Take time to examine how the architectural style and design of Fenway Court affects your mood. How does the building itself color your experience of the rooms and of the collection?

It is said that Venice was Mrs. Gardner’s favorite city; Fenway Court’s design was inspired by her admiration of 15th century Venetian palazzos (“palaces”). But it is not a replica of one and it contains many elements that reflect Mrs. Gardner’s own ideas about how the building would function and the overall effect it would have on its visitors.

Discovery Questions
The building entrance:
• Look at the building from the entrance on the Fenway. What does the facade look like?
• Does the exterior lead you to expect what you see inside?
• Why do you think Mrs. Gardner designed her museum to look so “plain” from the outside?

The courtyard is for some the most memorable architectural feature of the building.

• How would you describe the courtyard? How does it make you feel? What do you see, hear, smell?
• In what ways does the courtyard affect one's experience inside the entire Museum?

The Spanish Cloister:
When the Museum first opened in 1903 this room did not exist!

Instead this was a two-story concert hall encompassing what is now the Tapestry Room above and the Chinese Loggia to the east. Mrs. Gardner redesigned this space to create separate rooms on each floor, and to create the Spanish Cloister for the purpose of displaying John Singer Sargent’s El Jaleo.

• How does the design of this space—the use of light and color and architectural ornament—affect the way we feel in this room?
• What did Mrs. Gardner do to make El Jaleo the focus of the Spanish Cloister? (Note especially some of the architectural elements she used such as the colorful Mexican wall tiles that line the room and the large arch that frames the alcove for the painting.)

Compare the way you feel in the Spanish Cloister with the way you feel in other areas of the museum such as the Tapestry Room, directly above, or the Gothic Room. Everywhere you go, the Museum's architectural style and design contributes to your experience of it.

Building Fenway Court
By 1896, when Mrs. Gardner purchased Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, she and her husband had begun to seriously consider the building of a museum to house their collected artworks. During a trip to Venice in 1897, they began purchasing architectural elements for a new building. Mr. Gardner died suddenly on December 10, 1898, but by January of 1899, Isabella had purchased a piece of property on the Fenway that became the site of her museum.

Mrs. Gardner hired Boston architect Willard T. Sears to assist her with the construction of her museum. Though Sears did the drawings, the design is essentially hers. She was on the construction site practically every day when she was in Boston, and she personally supervised much of the work:

The masons commenced setting the columns around the Court this morning, Mrs. Gardner superintending the removal of every column from the shed and directing the setting of each column. She said that she would not be here after today until next Friday, and that no columns must be set while she was away....These corridor walls Mrs. Gardner originally intended to have plastered, but now has decided to leave a brick finish. (From Mr. Sears’ diary, Sept. 13, 1900)

Mrs. Gardner tended to the smallest details—she knew how she wanted the columns placed, the courtyard walls painted, the beams hewed, and the mortar spread. In November of 1901 Mrs. Gardner moved into the fourth floor of Fenway Court. She spent the next two years installing the collection. On January 1, 1903 the museum opened to invited guests, and on February 23rd of that year it was opened to the public.

Isabella Gardner’s taste and sense of style is reflected not only in the museum structure itself, but also in how she arranged the collection in the space. In accordance with her will, everything remains as she left it—nothing can be permanently moved or removed. It seems clear that her intention was to create a certain kind of experience at Fenway Court.