gothic – New York at its Best

The 20th and 21st-centuries have flipped the definition of art over, and over, and over again. With changing subjects, purposes, materials, and sizes, contemporary art has pushed to the limits the conditions needed to house and display it. So for architects, creating the right spaces to exhibit art can be challenging.

Over the past 100 years, something else has changed, too. As art transforms, so do neighborhoods, and one-by-one a similar pattern in NYC communities has presented itself. We’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

In their quest to find meaningful places to present their creations to the public, instead of looking to the future, avant-garde artists have relied on the past. This was the mantra of the alternative spaces movement. Alanna Heiss, a major proponent of this movement, founded the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc. in the 1970s. The aim of this organization was to “[organize] exhibitions in underutilized and abandoned spaces across New York City.” Abandoned warehouses and factories were two of the most beneficial building types for the display of new art, with their wide and tall open spaces suitable for all kinds of provocative and site-specific installations.

An abandoned public school building turned out to be the final jump for Heiss and the artists she advocated for. In 1976, the Institute rebranded as the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, named in honor of the First Ward School that the building was originally made for. The organization merged with MoMA in 1999 to become MoMA PS1.

MoMA PS1 is interesting architecturally in a variety of ways. First and foremost, of course, is the building itself. The building is part of the Romanesque Revival lineage that was popularized in the mid-19th century, especially by Henry Hobson Richardson. Romanesque buildings were characterized by their use of heavy materials and strictly semi-circular arches (a continuation of the form used by the Romans). The school has a handsome and massive stone base, and expresses its horizontality, rather than its verticality, through the use of successive, low-arched windows. The terra cotta colored brick and the restrained (this isn’t a Gothic Revival building) yet rich ornamental detailing (in terra cotta) is inviting. What better place to display underground, stick-it-to-the-establishment art than a building staunch in its forgotten and, nowadays, often frowned upon design elements?

The museum’s new entrance building, completed in 2011 by Andrew Berman Architect, is a brutalist success story. The cast concrete wall creates a strong presence on Jackson Avenue but is also a beautiful juxtaposition to the gaudy, green-glass Citi Tower that its vantage point leads you towards. The entrance atrium is reminiscent of Tadao Ando with its interplay of light through holes in the concrete construction, and then leads to what one might call a grand approach to the museum through its entrance courtyard.

The inside is beneficial for display, too. Classrooms have tall, open ceilings and can either be used individually for an artist or linked together to create larger exhibition spaces. Beyond that, the building has a feel unlike any other museum I’ve been to. When I’m climbing the cramped, low ceiling staircases with their red hand-rails, when I look through windowed doors lining long hallways, and when I hear the creaking of old, wooden floorboard, I’m brought back to my days as an elementary school student (shoutout to PS64). At MoMA PS1, there’s a sense of provocative art, youthful nostalgia, and proud NYC building history all mixed together, and it makes viewing the art all the more exciting.

The museum includes other architectural delights like traces of a building perpetually unfinished (holes in the wall that show utilities operations, bare brick ceilings, and plans drawn on walls), a walkthrough of the old basement and its outdated machinery, and art and building as one in pieces such as the Pipilotti Rist video installation (a hole in the floor), the in-motion Bruce Nauman installation which scratches on the floor, graphic arts in all the staircases, and more. MoMA PS1 also co-runs the Young Architects Program, which transforms the main courtyard each year into a sort-of architectural dreamworld. The 2018 winner Dream the Combine presented Hide & Seek, which featured huge, movable mirrors.

For all of its success as a contemporary art center, MoMA PS1 also hints at a darker lesson to be learned. If you’re wondering who would have thought that a school, in Long Island City, could ever be a museum, people paying attention in the ’70s could tell you that it wasn’t that big of a surprise, if you were paying attention. With the downfall of manufacturing in NYC, foresighted developers could tell which neighborhoods were next in line to be “revitalized.” LIC was the poster child for development in the 1970s. A mix of abandoned industrial buildings and low-income residents, buying property from locals was cheap, and the neighborhood’s close proximity to Manhattan meant that it would become desirable with a facelift. To get that process started, you let the artists take their place. When the avant-garde becomes more popular, more attention and money is attracted to the epicenter, and the neighborhood begins to change. During that change, in the words of one developer, “…in any development there are certain innocent people who get hurt.”

I don’t claim to be an expert in the development of LIC, nor do I think that MoMA PS1 has been a negative thing for the neighborhood or NYC, but there are questions to be thought about here. A lot of LIC natives were likely displaced in the transformation of the community from an industrial center to an artistic once, a similar development that SoHo underwent earlier and that many other neighborhoods are undergoing now. How do we ‘improve’ a neighborhood without pushing out low-income residents? What type of effects does real-estate development have on the urban and social fabric of city neighborhoods? MoMA PS1 fit nicely into the aesthetic of LIC, but what kinds of obligations, if any, does the museum have to long-term LIC residents 30-years after its inception?

Sources:

Roberta Smith’s Art Review of the museum after its renovation in the 1990s: “More Spacious and Gracious, Yet Still Funky at Heart.”
For more about the Romanesque Revival style, see this field guide.
A short synopsis of the building’s history and style can be found here.
For more about Alanna Heiss and the history of the organization, see MoMA PS1’s website.
For a look at the entrance building, see the architect’s website.
For an insightful and thought provoking reading about the future of Long Island City as “The Next Hot Neighborhood” near the end of the century and PS1’s role in this process, see pages 20-25 of New York Magazine’s August 11th, 1980 issue.

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.

Tag: gothic

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