I’m remiss in not yet writing about The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece, which opened Saturday at Seattle Art Museum. (I’ll make up for that later today.)

But there’s another SAM question I want to address. The 16th-century wood room on the fourth floor is closed, and so is the room adjacent to it (with the Uccello). Beneath them on the third floor, Gary Hill’s installation has been removed, the area taped off.

When I asked a guard what was going on, he said there was a water leak in the museum. But SAM spokeswoman Cara Egan says there has been no water leak, and no damage to any of the art.

Egan says the closures have been caused by an HVAC malfunction. Museum engineers refused to provide details, but Egan insists the art is not in danger.

As for when the areas will open again, she says the museum hopes to make the repairs in a month or so, “but you never know.”

^{Still a weird dead zone.}

On another note: The Second Avenue entrance of SAM—the entrance at the top of Venturi’s grand staircase—is once again moot. It has been locked for the duration of the Ghiberti show and the upcoming Roman art from the Louvre exhibition. “It’s a test to see if that improves circulation,” Egan said.