Bloch Building opens at Nelson-Atkins Museum

By Monika Pizzichemi

AforA traveled to Kansas City, MO this past weekend to attend and document the opening of the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. While we were there we filmed Steven Holl for the “Architect’s Forum.” Mr. Holl took us for a walk around the building where he discussed the innovations that were necessary in order to make this building a reality. The footage of this walk, as well as some of the lectures that we heard at the museum will be posted at www.AforAsite.com.

Once again, we were very impressed by the staff at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. Every person who works at the museum was on hand during this busy weekend, some working 16 hour days, in order to greet and help the expected 15,000 plus visitors. Even with this busy work load and long hours, we found the same hospitality that we were extended the last time we visited, when the Bloch building was still closed to the public. The volunteers and docents were all knowledgeable, courteous, and excited to be on hand for the opening of this historic building. It is rare that an organization would have such a strong group of support staff, and it is a wonderful thing to see. Thank you all for making this experience so enjoyable.

Many reviews have been written about the Bloch building. and I would refer you to them, as my words would just be redundant (see the NY Times and Time Magazine). There are detailed accounts of the opening weekend in the Kansas City Star - you can access them at http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/143586.html and http://www.kansascity.com/nelson/ and also a look at how the artwork stands up to the new building at http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/story/144230.html

There is also a very interesting Blog at the museum’s website that should not be missed: http://www.nelson-atkins.org/blog/

We would like to extend our congratulations and gratitude to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Steven Holl Architects, and all of the contractors involved for creating this special building when at times it seemed the odds were against them.

Steven Holl discusses the special glass designed for the Bloch Building for our camera

Steven Holl discussing the joining of the new building to the 1933 building

Steven Holl shows us how daylight shimmers on the exterior of the lenses

Steven Holl discusses the quality of the light created by the “Flutter T’s” above the African Arts Gallery

 Members of the Hall family cut the ribbons to officially open the Bloch building

The public enters the Bloch building for the first time

Steven Holl greets friends and fans after the opening ceremony

The public enjoying the art in the Contemporary Galleries
All photographs Copyright 2007 ArchitectureforArt.com and Monika Pizzichemi

AforA wraps up European Tour

By Monika Pizzichemi

AforA’s European tour is just about over. In a short amount of time we have conducted four interviews and have documented six locations in five cities. Each architect that we have interviewed was extremely kind and gracious, and seemed more than happy to spend time on this project. The staff at each museum that we visited were also very kind and helpful to us. In all, it has been a productive and successful trip.

The next phase of this project requires editing the footage on each architect into mini-documentaries which will be posted on the “Architect’s Forum” on AforAsite.com. The intention is to create a dialog between architects, and from what we have experienced here in Europe, it seems that not only are people willing to hear what the architects have to say to one another, but that the architects themselves are excited to take part in this conversation.

Working on this production has been quite a wonderful experience for all of us, and we are grateful to everyone who has made this trip possible: Guy & Liane Nouri, Dragonfly, Paola Iacucci, Giuseppe Panza, Mario Botta, Heinz Tesar, Suzanne Grad, Vittorio Lampugnani & Erica Spizz. We would also like to thank Maya Von Moos for meeting with us at the Tinguely museum and wish her much luck with her current exhibition at the Roche building in Basel. (Maya has created a computer-image based installation throughout one of Roche’s new buildings. You can see her work at http://www.vonmoos.com. The Roche company has a tradition of supporting the visual arts by commissioning artists to create work for the new buildings that they build.)

Here are a few images from the trip, highlighting each interview and some of the spaces that we filmed. I will be writing more about our experiences in the next few days, and will add more images at that time.

Dr. & Mrs. Giuseppe Panza with Liane Nouri , Milan, Italy

Mario Botta being interviewed by Paola Iacucci and filmed by Erica Spizz May 22nd.

Mario Botta’s Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland

Heinz Tesar and Liane Nouri, Vienna, Austria

The Essl Museum by Heinz Tesar, Vienna, Austria

Vittorio Lampugnani and Liane Nouri at his office in Zurich, Switzerland

All photographs copyright 2007 ArchitectureforArt.com and Monika Pizzichemi

Milan: Interview with Giuseppe Panza

May 21, 2007

By Monika Pizzichemi

Dr. and Mrs. Giuseppe Panza opened their Milano home to us on this beautiful morning to allow us the honor of interviewing Dr. Panza who is one of the world’s most prolific collectors of minimalist art. Dr. Panza came to us via Winston Roeth, whose work is in Dr. Panza’s collection and is also one of AforA’s featured artists. Some of Mr. Roeth’s work is displayed in the apartment along side work by David Simpson, Richard Simms and Stuart Aarons. The work is displayed in the Panza’s living space which is furnished with floor to ceiling book shelves, medieval style chairs and overstuffed leather couches. The wall space and table tops are decorated with African masks and carvings as well as a collection of skulls, both real and carved of stone and bone. The combination of these styles is surprising: The minimalist work does not overpower the furnishings and other decorative objects and vice-versa. In fact, all of these diverse styles work together to create an inviting and warm atmosphere where one can live amongst the art.

Of the 2,500 works of art that Dr. and Mrs. Panza have purchased, 1,000 are now in the permanent collections of museums internationally, and 670 of those were donated by him and his wife. In preparing a museum for his work to be shown in a temporary or permanent exhibition, Dr. Panza works with architects and museum curators to design the layout of the show. Our interview focused on this aspect of his life as an art collector and of the importance of art in space. During our interview, Dr. Panza discussed the way several architects have dealt with this issue, especially those who have built museums that house some of his collection.

We would like to thank Dr. & Mrs. Panza for their time and kindness, and look forward to meeting with them again in the future.

Photographs copyright 2007 Monika Pizzichemi and ArchitectureforArt.com

AforA to interview in Europe

From May 19th - June 2nd the AforA production team is going to Italy, Switzerland and Austria to film more interviews for the Architects Forum as well as to document via film and still photography the Museums and buildings by the architects that we will be interviewing on this trip.

On the schedule for interviews are Giuseppe Panza, Mario Botta, Heinz Tesar, and Vittorio Lampugnani. We will also be documenting the Essl Museum in Vienna, the Tinguely Museum in Basel and several of Mario Botta’s buildings in Lugano, Switzerland. We will be attempting to blog from Europe, loading up photographs and perhaps a tiny bit of video. It’s a lot of work to do in two weeks, but we are up for the challenge and are so excited to bring some very important people to the website.

Thank you in advance to all the interviewees for allowing us the time to work with them. Thanks also to our sponsor Dragonfly.com for providing the technology and funds necessary to make this happen.

Ciao, and we’ll be seeing you soon!

Travels: Steven Holl’s Bloch building at Nelson-Atkins, Kansas City,MO

Words and images by Monika Pizzichemi

The production team at AforA traveled to Kansas City last week to document Steven Holl’s Bloch building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum. Mr. Holl has agreed to participate in AforA’s “Architects Forum” which will feature a video interview of him speaking over images of the Bloch building. Through Mr. Holl’s participation in this program we were able to gain access to the interior of this spectacular new building which does not open until June 9th. Honestly, words can not accurately describe the feeling of the space; it is both humbling and awe inspiring. (easy to take hours of video footage and close to 500 stills) One MUST visit this building to see what I mean.

Everyone that we came into contact with at the museum is extremely proud of the Bloch building, and they made every effort to see that all of our needs were met. We would like to thank everyone at the Nelson-Atkins museum who made our visit possible and enjoyable. This includes Stacy Potter, who is the head of security and his entire staff, Jeffery Weidman the Senior Librarian, Scott Stuart and Lara Kline in the Media relations department, and most especially Marc Wilson the Director of the Museum. Also, Scott Stuart deserves a special thank you for taking so much time to accompany us for the three days that we were there. We hope to see you all for the opening on June 9th!

In the next few days we will be uploading a sneak-preview Dragonfly tour of the space, interior and exterior. In the meantime, here are some of the images of the exterior of the building. Keep checking this blog in the next few days to see the interior stills that will be presented at the same time as the Dragonfly tour on our website.

Photos copyright 2007 Monika Pizzichemi and ArchitectureforArt.com

Travels: The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

Words and images by Monika Pizzichemi 

Kansas City, Missouri is a beautiful city and an oasis for art in the prairie. One gem is the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The building, built in 1992, was designed by Gunner Birkerts to appear as a bird in flight from above. It is a beautifully designed building:  the interior space is airy and bright and as a result the works of art displayed do not seem to be cramped or to be competing with one another.

The museum has a very nice cafe that features food cooked with organic & locally grown ingredients. Admission to the Kemper is free. For more information about museum hours and special exhibitions, please visit www.kemperart.org.

The Kemper has agreed to be our newest Member museum, so keep checking AforA’s Museum Directory in the next few weeks to view the video and stills that we shot for the Dragonfly tour. In the meantime, here is a sneak peak below.

Thank you to Margaret Keough and Beth Harris for making the arrangements for our production team to document the museum!

photos copyright 2007 Monika Pizzichemi and Architectureforart.com

Steven Holl’s Bloch Building to open at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of art in Kansas City on June 9th 2007.

Although the news of this new building is all over the internet, we felt it important to mention this project due to it’s unique and respectful marriage of contemporary architecture with the landscape, light, and with the older architecture on the property.

The new Bloch building is the centerpiece of a renovation and improvement project of the whole Nelson-Atkins campus, which includes renovations to both the 73 year old Beaux-Arts building and to the 22 acre sculpture park that is adjacent. The new building connects to the Beaux-Arts buildling without blocking it’s grand north facade from view, a factor that was very important in the selection of Mr. Holl’s design.

The following description of the Bloch building appears in the Nelson-Atkins museum’s website:
“The slender, elongated building runs along the eastern edge of the campus and provides a delicate counterpoint to the original 1933 Beaux-Arts building. Five lenses constructed of twin layers of glass walls emerge from the ground and create a luminous, undulating interplay between architecture and landscape.”

The use of light in the design of the Bloch building seems in harmony with other aspects of the museum and Sculpture park. In the entry plaza to the campus, an installation by artist Walter De Maria in the reflecting pool uses both natural and artificial light to illuminate the sculpture park and the parking garage underneath it. This is accomplished through 34 circular lenses in the base of the pool that allows natural light to fall through the ceiling of the parking garage during the day, and in the evening, for artificial light to filter up through the water of the pool, lighting up the landscape around it. Mr. Holl’s building is made up of five levels of underground galleries which descend with the landscape. At the entrance to each level is a vaulted ceiling or cathedral-like space created by each of the five “lenses”, the glass structures that protrude up out of the grass in the sculpture park. These lenses, act similarly to the lenses of the reflecting pool. In daylight hours, natural light fills the galleries below; In the evenings, the buildings glow like quartz crystals coming up out of the landscape.

The museum has a blog dedicated to the Bloch building which you can access at
http://www.nelson-atkins.org/blog/bloch_building/

There are some great photos of the Bloch building there as well.

Invitation for discussion: Whitney expansion and Highline Park

By now most of us know the story. Two world reknowned contemporary art museums scrapped plans to expand in NYC: The Whitney at its Madison Avenue location and the Dia Foundation in the Chelsea meat packing district at Washington and Gansevoort Streets. The Whitney’s predicatment was due to outcry by The Upper East Side Historic District preservationists against plans to alter or destroy a historic brownstone next door to the Whitney’s current home. The reason for the end of negotioations with the Dia Foundation for their new building in the meatpacking district is not entirely known, although speculation has it that the reason for this is instability of Dia’s board of directors. The Dia foundation lost two men in 2006 who were key leaders in Dia’s growth: Dia’s director, Michael McGovern, left in February to become the director and CEO of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Leonardo Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble, who left the board after eight years of service to the institution. Further speculation has it that the city of New York was pushing a time line on Dia to make a final decision on this location, which the city would like completed by 2009, and without a director in place the Dia foundation decided to pull out of negotiations.

This left this location ready for the Whitney to take over. Plans are to build a new museum at the entrance to Highline Park, that abandoned, overgrown elevated 1.5 mile section of rail-line which has been saved from demolition by dedicated communtiy members who used to frequent its grassy surface and wildflowers to escape city life. Highline park is becoming a cultural attraction itself, slated for completion in spring of 2008 as a slick city park as designed by Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. This design is said to emulate the wildflowers and grasses that grew there to begin with as well as incorporate small ponds and trees. Although the final decision for the Whitney to build at this location depends on outcome of the upcoming public review process, The museum plans to hire Renzo Piano as architect for the new building, which is part of a square block mandated by the Astor Family for use as an agricultural market when it was gifted to the city. The agricultural restriction would have to be modified and a special permit granted to allow a museum or another cultural use on the site.

I invite everyone to take a look at the plans for the highline at
http://www.thehighline.org/design/prelim_design/index.htm and to join in discussion about this project. I will add on images of the Piano design when they become availble to the public.

Below are my questions. I welcome all comments!

I am excited for a new cultural gem to shine in NYC, and look forward to frequenting the new museum and the park. However, I am a tourist. I do not live in NYC. I can’t help but think of what sort of impact this might make on the whole of the meatpacking district, which the Whitney described as “gritty”. The artists, the people, the diversity of this location, will it change? and if it does, will anyone care?

With the Highline Park changing so dramatically, and a new internationally reveared museum at it’s entrance, do the community members who fought to hold on to this unique environment truly feel that this is the direction that it should go? With more vistors, more money translated into new shops and restaurants, and the loss of the traditional agricultural aspect of this area, will rents and prices go up even more, forcing life long residents to seek new habitation, as was the case in Soho and Williamsburg? Or will the change be welcome by most due to an increased level in their of standard of living?

Architecture Plus Awards II

An International competition open to architects and students of architecture is to be held in Dubai, June 2007.

Architecture Plus magazine is holding it’s 2nd competition of the “Architecture Plus Award”, which is held biennially in Dubai, UAE. This installment of the competition is called ‘Design for a New World’, and is open to professionals and students. Any architect/ designer in the world may submit a project located in the immediate region – defined as the Gulf States, The Middle East, Asia, Africa and the Indian Subcontinent.

Except for student entries, only finished projects are eligible this year. The deadline to begin the application process is December 15, 2006. All accepted submissions will run through several phases of judgment before 14 individuals and organisations will be honored in July of 2007.

Categories for the competition are: Offices - Retail and Commercial, Hotels and Resorts, Housing and Residential Developments, Public - Arts and Culture, Preservation and Conservation, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture and Architectural Lighting. Three special commendations include Aspiring Architect (for students), the Professional’s Choice Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award. Noteworthy additions this year are Architecture for and by Women, Architecture for Children, and Architecture for Community.

Rashid Taqui, Founder of the Architecture Plus Awards and publisher of Architecture Plus Magazine explained the judging process: “The submissions will be evaluated for response to context, meeting client or context  requirements, environmental performance and ecological balance, universal appeal,  advancement and sustainability, and for attempting to conserve history. The projects must emphasise accomplishments in the ‘New World’, a creative reference to emerging countries,”

I took a look at the website to see who was honored in 2004, and was impressed with the diversity and scope of the projects. It is worth checking out:
http://www.arcplusonline.com/Awards_winners04.php

To apply go to the Architecture Plus website:

http://www.arcplusonline.com/Awards.php
If you are planning on competing, good luck!

architecture for art news

This past week I came across these three announcements regarding new architectural art spaces:

1. GUGGENHEIM EXPANDS TO ABU DHABI WITH FRANK GEHRY AS CHIEF ARCHITECT:(announced July 8th, 2006)
The new museum is part of the Guggenheim’s strategic plan to seek a presence in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. The Abu Dhabi museum is going to be the largest Guggenheim in the world, at 30,000 square meters, and will be the cornerstone of a major cultural intiative that the Abu Dhabi government hopes will lure investors and Western tourists. The Abu Dhabi government will own the building and the art housed within, while the Guggenheim will oversee the architectural design, and help build the museum’s collection of international contemporary art. The artworks in this major collection will be available to be loaned to any other Guggenheim museum. The project should be completed sometime in 2011.

2. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY HAS HIRED YANN WEYMOUTH TO DESIGN THE FROST ART MUSEUM.
Mr Weymouth is the design director of Hellmuth Obata + Kassabaum. He was chief of design for I.M. Pei for the Grand Louvre project in Paris and was the design chief of I.M. Pei for the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Mr. Weymouth is currently working on three new buildings for the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, and the Uris Educational Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This description of the new Museum is from the University’s website:
“The Frost Art Museum will encompass 46,000-square feet at a total construction cost of $17 million. It will be built on a spectacular lakeside site on the “Avenue of the Arts,” a mall that will connect the Museum, the Wertheim Performing Arts Center and the Management and Advanced Research Center (MARC) on the University Park campus. The Museum will house FIU’s permanent art collection, its program of temporary exhibitions and lectures, art scholarship and conservation. A soaring glass entrance atrium will lead to a cafe and museum shop, destined to become a new hub for campus cultural life.”

 

3. MILDRED LANE KEMPER ART MUSEUM IS DEDICATED AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY:
The museum, dedicated on October 25, 2006, was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese Architect Fumihiko Maki. Mr. Maki’s design has been described as a dramatic, light filled structure that will showcase the university’s permanent and temporary collection of contemporary art. The new Kempner Art musuem is the center piece of a five-building complex which includes studios and workshops for art students and faculty at the Sam Fox School for Design and Visual Arts as well as the exhibition spaces.