The differentiability properties
of the metric projection PC on a closed convex set C in Hilbert space are
characterized in terms of the smoothness type of the boundary of C. Our approach is
based on using variational type second derivatives as a sufficiently flexible tool to
describe the boundary structure of the set C with regard to the differentiability
of PC. We extend results by R. B. Holmes and S. Fitzpatrick and R. R.
Phelps.