Celebrated Italian architect, Renzo Piano, is changing Boston’s museum landscape with three major projects in quick succession.

The first project was the launch of the extension to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in January 2012. Providing a distinctive architectural addition behind the historic palace, the extension relieves pressure on the exhibition space and also adds a shop, café, exhibition preparation space, archival storage and conservation labs.

In November 2013 a second project opened its doors, the Kimbell Art Museum. This $135m (£80.9m, €98.4m) project doubles the space of the museum's permanent collection and adds classrooms, studios, an expanded library and an auditorium.

Piano, who designed London landmark, the Shard, says the new addition has a more open and transparent character than before and will require a quarter of the energy.

The third project launches in Q3 of 2014, reinventing the Harvard Art Museums and bringing the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger and Sackler museums together, while allowing them each to retain their identities.

A new building with a glass rooftop structure will bring the old and new buildings together and allow natural daylight into the conservation laboratories, study centre, galleries and courtyard.