column – New York at its Best

Ever since 1959, when Frank Lloyd Wright’s attention grabbing design for The Guggenheim opened its doors, architects, directors, critics, and historians have been searching for the right way to build a museum. The main question to answer, it seems, is: What is the purpose of a museum? There are, theoretically, innumerable answers to that question. I think that most, however, fall under a few big umbrellas:

The museum is a repository for art and artifacts.
The museum is a work of art in-and-of itself, and it stands as reflection of the spirit of a city and its people.
The museum is a consolidation of breathtaking design on its own merit, and for the display and understanding of arts and artifacts. It is a satisfying synthesis.
The museum is a place of wonder where one can learn from and meet works of art, but also other people. The museum is a stage in which people grow from both viewing and socializing.

The first three are ideas I’ve gathered from reading other literature. Under the first view, museums are merely backdrops for the works of art they display. Architects should, to quote James Johnson Sweeney, director of the Guggenheim from 1952-1960, “underdesign.”

Under the second view, architects take a museum commission as a way to flex their design muscles. The buildings are to become statements of architectural prowess as the architects attempt to make innovative structures suitable for importance places. This can come at the cost of acceptable exhibition spaces.

The third is a mixture of the first two, arguably what museum design has trended towards. A museum should attest to the greatness of a city and its citizens and the might of a commendable architect, but it should also provide for lively spaces that present art well. This is especially important concerning contemporary art, which may require spaces beyond the typical exhibition room for proper display.

For Huxtable, The Guggenheim Bilbao represented the culmination of this view; it is “art and architecture as one.” It and other contemporary museums have pushed the boundaries of architectural design while providing unique environments for the display of new art.

But where does this leave museums of the past? What of places like The Metropolitan Museum of Art that were built before this museum design-defining frenzy?

I don’t think that anyone would argue that The Met doesn’t serve its purpose as a repository. With over 2,000,000 square feet of floor space, it can display not just some but a considerable amount of art from innumerable disparate places and times.

Some will argue that The Met is not an architectural masterpiece. Some shortcomings? It can seem a bit long at first, and does a glass facade really go with an Egyptian Temple? Yet it is precisely these images that define The Met as a New York City icon. New Yorkers can handle big, Beaux-Arts dreams (the 5th Avenue facade) and bold, modern redesigns (the Sackler Wing) mashed into one. Not to mention the fact that the museum pays homage to its lengthy architectural history by using past facades as inside walls. Specifically, polychrome Gothic Revival masonry from the museum’s first building on the 5th Ave. site can be seen in all its splendor by looking over your shoulder when you enter the Robert Lehman Collection.

Already, we’ve check marked view three; The Met is an architectural delectation with a brilliant display of art. But just to add some might to my argument, let’s look at the experience a little bit more. On the outside, look up for four caryatids that represent the four branches of art (painting, sculpture, architecture, and music) while you stroll through a carefully articulated plaza. You walk down a row of trees as you approach from the north or south, and the lights from below add a sense of importance to your entry. As you pass the fountains and climb the grand staircase, it’s as if you are rising to the occasion of sophisticated yet public art as colossal columns proclaim your presence.

There’s something special about the stairs of The Met. Your status in society, as Blair Waldorf from the Gossip Girl series might tell you, rises as you ascend. The Met is Blair Waldorf architectonified: it is a New York heiress, grand despite her shortcomings, the “Queen Bee” and jewel of 5th Avenue, and secure in her position as keeper of knowledge and style. You cannot help but already feel exhilarated as you reach the entrance.

Inside this spirit continues. Beaux-Arts columns, arches, and vaults greet you at first, tall and grandiose as ever. As you move through the building, the designs of different wings reflect the changing moods that art from different societies affects.

It’s these experiences that lend The Met its success under view four. The architecture is designed to enhance the meeting of art and person. You are enveloped in different scenes that make paintings, statues, artifacts, and so on all the more powerful. Just as important though, the paths that you take through the plazas, rooms, corridors, and staircases you peruse allow you, if you take advantage of it, to interact with others at every point. From the approach to the museum (the plaza is always filled with independent artists and the stairs inside and out are quite literally meeting places), to the framed views through rooms, and the emphasis on education (the ground floor) and social gathering (The Great Hall Balcony), The Met is a place of gossip, laughter, show-off, ideas, analysis, reflection, and conversations about art and life. An old museum is always new as a place of human interplay.

I don’t know what the museum of the future should look like, but I do know that they should always emulate what The Met has achieved. It is my favorite museum in New York because of the new experiences I have there every single time I visit, as I engage with art, architecture, and people. The Met, like the Guggenheim, is attention grabbing architecturally, it just takes a deeper look.

Sources:

For a short read to get yourself thinking about the duality, or lack thereof, between art and architecture see this post.
The Guardian article, “What should our museums look like in 2020?”
Art Practical’s “Architecture and the Museum.”
More about The MET on ‘New York Architecture’ here.
For a short synopsis about the museum’s architectural history, see the blog post “The Museum, Constructed,” written by an intern.
For a comprehensive overview of the museum’s architectural history, see Morrison H. Heckscher’s study, written for the museum’s 1995 bulletin.
I owe many thanks to Alexandra Lange for her thoughts and ideas in the “What Should a Museum Be?” chapter in her book Writing About Architecture, and to Ada Louise Huxtable for her musings in the “Museums” section of her book On Architecture.

As a freshman at NYU, I steered clear of Bobst Library as much as possible. Its red sandstone facade was not inviting, in fact I thought it was rather ugly, and though the atrium was an exciting area, the study spaces on the bottom two floors (the only places I was brave enough to explore my first year) felt cold and lonely. Bobst was claustrophobic and dark. It repulsed me.

Like many NYU students the place grew on me. I came to appreciate it more when my friend introduced me to the south-side study area on the 5th floor, and after I learned more about the building in my architecture classes.

The first idea that helped me really appreciate Bobst’s architectural significance was Philip Johnson’s and Richard Foster’s post-modern twist on a historical detail- columns. When you look at Bobst, you’ll notice that columns are seemingly absent, a perfectly normal characteristic of modern buildings. But if you look closer, you’ll realize that there are columns at play. You, the viewer, just need to fill them in. The niches that line the library’s facade aren’t just random voids, they are empty spaces that resemble the silhouettes of classical columns. A sort-of short base exists on the ground floor. They are then colossal from the 2nd floor up, ending in a capital-like void at the top. Stare at them for a moment and imagine the columns that fit into these spaces. Post-modern architects wanted people to actively engage with their constructions on a different level than just functional use. Boring buildings didn’t fit their bill.

The fact that the facade’s material, Longmeadow Redstone quarried in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, is meant to blend with the redbrick low-rise buildings that surrounded Washington Square Park is, I think, a commendable nod to the importance of responding to locality. But that doesn’t mean that the material choice is perfectly suitable. While on the one hand the earthy tone provides a nice backdrop for Schwartz Plaza, on the other hand, Bobst (and its neighbor Tisch Hall) stick out like sore-thumbs on the south side of the park where red-brick isn’t as prevalent. I’m also not sold on the alternating light and dark portions of the sandstone, I can’t decide if it adds character or just looks blotchy.

I’m inclined to agree with Paul Goldberger that Bobst’s interior space is more important than it’s outside and “makes for one of New York’s most spectacular architectural experiences.” The central atrium is dazzling. I’ve only known the space from after the “digitally inspired veil” was put in place to keep more students from jumping from the buildings balconies (higher education has a serious student suicide problem that needs to be addressed). Despite the sorrow reason for the barrier’s introduction, it has transformed the space in a net positive way. Though the unobstructed view to the Venetian San Giorgio Maggiore Church-inspired floor below is now gone, the way that the ‘Pixel Matrix’ dematerializes from south to north in the building creates for interesting viewpoints that gradually morph as you move through the building.

Goldberger characterized the floor as splendid and witty but said that it was detached from the other aspects of the room and therefore added to a sense of fussiness. I see his point, but on a certain level, the disparate elements do blend. The ‘Pixel Matrix,’ from below, almost looks fluid; it flows from top to bottom, before condensing into a black and white pool at the ground; an exuberance of pop-art pleasure.

Bobst Library has been troubled in other ways, too: community organizers like Jane Jacobs and Ruth Wittenberg fought against its construction on the basis that its height and bulk would cast shadows on Washington Square Park, and both its namesake and its main architect were known anti-semites. Despite its fraught history, Bobst’ interior is grand in a way that can make one feel monumental. For that at least, it fits nicely into the lineage of New York’s best places.

Architecture begins to matter when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads. – Paul Goldberger

Tag: column

The Met: Architecture for What?

Bobst Library: A Mixture of Pleasure and Dread