Dominant Architect/Architecture: Towards the world

From all the readings of this week, i find it interesting how strong resilient positivity felt towards museum and passionately making an experiential space which not only connects us to the past but  also successfully hone on the emotional aspect.i always felt that museums are the bank of the history collection. I felt like they more towards inner shell of the building almost no connection to the structure and just an informative resource. Most of the musuems i visited was like a "box" as discussed by Lange's "what Should a Museum be?

Thinking of Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum and W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz i find it very exciting. As museums has gone through a period of change and redefining its role and functions. I felt like museums are perceived to have a societal role that is broader than just satisfying individual visitor. There is a goal towards the design of the building, which is serving its meaning, its context and phenomenology of its surrounding and a bubble of experiences in design. I find a strong architectural language in a building but going through the reading i find it to be blending with the interior space giving a memorial experience and making an emotional attachment the atrocities of the past. And leave an iconic image in my mind an amalgamation of art and architecture and other sensory experiences.






On the contrary, thinking of the Gehry's Guggenheium Museum in Bilbao, it is certainly true that architecture had more attention that the collection or representing the memory. I would say its just representing the dominant architecture that stands out from its surrounding making a style statement. With the fact of Gehry's way of designing in my mind i would like to argue how far his buildings are serving the society.

Coming back to the museums, after all of the readings the question which goes back and forth in my mind is: Architects giving s much thought and efforts to make the society aware of the past and giving an experience of reliving the history it is something related to fame, economy and ionic status? 

Museums: An Architecture Intended to Disappear?

“The new buildings are startling, even shocking in appearance.  They follow no set architectural formula; each designer offers his own idea of how to house the museum’s updated functions.  The temptation to turn a structure into a personal statement occasionally has provided irresistible.”  -Ada Louise Huxtable from her essay “What Should a Museum Be?”

What is the higher purpose of the museum?  Should it showcase art or architecture?  Should it purely be a space that displays art or should the museum be a work of art itself?  Over the past couple years, as I looked more into the work of famous architects around the world, I have come across many extremely unique museum designs.  The museums themselves have become somewhat of a piece of art themselves. 

When I think about a typical museum, I think about plain, square galleries with white walls that showcase art.  The design of the space is somewhat basic in order to highlight the art being displayed.  Some could argue that the museums being built today are, in a way, upstaging the art within them.  The architecture rather than the art is becoming the main attraction.  Have museums become flashy spectacles?  When we look up the definition of a museum it states that a museum is a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.  From this definition we can gather that the function of a museum is purely to display different works.  As Lange states, perhaps it is not possible to evaluate the building without considering the question of how well it functions as a showcase for art. 

On the other hand, it is important for a museum to be able to attract people to view the work inside.  As Huxtable states in “What Should a Museum Be?”, a building should be interesting enough to attract visitors, after all a museum without people is not a museum at all.  According to Webster’s definition of a museum, a museum is a building in which interesting and valuable things are collected and shown to the public.  Without the public there is no museum.  And how do we get the public to show up?  By creating a building that is interesting enough for people to want to visit.  The “Bilbao effect” refers to the marketing potential for a museum and its city when a famous architect creates an eye-catching design.  Oftentimes, I think the “Bilbao effect” can have a negative connotation.  Many complain that the art is taking a back seat to the dynamic architecture.  

Guggenheim Bilbao Museum (1997)

When we have the debate about art vs. architecture, we are often referring to modern museums such as Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao.  However, we often don’t look back at the first museums.  The purpose of many of the first museums was national prestige or preservation of heritage.  Many of these museums, such as the Musei Capitolini, emphasized classicism.  They often had great halls, columns, pediments, etc.  When we look at the picture below of the Musei Capitolini, it isn't exactly a plain white gallery.  The room has intricate details, with a patterned floor and elaborate ceiling.  Perhaps the argument could be made that this museum doesn't exactly take a back seat to the art and showcase the works the way it should.  Perhaps a contributing factor to the debate of art vs. architecture in museums today is the fact that these museums are no longer the classical museums they used to be.  They are taking on different forms then the usual classic design which might cause people to believe that these buildings are just too radical.  

Musei Capitolini (1734)

As Lange mentions, in order to critique a museum, you have to think of it both as an interior, focused on displaying its collection, and an exterior that is a part of the urban ensemble.  I think that a healthy balance between art and architecture is what we should strive for when designing a museum.  

Egoless Architecture

There  is a trend happening amongst the great architects: the design of architecture for inspiring the imagination of the user. This altruistic practice is surprising given some artists’ tendencies to inject their personal agenda and point of view into their work. This concept of creating architecture that is meant to inspire the viewer and can be interpreted many different ways is particularly evident in the work of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and Mosche Safdie’s Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. There is nothing more worthwhile than art that inspires other artists to create; to join the discussion so it becomes enriched by their putting their unique perspective out into the world. Safdie and Gehry’s work is better for having helped to achieve this level of involvement from others.

In Writing About Architecture Alexandra Lange examines Frank Ghery’s work and has an epiphany. “I realized on that first visit to Gehry’s office that his designs offer few clues to the inner recesses of the architect's mind. Rather they are an invitation for viewers to explore their own” (56). Gehry’s design in Bilbao evokes emotion and invites the viewer to create their own interpretation when it comes to what exactly the building looks like given its many sweeping and varied lines.

Jones for her part is reminded of Marilyn Monroe. Jones engages in free association by taking her ideas about Monroe and some of the parallels Monroe’s life has with Gehry’s and joining the two to create her own unique interpretation; a meaningful act of engagement with the building. It is Gehry’s work that inspired this personal relationship between building and user. This gives life to his design separate of his intentions. Gehry himself has also been known to put endearing labels on buildings, calling one in Prague “Fred and Ginger”.  He is an architect that cares about consciousness and melding the location of the project with the building to create a dialogue that effects the public’s collective perception. He married the interior with the exterior and did much to account for psychological factors involved. I would imagine one of the greatest honors as an architect would be if your project inspired a shift in consciousness or even an entire aesthetic movement. This level of involvement with their work by the people it serves is worthwhile and even essential in the process of design. It adds another dimension to the project that cannot be replicated otherwise.

This “selfless” design process is something Moshe Safdie engaged in as well for the The Peabody Essex Museum. Safdie took into account the viewer much like Gehry and capitalized on his ability as an architect to shape emotion. In order to create an inspiring and cohesive redesign, Sadfie researched the town of Salem extensively, selected each material with meticulous attention to detail and created a finished product that worked with the existing architecture instead of fighting against it. What allowed him to create such a stunning design above all however was his personal principles. Deborah Weisgall notes in A 21^st Century Museum with Puritan Bones, “What ties Mr. Safdie’s work together is not so much a recognizable style or repeated vocabulary but a consistent set of humanistic principles focusing on the power and responsibility of architecture to shape emotion" (1).  Safdie’s design is successful because of his ability to step outside of himself and the previously constructed forms that he could have very easily drawn upon. Instead he was guided to create a moving and site specific design through following his established principles. He put his energies towards understanding the history of the location and existing structure in order to serve the community.

Both Safdie and Gehry engage in a form of design that is uniquely their own while at the very same time achieving a level of service to the community that is so very important.  By designing in this way these great architects encourage a discourse about their buildings and invite the public to participate in their art. This element of participation is, what I believe, what contributes to a design enduring the test of time all while earning a spot in history.

Perceptions on Art and Architecture in the Museum

The connection between a museum, the art it houses, and its context, both site and socially, is something that has resonated in my mind after this weeks readings. Jones’ The Public Discourse of Architecture: Socializing Identities” and Leahy’s Watch Your Step Embodiment and encounter at Tate Modern, had a significant impact on my perspective of museum architecture. In Leahy’s article, she discusses Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and its impacts on society, culture, and museum ethics. Turbine Hall is a transition space, connecting the public to the museums “traditional” art exhibits. It is also used as a large installation exhibition hall. The space is described as being architecturally unique, sublime, and elegant, but it is the art installations showcased in the exhibit hall that make a social and emotional impact. 

I found a strong connecting theme between Salcedo’s “Shibboleth” described in Leahy’s article and Liebskind’s Extension to the Jewish Museum, discussed in Jones chapter. The representative goals of art and architecture are interchangeable. There is meaning behind our work. There is context within our designs. There is intent, obvious or not, in our artwork and the decisions we make. However, the challenge is finding a way to express these meanings without words, description, or guidance. 

From Jones: Quoting Filler, “[n]one of Libeskind’s allegorical references are readily apparent to the average viewer without prior knowledge of the architect’s intentions.”And again later, “While the architect has suggested that the Jewish Museum ‘speaks a visible language’(quoted in Spens 1999: 42), this complex architectural ‘language’ of form - and experience - is in need of the architect’s own translations, which are often necessary to situate this building in relation to a particular social discourse of memory, loss, or trauma.” 

From Leahy on Salcedo’s “Shibboleth”: “despite efforts of both the artist and the institution to fix the meaning of ‘Shibboleth’… the official account of its ‘meaning’ was evidently at odds with how it is perceived and performed by many of it its many visitors.” and later in the article, “… those roaming up and down the Turbine Hall… seemed to be making their own meaning, rather than following an itinerary mapped out by the artist.”’

In both instances, through different medias, a cultural and social intention was attached, but for whatever reason, the intensions were lost. The symbolic meanings became hidden without the support of written and verbal description. This implies that we, as designers and artists, must find a way to portray meaning and symbolism that can be easily recognized.

After reading Lange’s What Should A museum Be? In comparison to the other readings, I started to wonder, what exactly makes a museum a museum? 

The Oxford Dictionary defines a museum as “a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.”

Take for instance the City of Salem, a historical community, best known for their role in the Witch Trials, that has exploded into a cultural tourist destination. The city is filled with historical roads, houses, public buildings, cemeteries, and monuments that are on display for visitors to see, and believe me, people flock year round to see all of these attractions. Can Salem be considered a Museum? It is not a physical building, however, it is a place that houses history, art, science, and culture that guests from around the world travel to see. 

This thought, along with the article Art/Architecture; A 21st-Century Museum with Puritan Bones, reminded me of growing up in Downtown Salem. I am almost ashamed to admit that until recent years, I never viewed the Peabody Essex Museum as a museum. Not in the context that it wasn’t actually a museum, but that it was part of my personal social culture. The PEM was always there. I have visited the museum more times than I can count, and I utilized the building as more than just a museum. Growing up 2 blocks east of the museum, the PEM was my “freedom limit”. For years, I was not allowed to go farther than the PEM without parental supervision, and this resulted in spending most of my summer weekends sprawled on the steps of the museum people watching with friends. The chinese house incorporated into the museum, also a normality, and to me, was just another building I passed on my way to Sunday morning breakfast with my dad. Mr. Saftie said about the chinese house, “You stumble upon it and ask: was it always here? Was there some Chinese prince resident in Salem?” To me, yes, it has always been there; Charter Street would look incomplete were it not there.

Is this a normal perspective? I wonder if people in other areas of the world feel the same about their local museum. I found myself pondering the idea that maybe the citizens of Bilbao are marveling the PEM as they have become blind to their own museum, just as the PEM has blended in as just another part of my world. 

The transaction of Culture

This week’s readings struck a chord inside me as an artist. I have been to innumerable museums, different in so many ways from each other – some small, some famous, some with fine arts, some with installation art, some historical, some not much different than a junkyard. I should preface this whole blog with the fact that I LOVE going to museums. I love the anticipation of seeing an exhibit with rave reviews. I love meandering aimlessly after seeing the exhibit and stumbling upon amazing pieces I was never expecting to see that day. I even love the hour I always spend in the gift shop pretending I’m going to further culture myself by buying books upon books of breathtaking art…until I see the breathtaking price tag.  This is important to say because I am clearly bias to the experience of going to the museum.

After taking in all the readings, I realized I had amassed a giant list of questions, which could all be summed up in one: What makes a museum?

A museum can be described as a multi- media platform on which different medial practices can be combined: an exhibition works with objects, but increasingly also with texts, images and audiovisual representations in a spatial arrangement. The museum is based on a loose association of these medial practices which are sometimes used to comment on each other, sometimes layered next to or on top of each other.  - Silke Arnold-de Simine

I love and hate the vagueness of this description. It is free enough to be all-inclusive, but is it not giving enough credit to the value of presentation? It alludes to the necessity of special arrangement, but without any guidelines. So does this mean every hoarder’s dream of a backyard semi-trailer filled with “objects” is a museum?

I do think there are some clear differences between the Louvre and a semi full of junk:

1)     MONEY. Museums are made with money, by money, for money. Although it is a less romantic view, it’s true – In the article about re-designing the PEM it was made blatantly clear that the design was very much impacted by ‘the client’ funding the project. On the other side of that transaction of culture is the gift shop. Museums are an experience and the gift shop is a way to extend that experience to the privacy of home. It’s also a way for the museum to make money, but at this point, I feel like it is part of the transaction of culture.

2)     CONTEXT. What if the museum is in the suburbs? What if it’s in the city? What if a STarchitect has signed on to build the project? What if the critic, whose writing is the defining criticism of the museum, going to be read around the world, knows the architect personally? What if the building were funded by the government? Funded privately? Furthermore what if that private entity just so happens to carry a brand in itself? I could keep on going, as I’m sure anyone reading this could as well, but the point is, context changes our preconceptions of a place. Even before we get there, we’ve made a decision about it based entirely on second-hand experience.

3)     AUDIENCE. If there are no people, isn’t it just a time capsule?

4)     COMPETITION. A museum is immediately in competition with all other museums, especially those that share a common characteristic, and therefore can be judged against one another (i.e. – geographic location, similar subject matters, competing architects?) As stated in the readings, museums are in a race to be the weirdest, the most bizarre, the most intriguing. This ties in with the expectation of a museum to be a tourism mechanism. The city wants a flashy museum so people are attracted to it, and want to come and pay to see the flashy museum.

Do I think that a mastery of all the above criteria “make” a museum? Absolutely not. I think to some degree a museum needs to be aware of each of these attributes. I think Sarah said it best in her blog when she wrote,

“I would say it should be whatever purpose it is trying to fulfill…Just like there isn’t one right way to do art or to experience it, there cannot be one prescribed method to what a museum should be”.

If I were to amend that comment the only thing I would add is that some methods are better than others, and it takes a thoughtful group of people (not just an architect) to figure out what that method is.

What Should a Museum Be?

After doing this week’s reading assignments, I found myself pondering Lange’s question “What should a museum be?” It’s obvious from the readings that there is no one right answer to this, and why should there be? Museums serve a variety of purposes: from recreational facilities to educational resources, from showcasing national pride to becoming a tourist attraction. There can’t be one prescribed answer. Today, museums aren’t just about the art they house, as they were originally intended to be. Today, the building has as much to say as the art. One must not only experience the artwork in the building, but also experience the building itself. The architecture of the museum has now also become “art”.

But art and architecture have always been intertwined. As we have seen in the past, often times what is current in the art world influences architects and their architecture. So, is it surprising to see that reflected in the architecture of a museum, where the building itself becomes something to admire, to experience? Helen Rees Leahy uses the term “embodied experience” which I find befitting to describe the desired outcome from the phenomenological design of many of these new museums and art instillations. One experiences it mind, body, and soul. I have never been to the Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind, but I can only imagine the feeling one gets when initially descending the stairs from the Kollegienhaus into the underground floor of Libeskind’s building. It must stir up an array of emotions, from fear to excitement to horror. The emotion, the embodied experience, makes the visit memorable and the museum unforgettable. This can serve as another definition for “memory museum” where it isn’t just about remembering the atrocities of the past but remembering how being in the actual physical building felt, thereby creating a memory.

Economically this makes sense. In a world filled with museums vying for our attention and our currency, it is important to stand out in the crowd. The embodied experience can help do that. But what better way to start then to invite a renowned architect to design your building? In the case of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Gehry didn’t just design a building; he helped to recreate the city with his museum. Once completed, the museum became an instant tourist attraction, helping Bilbao’s economic transformation. This isn’t very different from what the Burj Khalifa does for Dubai. Both structures are iconic in nature and both help to communicate their respective city’s ambition to transform itself.
              Getting back to the question of what a museum should be, I would say it should be whatever purpose it is trying to fulfill. In the case of the Bilbao Guggenheim or the Tate Modern, their modern, contemporary architecture fits with the modern, contemporary art they house. Robert Venturi’s design of the Salisbury Wing honors the Italian Renaissance, its art and architecture.The building isn't iconic like Gehry's or conjure up an embodied experience. But that doesn't make it any less of a museum. Just like there isn’t one right way to do art or to experience it, there cannot be one prescribed method to what a museum should be.

The Architect: A Thoughtful Person

“The architect is a thoughtful person, a person who is able to think in situations in which other people cannot think, and a person who is able to allow other people to think differently.” – Mark Wigley

Mark Wigley’s words regarding the role of the architect in the beginning of the Paul Jones reading are especially thought provoking, considering this week’s focus on museums. A museum is defined as “a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.” It all starts with the building.

I would argue that an architect’s role seems almost doubly important when designing a museum. The building, layout, materials, feel – the entire composition itself, becomes as important as the historical artifacts, art, scientific activities (or whatever type of museum it might be) that are exhibited and live within it. It could even be argued that the building itself often becomes a museum in itself. Because of this, there seems to be a certain type of reverence that is associated with the design and architecture of museums. It is a place of discovery and proactive learning – people go there because they want to learn (perhaps excluding the middle school field trips). Therefore, being able to “think in situations in which other people cannot think” and creating a place that encourages others to “think differently” is the prime role of an architect involved in a museum – and a hefty one at that.

I really enjoyed learning about the process of building Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum from the New York Times article. I wish I had known its background before I stepped foot in it for the first time last fall. I remember being instantly impressed with the harmonious contrast between the historic brick alleyways and the cool, modern entrance. Moshe Safdie’s approach to his projects has been described as a “distillation of history” and I think this is successfully accomplished in the PEM. The article goes on to describe Safdie’s portfolio of work as “buildings that balance grand gesture with lyrical elements of human scale”. I believe it is in the fact that ‘grand’ and ‘human scale’ are intertwined within the PEM that I noticed the building enough so that it made an impression on me (I was able to distinctly picture it in my mind months after my last visit) yet I didn’t have to specifically study the building to do so.

Reading the NYT article on Safdie’s PEM design, a particular sentence jumped out at me and reminded me of Frank Gehry’s Museum Bilbao:

“…buildings [possess] a symbolic component, a kind of visual resonance that ties the architecture to its location and purpose, that roots its contemporary gestures in the past.”

The modern, awe-inspiring building sitting within the bed of a bleak, outdated city appears to cheekily pay homage to the city’s past industrial successes. Gehry’s appreciation for the industrial city is not necessarily unique. However, the way he is able to translate this appreciation into a captivating, eclectic place of learning and discovery is where he is far and beyond successful. The Museum Bilbao, along with the other renowned museums of the world, are brought to life by designers and architects who are ultimately able to allow others to “think differently”.

Museum Architecture: Form or Function?

As a museum-lover, I was really interested in this week’s theme surrounding the architecture of museums. The question of what should a museum be is one that I find myself going back and forth on, and I’m looking forward to the class’ thoughts on it. At first thought, I agree with the “box” approach discussed in Lange’s “What Should a Museum be?” I just always assumed that people go to museums to see the collections housed inside the buildings. This seemed like a no-brainer to me; the museum’s architecture should support the viewing of the collections as best as possible. Thinking about my recent experiences at museums, however, I have noticed myself paying much more attention to the architecture itself, taking form as another piece of art belonging to the museum.

Thinking of my recent trip to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, it is certainly true that the architecture had more of my attention than the collections. The light and airy atrium lobby was so unexpected in such a historic area, that I spent most of the visit more focused on the building. 

Because of this experience, I found Weisgall’s “A 21^st Century Museum with Puritan Bones” interesting, as she asserts that “nowhere does the building upstage the collections.” I didn’t totally agree with this assessment, though I’d be curious what others in the class think. Even when walking through the Yin Yu Tang house, I was amazed that the museum was able to accommodate the house so effectively. Overall, I think the architect did an amazing job fusing old buildings with the renovations, as the Peabody Essex seamlessly fits in with the neighborhood’s style. The fact that the exterior of the building doesn’t stand out too much, yet the interior is so unexpected for Salem just adds to why I feel that the architecture steals the show. This is distinctly different from Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao, which is so divergent from its surroundings.

What I found most fascinating about Muschamp’s review of the Guggenheim was that it was written when only one piece was installed in the museum. With this fact in mind, it’s clear that the review of the building, which solidified Gehry’s celebrity architect status, placed little if any emphasis on how well the building suited the actual art in the museum. It seems more like this building was designed to put Bilbao on the map, not unlike the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, than to showcase the museum’s pieces most effectively. As such a distinctive building in the neighborhood, the architecture itself becomes a piece of art. It is instantly recognizable as a body of Gehry’s work, just like “Guernica” is so clearly a Picasso. Thinking of the architecture as art in and of itself, I can absolutely see the “blob” method Lange writes about as a valid approach to museum architecture. I can see how one would look at it like the branding of a retail store – if the store’s exterior is unappealing, why would you want to go in and see what’s inside, let alone purchase it? If a museum has dynamic architecture, doesn’t it make you want to see what the pieces inside are like as well? One can make the assumption that the unique architecture of a museum would be indicative of the collection housed within. From that perspective, I can again see architecture as an advertising tool.

I wouldn’t say that this week’s readings answered the question of what museum architecture should be, but they certainly provided compelling arguments.