FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Fran Schofield, Stony Brook Group (508.896.0059)
Date: April 29, 2002
When Chatham-based architect Peter Polhemus was asked by a trustee of the Cape Museum of Fine Arts in Dennis, Mass. to help select floor tiles in 1996, little did he know his firm would soon be playing a pivotal role in planning, designing and constructing major renovations and additions for the 20-year- old arts institution. Today, Polhemus points with pride to the transformation and expansion of the museum facility which his firm helped steward. The recent additions and renovations "help transform the entire complex into an intentional composition, rather than the random assemblage of small, house-like buildings that existed," says Polhemus.
The museum’s $1.5 million capital improvements program, begun in 1996 and completed this winter, includes the renovation and addition of gallery, retail, administrative, library and other public spaces totaling more than 12,500 square feet. Central to the project is the renovation of the museum’s main "Hope-McClennen Gallery." Unheated and unfinished, the space was "a virtual shell at the time we came on board," says the Harvard- and MIT-trained Polhemus. Now the redesigned and reconstructed gallery-"a bright white space whose handsome wooden truss roof resembles the hull of a boat," according to New York Times arts writer Grace Glueck- is home to permanent collections and traveling exhibits reflecting the best work of Cape artists as well as those of international renown.
The CMFA has experienced several transformative events in its brief, twenty-year history. The original idea for the museum was spawned by conversations between friends in 1980 who, noting the preponderance of Cape arts associations, bemoaned its dearth of permanent space to conserve and exhibit the work of the region’s many local and visiting artists. Since that time, the museum has grown exponentially-comprising today a 12,500-square-foot complex showcasing works by internationally, nationally and regionally renowned artists including Robert Motherwell, Alexander Calder, George Grosz and Edwin Dickinson.
In its earliest days, the museum occupied space in a Dennis storefront. Later, in 1987, the fledgling CMFA took a second, major step toward maturity by leasing land within a sprawling compound that includes the Cape Playhouse, Cape Cinema and Cape Playhouse Restaurant on Rt. 6A. Donated by a Harwichport art collector’s family, a group of buildings was subsequently relocated to the site and renovation work begun. In 1990, the museum’s new doors opened at its present site.
Throughout the 90’s, however, it became increasingly clear to museum curators and trustees that the CMFA’s physical plant was inadequate. The museum needed more and better space to house and display its growing art collection, including more than 1,000 objects illustrating the role Cape Cod has held in American art since the 1800’s. The donated buildings, while much valued, were functionally, physically, and aesthetically deficient, and their house-like qualities no longer reflective of the museum’s growing regional civic and artistic importance. Museum deputy director Lou Ann Harrington concurs, saying "our beautiful new facility is so much better equipped to accommodate new and expanded programs, functions and exhibitions and, ultimately, to realize our mission as an art museum."
According to project architect John DaSilva, a major challenge for Polhemus Savery DaSilva was to define and assert the museum’s maturing identity within one of the most architecturally rich and eclectic historic districts on the Cape. "We believed the new building should allude to the cultural conditions of the place and establish continuity with the past, yet have a fresh and unique architectural expression," he says. To accomplish this, the firm "drew from, yet reinterpreted through contemporary eyes, the Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Arts & Crafts and other eclectic building styles of the district," continues the Princeton- and Yale-educated DaSilva.
Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects-Builders was founded in 1996 by architect Peter Polhemus and builder Len Savery. John DaSilva, A.I.A. joined the firm in 1998 and was promoted to design partner in 2000. The firm employs more than twenty architects, designers, construction professionals, and field crew, and has completed numerous residential, commercial and institutional projects throughout the region. Polhemus Savery DaSilva is noted for thoughtful, creative design and well-crafted construction.
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