Gardner expansion goes against vision

This article missed a key point ("Critics fear expansion will alter museum's style," April 2).

Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner conceived, built, and designed the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Her entire estate, Fenway Court (the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), is her work of art, reflecting her taste and her sensibilities, which she wanted preserved.

She gave her museum to the public in her will, which contains a notorious "poison pill" clause - moving any of the art on the first three floors of the main building is to result in the dissolution of the museum with proceeds from the sale of the art going to Harvard University.

Now, less than 100 years after Mrs. Gardner's death, the museum trustees and staff are dismissing her instructions by proposing a new museum building that removes a wall of art. It's difficult to believe that Gardner's talented leadership working with an outstanding architect, Renzo Piano, cannot create a building that incorporates Mrs. Gardner's unique vision. Advancing a building that requires moving her art work within the palace is both disrespectful and arrogant. The trustees need to reconsider the design of the new museum.

MARY ANN NELSON,
Roxbury

I question the omission of the cultural impact on this preeminent national landmark. Morris Gray, former president, MFA trustees, observed, the Gardner is "a place of spiritual refreshment," rather than a conventional art museum. The new museum will irrevocably undermine Mrs. Gardner's intent, a secular monastery for contemplating mortality through gardens and art.
MONICA STRAUSS,
Cambridge

It's great that Philip Burgess has the financial wherewithal to purchase a wind turbine for spinning his own electricity, and to drill the earth's crust for unleashing the geothermal energy to heat/cool his 3,700-square-foot house in Westport ("Earth, Wind, and Power," April 6).

But this whole energy independence, off-the-grid mentality, which has taken on something of a go-it-alone cowboy romanticism, misses a big point: Most people can't escape the grid, and so what we don't need is well-to-do people preening themselves as more environmentally conscious for having washed their hands of that dirty old grid.

Instead of folks indulging in pieties about going off-grid, we need people who are going to change the grid, clean it up, green it up, so that the grid itself becomes environmentally benign, and so that people who live in 370-square-foot apartments can feel as equally virtuous about their energy use as those in 3,700-square-foot homes.

Let's see those with the most resources use those resources to fix the grid and not simply turn their back on it.

JERRY BLITEFIELD,
Warren, R.I.

It's inexcusable for Mayor Menino to tell the thousands of people who work and live around the 7 acres of the Columbus Center project that they must "be patient for a few weeks" ("Mayor asks abutters for patience with Columbus Center," April 11). Residents have already waited 13 years, and all that they have managed to do in that time is push some piles of dirt around.

An honest and competent mayor would demand competitive bids and public audits, not "campaign donations" for himself.

TED GEORGAKLIS,
Jamaica Plain

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