Archinect - News

Rowan Moore issues a blow to the Selldorf-led Sainsbury Wing redevelopment

2022-06-23T09:00:00-04:00

The problem is that the proposed new work is something else altogether to Venturi and Scott Brown’s playfulness and personality. It has curving glass balustrades, white walls and oak-clad pillars, and expanses of plain paving outside. It is an architecture of near-emptiness, the default style of international art-world good taste.

Moore ran through the litany of changes Annabelle Selldorf is making in replacement of the current iteration’s “bum notes,” which the critic pinned on a rift between the original expansion's benefactors and what was then called Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates.

This is now the second Denise Scott Brown-designed museum that Selldorf has laid her (very capable) hands-on after the recently opened Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego revamp, which she said engendered a “greater clarity across the history of all the building types.” Moore, seizing on the difference in intrusion levels between the two similar projects, said “there could be more rapport between the current and the proposed and more cleverness and wit” before making a surprising turn to his own long-distant past.

Moore concluded, “by refusing to align themselves with any one architectural camp, trad...

SO – IL's Florian Idenburg pens an op-ed opposing the boarding-up of museums

2020-07-06T18:13:00-04:00

Rather than fancy restaurants and gimmicky stores, lobbies could host outside organizations to convene and organize. The museum might act as a partner and participant, catalyst, and amplifier. Here, there are no bananas stuck to the wall, but ample meaningful information for an active audience. Guards would protect patrons over property. And during the next protest, lobbies could open up and transform into staging grounds, sanctuary spaces, and broadcasting stations for citizen journalists.

Architect Florian Idenburg offers alternative uses for boarded up museum fronts in New York City during the social uprising and protests and questions the corporate policies now running the museum's public interface on city's sidewalks.

"Amid the stream of information about systemic racism and demands for societal change filling my Instagram feed, a recent series of posts by my friend Lucie Rebeyrol stood out. She shared images of the glass-enclosed lobbies of three leading New York City museums—the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New Museum—hermetically boarded up with countless sheets of plywood."

Museums, work, and "these uncertain times"

2020-05-18T17:26:00-04:00

Today, the art museum provides several functions. Wealthy collectors lend works they own for exhibitions, increasing the value of their holdings while allowing them to avoid taxes. Museums are also semi-public repositories for objects of cultural value and education initiatives. Nothing that costs $25 to enter can really be considered public.

Dana Kopel, archive editor at the New Museum in New York City, ruminates on the significance of museums in contemporary society as sites of labor and work, conditions that have been deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kopel writes, "The museum is a place: a situated and permanent space to experience art. Its origins are as a “civilizing” enterprise, where the working class would be indoctrinated into proper comportment. Before that, there were wunderkammern, collections of art, antiquities, and curios assembled by wealthy Europeans."

Adding, "What does art look like when 'uncertainty' reveals the systemic insecurity of the workers who make, install, and help us understand art?"

International debate over the new definition of "museum"

2019-08-20T18:30:00-04:00

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) will vote on a new definition of museums in September. The proposed change includes language about “social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing.” Critics say the text is too political for most museums to employ.

After almost 50 years of consensus, the definition of the museum as "a nonprofit institution” that “acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment," is being challenged.

The new definition "would incorporate mention of 'human dignity and social justice,'" reports Hyperallergic. This has caused intense debate amongst members of the ICOM. Jette Sandahl, the leader of the commission proposing the new definition and pushing for a more modern "language of the 21st century," has received consistent backlash.

Critics have said that the proposal is an "ideological manifesto" with "over inflated verbiage." Professor François Mairesse of the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and the chair of the International Committee of Museology, told Art Newspaper, "A definition is a simple and precise sentence characterizing an object, and this is not a definition but a stateme...

Sotheby's in talks with Saudi Prince to build contemporary art program in the desert

2018-12-27T15:47:00-05:00

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has set multiple ambitious agendas for his desert kingdom. Turning it into a major cultural destination may end up being one of the highest-profile. For part of the plan, the Saudi government has turned to Sotheby’s, the biggest U.S. auction house, and Allan Schwartzman, the co-chairman of its fine art division.

The largest auction house in the US, Sotheby’s, is in talks with Crown Prince HRH Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to build a cultural center in the northwest deserts of Saudi Arabia, according to Bloomberg. The contemporary art program is to be located in the Al-Ula region, which contains the country's first UNESCO World Heritage site and is an archaeologically rich area built up over 2,000 years ago.

Allan Schwatrzman, co-chairman of Sotheby's fine art division, sits on the advisory board of the Royal Commission for Al-Ula, which helps oversee the region's development. He also leads Sotheby's art advisory firm Art Agency Partners, which has submitted the plans for the future sprawling arts and cultural destination. The project is currently in the exploratory phase—says a spokeswoman for the royal commission—and has begun inviting a dozen or so artists to submit proposals for the site.

Given the mounting pressure to address connections to the Saudi Arabian government in t...

Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum selects Snøhetta to lead ambitious expansion

2018-10-18T14:22:00-04:00

The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha has selected the architecture firm Snøhetta for its recently announced expansion. The ambitious plans will add a new building to join the original Art Deco museum, built in 1931, as well as a later 1994 addition designed by Norman Foster.

Snøhetta's extension will add new galleries to the site, allowing Joslyn to better display and further expand its 12,000 piece permanent collection. In particular, the Museum plans on growing its collection of contemporary art, having been generously gifted over 50 high-profile works by the Schrager family last year. The new addition will further help propel the museum to a new position on the international stage.

"The Museum is one of Nebraska’s greatest assets," remarked Joslyn's CEO Jack Becker. On the selection of Snøhetta, he added that the firm behind the SFMOMA Expansion and the Sept. 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion is "a perfect fit for this project, not only for their visionary design, but also for their commit...

Sir David Adjaye to design new Princeton University Art Museum

2018-09-18T16:19:00-04:00

Princeton University has tapped Sir David Adjaye to build the school's new art museum. Done in collaboration with local firm Cooper Robertson, it will replace the current museum with a “dramatically enlarged space for the exhibition and study of the museum’s encyclopedic collections, special exhibitions and art conservation, as well as object-study classrooms and office space for the hundred person museum staff,” according to the school’s statement.

This is the latest major commission for the Ghanian-British architect who has completed a bunch of high profile projects for civic and cultural institutions over the years; most notably, the acclaimed Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He is currently overseeing a number of museum designs including the new home for the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art in Riga.

Sir David Adjaye Photo by Ed Reeve.

Adjaye, who taught at Princeton's School of Architecture ...

Brooks+Scarpa's new Southern Utah Art Museum draws its inspiration from the local artist that made it possible

2017-11-21T15:50:00-05:00

When the legendary artist Jim Jones, known for his painting of Zion and the Grand Canyon, died in 2009, he donated his Rockville home, and 15 of his late paintings, as well as the copyrights, to the Southern Utah University. The Cedar City native's gift was to provide the university with the seed money to eventually form the Southern Utah Museum of Art and almost eight years later, this dream has come to completion.

Brooks + Scarpa.

Ale Scarpa.

The new museum is part of the $39.1 million Beverly Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts campus—a 5.5-acre master planned complex that links downtown Cedar City with the Southern Utah University Campus. The museum itself comprises 28,000 square feet of adaptable gallery and exhibition space that will accommodate the special collection of Jones as well as regularly displaying the work of students, faculty, regional artists and juried shows.

Alan Blakely.

It has been designed by the Los Angeles-based firm, Brooks + Scarpa, who were in...

OMG! OMA

2017-11-17T14:32:00-05:00

The most radical art space to launch in Paris in decades will open next spring in a five-storey, 19th-century building in the Marais district. The Fondation d’Entreprise Galeries Lafayette, run by the eponymous French retail chain, commissioned Rem Koolhaas and his OMA company to renovate the historic building at 9 rue du Platre.

OMA has placed a glass and steel exhibition tower in the building’s courtyard, which operates as a ‘curatorial machine’,” according to a project statement. This tower incorporates four mobile platforms that move in and out of sight, allowing 49 different spatial configurations. As the floors move, galleries of varying sizes with different ceiling heights are created. In the basement, artists will make works in a production workshop.

David Chipperfield to create master plan for Minneapolis Institute of Art

2017-10-27T13:14:00-04:00

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has tapped the British architect David Chipperfield to reconfigure its campus, which boasts a 1970s extension by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange and a new wing designed by Michael Graves from 2006. This is the first step for the museums's long-term strategy to enhance the visitor experience, expand the community’s access, and make room for the it's ever-growing collection.

On the left, the McKim, Mead, & White designed building (1915). On the right, the Michael Graves- designed Target Wing (2006). Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Kaywin Feldman, the Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President, said Thursday morning that Mia is thrilled to work with the acclaimed firm, whose recent museum projects include St. Louis Art Museum; The Menil Collection, Houston; Neues Museum, Museum Island, Berlin; The Royal Academy of Arts, London; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; and Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center.

“Mia has seen tremendous growth in...

wHY reveals final approved design of the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco

2017-09-26T14:55:00-04:00

As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco has tapped the Culver City-based firm wHY to design their new renovation and expansion plans. The architecture practice headed by Kulapat Yantrasast, has become known over the years for conjuring environments that suit the needs of art—the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, Michigan's Grand Rapids Art Museum, and the recently completed Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles are all past projects by the firm.

The original neoclassical structure was designed as San Francisco’s first Main Library in 1916 by Ecole des Beaux-Arts-trained architect George A. Kelham. The building was finally converted in 1996 by architect Gae Aulenti and has been home of the Asian Art Museum since 2003. Because the structure was constructed during the Civic Center Landmark District’s period of significance, wHY’s addition will have to insure the proposed project...