NEW YORK.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens today the Saint-Guilhem Cloister, The Cloisters, Fort Tryon Park. The abbey at Saint-Guilhem-le-Dsert, near Montpellier, France, was a regular stop on the medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The 140 architectural elements from Saint-Guilhem that were used to reconstruct the 12th-century cloister in New York were acquired by George Grey Barnard around 1900 and purchased for The Metropolitan Museum of Art by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The delicate limestone used at Saint-Guilhem required protection from the elements, and a flat glass block skylight was in place when The Cloisters opened as a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1938. However, the skylight deteriorated over the years. Now, as part of the ongoing capital campaign at The Cloisters, a new peaked skylight and a translucent laylight below it has been constructed, allowing visitors to appreciate the marvelous contrast of light and shadow on the carved surfaces of the stone. The stone has recently been cleaned by Museum conservators, the plaster walls have been resurfaced, and a new lighting system has been put into place to supplement the natural light, creating the sense of an outdoor cloister as the Museums original designer intended. Made possible through the generous support of The Alice Tully Foundation and The City of New York.
