Pub from 2-3:30, then walked the dog during Angus' swim class. Then stayed on at the pool for an Irish dinner. Then watched Art of the Steal, and now I'm sick to my stomach: NOT from the beer or corned beef. The history of the Barnes Foundation is so awful, and I'm pissed at Pew now. Which is sad because I've always liked them.
oh donna, don't be too pissed at pew because of that damn movie... it's a total hatchet job that only tells one very slanted side of the story... either way, it's certainly a sordid, f'ed up history though... i'm really looking forward to seeing the new building completed... i'm sure that tod and billie are doing a fantastic job...
You know, Phillip, the movie just reminded me of this particularly nasty ethos in Philly. I've only met a few major power brokers in Indy, and most of them have been either completely lovely people or at least somewhat nice.
Every powerful person I met in Philly was at deep center an utter asshole - really sociopathically so. One of the people I've met was in that movie (not Rendell, for whom I still have a deep affection even though I know he's probably as bad as all the rest), and several people not in the movie who were behind the scenes I dealt with in person, and the movie just showed my experience of them as power-hungry assholes to have been characteristic. Really sad. But maybe to become powerful being an asshole is a prerequisite? Does that mean it's OK to destroy a cultural treasure (which, no mistake, the Barnes is/was)?
I'm glad I got to see the Barnes as it was intended. And as I said when TWBTA was announced as the architect of the new building, if the collection *has* to move (which it absolutely did not and which goes completely against the wishes of Albert Barnes, there's absolutely no denying that, not to mention the movie didn't touch deeply on the major racial aspect of the whole contretemps), then there's no architect aside from maybe Zumthor that I would trust to do a decent job with the design more than TWBTA.
That said, I haven't seen anything beyond the original announcement of the design, as panned by Oroussoff, so I still can't form an opinion on the building, just the move.
i think i'd also trust herzog de meuron... and maybe ando...but it's definitely a short list..
i'm interested in hearing how someone could defend the barnes collection being moved... the central facts of the movie seem to be indisputable.. even if other portions are skewed.
i haven't seen the film. i have been to philly once. i definitely knew about the barnes and wanted to visit, however, time and distance didn't allow a visit. i also think they were closed for some reason anyway. so, on one hand i can see why a movement to make the collection more accessible to the philadelphia tourist and daytripper would make a great deal of sense. i don't know anything about the politics of the matter though. a trend exists though where universities with substantial works of art are selling them off to pay for the daily operatons of the uni.
post script...couldn't there continue to be the barnes as it is now AND open a downtown branch that would show significant works from the collection?
vado
barnes' will specifically stated
1. that the collection was to stay in tact... i.e. not be separated...
2. that the collection never move into the city... he didn't want the collection to make money for the city... his interest was in teaching people about art..not catering to tourists.
3. he wanted the collection to have the adjacencies that he had in his house...so that the collection would be seen as he set them up.
to me it's like breaking up the frick or gardner collections... seeing those spaces and their associated paintings is a special experience that i don't think can be replicated with modern architecture.
well thats great except if you can't get to it then you can't experience it. as was the case with me. the gardner and the frick are more accessible. and i'm not really a tourist i got me a art history degree!
I just re-read a WashPost article interviewing Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, and they said something that many, many others have said during this fiasco: that a new facility will allow the paintings to be "viewed properly". But the use of "proper" here really means "as late 20th Century cultural institutions have codified to be the only allowable way".
These days, we're used to seeing a paintings on a big white wall, so seeing them in a dusky parlor doesn't feel "right". That wasn't Barnes' intent, that wasn't what he (collaborating with John Dewey) felt was the most meaningful way to see *this* art, and it certainly wasn't the way in which most art was viewed at the time (am I right, vado?).
Not to mention a hand-cast pewter hinge, a piece of functional handcraft, has an entirely different meaning in a room that feels like a person's living room than in a cultural institution. Much as I love TWBTA's architecture, the building is going to be institutional, there's no way around it.
yeah remember that getty movie where the real argument was over the color of the rooms? but the color display and space of the collection isn't going to stop some a hole from checking his phone while walking past the van rijn.
the one argument i think you can make is that at least the art will be better preserved.
i also think that accessibility was not the point... there are plenty of places/museums that are inaccessible to the typcal tourist/art historian if you make the assumption that you won't rent a car when visiting.. off the top of my head i'm thinking of places like ronchamp, vitra, many other buildings, the gropius house, the decordova as another museum example (i was thinking boston centric for a sec)... i'm sure there are many other examples
i'm gonna be in philly next weekend..is the barnes still open in its current setting?
Check the website lars - if so, you need to make a reservation tout suite! One writer from a NYC paper said it's an 11 minute train ride from 30th Street Station then a brief walk to the museum, so if you don't have a car you can still do it - as long as you have a reservation.
Oh, and the original Cret building could have been made into a state-of-the-art climate control facility for *significantly* less than the $150 million price tag of the new building. Plus one could add in a dedicated shuttle bus from downtown to the Museum, including operational costs for 50 years, within that budget: parking problem thus entirely mitigated.
Ok, I was in Philly for 5 years, and I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I wonder if it's something I saw, but didn't know what it was, or if I'm really out of the loop.
The guy who cured gonorrhea had a large art collection. Now city of Stealadelphia wants to shit all over his deathbed wishes. The gonorrhea guy was a certified nutcase. His dog would sign rejection letters to people who wished to view his collection, etc...
just walked over and had a fried shrimp po boy. t shirt weather already downhere. which is why i am wearing a fillmore west t shirt featuring the airplane, quicksilver messenter service and lightning hopkins. psychedelic, man.
First of all, Donna said this about the hanging of the art in the new building: "the use of "proper" here really means "as late 20th Century cultural institutions have codified to be the only allowable way".
That's is absolutely, 100% not what the new building is doing. They are recreating the current hang exactly as it exists now. The "properly" that they're referring to is the lighting. They're essentially picking up the footprint of the existing galleries and plopping it down on the Parkway and constructing all of the other features of a modern museum (cafe, shop, major changing exhibition gallery, etc.) around it. The main galleries will be the same size and the art will be hung as it is now. The thing that I think is funny about maintaining the hang exactly as it is is that my understanding is that Mr. Barnes was constantly moving the art around to create different adjacencies, so the fact that it now has to be frozen in time seems antithetical.
For me, the primary argument for the move is economic. Before I moved to Philadelphia, I was intimately involved with the public discussions surrounding the various potential sites for the new art museum in Tampa, so I know a bit about the issues at hand. In my opinion, the current Barnes, which I love, is not economically feasible. The major issue here is the lack of a major changing exhibition gallery, which is the real money maker for museums. Think of it this way... If you're a typical local resident with a passing interest in art, How many times will you visit a museum that you have already visited before if the art on display is exactly the same? Major traveling exhibitions are how museums get locals to make repeat visits. The Barnes doesn't have this now, and it will at the new location. Add to that the location on the Parkway near all of the other major cultural institutions, which gets the tourists in the door and now you have a self-sufficient institution.
One other point is that the most important thing for Mr. Barnes was keeping the collection together. His will allows for the museum board to make changes to the governing rules if it is in the best interest of keeping the collection whole. In my view, that is what the current Barnes Foundation is doing. In order to remain financially solvent, which will allow them to maintain the full collection without having to sell off any pieces, they need a new, more accessible building.
And yes lars, the original building is still open, but as Donna mentioned you need to make a reservation. I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think that the "brief walk" is all that brief.
Actually, just checked google maps, and it is actually pretty close to the train station.
And Donna, updating the Cret building doesn't solve the "repeat visitor problem" that I discuss above.
Finally, one of my biggest questions is what will happen to the Cret building after the move.
Here's a little info on the TWBTA design. The building topped out a few months ago, so it is well on its way to being complete.
You make a lot of really good points, Philip. But I think equally valid arguments can be made against all of them.
Look at that public lobby space in image #8 of your link. Can you, as an architect, say the scale of that space is reminiscent at all of any space in the existing Barnes, and can you say that the sense of place in that space is either?
Have you ever been to a museum where they re-construct a small building within the museum, for example the Japanese tea house at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: would you say that the experience of that building is the same as the experience of going to a tea house in Kyoto, or even of the building at the Shofuso Japanese Garden across town?
Williams says in one interview that moving the Matisse Joy of Life out of a stairwell - where Barnes liked how dynamic the view moving past it was - is one of the few "opportunities" the architects had to make changes to the collection. He really should have picked a better word choice there. That's the main instance, it seems, of contemporary art-viewing mores being applied to the collection. Though they also discussed making all the gallery spaces 10% bigger - and really, while most of the public wouldn't notice that size change, can any architect or art historian say it doesn't matter?
Barnes' stipulations about changing the collection were relevant to the event of the collection being destroyed and what should happen in the aftermath, not about the Board changing things at will. As I understand it, the collection didn't face what could be termed "destruction" due to the Foundation's financial problems, even though Pew spun it that way: Montgomery County had offered a $50 million bond loan that the Board refused to accept, because the Board was in the pocket of Pew and Perelman already.
And as was stated clearly in the movie: no one in the business of receiving charitable donations, including every Museum in the country, has the balls to tell the Pew that they're making a bad decision and risk the resultant blacklisting. God bless Bob Venturi for having the guts to do what no one else would.
rusty, sixty years sure as hell isn't "forever"! And just taking it at the most basic personal level: if you describe in a will exactly what you want, and someone outside your family weasels in and changes it so the results are exactly the opposite of what you spelled out, is that fair or good? In a maybe more relevant example: if you set up a scholarship fund at your alma mater, and write stipulations into the scholarship, then your alma mater a few decades later decides those stipulations are malleable and proceeds to give the scholarship to exactly the kind of student you felt should not qualify, is that fair? Does that honor your memory and gift?
I'm sorry, I know I'm being a blowhard about this,. But it's a stinky, awful business, and the loss, seriously, of a cultural jewel.
I haven't posted in a while, not been it the mood to, but I just have to comment on this Barnes discussion.
A couple of things:
- If you wrote in stone every "original context" for art then you have to practically empty out every f'in US museum and send the stuff back to its original installation in (mostly) Europe and other place in the world as well.
And I know, but it was in his will...well, fuck his will, he was an elitist asshole who was reacting to other elitist assholes by being one himself. And I've looked at and read about his "educational" art ideas: they ain't that great (and the educational program will be maintained anyway).
- The museum, already in a well hidden nook of a suburb of Philadelphia, was made even more inaccessible by the foundation itself and the neighbors. Insufficient parking was provided for the amount of visitors, and when people parked on the street, the neighbors freaked out (the houses there are very large and have their own driveways anyway, so it's not like they needed the spaces), and even initiated lawsuits to stop the street parking.
And, oh yea, the train. You get off the station and are then lost in a first ring suburban neighborhood of only houses and there is no, I repeat, NO signs to tell you where the Barnes is (I speak from experience). So you basically have one of the most amazing art collections in the US and most people don't know where it is, and if they do know they can't park there or easily find it from the train.
I understand Lars' point about other not very accessible art destinations, but the people running the place and the neighbors went out of their way to make it inaccessible and then wept crocodile tears when it was taken from them. And Donna's shuttle bus idea would have been good, but it would have never happened: it would have gone against the, like, ten tickets that the Barnes allotted daily and would have allowed the uninformed, smelly hordes from the city to invade their sacred space.
- The B.F. Parkway, where the TWBTA design is going up now, is already a museum boulevard, with the Rodin Museum next to the new Barnes, several other civic museums, the main city library, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the hill at the end. The Barnes will fit in very well.
- The original building isn't going anywhere: it has a wonderful garden which will remain and people will still be able to visit and I've read that exhibitions and maybe classes will still happen inside the building.
The "central facts of the movie" are not indisputable: it was made by those opposed to the move and the movie has been disputed by people who are much more involved in the issue than me, and intelligently too, and anyway, the point is moot, because the collection is moving. To say that this move is a despicable act is ludicrous: the city will have another world class museum in the city center, in a new building by world class architects, and many people will be able to see the collection with ease, and Merion will lose something that they acted like they didn't want anyway, or wanted to keep secret. I love many of the great collections in homes I've been to, but this one might as well have been locked up in a morgue. I'm perfectly OK with the move.
i think that 'properly' (as in the lighting) is what LB was talking about too...is it necessary for every museum to have the same lighting? (i for one have a lot of trouble with most museum lighting..i don't know if i'm taller than the average visitor, but i feel like most times paintings have a glare or i'm staring into a light)
i think the documentary does go into the finances phil... the collection could have remained where it was and remained financially viable... although the city of philadelphia made sure they did everything in their power to make sure that it couldn't be... zoning, no parking, etc.. the trust if i recall correctly spent their money on lawsuits and such because the collection was hugely popular with tour buses...and if reservations are required... well wouldn't that tell you how popular it STILL is?
it's not like this collection is bereft of visitors..although maybe more people are visiting now since it's moving.
i guess what angers me is that it seems as though people made sure the trust didn't make enough money and also allowed the building to go into disrepair specifically so that they could steal/move the collection and the fact that they're specifically going against a dead man's wishes... that of not bringing the collection into philadelphia.
i'm sure TWBTA will do a nice building..but it just won't compare i don't think... although i've not been... i have been to places like the frick (yes easily accessible) but the experience of the house is half of the visit... the craftsmanship can not be replicated today..or won't be. i think of museums like mass moca, beacon dia, or places like the villa rotonda, villa maser etc
the journey becomes part of the experience...and adds to it... there are thousands of museums within city limits..is it that painful to have a few that aren't typical? i feel as architects we should be exploring this exploration/travel etc...some places are worth going to see.
Donna, dd you just seriously aks me how I would feel about events that happen after my death? I would send down an earthquake. Just cause.
Also, it's bad enough that we have to absorb tyranny of the living. Now the dead too? Rich guy spent his fortune collecting art. Great! Moving the collection to the city isn't exactly the same as the British pillaging half the Greek and Egyptian antiquity. Perspective pls...
Donna, I posted mine before looking at your last one.
I'm sorry, I've lived in Philly a very long time, and I just don't agree with this being "a stinky, awful business, and the loss, seriously, of a cultural jewel". Just the opposite, I think it's the gaining of a new jewel.
And yes, any time any art or artifact is moved from its orginal context, something of the original is lost, but then you have to do away with the idea of the museum itself, and keep everything where it first was...and then, by extension, Barnes shouldn't have taken the paintings he bought out of the artist's studios, or other private collections they might have been in originally. Sorry, as quirky as the Barnes is/was, I'm not shedding any tears over this one.
It is amazing what a few extra bucks in your pocket will do. Yes help to define an Insular America. You think ole Mr. Barnes was full tilt on having the inner city youth be educated about art? Something tells me he was thinking about all those kids in the neighborhood, and not those on the trolley line in Philly.
Snook, that's what most people here and in general don't get. Yes, people like Frick, Morgan, and Carnegie were robber barons who plundered world art, but at least, once they got it to the US, they wanted the art to be seen in museums (eventually).
Barnes didn't just want to lock his art away from Philadelphia society: he didn't care for most people, and to see his art you basically had to agree with his philosophy of art or take his classes.
What his will really institutionalized is an elitist, defensive attitude that the Foundation perpetuated. And I know this not just from readings, but from personally experiencing the vibes of the "staff" at the Barnes, who mostly made you feel like you were an unwashed intruder who would damage their precious art and building by your very presence.
And Venturi's point about divorcing the art from Cret's building has a point, but, with today's reproduction technology, you could probably have a really good copy of every single painting up exactly where it is now and I'll bet 90% of the visitors would never even know the difference (and, YES, that last statement is a dig at the visitors who go there NOW, to counterbalance all the insensitive digs made at all the people who will see the collection when it's on the Parkway, because, you know, they're only going to walk in there between bites of their cheesesteaks and then burp and walk out again).
i had only briefly heard about this story, thanks for the link to the film donna.
i agree with both sides. but not because i think it shouldn't be moved, that doesn't bug me at all, since i am simply not nostalgic and don't believe the past has too many rights in the face of the present (blame it on the zen).
BUT, that TWBTA design is just banal and nowhere close to being as intimate and as interesting as the current set up. I think they are too caught up with their own shit to do the job justice. they have to stop trying so hard.
too bad its a done deal.
@melt, yes i sent my kids to the other side of the mountains (facing korea) where things are safe. my wife and i are still in tokyo, keeping an eye on the news and trying to continue our work. it is a bit difficult to ignore the whole deal, but in the face of what the folks are enduring up north we would be pretty petty to complain about much. it is a very sad thing but aid workers are not coming to help because of the hysteria that has been whipped up by the bloody news agencies in the west.
It's bloody amazing how they can turn even potentially good news into a disaster headline.
Even NBC who i generally like, is full of it. Except for Rachel Maddow, interestingly enough. I tell ya, i don't agree with everything she says but my respect for her has gone way up. Since yesterday I just keep an eye on BBC updates through twitter and such and shut off the TV. it's quite something that a tv screen can be so thin but contain such endless depths of bullshit. how does it all fit in there?
Jump, TWBT had certain design restraints, like recreating the Barnes layout exactly (they also mimic the proportions and locations of the windows in the "Barnes" section of the building, but I'm not sure if that was in specifically requested). I have a few disagreements with the design, but I'll make up my mind on the building once I see it.
Glad to hear your family is safe, Jump, much more important than museums. What is the latest news you're getting there on the power plants? (just curious to compare with our "disaster" headlines).
Emilio, i lived in Philly for ten years as the controversy raged, I did go to the Barnes and certainly didn't have a problem with snotty staff despite the fact that I had my 6-month old child strapped to my chest while I was there, and I've personally engaged on a professional level with several of the people involved in this "theft" and thus know them to actually be power-hungry, greedy, culturally ignorant assholes - they're not just being portrayed that way for the controversy in the movie.
The TWBTA building looks, even though I love their work, banal and unmemorable, and it's yet one more bland platter laid out on the buffet of the Ben Franklin Parkway, which is one of the most culturally UNinspiring places in the city. Thank god it backs up to the Whole Foods!
But as you say, it's a done deal. Maybe some good will come from it; maybe it's valuable to the world to have those masterpieces be accessible to "everyone" who can't seem to manage the formality required of making a dinner reservation (As if the new staff won't be snotty to the largely African American student tour groups that will parade through it now? Come on.).
But it's a done deal. It saddens me because it seems like yet more homogenization of American culture, not only in Philly: Love Park, a destination for counter culture, is much lessened; Starbucks is everywhere and Olive Garden is practically on Broad Street; every big museum is so busy booking blockbusters that they can't find money for emerging artists. What's left anymore that is quirky? Even graffiti is being sold at Sotheby's. As graduate of Cranbrook, one of the most unique, individual visions ever created, I shiver when I imagine that legacy being tossed aside by an insensitive board of directors.
And seriously: anyone who says that an original physical experience can really truly ever be replicated in a new location is ignoring a huge part of their education as an architect. Place matters, and if place stops mattering, then we don't need this field anyway.
Well, I made an attempt to make those "who will see the Barnes now" comments seem elitist and misplaced, but you see to like them. Yes, I guess they will all be types who "can't seem to manage the formality required of making a dinner reservation" and, as you said in your post to the Venturi article, they'll just pop in after shopping at Whole Foods. Look, I like what you have to say at Archinect and you contribute way more than me, and you outed yourself and all, but I gotta say this: that's just elitist, insensitive bullshit. When you travel to Paris, or Madrid, or London and find a very nice museum that just happens to be in the path of your walk and go inside and find a treasure of art inside, do you consider yourself and uncouth and in a hurry? I see people at the Barnes and I see people in EVERY other museum and some look like they gotta get back to their I-phone quick and others are looking at and appreciting the art...there's no ALL, anywhere.
And I appreciate your point about place, and some places ARE special, but my point above was that the Barnes was mostly elitism in a special place. And I don't really give a shit what the Pew people or the others you talk about are like: sometimes even assholes have a good result, in spite of themselves.
Also, enough about "we must keep things as they are", which architects just can't get enough of. I saw the Barnes paintings when they traveled in another venue, and it was SO REFRESHING to see them on new walls, out of some of those dim rooms, without eight or ten other paintings crowded around them, without being distracted by those idiotic pieces of hardware, and yes, in those new modern spaces. Hell, I would have broken the Will completely and not reproduced the hanging from the old one in the new building. I would hang them in an ever changing manner...even surround them with paintings NOT from the Barnes, so that people who really cared would have to do their homework and find out which ones are the original Barnes paintings...how's that for some learning. Oh, and I would store about 80% of those goddam pink flesh Renoirs away, never to be seen.
So, I have not seen the documentary "Art of the Steal". However, as a Philadelphian living close enough to pass by the new Barnes location as it is being constructed -even today-, having done the "new Barnes Museum" as a school project 8 years ago on that same site in which I argued it shouldn't be moved (I proposed creating a system of a rotation of paintings), having seen TWBT talk about this project a couple weeks ago at the Center for Architecture, I do have an opinion to add.
TWBT is, indeed, moving the entire collection - as is - into the new building which is IMO better than the existing. The difference in appearance and scale is from the fact that there is a significant portion that is semi-detached that contains additional program. So how do I define better? It has a better quality of light, a more balanced approach how light gets into the museum spaces. As much as I respect Cret and his works, this is better as a museum. The building isn't replicating the exact details, but the architects have addressed all of them, down to the decorative molding.
I can't speak for the people involved specifically, but my general observations have been that many people of power got there BY being a sociopath. In fact -this is a bit irresponsible to say- I remember reading/hearing that the higher the corporate ladder you look, the more sociopathic behavior you see.
I can see how it is so wrong to go against a person's will as written. But I can also see how the intent and context of that will can change over time. Definitively, I can only say that I think it is a better museum. TWBT or not. The fact that "The Art of the Steal" is a documentary also does not exclude the possibility that it could have a bias and/or an agenda. Actually, the title and trailer turned me off when it first came out, even though I've always been sympathetic to keeping it where it is.
@emelio, as far as disasters go we are either all go to die (CNN keeps tellin my mom this), or the power line that is being connected today will actually work. There are lots of efforts going on right now. I am hoping some of them will work. Beyond that is all speculation.
The real disaster as far as i can tell is that aid workers are too scared to come here nevermind that the real damage is hundreds of kilometres away from the nuclear problem in many cases. thanks cnn. i am really pissed off about them. even if they had their facts straight there is no need to cause panic. but japan is used to coping. they/we will get out alright.
about barnes, i understood that TWBTA had constraints, but looks like they spent most of their efforts trying to ensure that the place came off as something ”designed” instead of good, and it instead just comes off as another generic series of boxes. the sense of place that donna talks about is replaced with a non-place. that is not good architecture to me.
i am a bit of a nihilist when it comes to buildings. i don't believe in continuity really, or at least not of objects. i am more interested in continuation of ideas, and that means things/places/buildings adapt and change. but in this case it looks like the building is not particularly worth changing FOR. apologies to TWBSA, because in general they are quite good in my book. and who knows, maybe it will be a better building in reality than the renders indicate...
Donna, I was particularly responding to that one attitude towards the future visitors to the new building, which you are not the only one making, which I think is a wrongheaded attitude. What, the people who go to the Barnes in Merion are paragons of creation because they can take a stupid train or drive their polluting rental cars there? Give me a break. That attitude is very close to "if I go to a museum, I am a sophisticated appreciator of culture, I have searched it out...everyone else that goes is the goddam rabble". To me it smells very much of not liking the move, so then indicting the whole culture and anyone who is willing to walk inside the new museum as philistines and lazy asses just to prove that it's a bad move.
Jump, I am not at all sure that the design is a generic series of boxes, I don't see it as generic at all, particularly for Philadelphia, but since I can actually go see the building when it opens, I'll see then.
Ok, I have hijacked this thread enough. I actually really love the kind of museum that the present Barnes is (if the Frick was ever to burn down or close, I would go into long mourning), and I like the Barnes now, paintings, building, grounds, and all (well, maybe not the Renoirs) but to me it was a treasure in a toxic pool, kept from being appreciated by wills and infighting and lawsuits and elitism and all kinds of other shit, and, unlike some here, I don't think things would or could have been changed very easily: I think the collection has finally been freed.
Yea, Jump, I can't make heads or tails of what's REALLY going on with the reactors by listening to the news; I hope they stabilize and everything is OK in the end.
Well let me just clarify, then we can agree to disagree: when I referenced school groups of African American kids, I obviously didn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to come in, and I'd hope I'd get credit from my typical posts here that I'm not against cultural institutions being available to all. (The increased access for school groups may be one of few positive aspects to this whole fiasco that I can appreciate.)
I meant that moving the Barnes to the city isn't going to magically make all the docents there all smiley and warm and let everyone touch the art and take family photos ion front of it (going to your point that the Barnes docents were snotty). It may be more physically accessible, but it's still an art museum (not to mention in Philly, where major attitude is a source of pride), and yeah, how many people are just going to wander past really only paying attention to their iPhones anyway? Lots.
And I'm trying to say that making a phone call, getting some tickets, and taking a short trip out of downtown is not that difficult, it's really not, especially if one is already someone who likes to look at art. Certainly anyone making a trip to Philly from NYC won't find it a big hassle to get to Merion. Someone who isn't interested in art anyway isn't likely to wander in to this museum and be transformed - they'll be running up the PMA steps and doing the Rocky pose.
i think that we all know that you can't judge a building by its renderings... i think that this is particularly true of work in the vein of twbta that relies so much on materiality... i've seen the mockups of the stone rainscreen system and the sensitivity with which it was designed... i trust that the building will be beautiful once complete, but have to withhold judgment until it opens... my biggest complaint about the design is that it doesn't address the parkway very well...
I really wish wealthy people would go back to commissioning really big statues and monuments to/of themselves rather than collecting a bunch of objects of themselves.
I've always said that if I was a billionaire, I'd put a nude statue of myself in New York harbor twice the size of Liberty. And I'd have my ass point towards the sea.
Gold leafed, too. Can't have my baby rusting out. What I'm really saying is that the world would be more interesting with more arches, obelisks and colossuses than it would be with stuff art museums.
Every patch of grass, alley way, roadway and staircase would be a stage of narcissism!
it looks like they are trying to be starchitect-y interesting and mildly spectacular with the big glass block and all that, but its not much of a space on the inside according to the renders. i guess anything looks better if its finished with stone. maybe this will too. I think it would be a better building if they tried to design places instead of spectacles, but it isn't really in their makeup.
...i just took another look at their website. nope it pretty much looks like a shopping mall, maybe an ambitious one by jon jerde. except that jerde is great at place making.
well anyway, it does seem a bit of a pity. i don't think they are getting the best from their architects.
Getting the Best from ones Architect is tricky! Think about it. Which Client in your past has gotten the best from you? Have they wrapped you up in political agendas, financial follies, cultural miss steps, technical overloads? I can only imagine a museum design to be most difficult of course after having so many wonderful museums designed over the past 400 years. A museum can be so many different experiences beyond the art. It doesn't have to be the same experience in every museum. Oh, I'm sure the people of Philly, will for years blast this new museum, just because it is not the same as the old museum. The new museum sounds a bit like it is certainly a reflection of America today. Maybe that is not such a bad idea, because fifty years from now someone will once again decide we were in a real bad place at this moment of the Universe.
Thread Central
touche.
jump - did you end up actually taking your family out of Tokyo? If so, I hope things where you are are slightly less chaotic.
I survived the day. Ended it hanging out with two of my girlfriends, some greasy food and large glass of wine.
Nite all. Off for some much needed rest so that I can do it all again tomorrow :o/
Pub from 2-3:30, then walked the dog during Angus' swim class. Then stayed on at the pool for an Irish dinner. Then watched Art of the Steal, and now I'm sick to my stomach: NOT from the beer or corned beef. The history of the Barnes Foundation is so awful, and I'm pissed at Pew now. Which is sad because I've always liked them.
oh donna, don't be too pissed at pew because of that damn movie... it's a total hatchet job that only tells one very slanted side of the story... either way, it's certainly a sordid, f'ed up history though... i'm really looking forward to seeing the new building completed... i'm sure that tod and billie are doing a fantastic job...
toast and I was thinking you wanted to look a bit Irish for the Holiday:
oops missed that copyright....this isn't for profit...it is just for fun!
You know, Phillip, the movie just reminded me of this particularly nasty ethos in Philly. I've only met a few major power brokers in Indy, and most of them have been either completely lovely people or at least somewhat nice.
Every powerful person I met in Philly was at deep center an utter asshole - really sociopathically so. One of the people I've met was in that movie (not Rendell, for whom I still have a deep affection even though I know he's probably as bad as all the rest), and several people not in the movie who were behind the scenes I dealt with in person, and the movie just showed my experience of them as power-hungry assholes to have been characteristic. Really sad. But maybe to become powerful being an asshole is a prerequisite? Does that mean it's OK to destroy a cultural treasure (which, no mistake, the Barnes is/was)?
I'm glad I got to see the Barnes as it was intended. And as I said when TWBTA was announced as the architect of the new building, if the collection *has* to move (which it absolutely did not and which goes completely against the wishes of Albert Barnes, there's absolutely no denying that, not to mention the movie didn't touch deeply on the major racial aspect of the whole contretemps), then there's no architect aside from maybe Zumthor that I would trust to do a decent job with the design more than TWBTA.
That said, I haven't seen anything beyond the original announcement of the design, as panned by Oroussoff, so I still can't form an opinion on the building, just the move.
i think i'd also trust herzog de meuron... and maybe ando...but it's definitely a short list..
i'm interested in hearing how someone could defend the barnes collection being moved... the central facts of the movie seem to be indisputable.. even if other portions are skewed.
i haven't seen the film. i have been to philly once. i definitely knew about the barnes and wanted to visit, however, time and distance didn't allow a visit. i also think they were closed for some reason anyway. so, on one hand i can see why a movement to make the collection more accessible to the philadelphia tourist and daytripper would make a great deal of sense. i don't know anything about the politics of the matter though. a trend exists though where universities with substantial works of art are selling them off to pay for the daily operatons of the uni.
post script...couldn't there continue to be the barnes as it is now AND open a downtown branch that would show significant works from the collection?
vado
barnes' will specifically stated
1. that the collection was to stay in tact... i.e. not be separated...
2. that the collection never move into the city... he didn't want the collection to make money for the city... his interest was in teaching people about art..not catering to tourists.
3. he wanted the collection to have the adjacencies that he had in his house...so that the collection would be seen as he set them up.
to me it's like breaking up the frick or gardner collections... seeing those spaces and their associated paintings is a special experience that i don't think can be replicated with modern architecture.
well thats great except if you can't get to it then you can't experience it. as was the case with me. the gardner and the frick are more accessible. and i'm not really a tourist i got me a art history degree!
I just re-read a WashPost article interviewing Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, and they said something that many, many others have said during this fiasco: that a new facility will allow the paintings to be "viewed properly". But the use of "proper" here really means "as late 20th Century cultural institutions have codified to be the only allowable way".
These days, we're used to seeing a paintings on a big white wall, so seeing them in a dusky parlor doesn't feel "right". That wasn't Barnes' intent, that wasn't what he (collaborating with John Dewey) felt was the most meaningful way to see *this* art, and it certainly wasn't the way in which most art was viewed at the time (am I right, vado?).
Not to mention a hand-cast pewter hinge, a piece of functional handcraft, has an entirely different meaning in a room that feels like a person's living room than in a cultural institution. Much as I love TWBTA's architecture, the building is going to be institutional, there's no way around it.
yeah remember that getty movie where the real argument was over the color of the rooms? but the color display and space of the collection isn't going to stop some a hole from checking his phone while walking past the van rijn.
the one argument i think you can make is that at least the art will be better preserved.
i also think that accessibility was not the point... there are plenty of places/museums that are inaccessible to the typcal tourist/art historian if you make the assumption that you won't rent a car when visiting.. off the top of my head i'm thinking of places like ronchamp, vitra, many other buildings, the gropius house, the decordova as another museum example (i was thinking boston centric for a sec)... i'm sure there are many other examples
i'm gonna be in philly next weekend..is the barnes still open in its current setting?
Check the website lars - if so, you need to make a reservation tout suite! One writer from a NYC paper said it's an 11 minute train ride from 30th Street Station then a brief walk to the museum, so if you don't have a car you can still do it - as long as you have a reservation.
Oh, and the original Cret building could have been made into a state-of-the-art climate control facility for *significantly* less than the $150 million price tag of the new building. Plus one could add in a dedicated shuttle bus from downtown to the Museum, including operational costs for 50 years, within that budget: parking problem thus entirely mitigated.
Yes, Paul Philippe Cret.
tawkin 'bout philly:
my boss is presenting today at penn. hope folks can make it...
good to know donna... my point was intended to be that every place is accessible if you put in a little bit of effort.
and i agree..the current space could have been made to work... i find the whole thing to be despicable...
good to know about the reservations..i will have a car so that'll work.
Ok, I was in Philly for 5 years, and I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I wonder if it's something I saw, but didn't know what it was, or if I'm really out of the loop.
Sarah, lemme explain.
The guy who cured gonorrhea had a large art collection. Now city of Stealadelphia wants to shit all over his deathbed wishes. The gonorrhea guy was a certified nutcase. His dog would sign rejection letters to people who wished to view his collection, etc...
ugh,
that wasn't much of an explanation. Sorry.
happy Friday to all!
just walked over and had a fried shrimp po boy. t shirt weather already downhere. which is why i am wearing a fillmore west t shirt featuring the airplane, quicksilver messenter service and lightning hopkins. psychedelic, man.
OK, here's my take on it...
First of all, Donna said this about the hanging of the art in the new building: "the use of "proper" here really means "as late 20th Century cultural institutions have codified to be the only allowable way".
That's is absolutely, 100% not what the new building is doing. They are recreating the current hang exactly as it exists now. The "properly" that they're referring to is the lighting. They're essentially picking up the footprint of the existing galleries and plopping it down on the Parkway and constructing all of the other features of a modern museum (cafe, shop, major changing exhibition gallery, etc.) around it. The main galleries will be the same size and the art will be hung as it is now. The thing that I think is funny about maintaining the hang exactly as it is is that my understanding is that Mr. Barnes was constantly moving the art around to create different adjacencies, so the fact that it now has to be frozen in time seems antithetical.
For me, the primary argument for the move is economic. Before I moved to Philadelphia, I was intimately involved with the public discussions surrounding the various potential sites for the new art museum in Tampa, so I know a bit about the issues at hand. In my opinion, the current Barnes, which I love, is not economically feasible. The major issue here is the lack of a major changing exhibition gallery, which is the real money maker for museums. Think of it this way... If you're a typical local resident with a passing interest in art, How many times will you visit a museum that you have already visited before if the art on display is exactly the same? Major traveling exhibitions are how museums get locals to make repeat visits. The Barnes doesn't have this now, and it will at the new location. Add to that the location on the Parkway near all of the other major cultural institutions, which gets the tourists in the door and now you have a self-sufficient institution.
One other point is that the most important thing for Mr. Barnes was keeping the collection together. His will allows for the museum board to make changes to the governing rules if it is in the best interest of keeping the collection whole. In my view, that is what the current Barnes Foundation is doing. In order to remain financially solvent, which will allow them to maintain the full collection without having to sell off any pieces, they need a new, more accessible building.
And yes lars, the original building is still open, but as Donna mentioned you need to make a reservation. I'm not 100% sure, but i don't think that the "brief walk" is all that brief.
Actually, just checked google maps, and it is actually pretty close to the train station.
And Donna, updating the Cret building doesn't solve the "repeat visitor problem" that I discuss above.
Finally, one of my biggest questions is what will happen to the Cret building after the move.
Here's a little info on the TWBTA design. The building topped out a few months ago, so it is well on its way to being complete.
Also Phillip, Albert Barnes has been dead for 60 years now. I bet everyone in the foundation is less than 60 years old.
His wishes were respected for what seems like forever. Good job! Now it's time to move on.
You make a lot of really good points, Philip. But I think equally valid arguments can be made against all of them.
Look at that public lobby space in image #8 of your link. Can you, as an architect, say the scale of that space is reminiscent at all of any space in the existing Barnes, and can you say that the sense of place in that space is either?
Have you ever been to a museum where they re-construct a small building within the museum, for example the Japanese tea house at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: would you say that the experience of that building is the same as the experience of going to a tea house in Kyoto, or even of the building at the Shofuso Japanese Garden across town?
Williams says in one interview that moving the Matisse Joy of Life out of a stairwell - where Barnes liked how dynamic the view moving past it was - is one of the few "opportunities" the architects had to make changes to the collection. He really should have picked a better word choice there. That's the main instance, it seems, of contemporary art-viewing mores being applied to the collection. Though they also discussed making all the gallery spaces 10% bigger - and really, while most of the public wouldn't notice that size change, can any architect or art historian say it doesn't matter?
Barnes' stipulations about changing the collection were relevant to the event of the collection being destroyed and what should happen in the aftermath, not about the Board changing things at will. As I understand it, the collection didn't face what could be termed "destruction" due to the Foundation's financial problems, even though Pew spun it that way: Montgomery County had offered a $50 million bond loan that the Board refused to accept, because the Board was in the pocket of Pew and Perelman already.
And as was stated clearly in the movie: no one in the business of receiving charitable donations, including every Museum in the country, has the balls to tell the Pew that they're making a bad decision and risk the resultant blacklisting. God bless Bob Venturi for having the guts to do what no one else would.
rusty, sixty years sure as hell isn't "forever"! And just taking it at the most basic personal level: if you describe in a will exactly what you want, and someone outside your family weasels in and changes it so the results are exactly the opposite of what you spelled out, is that fair or good? In a maybe more relevant example: if you set up a scholarship fund at your alma mater, and write stipulations into the scholarship, then your alma mater a few decades later decides those stipulations are malleable and proceeds to give the scholarship to exactly the kind of student you felt should not qualify, is that fair? Does that honor your memory and gift?
I'm sorry, I know I'm being a blowhard about this,. But it's a stinky, awful business, and the loss, seriously, of a cultural jewel.
I haven't posted in a while, not been it the mood to, but I just have to comment on this Barnes discussion.
A couple of things:
- If you wrote in stone every "original context" for art then you have to practically empty out every f'in US museum and send the stuff back to its original installation in (mostly) Europe and other place in the world as well.
And I know, but it was in his will...well, fuck his will, he was an elitist asshole who was reacting to other elitist assholes by being one himself. And I've looked at and read about his "educational" art ideas: they ain't that great (and the educational program will be maintained anyway).
- The museum, already in a well hidden nook of a suburb of Philadelphia, was made even more inaccessible by the foundation itself and the neighbors. Insufficient parking was provided for the amount of visitors, and when people parked on the street, the neighbors freaked out (the houses there are very large and have their own driveways anyway, so it's not like they needed the spaces), and even initiated lawsuits to stop the street parking.
And, oh yea, the train. You get off the station and are then lost in a first ring suburban neighborhood of only houses and there is no, I repeat, NO signs to tell you where the Barnes is (I speak from experience). So you basically have one of the most amazing art collections in the US and most people don't know where it is, and if they do know they can't park there or easily find it from the train.
I understand Lars' point about other not very accessible art destinations, but the people running the place and the neighbors went out of their way to make it inaccessible and then wept crocodile tears when it was taken from them. And Donna's shuttle bus idea would have been good, but it would have never happened: it would have gone against the, like, ten tickets that the Barnes allotted daily and would have allowed the uninformed, smelly hordes from the city to invade their sacred space.
- The B.F. Parkway, where the TWBTA design is going up now, is already a museum boulevard, with the Rodin Museum next to the new Barnes, several other civic museums, the main city library, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the hill at the end. The Barnes will fit in very well.
- The original building isn't going anywhere: it has a wonderful garden which will remain and people will still be able to visit and I've read that exhibitions and maybe classes will still happen inside the building.
The "central facts of the movie" are not indisputable: it was made by those opposed to the move and the movie has been disputed by people who are much more involved in the issue than me, and intelligently too, and anyway, the point is moot, because the collection is moving. To say that this move is a despicable act is ludicrous: the city will have another world class museum in the city center, in a new building by world class architects, and many people will be able to see the collection with ease, and Merion will lose something that they acted like they didn't want anyway, or wanted to keep secret. I love many of the great collections in homes I've been to, but this one might as well have been locked up in a morgue. I'm perfectly OK with the move.
i think that 'properly' (as in the lighting) is what LB was talking about too...is it necessary for every museum to have the same lighting? (i for one have a lot of trouble with most museum lighting..i don't know if i'm taller than the average visitor, but i feel like most times paintings have a glare or i'm staring into a light)
i think the documentary does go into the finances phil... the collection could have remained where it was and remained financially viable... although the city of philadelphia made sure they did everything in their power to make sure that it couldn't be... zoning, no parking, etc.. the trust if i recall correctly spent their money on lawsuits and such because the collection was hugely popular with tour buses...and if reservations are required... well wouldn't that tell you how popular it STILL is?
it's not like this collection is bereft of visitors..although maybe more people are visiting now since it's moving.
i guess what angers me is that it seems as though people made sure the trust didn't make enough money and also allowed the building to go into disrepair specifically so that they could steal/move the collection and the fact that they're specifically going against a dead man's wishes... that of not bringing the collection into philadelphia.
i'm sure TWBTA will do a nice building..but it just won't compare i don't think... although i've not been... i have been to places like the frick (yes easily accessible) but the experience of the house is half of the visit... the craftsmanship can not be replicated today..or won't be. i think of museums like mass moca, beacon dia, or places like the villa rotonda, villa maser etc
the journey becomes part of the experience...and adds to it... there are thousands of museums within city limits..is it that painful to have a few that aren't typical? i feel as architects we should be exploring this exploration/travel etc...some places are worth going to see.
Donna, dd you just seriously aks me how I would feel about events that happen after my death? I would send down an earthquake. Just cause.
Also, it's bad enough that we have to absorb tyranny of the living. Now the dead too? Rich guy spent his fortune collecting art. Great! Moving the collection to the city isn't exactly the same as the British pillaging half the Greek and Egyptian antiquity. Perspective pls...
Donna, I posted mine before looking at your last one.
I'm sorry, I've lived in Philly a very long time, and I just don't agree with this being "a stinky, awful business, and the loss, seriously, of a cultural jewel". Just the opposite, I think it's the gaining of a new jewel.
And yes, any time any art or artifact is moved from its orginal context, something of the original is lost, but then you have to do away with the idea of the museum itself, and keep everything where it first was...and then, by extension, Barnes shouldn't have taken the paintings he bought out of the artist's studios, or other private collections they might have been in originally. Sorry, as quirky as the Barnes is/was, I'm not shedding any tears over this one.
And I like Venturi, but he's just wrong on this one.
It is amazing what a few extra bucks in your pocket will do. Yes help to define an Insular America. You think ole Mr. Barnes was full tilt on having the inner city youth be educated about art? Something tells me he was thinking about all those kids in the neighborhood, and not those on the trolley line in Philly.
Snook, that's what most people here and in general don't get. Yes, people like Frick, Morgan, and Carnegie were robber barons who plundered world art, but at least, once they got it to the US, they wanted the art to be seen in museums (eventually).
Barnes didn't just want to lock his art away from Philadelphia society: he didn't care for most people, and to see his art you basically had to agree with his philosophy of art or take his classes.
What his will really institutionalized is an elitist, defensive attitude that the Foundation perpetuated. And I know this not just from readings, but from personally experiencing the vibes of the "staff" at the Barnes, who mostly made you feel like you were an unwashed intruder who would damage their precious art and building by your very presence.
And Venturi's point about divorcing the art from Cret's building has a point, but, with today's reproduction technology, you could probably have a really good copy of every single painting up exactly where it is now and I'll bet 90% of the visitors would never even know the difference (and, YES, that last statement is a dig at the visitors who go there NOW, to counterbalance all the insensitive digs made at all the people who will see the collection when it's on the Parkway, because, you know, they're only going to walk in there between bites of their cheesesteaks and then burp and walk out again).
i had only briefly heard about this story, thanks for the link to the film donna.
i agree with both sides. but not because i think it shouldn't be moved, that doesn't bug me at all, since i am simply not nostalgic and don't believe the past has too many rights in the face of the present (blame it on the zen).
BUT, that TWBTA design is just banal and nowhere close to being as intimate and as interesting as the current set up. I think they are too caught up with their own shit to do the job justice. they have to stop trying so hard.
too bad its a done deal.
@melt, yes i sent my kids to the other side of the mountains (facing korea) where things are safe. my wife and i are still in tokyo, keeping an eye on the news and trying to continue our work. it is a bit difficult to ignore the whole deal, but in the face of what the folks are enduring up north we would be pretty petty to complain about much. it is a very sad thing but aid workers are not coming to help because of the hysteria that has been whipped up by the bloody news agencies in the west.
It's bloody amazing how they can turn even potentially good news into a disaster headline.
Even NBC who i generally like, is full of it. Except for Rachel Maddow, interestingly enough. I tell ya, i don't agree with everything she says but my respect for her has gone way up. Since yesterday I just keep an eye on BBC updates through twitter and such and shut off the TV. it's quite something that a tv screen can be so thin but contain such endless depths of bullshit. how does it all fit in there?
Jump, TWBT had certain design restraints, like recreating the Barnes layout exactly (they also mimic the proportions and locations of the windows in the "Barnes" section of the building, but I'm not sure if that was in specifically requested). I have a few disagreements with the design, but I'll make up my mind on the building once I see it.
Glad to hear your family is safe, Jump, much more important than museums. What is the latest news you're getting there on the power plants? (just curious to compare with our "disaster" headlines).
Emilio, i lived in Philly for ten years as the controversy raged, I did go to the Barnes and certainly didn't have a problem with snotty staff despite the fact that I had my 6-month old child strapped to my chest while I was there, and I've personally engaged on a professional level with several of the people involved in this "theft" and thus know them to actually be power-hungry, greedy, culturally ignorant assholes - they're not just being portrayed that way for the controversy in the movie.
The TWBTA building looks, even though I love their work, banal and unmemorable, and it's yet one more bland platter laid out on the buffet of the Ben Franklin Parkway, which is one of the most culturally UNinspiring places in the city. Thank god it backs up to the Whole Foods!
But as you say, it's a done deal. Maybe some good will come from it; maybe it's valuable to the world to have those masterpieces be accessible to "everyone" who can't seem to manage the formality required of making a dinner reservation (As if the new staff won't be snotty to the largely African American student tour groups that will parade through it now? Come on.).
But it's a done deal. It saddens me because it seems like yet more homogenization of American culture, not only in Philly: Love Park, a destination for counter culture, is much lessened; Starbucks is everywhere and Olive Garden is practically on Broad Street; every big museum is so busy booking blockbusters that they can't find money for emerging artists. What's left anymore that is quirky? Even graffiti is being sold at Sotheby's. As graduate of Cranbrook, one of the most unique, individual visions ever created, I shiver when I imagine that legacy being tossed aside by an insensitive board of directors.
And seriously: anyone who says that an original physical experience can really truly ever be replicated in a new location is ignoring a huge part of their education as an architect. Place matters, and if place stops mattering, then we don't need this field anyway.
You know that saying that to a hammer every problem looks like a nail? We're architects, but every solution doesn't have to be a new building.
Well, I made an attempt to make those "who will see the Barnes now" comments seem elitist and misplaced, but you see to like them. Yes, I guess they will all be types who "can't seem to manage the formality required of making a dinner reservation" and, as you said in your post to the Venturi article, they'll just pop in after shopping at Whole Foods. Look, I like what you have to say at Archinect and you contribute way more than me, and you outed yourself and all, but I gotta say this: that's just elitist, insensitive bullshit. When you travel to Paris, or Madrid, or London and find a very nice museum that just happens to be in the path of your walk and go inside and find a treasure of art inside, do you consider yourself and uncouth and in a hurry? I see people at the Barnes and I see people in EVERY other museum and some look like they gotta get back to their I-phone quick and others are looking at and appreciting the art...there's no ALL, anywhere.
And I appreciate your point about place, and some places ARE special, but my point above was that the Barnes was mostly elitism in a special place. And I don't really give a shit what the Pew people or the others you talk about are like: sometimes even assholes have a good result, in spite of themselves.
Also, enough about "we must keep things as they are", which architects just can't get enough of. I saw the Barnes paintings when they traveled in another venue, and it was SO REFRESHING to see them on new walls, out of some of those dim rooms, without eight or ten other paintings crowded around them, without being distracted by those idiotic pieces of hardware, and yes, in those new modern spaces. Hell, I would have broken the Will completely and not reproduced the hanging from the old one in the new building. I would hang them in an ever changing manner...even surround them with paintings NOT from the Barnes, so that people who really cared would have to do their homework and find out which ones are the original Barnes paintings...how's that for some learning. Oh, and I would store about 80% of those goddam pink flesh Renoirs away, never to be seen.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzz
So, I have not seen the documentary "Art of the Steal". However, as a Philadelphian living close enough to pass by the new Barnes location as it is being constructed -even today-, having done the "new Barnes Museum" as a school project 8 years ago on that same site in which I argued it shouldn't be moved (I proposed creating a system of a rotation of paintings), having seen TWBT talk about this project a couple weeks ago at the Center for Architecture, I do have an opinion to add.
TWBT is, indeed, moving the entire collection - as is - into the new building which is IMO better than the existing. The difference in appearance and scale is from the fact that there is a significant portion that is semi-detached that contains additional program. So how do I define better? It has a better quality of light, a more balanced approach how light gets into the museum spaces. As much as I respect Cret and his works, this is better as a museum. The building isn't replicating the exact details, but the architects have addressed all of them, down to the decorative molding.
I can't speak for the people involved specifically, but my general observations have been that many people of power got there BY being a sociopath. In fact -this is a bit irresponsible to say- I remember reading/hearing that the higher the corporate ladder you look, the more sociopathic behavior you see.
I can see how it is so wrong to go against a person's will as written. But I can also see how the intent and context of that will can change over time. Definitively, I can only say that I think it is a better museum. TWBT or not. The fact that "The Art of the Steal" is a documentary also does not exclude the possibility that it could have a bias and/or an agenda. Actually, the title and trailer turned me off when it first came out, even though I've always been sympathetic to keeping it where it is.
actually, I think that was Psychopathic behavior, not sociopath.
Emilio, I strongly believe that sometimes, some things are worth making an effort for.
Yes, I'm elitist. Not in all the ways your post is accusing me of, but in many, many ways.
@emelio, as far as disasters go we are either all go to die (CNN keeps tellin my mom this), or the power line that is being connected today will actually work. There are lots of efforts going on right now. I am hoping some of them will work. Beyond that is all speculation.
The real disaster as far as i can tell is that aid workers are too scared to come here nevermind that the real damage is hundreds of kilometres away from the nuclear problem in many cases. thanks cnn. i am really pissed off about them. even if they had their facts straight there is no need to cause panic. but japan is used to coping. they/we will get out alright.
about barnes, i understood that TWBTA had constraints, but looks like they spent most of their efforts trying to ensure that the place came off as something ”designed” instead of good, and it instead just comes off as another generic series of boxes. the sense of place that donna talks about is replaced with a non-place. that is not good architecture to me.
i am a bit of a nihilist when it comes to buildings. i don't believe in continuity really, or at least not of objects. i am more interested in continuation of ideas, and that means things/places/buildings adapt and change. but in this case it looks like the building is not particularly worth changing FOR. apologies to TWBSA, because in general they are quite good in my book. and who knows, maybe it will be a better building in reality than the renders indicate...
Donna, I was particularly responding to that one attitude towards the future visitors to the new building, which you are not the only one making, which I think is a wrongheaded attitude. What, the people who go to the Barnes in Merion are paragons of creation because they can take a stupid train or drive their polluting rental cars there? Give me a break. That attitude is very close to "if I go to a museum, I am a sophisticated appreciator of culture, I have searched it out...everyone else that goes is the goddam rabble". To me it smells very much of not liking the move, so then indicting the whole culture and anyone who is willing to walk inside the new museum as philistines and lazy asses just to prove that it's a bad move.
Jump, I am not at all sure that the design is a generic series of boxes, I don't see it as generic at all, particularly for Philadelphia, but since I can actually go see the building when it opens, I'll see then.
Ok, I have hijacked this thread enough. I actually really love the kind of museum that the present Barnes is (if the Frick was ever to burn down or close, I would go into long mourning), and I like the Barnes now, paintings, building, grounds, and all (well, maybe not the Renoirs) but to me it was a treasure in a toxic pool, kept from being appreciated by wills and infighting and lawsuits and elitism and all kinds of other shit, and, unlike some here, I don't think things would or could have been changed very easily: I think the collection has finally been freed.
Yea, Jump, I can't make heads or tails of what's REALLY going on with the reactors by listening to the news; I hope they stabilize and everything is OK in the end.
Well let me just clarify, then we can agree to disagree: when I referenced school groups of African American kids, I obviously didn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to come in, and I'd hope I'd get credit from my typical posts here that I'm not against cultural institutions being available to all. (The increased access for school groups may be one of few positive aspects to this whole fiasco that I can appreciate.)
I meant that moving the Barnes to the city isn't going to magically make all the docents there all smiley and warm and let everyone touch the art and take family photos ion front of it (going to your point that the Barnes docents were snotty). It may be more physically accessible, but it's still an art museum (not to mention in Philly, where major attitude is a source of pride), and yeah, how many people are just going to wander past really only paying attention to their iPhones anyway? Lots.
And I'm trying to say that making a phone call, getting some tickets, and taking a short trip out of downtown is not that difficult, it's really not, especially if one is already someone who likes to look at art. Certainly anyone making a trip to Philly from NYC won't find it a big hassle to get to Merion. Someone who isn't interested in art anyway isn't likely to wander in to this museum and be transformed - they'll be running up the PMA steps and doing the Rocky pose.
i think that we all know that you can't judge a building by its renderings... i think that this is particularly true of work in the vein of twbta that relies so much on materiality... i've seen the mockups of the stone rainscreen system and the sensitivity with which it was designed... i trust that the building will be beautiful once complete, but have to withhold judgment until it opens... my biggest complaint about the design is that it doesn't address the parkway very well...
I really wish wealthy people would go back to commissioning really big statues and monuments to/of themselves rather than collecting a bunch of objects of themselves.
I've always said that if I was a billionaire, I'd put a nude statue of myself in New York harbor twice the size of Liberty. And I'd have my ass point towards the sea.
Gold leafed, too. Can't have my baby rusting out. What I'm really saying is that the world would be more interesting with more arches, obelisks and colossuses than it would be with stuff art museums.
Every patch of grass, alley way, roadway and staircase would be a stage of narcissism!
you could be right philip.
it looks like they are trying to be starchitect-y interesting and mildly spectacular with the big glass block and all that, but its not much of a space on the inside according to the renders. i guess anything looks better if its finished with stone. maybe this will too. I think it would be a better building if they tried to design places instead of spectacles, but it isn't really in their makeup.
...i just took another look at their website. nope it pretty much looks like a shopping mall, maybe an ambitious one by jon jerde. except that jerde is great at place making.
well anyway, it does seem a bit of a pity. i don't think they are getting the best from their architects.
Getting the Best from ones Architect is tricky! Think about it. Which Client in your past has gotten the best from you? Have they wrapped you up in political agendas, financial follies, cultural miss steps, technical overloads? I can only imagine a museum design to be most difficult of course after having so many wonderful museums designed over the past 400 years. A museum can be so many different experiences beyond the art. It doesn't have to be the same experience in every museum. Oh, I'm sure the people of Philly, will for years blast this new museum, just because it is not the same as the old museum. The new museum sounds a bit like it is certainly a reflection of America today. Maybe that is not such a bad idea, because fifty years from now someone will once again decide we were in a real bad place at this moment of the Universe.
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