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the museum of the american indian, DC

phaedus

I saw it this summer, and I liked only the exterior. I think that inside no one has done any consideration. You have a big hole placed next to a block of floor slabs with minimal height. These are further articulated very disorderly into small spaces (>30m2). I think that the museum is very unartistic and unindian. The interior did not remind me of anything vast and free.
Rights guggenhein is smaller but spacially bigger.
Do you think so?

 
Apr 6, 05 8:56 am
Janosh

Unindian?

Apr 6, 05 10:56 am  · 
 · 
Jr.

This post struck me as (probably) unintentionally funny. It's "unindian" because it's not "vast and free?" It doesn't seem to me like there's a lot of "vast and free-ness" in the Native American/Indian/First Nation cultures, or if there is, it doesn't necessarily involve large physical spaces, just mental or cultural spaces...

We were at a powwow this weekend, and at one point, there was only one dancer on the floor (I think it was women's northern buckskin, can't quite remember). I found myself thinking about how hard it all was, that only one woman was there representing the entire tradition. It didn't seem vast and free to me. I know it's a celebratory space, but at the same time, it always seems like a site of cultural struggle, working really hard to maintain something that seems to be getting choked out of existence.

Anyway, to speak to the building, I'm not surprised that it doesn't work all that well. For awhile there, I wondered if it was going to be built at all. I can see traces of Cardinal in it, but it seems incomplete to me. From photos, that is. I haven't yet managed to visit it.

Apr 6, 05 1:18 pm  · 
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