Architecture With Limits

When spring comes, it is usually accompanied by a bevy of happenings in the world of architecture. Perhaps the more temperate weather brings with it a desire to get out and about and explore, or maybe it is just that the world seems a bit more welcoming in general. This week is no exception. I have already blogged about Chicago's contribution to the Art Institute, but today, we are focusing on good old NYC and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Founded in 1937, the museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, disgruntled darling of the architecture world, has been under near constant upkeep and renovations since its construction was complete. Originally called "The Museum of Non-Objective Painting," the Guggenheim was founded to showcase avant-garde art by early modernists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. It moved to its present location, at the corners of 89th Street and Fifth Avenue (overlooking Central Park), in 1959, when Frank Lloyd Wright's design for the site was completed.

The museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the show “Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward,” which opens today. According to the NY Times, the show "will be a disappointment to some. The show offers no new insight into his life’s work. Nor is there any real sense of what makes him so controversial. It’s a chaste show, as if the Guggenheim, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, was determined to make Wright fit for civilized company," says Nicolai Ouroussoff in the Arts section of today's NY Times.

The main problems with the building, as I see it, isn't the beauty of the structure or the innovation of FLW's design, it is with its poor construction and the difficulty it poses for displaying works of art. Shouldn't a museum be built to last? Shouldn't a museum's main focus be the displaying of works?

While the museum is relatively structurally sound, the facade has been cracking since the 1st coat of paint dried: not due to just seasonal fluctuations in weather as we would expect, but because commonly available and used expansion joints were not a part of its construction. Although FLW's structures have beautiful and innovative designs, they completely ignore one of the primary rules of architecture: withstand the test of time.

This is not only evident here at the Guggenheim but, at many other locations/structures he designed, such as (probably his most famed work) Fallingwater in Pennsylvania (below).

Most criticism of the building has focused on the idea that it overshadows the artworks displayed within, and that it is particularly difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow windowless exhibition niches which surround the central spiral. Although the rotunda is generously lit by a large skylight, the niches are heavily shadowed by the walkway itself, leaving the art to be lit largely by artificial light. The walls of the niches are neither vertical nor flat (they are concave) meaning canvasses must be mounted proud of the wall's surface. The limited space within the niches means that sculptures are generally relegated to plinths amid the main spiral walkway itself. Prior to its opening, twenty-one artists signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space.

Call me crazy, but doesn't it raise a few flags when even artists do not want their work displayed in a structure?

Lest I completely dishearten the reader from seeing FLW's designs, which, as I stated earlier, are innovative and aesthetically pleasing, I have included an image below of Jenny Holzer's work Untitled (Selections from Truisms, Inflammatory Essays, The Living Series, The Survival Series, Under a Rock, Laments, and Child Text), from 1989, that utilized the museum's design to her advantage.

Unfortunately, I will be nowhere near NYC, and therefore, not able to attend the new exhibition. If there are any New Yorkers out there who attended the show, please leave a comment and let us know what your impressions of it were and if they did Mr. FLW and the Guggenheim justice.

May inspiration and creativity be with you!