The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum unveiled its new $114 million addition via a swanky gala laced with wine, food tuxedos.
“It wasn’t an easy job’’ coming up with an expansion worthy of the museum’s original benefactor, said architect Renzo Piano. “You cannot compete with magic. What we did was not about becoming bigger. It’s about saving the palace.’’
The Gardner’s $118 million renovation - melding the new $114 million, 70,000-square-foot addition with the old but extensively refurbished museum - comes near the end of a massive, decade-long museum building boom in the Boston area. It has included expansions of the Museum of Fine Arts and Peabody Essex Museum, and the construction of a new Institute of Contemporary Art. The Harvard Art Museums are undergoing a massive renovation, expected to be completed by 2013.
