Friday, November 12, 2010–Construction has been taking place on all three floors of the West Wing, as the restoration and air conditioning project continues apace.
Brian Barger, Project Superintendent, Hunter Roberts Construction Group, stands in the room behind the Secrets of the Silk Road exhibition gallery and points out the wooden doors, soon to be reattached to a new, steel reinforced arched entry. Eventually these doors will take visitors to the architecturally unique Widener Lecture Hall.
Up on the third floor exhibition gallery space, workers have been taking off old marble wall decor, seen here on the floor; these pieces will go out to be refurbished and shined up, before returning to the gallery.
In the back third floor gallery, new recessed emergency lighting is being set in place (left). A sample of finished lighting, in the adjacent gallery (right).
In the Museum’s “Big Dig,” where the HVAC air conditioning systems for the Museum will eventually reside, Brian shows off our newest piece of equipment: a giant fan to push the air through the ducts.
Massive new air ducts are being brought in and welded into position here in the basement. They will eventually be the conduits of air conditioning in the upper galleries–a cool breeze is coming!
