RR 13

full circle.


the guggenheim museum
frank lloyd wright
[1956-1959]


the guggenheim museum, located in manhattan, new york city, has a curved exterior as well as interior which stands out from the surrounding landscape.  ramps lead up the multiple levels of the museum, and decrease in radius as you near the ground floor.  wright thought differently about how artwork should be viewed, thus defending the spiral rooms rather than rectilinear ones.  the spiral ramps that line the interior of building create a dramatic and stunning central area.
the museum was originally meant to be a private gallery for solomon r. guggenheim.  it later was changed into being a public museum of modern arts, which forced wright to make some adjustment, however he refused to change the curved walls, however this didn't fair well with artists.  although inventive, this was a very impractical idea because square paintings don't hang well on curved walls.  this expressed the architect's of this time periods "insistence on a rationalized functional aesthetic ran up agains the need to express monumentality, particularly in large civic structures." [Ching]

- the central space is accessible directly from the street, which is an "important breakthrough in the relationship of modernism to civic space." [Ching]
- new york city's first real modern building.
- made of concrete ribs that form a dome at the top.

the guggenheim museum can be compared to the paris opera house in a sense that the both showcase not only the art/performances, but also the people who are there to view it.  the curved ramps and open center of the guggenheim allow you too look directly across, up, or down the interior and see people on the different levels.  the paris opera house had a grande staircase where people would socialize and be able to view the people around them with ease.










information and images from:
- ching

- good interior view
http://our-odyssey.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html
- how you could view others
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=234344
- shows the contrast of the spiral in the new york landscape
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32224170@N03/3352894744/