Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of MoMA's architecture and design department, told AN that the decision was an administrative, rather than a curatorial one. He called the decision “painful” for architects and others who appreciate Williams and Tsein’s work, and acknowledged that museums have a responsibility to the art in their care—including architecture. — archpaper.com
He says the building “was designed as a jewel box for folk art,” and could not reasonably be altered to fit a different collection and a different purpose.
27 Comments
shameful.
"But, he said, the building “was designed as a jewel box for folk art,” and could not reasonably be altered to fit a different collection and a different purpose."
Complete and utter bullshit, of course.
As if no one has ever turned a warehouse into a live/work art space, or a power station into a museum, or a post office into a restaurant, or a barn into a house, or a garage into a theater, or…
Mr. Bergdoll, your reputation as an authority on architecture is pretty much over now.
Seriously.
Tate Modern? Weils Art Center Brussels? MassMOCA? Storefront for Art and Architecture? Design Museum London? MOCAD Detroit? Pretty much every gallery space in NYC? These are all existing buildings that have been adapted to show art and that teach us something new about how to view art, too.
Bergdoll claims that the decision was "administrative not curatorial." But he goes on to repeat the MoMA's weak case for the dismantling--saying the FAM's architecture is unflexible. I'd say its the all powerful MoMA that's being inflexible.
You can't have it both ways: He is saying that it isn't his choice, but the powerful administration's. But he repeats the administration's line, so what difference does it make?
The dweeb just wants to keep his job, that's all. Guess that's what happens when you have a historian as the lead curator--all of architecture only exists in a book or drawing. Maybe they should bring in somebody with a bit more fire and principle to head the department. A Samuel Mockabee type visionary. Otherwise, how can he be a spokesperson for architecture?
"Cash rules everything around me, C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla dolla bill y'all"
-Museum of Modern Art
Its good to know that Architecture is not an Art. Now can we start getting paid?
this is a smart man put in a very difficult situation. it's easy to suggest that he should stand on principle, but that's not so easy. not only is moma the big gorilla, but any other potential employers for mr bergdoll would likely follow moma's lead in forming their opinion of him. he's not the bad guy here. he needs to say what he needs to say.
though, as i asked in another post somewhere, does the moma architecture/design department have any legitimacy any more if this action goes forward?
I question if MoMA as an institution has any legitimacy at this point. It’s become too business-like and too established. It’s time for it to be superseded by a new effort.
That's exactly it, Steven. Bergdoll is in an impossible situation, because his employer has decided to make a stupid decision. If he stays on and supports his employer he looks bad, because he now works for an institution that has ruined its own reputation for thoughtful curation and preservation of culture. But if he disagrees with them he possibly loses his job and can't get a good reference for a future job.
But people are put in this position every day, all of us architects included. This is exactly the kind of scenario I used to discuss with my Professional Practice students in class. It's a valid question: does one really want to have a good reference from an employer who is known industry-wide for poor decisions? As an architect, would I really want a good reference from a firm that does crappy work?
Of course there is also the situation that one would want to stay on in a difficult situation in the hopes of mitigating the damage, from within. Perhaps one wants to try to make a bad situation "less-bad".
At some point, as professionals and as humans, we will all face an ethical question that forces us to consider where we draw the line.
apparently, the moral of the story here is to design your museum as a white box similar to the sterile environments found at malls that allow the tenant to finish out their dress barn or radio shack to their own requirements, rather than actually design a considered and soulful building. on my next nyc visit, scratch a visit to moma off my list.
I find this reaction to the Moma fascinating. They are expanding and therefore want to demolish the neighboring building to do so, that's their crime! This dosen't discount the quality of the building they propose to tear down, but the moralistic criticism against everyone associated with this decision seems a bit over the top.
I believe that it was stated somewhere that the square footage obtained by demolishing this building was going to be used primarily as retail and restaurant space. Furthermore, MoMA could expand without tearing the building down. If that were the only way it could expand the argument might be different.
hold on, donna...
let's evaluate all those industrial spaces converted into galleries - they're huge. ginormous, open, functional spaces that aren't difficult to convert/repurpose. most of the FAM 'galleries' are narrow and really just enlarged circulation. actual gallery space is sparse. the entire building is idiosyncratic/inflexible. i just don't see how the FAM could be incorporated into MoMa and be functional for an institution that receives nearly 3 million visitors annually, when it was never functional as an institution for folk art!
the reality of FAEM wa that the construction budget was too ambitious, the program was never sustainable, it seemingly was a massive marketing fail and was never able to get anywhere near the patronage required to self-sustain. i think FAM represents everything that's absurd with regards to the art bubble, and in a more realistic time would never have been built.
i'm on the fence about whether it should be saved or not. part of me feels the reaction from architects has been egocentric - e.g. if something as well-detailed as the FAM can't be saved - then maybe my work isn't worth saving.
holz, it is absolutely not true that FAM never functioned as a place to view folk art. It received a lot of criticism for *not being a plain white box*, but that doesn't mean it didn't function in a way that many people enjoyed, especially relative to the kind of work it was intended to show. I can easily, easily argue that Storefront is a totally unacceptable place for the public to view exhibitions, yet for 20 years they've been providing amazing exhibitions, have been a physical forum for public programs, and have elevated the overall discourse on architecture in our culture. There is no reason at all that the FAM building can't operate in exactly the same way, albeit with its own idiosyncrasies offering yet unseen ways to contribute to that discourse.
The Turbine Hall was considered problematic - *because* it's so damn big - when it was first proposed, but people got excited about the possibilities it offered and one can't say it hasn't added a new layer to how we view contemporary art. So someone at the Tate rose to that challenge. MoMA can't or won't.
Also: I certainly have no egocentric delusions: my best work sure as hell isn't worth saving when compared to even Williams Tsien's worst project. This is not just some nice building. It's far more important and unique.
Also, holz, since I know it matters to you in particular: embodied energy. How much are we willing to trash?
Airport = Mall
Hotel = Mall
MoMA = Mall
FAM = Restaurant and Mall? Is that too gauche?
donna,
i didn't claim the FAM never functioned as a place to view folk art, i said it was never functional as an institution for folk art. had it been functional, they wouldn't have had to close shop and sell the building (willingly, to MoMA, knowing that it could be demo'd). not enough people enjoyed viewing art at FAM.
yes, bigness was a hurdle for the Tate Modern, but this is a much easier horse to tame than an uber-idiosyncratic gallery space that is nearly impossible to repurpose without diluting, owing to FAM's rich detailing and spatial complexity.
embodied energy is only relevant in the past - that is, energy spent over a decade ago isn't a resource in the present. much of the material can be recaptured or downcycled (glass, concrete, metal). a new building would add more embodied energy but then it would also be more energy efficient - and so most of that additional embodied energy could be captured. if the new project were to be uber efficient, then even with the increased embodied energy of the new building, the total energy (embodied + operational) of the demo + new would still be far less than leaving the existing. there are valid reasons to talk about saving the museum, sustainability isn't one of them, in my opinion.
I still don't get why it would be so hard to incorporate it in a new design...the footprint is only like 10% of the adjacent site. These idiots should have held a open design competition before jumping to conclusions about what could not be done.
I call bullshit - one of the earliest projects I worked on was an "historic" structure that was being converted to condos - the existing (rather tiny) building was integrated into a larger complex, the floors didn't quite align, but we got it to work. Just call up some architects in any city that has a wealth of historic structures and ask them how they repurposed existing "jewel boxes" into larger complexes. For example - the peabody essex in salem, ma is a hodge-podge of old and new structures(ranging from 18th century to within the past decade or two) - saying that it's too much of a challenge to integrate is essentially saying you hired a lazy mediocre architect with no imagination.
I think if this was a building that was built 100 years ago they might be a little more sensitive - but it's still an important cultural asset that deserves to be saved - at least in some respect.
There's one extra "r" in Barry in the title.
Paul Goldberger earlier this week:
"By now everyone knows that the folk-art museum ran into financial difficulties, retreated in 2011 to what had been its satellite facility near Lincoln Center, and put the Williams-Tsien building up for sale. Naturally MoMA bought it. The Modern was already gearing up to expand yet again (it had opened its last expansion, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, in 2004), in the form of several floors of new exhibit space at the bottom of an 82-story condominium tower by the architect Jean Nouvel that the Houston-based developer Hines was planning to construct at 53 West 53rd Street, just down the block from MoMA. The museum was deeply involved in that project from the start—it had sold the land to Hines in 2007—and Nouvel’s plans called for working his tower around the folk-art museum. Back then, no one expected the little museum would go belly up.
That’s a key point. It’s obviously not necessary that the folk-art museum be torn down so that the new tower—which is one of the more promising skyscrapers to be proposed for New York in years, although that is quite beside the point—can be built. The original design called for the tower to have gone around the folk-art museum, and if the crash of 2008 hadn’t caused the tower project to be postponed, that’s what would have happened. It was presumed that the folk-art museum and MoMA would retain their minnow-to-whale relationship forever."
via
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/04/museum-of-modern-art-architecture-cide
I'd like to see a petition to fire Barry Bergdoll.
Bergdoll's position is the classic career trap - he doesn't have many options. It's a shame, of course, that we can't expect any more institutional transparency from a private art institution than a government agency... but privatization is what creates monopolies in the first place. Lack of public funding for the arts is clearly the underlying problem.
MoMA's shit decision is indicative of systemic problems. What's at stake even more than preservation issues is the growing cultural monopoly of certain institutions (and people) and the expanding museum-as-franchise model. Furthermore - it's no coincidence that the architecture of the FAM contained folk art. Its destruction is a clear and obvious statement in favor of the Contemporary over the historical - and the "mainstream" art market over the "folk" or outsider one. There was a resurgence in interest in outsider art in the 2000s but I guess it's been bulldozed. Again, privatization and market-driven ideology wins over an art sector that generates little revenue, that's finally been deemed pedagogical and irrelevant.
elviapw, I totally agree. But: It's also no coincidence that the mainstream art market embraced folk work then threw it away as the rise of the internet allowed unsanctioned artists to reach the world without needing institutions. Seriously, how much art is bought and sold every day on Etsy or 20x200, or through Kickstarter, just to name the *mainstream* alternatives, not to mention just direct sales?
MoMA laid down with the "art market" and got up with expensive fleas; MoMA can't figure out how to be relevant in a dispersed, egalitarian art world.
I actually have to think that if Barry Bergdoll resigned his position at the MOMA out of principle, he would land on his feet. Some architectural faculty or other institution would find a home for him out of respect.
a "Professor of architectural history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology @Columbia" running MoMA?
I find it crazy that a career academic is running arch at the MoMA. I always thought of Philip Johnson as a bit of a hack, but now I view him in much better light. He wasn't just reading history books, but was out there trying to influence the culture--and he did, collaborating with Mies, building the Glass House, etc. I doubt the current age of curators would have the guts to go out and do anything outside of their cushy curatorial positions (probably high paying) which are growing increasingly less connected to the real world, and more connected to marketing and attendance quotas. I doubt anybody will be putting Barry Bergdoll in the history books.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.