student painters, for example, limn their canvases in the Sert Gallery at the apex of the building's serpentine ramp, working in makeshift cubicles which, according to Phelan, scarcely afford them enough space to step back and see what they've done. But all of that will change when the new facility is completed.

Built in 1906 for a game known variously as court tennis, royal tennis, or jeu de paume, the Linden Street courts were adapted for squash when that game eclipsed the older racquet sport in popularity. But the courts fell into disuse and have since been employed chiefly as storage space since last year's opening of the Murr Center - and its new courts - across the river.

Redesigned by Peter Rose, a faculty member at the Graduate School of Design whose Cambridge firm specializes in renovations of historic buildings, the new facility will retain the original configuration of seven courts on the first floor and seven on the second. The new design will add skylights and windows on the north side and create spaces for a gallery, lounge, darkroom, and a small woodworking shop. Demolition has already begun, and the completion date has been set for February 1999.

Budgeted at $1.8 million, most of it provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the renovation will be "absolutely non-fancy," according to Phelan. Most of the cost will be in bringing the structure up to code. But Harvard's artists are eager to inhabit the new facility, despite its utilitarian nature. "I've got people champing at the bit to get in there," Phelan said.

Nor is the attraction merely the spacious white walls and enough room to step back for a better view. Phelan believes the new facility will help to create a sense of camaraderie in which artistic talent can be more readily developed.

"Nobody knows how to make someone into an artist, but on the other hand, we know the conditions that must exist for art to flourish, and that includes the creation of a peer group with a tremendous amount of give and take," said Phelan. "I think this is one of the things the new facility will give us."

An added advantage of this exodus of artists to Linden Street is that the Sert Gallery will once more be available for exhibiting contemporary art. Renovations are planned for the Gallery as well, with an interior room that will increase the amount of wall space in the mostly glass-enclosed area. A small cafe and art magazine stand will be added, opening out into the building's previously underutilized patio space.

Under a new arrangement, exhibitions at the Sert Gallery will now be sponsored by the Harvard University Art Museums (HUAM), under the direction of Linda Norden, the Barbara F. Lee Associate Curator for Contemporary Art. Christopher Killip, chairman of the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, predicts that HUAM's resources and expertise will push the exhibitions to a higher level, adding to the cultural attractions to be found along Quincy Street, which range from the Barker Center for the Humanities at one end to Adolphus Busch Hall at the other.

"I believe that the Sert Gallery renovation endorses President Rudenstine's wish for this to be the street of the arts and humanities and that it should really enhance the cultural life of Harvard," Killip said.