Writes Martin Filler in "The Gilder Age/The architecture of the American Museum of Natural History’s new addition is as oppressively weighty as its exhibitions are spellbinding" (NYRB).
May 22, 2023
"Its ineptly modeled internal surfaces—with underpinnings discernible among its contours in some places, and a crumbly finish sure to degrade as thousands of tiny hands touch it—reminded me of nothing so much as..."
"... the Tunnel of Love at the old Willow Grove amusement park near Philadelphia, where I went as an adolescent, a wholly unconvincing pseudo-geological concoction even by pre-Disneyworld standards. With the western hemisphere’s most splendid example of freeform architecture just across Central Park—the concrete whirlwind of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum—the deficiencies of Studio Gang’s design seem all the more glaring...."
Writes Martin Filler in "The Gilder Age/The architecture of the American Museum of Natural History’s new addition is as oppressively weighty as its exhibitions are spellbinding" (NYRB).
Writes Martin Filler in "The Gilder Age/The architecture of the American Museum of Natural History’s new addition is as oppressively weighty as its exhibitions are spellbinding" (NYRB).
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16 comments:
Darn. This one I'd like to read, but cannot access it. So far.
a crumbly finish sure to degrade as thousands of tiny hands touch it — reminded me of... a wholly unconvincing pseudo-geological concoction even by pre-Disneyworld standards.
If buildings could talk?
"Take your stinking paws off me you damn, dirty ape!"
Tiny hands touching the museum building reminds me of this utterly charming clip of I M Pei talking about a design choice he made for the East Wing of the National Gallery.
It’s a museum of natural history not an artsy-fartsy art installation. I get why they went for organic form- you can’t have an oppressive, colonialism evoking stoic beauty anymore- those are for more civilized societies.
Once you tire of humming The Flintstones theme every time you see it you’ll grow to like it…
That is just plain ugly. And clearly deliberately, so. There is no way any one connected with this could have honestly thought it was anything other than atrocious. There must be some ideological/theoretical construct behind it that leaves beauty and grace out of the picture intentionally. I wonder why our so-called elites are purposefully making our world more ugly.
It's always sad when the building's design is meant to call attention to itself, rather than to its purpose.
Flintstones
a wholly unconvincing pseudo-geological concoction even by pre-Disneyworld standards. With the western hemisphere’s most splendid example of freeform architecture just across Central Park—the concrete whirlwind of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum—the deficiencies of Studio Gang’s design seem all the more glaring...."
This is gibberish. Did Kamala write this??
Strong 70s vibe in that architecture.
I can’t make much of it out but it looks like an anthill painted white. It’s racist, of course. 😉
Dismissed by contemporary critics as a “washing machine,” an “imitation beehive,” and a “giant toilet bowl,” Wright’s design was even decried by avant-garde artists, who claimed that such architecture would compete with the artwork.
franklloydwright.org
It looks like it was designed by Black Lectroids from Planet Ten, Mon.
Shouldn't the architecture of a museum, any sort of museum, be as understated and unobtrusive as possible to allow the exhibits to shine and enthrall to the maximum?
But what can one expect of one of the world's most self-obsessed cities? Decorum? Politesse? Take a number, bub. (So which town wears the laurels of Narcissus? Washington? LA? SanFran? Nooyawk? Depends on the relative humidity.)
One can plainly see the inspiration -- the wind-eroded sandstones of the Southwest in places like the Petrified Forest and Mojave Trails, sites of long-established paleontological research but it's still irrelevant compared to the exhibits. This sort of show-off architecture is why I despise I. M. Pei's absurd glass pyramid. Not only does it clash with the Renaissance splendor of the Louvre like a pair of pink-on-purple polka-dotted trousers clashes with a dove-grey morning coat, but it also represents Pei's bid to steal some of the Old Masters' thunder. Look at me, the pyramid shrieks. I, too, am a work of genius! Well, your not a genius, Pei. You've copied Imhotep in glass rather than stone. Big fucking whoop. If you were a genius, you'd have figured out how to make the glass support itself without that cheesy steel latticework. Hell, if Gustave Eiffel had been so uninspired as to erect a pyramid rather than his famous tower, he'd have done a more interesting and creative job of it than Mister I.M. Pei-thetic.
Was it supposed to be “ineptly modeled”? Or was it meant to read “ineptly mottled”?
Looks like my stack of used egg cartons.
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