WARREN JAGGER
SUBCONTRACTORS
ARCHITECTURAL SELECTION COMMITTEE
Tucker Gosnell† Arie Kopelman Jane Lamb Peter Nash Alfred Sanford Dorothy Slover
DESIGN ARCHITECT
Martin Sokoloff ARCHITECT OF RECORD
A-Point Design CLERK OF THE WORKS
Pat Paradis
Frank Milligan Niles Parker
CONSTRUCTION
DESIGN COMMITTEE
Shawmut Design and Construction Christopher Maury,
Trish Bridier Caroline Ellis Alice F. Emerson Eric Holch Al Novissimo Bruce Percelay Alfred Sanford E. Geoffrey Verney Frank Milligan Niles Parker
Construction Project Manager EXHIBITION DESIGN
Amaze Design EXHIBIT FABRICATOR
Art Guild TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANTS
Mary and Al Novissimo INDEPENDENT SPECIALISTS
BUILDING COMMITTEE
Bob Brust John Davis Alice F. Emerson Al Novissimo Bruce Percelay Edythe Travelstead E. Geoffrey Verney Frank Milligan Niles Parker PUBLIC PROGRAMS PLANNING TEAM
Bob Barsanti Patty Frost Kirstin Gamble Peggi Godwin Garth Grimmer Linda Steelman Anne Sweidel
Nisha Bansil Dan DenDanto Dan Driscoll Les Fey Lawrence Fields Paul LaPaglia David Lazarus Alec Madoff Charles Manghis Jennifer Marlow Paul McCarthy Claire O’Keeffe Dan O’Neill Jean Petty Eileen Powers Chris Rossi Irean Oakley Schreiber John Stanton Mark Sutherland Henry Varian Christina Wiggins
† = deceased
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Allan Construction, Inc. Available Light Barker Steel Co. Inc. Beauce Atlas, Inc. Berg/Howland Associates Blackwell and Associates, Inc. Boston Building Consultants Cazz Construction, Inc. Commercial Masonry Continental Concrete Contract Flooring Installation Custom Wood Reproduction Dec-Tam Corporation Environmental Health Inc. Exergen Corporation Gilbert & Becker Greenwood Alarm and Key Co. Harry Grodsky & Co., Inc. John Milner Associates, Inc. Kent Powell Landscaping Kenvo Floor Co., Inc. LaFleur Crane Service, Inc. Luce Design Group Moniz Glass & Aluminum New England Deck & Flooring North Shore Decorators Northeastern Sheet Metal O’Connor Door Corp. Overhead Door Company Providence Architectural Woodworking Group P & M Reis Trucking PSI Reilly Electrical Contractors, Inc. R. W. Sullivan Engineering SimmCo Construction Spitz, Inc. Steelco Fence Superior Rail & Iron T&T Roofing Thyssen Krupp Elevators Toscana Corp. Upright Services Inc. Univisions Crimson Group Yankee Fire Protection
For anyone who’s ever wished they could put a perfect day in their pocket.
Nantucket Island Resorts Gift Cards Give a gift that, like the island itself, truly stands apart. Nantucket Island Resorts Gift Cards can be redeemed for hotel stays and in-hotel retail shops and restaurants. Beautifully packaged. Available in any denomination. Shore to fit any occasion.
PHOTOGRAPHERS FOR THIS ISSUE:
Jeffrey S. Allen Warren Jagger Cecil Barron Jensen Mary Novissimo Laurie Richards / Pixel Perfect Peter Vanderwarker Judith Wodynski
Gift cards are available for The Wauwinet • White Elephant • Harbor House Village • Jared Coffin House • The Cottages • Nantucket Boat Basin To order visit www.nantucketislandresorts.com or call 800.ISLANDS.
LEVEL 3
Museum Floor Plan LEVEL 2
A Whaling Museum tour takes visitors through the old and new building spaces and ends on the rooftop observation deck.
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LEVEL 1
WHALING MUSEUM TOUR BY CECIL BARRON JENSEN
residents visited the Whaling Museum during a series of four Free Fridays for Islanders in June. The response from our neighbors and friends was unanimously positive, but one comment surprised us: “It reminded me so much of the old Whaling Museum.” That is high praise on Nantucket, where any change is regarded with suspicion. So while we sometimes can only see what is new, we understand the reaction. So many of the artifacts—
both large, like the Fresnel lens, and small, like a framed daguerreotype—are visual reminders of past museum displays. More important, the intimacy of the space, the programming, and the treatment of the artifacts are truly reminiscent of the former Whaling Museum. It’s as if the architect, curators, exhibit designers, design and building committees discovered what was special about the old museum and made it better. As you take this visual tour of the new Whaling Museum, we hope you will be reminded of all that was good about the past and join with us in celebrating the new.
PETER VANDERWARKER
O
VER A THOUSAND NANTUCKET
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NANTUCKET’S TIMELINE Once past the visitor-service desk, museum guests enter the first display, which provides an overview of Nantucket’s history and the NHA’s properties.
Here they see miniature bronze models made by island artist Irean Oakley Schreiber. The overview timeline of Nantucket history begins with a marvelous collection
of Native American arrowheads and points, and moves through Nantucket’s history right up to modern times. Objects that relate to
NATIVE AMERICAN ARROWHEADS AND POINTS
WARREN JAGGER
ple will see in the Whaling Museum are examples from the NHA’s collection of Native American arrowheads and points. Nantucket’s origins can be traced to the Archaic period more than 5,000 years ago when temperatures and sea levels rose, turning a ridge of low mainland hills into an island. Ocean currents shaped the land into a rough approximation of how the
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island looks today. Late Archaic Indians fished the surrounding waters with spears made from stones found on the shore. They also fished in weirs placed in the island’s inland estuaries. During the Late Woodland period, between 400 and 1,000 years ago, the Native Americans (of the Wampanoag tribe) were farming and hunting. By the time the English arrived in 1659 there were some 3,000 Native Americans living on
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Nantucket, and “driftwhaling”— the harvesting of dead whales that washed ashore—was a wellestablished practice.
JEFF ALLEN
A
MONG THE FIRST OBJECTS PEO-
critical dates or events in the island’s history are displayed along the wall— offering visual reminders of how the island fits into a greater framework of time and place.
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WHALE: PETER VANDERWARKER CHILDREN: LAURIE RICHARDS
SPERM WHALE SKELETON Leaving the timeline exhibit, visitors turn and confront perhaps the most dramatic installation of a whale skeleton ever displayed. Diving from the ceiling— mouth open,teeth menacing— is the skeleton of a forty-sixfoot male sperm whale. The beauty and wonder of being this close to the skeleton is breathtaking, and many of our visitors have told us just that.
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PHOTOS: PETER VANDERWARKER
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GOSNELL HALL
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LTHOUGH THE sperm-whale skeleton is a primary focus of the museum, it is just the introduction to a beautiful and carefully conceived space—Gosnell Hall. Start with the floor: its design reminds viewers of the ocean’s surface as seen from above; the poured epoxy is a rich shade of blue with flecks of white that resemble waves or surf. It is so realistic that a group of Nantucket kindergarten visitors dropped to the floor under the whale and pretended to swim, imagining that they were mighty leviathans of the deep. On a large curving wall behind the whale is a display of whaling tools that illustrate the work of the hunt. The display is reminiscent of the former Whaling Museum’s Sanderson Hall, where the walls were covered with a collection of irons, including harpoons, lances, and cutting-in tools. In front of the whale is the familiar whaleboat, angled to give the impression of its going on the whale and giving visitors a good look at its interior space and the ropes and tools used to operate the boat during the hunt. On the wall opposite the boat are hung portraits of the people and paintings of the whaleships on which they sailed out of
Nantucket during the whaling era. It is not by accident that the eyes of the whaling captains are focused squarely on their prey. This juxtaposition helps us remember that hunting sperm whales was crucial to Nantucketers’ livelihoods—it’s the whale that put Nantucket on the world map and lined the pockets of many with sizable fortunes. Gosnell Hall is also the center for most of the museum’s interpretive activities. Here visitors can see the film The Bones of History, a documentary on the NHA’s sperm-whale skeleton made for the NHA by Nantucket filmmaker John Stanton. In addition, Gosnell Hall is where the museum’s lively and entertaining presentation on the whaling industry is led by historical interpreters. Utilizing theater-quality, computercontrolled lighting that zeros in on parts of the whale skeleton, boat, and assorted tools and artifacts, the museum educators incorporate photographs and actual footage from historic whaling voyages to engage young and old in this fascinating story. It is an effective combination, sure to convey the island’s rich history of the whaling industry. In addition, the NHA hosts its series of lectures, concerts, and films in this multipurpose space.
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WHALING TOOLS The NHA’s extensive collection of whaling tools suggests the grueling efforts required to harvest oil from the largest mammal on earth. Harpoons did not kill the whale, but secured it by attaching a rope line to the whale’s body.The whale would fight the harpoon, sometimes twisting it into knots. Once the whale tired, the seamen would kill it with lances. Cutting-in spades, blubber gaffs, boarding and mincing knives were used to remove the blubber, which was tried out in immense cauldrons to render the oil, which was then stored in barrels. Nantucket blacksmiths made thousands of tools to supply the whaleships departing the island. The NHA has fine examples of all varieties of harpoons, including a twisted harpoon (at right) made by Nantucket blacksmith George Swain and a toggle-flue harpoon bearing the initials of African American blacksmith Lewis Temple, who revolutionized the industry with his Temple-type harpoon. Another treasure is the Peter Paddock harpoon head, which was lost in a whale during a hunt from the ship Lion in 1802 and recovered from the same whale in 1811.
DENTAL DETECTIVE
w
HEN THE WHALE APPEARED ON LOW BEACH
PHOTOS: JEFF ALLEN
in ’Sconset on New Year’s Day 1998, the number-one question on everybody’s mind was—why? What killed it? And why did it flounder for days off the eastern shore before perishing on Low Beach? The answer to the question may lie in a single tooth. One of the last phases of the skeletal articulation was the reinstallation of the teeth in the lower jawbone. Whale scientist Dan DenDanto (below left) had completed much of the heavy work—raising the spine into the ceiling, hoisting the massive skull into place, and placing the arching ribs into exact positions—so he next turned his attention to the teeth. Interestingly, this was the first time he had seen them. When he transported the skeleton to his workshop in Maine, the teeth were kept secure on Nantucket. Midway through the installation, a call came that Dan wanted to see photographs of the whale on the beach. Specifically, he wanted to take a close look at the whale’s teeth. Unwrapping the teeth from their protective cloths, Dan had found one broken tooth and he wanted to know if that happened during the cleaning process on the beach. Images confirmed that the tooth had been broken prior to the whale’s death. With that information, Dan believes he has discovered why the whale died. In 1998, when the team of scientists from the New England Aquarium inspected the whale, they determined that it had died of an infection. A substantial amount of fluid was found in its lungs, indicating that the huge creature had become ill, disoriented, probably stopped eating, and died slowly in the surf. The cause of the infection, however, was a mystery; some speculated that a broken rib might have caused a lung infection. Dan, however, dismissed the theory because he concluded that a blow strong enough to break a rib would have had more catastrophic results. The tooth, however, displays signs of lingering infection. Not only is the broken tooth rotten, the bone around the base of the tooth is worn away by infection. It is not unlikely, therefore, to imagine that the infection that started in the tooth spread throughout the whale’s body, ultimately settling in the lungs—and killing it. 1 4 | C O M M E M O R AT I V E I S S U E 2 0 0 5 H I S T O R I C N A N T U C K E T
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WHALING-ERA PORTRAITS
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IL PORTRAITURE CARRIED THE DAY BEFORE
the invention of the photographic process in the mid-nineteenth century. This period corresponded with the heyday of whaling on Nantucket, as well as with a loosening of Quaker strictures against the vanity of images and portraits. Wealthy whaling captains and merchants were eager to have their portraits painted, often by itinerant artists who visited the island and advertised studio time. A wall in Gosnell Hall displays a large range of such portraits. On May 12, 1822, the whaling schooner Industry sailed past Brant Point under the command of Absalom Boston (left), the first African American whaling captain with an all-black crew. This remarkable portrait of Boston is attributed to a painter from the Prior-Hamblin School (named for William Matthew Prior and Sturtevant J. Hamblin), itinerant artists who visited coastal communities like Nantucket throughout the nineteenth century. Another highlight of the NHA’s portrait collection is the recent acquisition of John Singleton Copley’s 1764 portrait of Nantucketer Timothy Folger (top right). Folger was a prosperous eighteenth-century whale-oil merchant and among the most prominent of Nantucket’s colonial citizens. He became involved in whaling at an early age and worked his way up through the ranks, ultimately to captain several merchant vessels trading to London, where he often called on his cousin, Benjamin Franklin.
Although mariners had long been familiar with the effects of the Gulf Stream, or “Northeast Current,” no known chart of the current existed at the time. Drawing on Folger’s knowledge of the seas, Benjamin Franklin produced the first chart of the Gulf Stream in 1769. Among the portraits are those of Charles Veeder, by James Hathaway, ca. 1840–45, and his wife, Susan, by an unidentified Chinese artist, ca. 1850. Susan (below right) accompanied her husband on a whaling voyage on the whaleship Nauticon from 1848 to 1853. Together with their sons, they sailed around Cape Horn and through the South Seas in search of whales. Susan kept a journal, displayed beneath her portrait in Gosnell Hall, detailing her remarkable journey. It includes entries as mundane as where best to do laundry to the significant story of her confinement and birth of a baby girl in the Chilean port of Talcahuano, and a dramatic tale of the Nauticon trapped in ice for thirteen days in the Arctic.
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INTERPRETIVE THEMES FOR THE W
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N MANY MUSEUMS, EDUCATIONAL programming ranks second to curatorial
desires. Museum educators are brought into the process only after exhibits have been developed and are asked to create programs around artifacts that the curators have deemed important, rare, or beautiful. At the NHA, the curatorial and education departments are integrated, in part reflecting the leadership of executive director Frank Milligan, who started his career as a museum educator, and curator Niles Parker, who is committed to using the NHA’s extraordinary collection to tell the story of Nantucket. The development of the new Whaling Museum, therefore, was unusual in that education department staff sat at the table with curators, exhibit designers, the architect—even a whale articulator! Working hand in hand with the curatorial team, the education department was able to ensure that the themes set forth in the NHA’s interpretive plan were clearly articulated in the museum; that is, the exhibits were not just beautiful displays of exquisite objects, but were meaningful to museum visitors of different ages, experiences, and backgrounds. Excerpts from logbooks were used to bring the daily routine aboard a whaleship to life. Instead of simply viewing paintings of whaleships, visitors hear from the whalers themselves in their own words: There! The first man that ever says or asks me anything or to go in another ship a-whaling I shall be so good as to knock him or her over. —LOG OF THE THREE BROTHERS, JUNE 22, 1852
The result is a history museum that tells the story of Nantucket from the time of the Wampanoags to today in a clear, coherent fashion and uses invaluable artifacts to illustrate that past. The storyline of the new museum begins with an introductory overview in the form of a timeline, and quickly moves into the whale hunt. Spermaceti oil is then brought back to Nantucket and processed
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in the Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory. The visitor also sees souvenirs of the exotic ports that whalers brought back along with their valuable cargo of oil. Visitors can explore what life was like on Nantucket during the Golden Age of Whaling and understand what brought about the downfall of the industry and the rise of tourism. The last third of the museum focuses on the extraordinary decorative arts made by Nantucketers both on whaleships and at home. A decision was made to incorporate diverse perspec-
WHALING MUSEUM
MARY NOVISSIMO
tives—those of women, Native Americans, Cape Verdeans—throughout the exhibits, rather than pigeonholing them in a single room. The result is a comprehensive view of this island community, and not just one segment of its population—the whalers. In addition to exhibit design, a team of veteran interpreters collaborated with the administrative staff to update favorite programs and develop new ones for the museum. A lecture on whaling history had always been the centerpiece of the museum, and the
presence of a live interpreter (the term for docent or tour guide) was critical. From the beginning, the designs for Gosnell Hall were centered around a live interpreter, the whale skeleton, and the whaleboat against a background of projected images. The NHA wanted to update the whaling lecture to reflect different learning styles and make it more accessible to today’s technologically savvy audience. The team worked hard to create a hunt lecture that was more focused than it had been, imparting the same critical information but keeping visitor interest higher. The combination of an energetic and wellinformed interpreter, visuals, audio clips, and lighting effects highlighting key artifacts truly brings the drama of the whale hunt to life for the public. The education department also introduced gallery tours, allowing visitors to visit the museum with an interpreter in order to develop a more in-depth knowledge of the highlights of the collection. The gallery tours have proved so popular that we are currently developing additional tours for specialinterest groups, including one focused on the tools of the hunt, women on Nantucket, decorative arts, and the diverse elements of Nantucket’s past. Another critically important adult program in the new Whaling Museum is the interpretive training itself. The NHA relies on year-round Nantucketers to serve as the core of its interpretive staff, and currently has about twenty who give tours and serve as mentors for seasonal staff, most of whom are college students of history or museum studies. The interpreters complete a training program, learn Nantucket history and the specifics of our historic sites, and impart this information to the public both formally (at work) and informally (to their peers, friends, and families). They often conduct independent research projects in our library that add to our interpretive offerings; participating in this program has enriched the lives of many year-round residents. —KIRSTIN FREEMAN GAMBLE
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HADWEN & BARNEY CANDLE FACTORY
WARREN JAGGER
Leaving Gosnell Hall, visitors enter the Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory. An integral component of the museum, the 1847 spermaceti-candle factory has been carefully restored to reveal significant elements of the original factory, including the two-story beam press—the only original beam press still in place in the world— and the foundation of the oil-processing tryworks.The lofty factory space has been purposely left open and the walls are unencumbered with museum signage. In addition, the design team made an effort to keep the original elements of the building visually separate from the new. As the design architect Martin Sokoloff says, “the old is obviously old and the new is obviously new.” Among the smallest details, but perhaps telling of the overall planning of the restoration, the stenciled Hadwen & Barney factory sign is again visible over the entrance door on Broad Street.
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IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK . . .
T
HE PROCESS OF RESTORING THE Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory was truly an exciting one for the NHA staff. In fact, it continues to be so. From the beginning of the project there were clues that hinted at what we might find—a few bricks sticking out from behind a wall, replaced boards in a certain spot in the roof, framed openings in the floor joists—all evidence that could provide a better understanding of the 1847 building’s original use. In working with preservation architect John Milner and museum design architect Martin Sokoloff, our goal was to strip away the twentieth-century accretions and expose as much of the original nineteenthcentury fabric as remained. It was a remarkable opportunity, for so much of the original fabric does remain. It is the only spermaceti-candle factory in the world that still stands with a beam press and tryworks foundation intact. We realized that by opening up the factory we had a one-of-a-kind chance to offer a far more layered approach to the full aspect of the whaling history than any other museum can offer. The factory itself became an artifact and an interpretive thread that now offers visitors to the Whaling Museum a better understanding of how and why Nantucketers spent so
PETER VANDERWARKER
much time and effort bringing whale oil back to the island and into buildings just like this one. By revealing the enormous beam press and the tryworks foundation we can now better explain and vividly illustrate how whales were converted to a commodity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This building (and others like it that once stood on Nantucket) were the engines of the island’s economy, providing work for those who did not go to sea. “If the walls could talk . . .” is an especially appropriate quote. Now that the walls are exposed again, and the structure of the building is revealed, it is almost as if they can. You can see, touch, and yes, smell the history of the factory. The oil that is impregnated in the wooden beam press is very much evident and is a tangible reminder of the island’s past. It is an experience that cannot be found elsewhere. The Candle Factory is still a work in progress. Because so much of the process involved trade secrets, or was taught directly in the factories, very little was written about it. We are still trying to decipher some of the building’s components and the exact details of the processes. As we learn more, we will add to the displays and interpretation. The Candle Factory will remain an area of research for our staff that will allow for new discoveries and advances in the scholarship relating to one of the country’s earliest and most lucrative industries. —NILES PARKER
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The first candle manufactories on Nantucket were built by whaling merchant William Rotch in 1770. Nantucketers already controlled the whale-oil supply to the colonies and England, and realized that by owning their own candle factories they could extend their dominance of the industry. By 1792, there were ten factories and by 1811 as many as fifteen or twenty. At the peak of the whaling era in the mid-1840s, factories annually produced some 850,000 pounds of candles and over one million gallons of oil. Richard Mitchell Jr., a leading Quaker and one of the island’s most prominent whaling merchants, first built a candle factory at the corner of Broad and South Beach Streets.The building and business were passed on to Richard’s grandsons in March 1846—just months before Nantucket’s Great Fire. The factory and much of the downtown business district and wharves burned to the ground.Two merchants, Richard and Aaron Mitchell, purchased the interest in their family’s land and built a new candle factory in 1847. In 1848, they sold it to two other prominent Nantucket businessmen, William Hadwen and Nathaniel Barney. Hadwen and Barney ran the brick building as a whale oil factory and candleworks for several years until the demise of whaling in the 1860s.The structure later served as a warehouse until its conversion by Nathaniel Barney’s son Joseph into the offices of the New England Steamship Company in the 1870s. In 1919, the candleworks was outfitted as an antiques shop, with a federal-style lintel added to cover the original Hadwen & Barney factory-door.
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SOUVENIR GALLERY
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ISPLAYED ON THE BRICK walls of the Candle Factory is a significant collection of ceremonial implements and various weapons, spears, and armor from South Seas islands. They represent one of the finest collections of early South Seas objects and are part of a permanent display of whalemen’s souvenirs. Nantucket whalers were among the first sailors to explore the Pacific Ocean and to discover many of the islands and peoples of the South Pacific. The men brought home exotic artifacts and keepsakes from the South Seas as curiosities and mementos of their travels. As Pacific islanders became more accustomed to passing whalers, they began to supply objects to the visitors based on precontact traditions, but now serving primarily as souvenirs. Some of the featured items from the South Pacific are a rare model of a Maori war canoe; Marquesan Island ceremonial U’u clubs and a staff made with human hair; weapons and tools such as clubs, spears, and adzes; a warrior’s sharkskin body armor; a Hawaiian tribal necklace made of whale tooth and hair; and a New Ireland dancing mask made of moss, seaweed, and grass. In addition to South Pacific relics, whalers packed their holds with memorabilia from all corners of the world. One particularly large “souvenir” was the gigantic sperm-whale jawbone originally on display at the Nantucket Atheneum, and then in the old Whaling Museum. In 1865, Captain William Cash of the whaleship Islander took on board an eightyseven-foot sperm whale’s eighteen-foot lower jawbone. Cash returned to Nantucket and presented the impressive jawbone to the Nantucket Atheneum, which at the time housed many Pacific souvenirs. Circus promoter P. T. Barnum visited Nantucket in 1866, saw the specimen, and tried to acquire it for Barnum’s American Museum in New York City. Barnum appealed to Cash to donate the jawbone to his Free Museum in New York, referring to “a grateful posterity,” but Cash refused.
JEFF ALLEN
HISTORY OF THE CANDLE MANUFACTORY
PETER VANDERWARKER
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PETER VANDERWARKER; CHILDREN: LAURIE RICHARDS
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DISCOVERY ROOM A visit to theWhaling Museum includes a host of activities for children and their families in the building’s new Discovery Room.The seven-hundred-square-foot space is designed to provide children with interactive, hands-on learning opportunities and is used regularly as a drop-in area for families and school groups visiting the museum. The theme of the room is collecting, with an emphasis on Nantucket’s maritime history.Children often have a natural interest in collecting,and the Discovery Room provides an opportunity to help them appreciate the collections they see throughout the museum and also inspire them to collect themselves.
The Discovery Room features many built-in components,including drawers, cabinets,and sea chests that contain touchable objects.There is a dress-up cabinet where children can try on sailor outfits or sober Quaker garb.The hands-on nature of the room carries through to its programming,including Hands-on History! a daily crafts program that allows children to create sailors’valentines,cornhusk dolls,and scrimshaw. Though located in a history museum, the Discovery Room contains twentyfirst century technology. A grant from the Bank of America will soon result in an original interactive computer program that takes children aboard the Nantucket Railroad.
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Grade 7
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WARREN JAGGER
Obadiah and his sister, Rachel, that correspond with WALKING UP activities and information found in the Family Guide Broad Street toward to the Whaling Museum, generously funded by the the entrance of the new Worthington Family Foundation. The booklet also Whaling Museum, visitors peek into the winincludes suggestions for open-ended questions that dows of the Discovery Room and watch children play parents can ask their children, facilitating discussion Native American games, dress up as whaling captains, as families walk through the galleries. and make sailors’ valentines. Upon entering the Over the course of two weeks in May, the NHA museum, a cutout image of Obadiah—a favorite charwelcomed more than a thousand children in grades acter from the eponymous Caldecott Medal-winning pre-K through eight from Nantucket Public Schools, children’s book set on Nantucket—greets families and the Nantucket New School, and the Lighthouse School. encourages them to take a free activity guide. From the whale skeleton to the roofwalk, from the Parents visiting the Whaling Museum with their Discovery Room to the elevator, the new Whaling children will quickly realize that programming designed Museum won rave reviews from its very first visitors. for families is no longer relegated to the basement. The thank-you notes sent by Nantucket schoolchildren Rather, it takes a proud position front and center in described the Whaling Museum as “awesome,” “cool,” the new facility. “beautiful,” “fun,” “fascinating and educational,” The Discovery Room is a hands-on space designed “fantastic,” and simply “the best museum.” for children age 4 and up. Visiting a museum with all Thrilled with their sneak preview, many children its rules (no touching! no running! no yelling!) can be brought their parents back to show them the new difficult for children. The Discovery Room is a chance museum after it opened. They helped their parents for them to experience collections and objects with their flash the Fresnel lens and demonstrated how the candle hands and not just their eyes. Everything in the room— factory’s beam press operated; they including props, costumes, and Dear Whaling Museum, explained how a sperm whale eats computers—is chosen to allow its favorite meal, the giant squid; children to reenact the scenes Thank you for letting us and pointed out the harbor where they have examined carefully and whaleships offloaded their cargo. quietly in the museum galleries. visit your lovely museum. For the education department, a true Hands-on elements, like the highlight of this opening season has bronze property models off the The old museum was nice, been watching young Nantucketers museum’s foyer, are incorporated but this one I like even explore and share their new museum. throughout the museum. In order to explain the function of the —KIRSTIN FREEMAN GAMBLE more! I went home and told beam press, a piece of machinery integral to the operation of the my parents that Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory, an operational child-sized version when it opens we have demonstrates the force that was to come see you soon. necessary to press oil out of the spermaceti taken from the Your friend, whale’s head. And everywhere they look Riley Fredericks children will find iconic images of
LAURIE RICHARDS
A MUSEUM FOR FAMILIES
TOWN CLOCK From the Candle Factory visitors reenter the new wing of the Whaling Museum and hear the constant “clunk” of brass gears turning. Situated in the middle of the building in the stairwell leading up to the roof is Nantucket’s former Town Clock. In 1881, William Hadwen Starbuck presented the town of Nantucket with an E. Howard Co. of Boston No. 3 Striking Clock. Installed in the tower of the Unitarian Church, 11 Orange Street, it began operations on May 28, 1881, and continued to operate the four clock faces of the South Tower and the church’s familiar bell until 1957, when the dials were electrified. Fully restored by Alan Androuais of Americlock, Inc., the old clock keeps accurate time and must be wound every eight days—a test of strength for the Whaling Museum’s maintenance staff. As visitors climb the stairs to the roofwalk they can see the entire clock mechanism from several vantage points. At the top of the stairwell is a modern glass clock face. The clock’s pendulum is also viewable from the main lobby.
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WARREN JAGGER; INSET: PETER VANDERWARKER
The Decorative Arts Gallery is a perfect place to stop and view the wonders of the architectural design. From one corner in the gallery,visitors can look through three windows for views encompassing the expanse of Nantucket history.Through the fanlight,people can peer out onto SouthWater Street to contemplate the lively pace of 26 |
our island community or peek through a round window,rem-iniscent of a ship’s porthole, to see the Fresnel lens,once powered by whale oil,and the Candle Factory beyond. A larger rectangular window holding the basket collection invites viewers to take another look at theTown Clock and past the central stairway to Gosnell Hall and the spine of
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the sperm-whale skeleton. Niles Parker,the NHA’s Robyn and John Davis Curator,believes that this epitomizes the success of the architect’s design.The intimacy of the space and repeated views of the same objects invite viewers to look at things with fresh eyes,informed by a greater understanding of Nantucket history.
DECORATIVE ARTS AND SCRIMSHAW
Dark green walls and fiberoptic lighting welcome visitors to the jewels of the NHA’s collection—scrimshaw. Installed in mahogany and glass cases are some of the world’s finest examples of this highly collectible American art form.NHA curators intended visitors to gain a sense of the three-dimensional quality
of scrimshaw and,wherever possible,to offer a view of an object from all sides.Dramatic lighting leaves visitors with dancing memories of jagging wheels,busks, and swifts. Next to the scrimshaw gallery is a sampling of the NHA’s decorative-arts collec-tion. Presented in an airy open space,visitors hardly
notice that this is one of the highest-quality climatecontrolled spaces in the museum.Instead, they enjoy the NHA’s lightship basket collection,framed needlework pieces,and whimsical whirligigs in a room with a meticulously hand-painted floor by island artisan ChristinaWiggins.
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WARREN JAGGER
The final piece of the building’s design puzzle was how to connect the Candle Factory and the new museum galleries to the Peter Foulger Museum.Built in 1971,the Foulger Museum had
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PETER FOULGER GALLERY
low ceilings and no climatecontrol systems—not an ideal space for displaying museum collections. The solution was to open the ceiling and build a vaulted ceiling with four
new trusses running through to the second-floor gallery.Visitors say it looks like the hull of a ship. The change is dramatic,and the NHA now has a versatile, quality museum space to display
its finest paintings,furniture, and artifacts in changing exhibitions.In addition, this space can be used to host traveling exhibitions— not a possibility until now.
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PETER VANDERWARKER
ISLAND TREASURES: Gifts to the Nantucket Historical Association IMAGE COLLECTION On the second floor of the museum, four computer screens perch on a long desk overlooking Gosnell Hall, inviting visitors to surf through photos from the NHA’s image collection. Niles Parker introduced the idea of this gallery as a quiet, restful spot in the museum where people could relax and look at some of our historic images. Little did he suspect how popular this corner of the museum would be. It is not unusual to see a large group of people huddled around a screen, peering at the images, with a line of others awaiting their turn. Just a fraction of the NHA’s image collection, the hundreds of photographs on display are divided into categories such as beaches, Nantucket people, and scenes of town. Perhaps only the museum’s technical wizards, Mary and Al Novissimo, could foresee the popular draw of this small overlook gallery.
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N MAY 1894, A GROUP OF NANTUCKETERS convened a meeting “in accordance with the sentiment so widely spread and so deeply felt that a society should be formed at once for the purpose of collecting books, manuscripts and articles of any sort, to illustrate the history of our Island.” The result was the Nantucket Historical Association, and the “collecting” recommended at the time has only grown in the intervening years. Today, the NHA is the principal repository of an extensive collection of artifacts illustrating Nantucket’s past. Building such a collection has required the work of generations and the generosity of many. In her first secretary’s report to the membership in 1895, Mary Eliza Starbuck encouraged islanders to “make an active search for all sorts of relics, particularly manuscripts, before it is too late and these valuable mementoes are carried away from the island as trophies, or by progressive housewives cast as rubbish to the void.” Islanders responded to her call and continue to do so. Through gifts from groups and individuals, the NHA has had the good fortune to acquire items that few people today would consider “rubbish.” Without the help of the donors, many of these treasures would have left the island or been lost. Their generosity has helped ensure that the material culture and history of the island will be preserved for future generations in the collections of the Nantucket Historical Association. For the inaugural exhibition in the new Peter Foulger Gallery, we have decided to highlight many of these remarkable gifts. It is gratifying to be able to remove the artworks from storage (several for the first time) and place them on view. In the process of choosing the pieces and installing them, we were reminded of the breadth and quality of our collection, and realized time and again how fortunate the NHA is to have such generous friends. —NILES PARKER
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NANTUCKET’S WHALING MUSEUM: Architectural Intentions
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HE PRINCIPAL GOAL OF THE design for the new Museum Center
was to create housing for the museum’s artifacts in order to tell the story of Nantucket’s unique history. The aim of the architecture is to provide the envelope and backdrop for the exhibits that echo the historic period of whaling commerce. To accomplish this, the spaces of the museum are arranged to weave their way across the site, through both new and renovated structures, and back in time as the story of the whaling period unfolds. The path of movement is a procession from the town to the interior of the factory building that once transformed the sperm whale into fine candles and oils for illumination. It moves from the architecture of the “house” to a space beyond the walls of the town where the drama of this way of life took place. The building contrasts the “old,” as embodied in the details of the Broad Street wall and the woodwork and ironwork, with a contemporary flow of space. It plays on the theme of circle and square and their derivatives: curves and straight lines. The central interior space is hidden from view upon entering the building. It is left to be discovered along the interpretive path. In form, shape, and coloration it is different from
the other parts of the building, conceived as a space “exterior” to the rooms of the museum. It is designed to display the remarkable story of the harvesting of the whale and provide a changeable environment for differing uses of the space. The exterior architecture of the new parts of the museum makes use of traditional forms, materials, and details to create an assemblage with the old parts that were retained. The objective was to compose a frontage that felt like a “collection” in order to mediate the divergent styles of the existing buildings and continue the “texture” of the town’s development. The complex continuously addresses the street, providing entrances with distinctly different purposes. Since the site anchors one of the four corners of the town’s commercial center, the organization of the building signals its position by placing the belvedere that covers the roof-access stair, with its iconic weathervane, in the long-range view from Main Street. The stair penetrates the central space, allowing light and views back into the space. It ascends around the clockworks, allowing both close looks at the workings and a reminder of the passage of time, and leads to the observation deck, which offers panoramic views of the harbor and Nantucket Sound.
PHOTOS: PETER VANDERWARKER
—MARTIN SOKOLOFF, Design Architect
Former president Peter Nash, design architect Martin Sokoloff, and current NHA president E. Geoffrey Verney C O M M E M O R AT I V E I S S U E 2 0 0 5 H I S TO R I C N A N T U C K E T |
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UP ON THE ROOF
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economy for almost 300 years. Indeed, when up on the roof, it is not hard to imagine a whaleship heading out on a voyage around Great Point, visible on the horizon; or while gazing at Steamboat Wharf below watching ferries come and go, to reflect on the ebb and flow of visitors to the island and what this place has meant to generations of them— as well as to its residents.
PETER VANDERWARKER
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NE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT elements of the new museum’s design is a fully accessible roofwalk. Influenced by that architectural feature found on so many homes all over Nantucket, the roofwalk here is not about providing access to the chimney in the event of fire; rather, from an interpretive standpoint, it is about getting people up to view the town and helping to define a sense of place. This outdoor “exhibit” provides an unparalleled view of Nantucket's historic downtown and the wharves. More than that, it reconnects the museum and its visitors to the harbor, which has been the center of Nantucket's