The Foundry
The Foundry, a brick and timber frame industrial building, built in 1890, will be repurposed into a creative, innovative and collaborative multipurpose center. When completed, it will provide public community space and programming for art, entrepreneurship, technology and workforce education.
The building will be accessible and inclusive to Cambridge residents of all ages and backgrounds, and its location on the border of Kendall Square and East Cambridge provides an ideal opportunity to connect residents to some of the world's most visible companies in life sciences, technology and innovation.
The Foundry property is owned by the City of Cambridge and is being developed by the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority (CRA). Through a Request for Proposal process in 2018, the CRA selected the Foundry Consortium to act as operator and master tenant, with responsibility for managing the building, establishing and managing a programming framework, and recruiting sub-tenants.
As part of the Foundry construction project, Cambridge Arts will commission an artist, team of artists, or multiple artists to create a public art project as part of the percent-for-art ordinance. A jury met and selected three finalists: Masary Studios, Elisa Hamilton, and Innovators for Purpose.
Open our Doors
Let’s make our schools, libraries, and public buildings more accessible for all by adding automatic door openers to entries that are wheelchair accessible but lack this feature. The City will work with the Disabilities Commission to prioritize locations.
Ongoing Collections Care
Following conservation assessments of each artwork in the collection and consultations with artists, an annual maintenance program is developed and directly overseen by the Director of Art Conservation and carried out by contracted conservators or conservation technicians.
Small Business Assistance
This page provides a listing of available city resources for businesses of all kinds from small retail stores to growing entrepreneurial ventures.