I went to Seattle this past weekend and visited Gehry's Experience Music Project Museum. I'd driven past it a few times on previous visits (on my way to the library and sculpture garden...) but this time I actually stopped, walked around it, went inside it and fully had the time to 'experience' it. Wow, the inside is so bad! Yuck! Ew! Messy! Tacky! Sticky! Icky! HATE. IT. I enjoyed walking around the exterior bulging form, examining the cladding (now aging with streaks), but the inside... The 'sky chapel' is just bad design. It is a huge space with crap everywhere: fences, lights, a screen, acoustic panelling. It's not a chapel of rock, it's not a chapel at all.
The gift shops, the empty bar, the empty lobby... it's all pretty bad.
Here's the only photo I took of the building before my camera's batteries died a quick death:
6 Comments
agreed, its crap. such an improvement between this and Disney concert hall which is beautifully crafted.
the only shining moment of the entire project is the beautiful japanese maple by the entry. it's ginormous.
Nature trumps Gehry. HA! What a waste of money and resources. That said, I'm still going to go check it out this summer, "On my way to the library"!
alana.
to truly enjoy the sky chapel you have to be there for a concert..
(that's the name for the concert space right?) cause the whole
place is filled with light..the back wall is like a giant led screen or
something...saw moe play there and it was fantastic...and i don't
even really like their music..it's just a really intimate space to see
a band..and the roller coaster behind it reflecting off the metal
was pretty awesome.
Alana + all,
I experienced the same dismay with the interior of EMP. That Gehry chose to focus most if not all of his energy on the surfaces of the exterior with little or no affection for the interior space...odd...as if inside/outside had no relation. Fortunately the curators have done some excellent work including a superb history of hip-hop exhibition a year back. Reminds me a bit of Alsops virtual abandonment of the interior of the OCAD building. perhaps "a limited budget" is a poor excuse.
Thanks for all the great entries over the year Alana, i've found your projects inspiring and words thoughtful. I'm looking forward to hearing a bit more of your thoughts on the UBC program. I'm considering a move from Toronto to UBC for M.Arch as well, and am not so informed about the nature of the program, faculty, students etc.
To save money Gehry did not do the interior for the EMP they went with someone else
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