RH Announces the Opening of The Gallery at the Historic Museum of Natural History

RH Restores and Reimagines 40,000-square-foot Landmark Building in Boston’s Back Bay

CORTE MADERA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– RH (Restoration Hardware Holdings, Inc.) (NYS: RH)  announced today that it will open TheGallery at the Historic Museum of Natural History at 234 Berkeley Street in Boston, Massachusetts, on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The 40,000-square-foot landmark, designed in 1862 by distinguished architect William G. Preston, was only the second building to be erected in Boston’s famous Back Bay. Honoring its cultural significance and singular place in Boston’s urban landscape, the building’s exterior and interior have been completely restored by stripping back decades of structural modifications, auxiliary mezzanine levels, and pedestrian elevators added during its history. The space has been reimagined consistent with its original vision as a museum, unveiling artistic installations unseen before in the retail industry.

The landmark and park-like setting is framed by Berkeley, Boylston and Newbury Streets. Guests and residents will admire the building’s exterior luminescent glow created by internationally award-winning lighting designer Ross De Alessi, who is widely acclaimed for illuminating historical monuments across the country including The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The Gallery’s interior is a study in light by famed lighting designer and artist, Bentley Meeker, who has designed events for MoMA, The Guggenheim, New York’s Natural History Museum and exhibited at The Whitney. A pavilion of glass and steel designed by architect James Gillam, in respectful contrast to the building’s neoclassical facade, creates a dramatic new entrance on Newbury Street. The landscape has been restored and preserves the original flowering magnolia trees, including new brick paths and a soon-to-be outdoor sculpture garden.

Entering the Gallery at 234 Berkeley Street, your eye is drawn up through the re-opened central atrium by a reinterpretation of an 1892 traction and counterweight elevator inspired by the iconic model in downtown Los Angeles’ Bradbury Building. Soaring three floors, a ride in the steel-caged glass cab highlights the interior’s now unobstructed vertical openness and dramatic architecture. From the grand central atrium with its fresh floral boutique, up through the 18-foot antiqued mirrored archways reflecting 12 sparkling crystal chandeliers reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles on level two, the artistic interior installations inspire new and evolving ideas to design a home. Stepping out of the elevator on level three to the sound of trickling

From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/12/rh-announces-the-opening-of-the-gallery-at-the-his/