Harvard Art Museums, Boston

The Harvard Art Museums may sound like one museum, but it is really three heavyweight collections sharing the same elegant address. The oldest museum at Harvard University, it brings together the former Busch-Reisinger, Fogg, and Arthur M. Sackler Museums under one roof.

Since their grand merger in 2014, the museums have occupied a striking complex designed by celebrated architect Renzo Piano. Spread across seven levels and more than 200,000 square feet, the building finally gave Harvard enough room to show off a meaningful slice of its enormous collection of roughly 250,000 artworks. That means everything from medieval paintings to modern installations now live comfortably beneath a vast, very polished glass canopy.

The collection itself feels like a world tour without needing a passport. The former Fogg Museum contributes European and American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts. The Sackler side brings in Asian treasures, including Buddhist cave-temple sculptures and ancient Chinese bronzes. Meanwhile, the Busch-Reisinger focuses on art from German-speaking Europe, with strong holdings in Expressionism, Bauhaus design, and postwar contemporary works. In other words, you can wander from Renaissance portraits to avant-garde experiments without ever leaving the building.

At the center sits the restored courtyard from the old Fogg Museum, styled after a 16th-century Italian Renaissance palazzo. It acts as the museum’s social heart, complete with admissions, a café, and a gift shop. Around it, Renzo Piano expanded upward and outward with glass, steel, and light, creating a space that feels open rather than overwhelming.

A useful strategy here is to begin at the top and work your way down. Start on Level 5 in the Lightbox Gallery, where digital projects offer a fresh way to explore the collection. From above, you can peer down into the courtyard and appreciate Piano’s architectural sleight of hand, while also spotting the massive hanging mobile by Alexander Calder, drifting through the open space. If you look closely, you may even catch a glimpse into the conservation laboratories, where experts quietly repair and study works of art behind the scenes.