Mels Crouwel, the lead architect for the Stedelijk, was government architect for years. His firm is normally reliable, with an industrial bent. He promoted the tub as a technological novelty, its aerodynamic exterior made of a reinforced synthetic fiber coated in white airplane paint to give the museum a shiny, enameled finish and to nod to the old Stedelijk’s white rooms, which still fails to explain the plumbing metaphor or other moves. — NYT
Michael Kimmelman reviews the new addition to the Stedelijk Museum by Benthem Crouwel Architects.
6 Comments
it reminds me this song with the words and all..
ooh good song!
1. form follows function?
2. He got his inspiratoin taking a bath?
3. It's actually a storm water retention tub?
I give up. Why IS this museum shaped like a tub?
1). the government needs a bath?
2). people like tubs above average in this community?
3). a tub is a powerful iconic symbol in the area?
4) tub spelled backwards is but, and he likes big but's?
Building aside, it is a good museum with an excellent director, Ann Goldstein, who was a great curator here in Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art since the 80's. She is one of the best curators anywhere when it comes to conceptual art. She probably laughs about the building in amusement. It really shows how architects are out the lunch when it comes to designing museums. Museum as a spectacular event is really bad for the art itself. This museum building is no different from all those museums they are rushing to build in China and other places on earth with celebrity architects working for luxury real estate developers. It is dumbing down the art production with new generation of directors and curators, from marketing backgrounds, racing to fill all those exhibition spaces in funny and cheap looking buildings with meaningless art just because it was marketed in places like auction floors, blue chip art gallery backrooms, Miami and Basel.
Curators and directors like Ann Goldstein are not dime a dozen. But there are a lot of poorly educated event planners specializing in arts acting like curators.
well the addition to the van gogh looks like a toilet, now they just need to turn the fountain into a sink and they will be all set for a giant to use it as his bathroom
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