The Guggenheim has chosen a conceptual design by Mexican architect Enrique Norten as its choice for a new outpost the museum hopes to build in Guadalajara, Mexico. Norten, a rising star in New York’s architectural scene, conceived of a “largely transparent rectilinear tower consisting of a series of steel boxes of various shapes for flexible exhibition spaces.” Of course, this is the Guggenheim, which means that there’s no guarantee that the Guadalajara museum will ever be built at all, and the next step is a feasability study which should at least answer the question of whether the $180 million project is realistic.
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A Building Only A Politician Could Love
The Freedom Tower has become a parody of its own name, says Nicolai Ouroussoff, and we should have seen it coming. “Somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, the project suggests a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness. It is exactly the kind of nightmare that government officials repeatedly asserted would never happen here: an impregnable tower braced against the outside world… If this is a potentially fascinating work of architecture, it is, sadly, fascinating in the way that Albert Speer’s architectural nightmares were fascinating: as expressions of the values of a particular time and era. The Freedom Tower embodies, in its way, a world shaped by fear.”
The Design Project That Wouldn’t End
Don’t like the latest Freedom Tower redesign? Don’t fret, says Michael Goodwin: another redo is likely just around the corner. “The big reason why more changes are coming has little to do with the Freedom Tower. The issue is the growing recognition that almost every element planned for the site is a problem waiting to be discovered.”
Can Downloading Save Classical Music?
Norman Lebrecht on the Supreme Court ruling holding software companies liable for the illegal file-swapping: “The music industry… can now stop penalising innocent teens in their bedrooms and go for the geeks who make the stealing systems.” On the huge demand for free Beethoven downloads from BBC: “There is clearly a demand for more – so much so that such commercial download sites as I-tunes and Napster have linked up to the BBC’s output and some have launched Beethoven promotions of their own. There is a web buzz about Beethoven that could never have been achieved by plastic and terrestrial means of communication.”
Glimmerglass Taps New Haven Exec
Upstate New York’s famed Glimmerglass Opera has a new general director: Michael MacLeod, who has been the executive director of the New Haven (CT) Symphony since late 2001, will take over the Cooperstown-based company this fall. MacLeod is credited with bringing New Haven’s finances into balance in the tough years following the 9/11 attacks.
Ozawa Reups In Vienna
Seiji Ozawa’s contract as music director of the Vienna State Opera has been extended through 2010, when the conductor will be 74…
Baby Steps Working Fine In San Jose
The fledgling Symphony Silicon Valley declared its just-completed third season a success this week, with a balanced budget and a newly created endowment to show for its efforts. “Symphony Silicon Valley formed after the collapse of the 123-year-old San Jose Symphony in 2001. The new symphony has started slowly — 17 performances last year compared with 50 a year for the old symphony — and has survived mostly without city or corporate funding, depending on private donors and ticket sales.” The new endowment will pump $50,000 a year into the budget, and adinistrators hope it will encourage private support for the ensemble.
But No Hurling Barrels At The Viola Section, Okay?
Several orchestras have had success this year programming music from the popular video game, Final Fantasy, and now, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is taking the concept a step further. The Phil is putting on a full concert of music featuring the music from such classic games as Donkey Kong and Frogger as well as from contemporary hits like Halo, and “for a portion of the two-hour video game music concert, the actions of two gamers playing live on stage will actually direct the 105-piece orchestra… It’s a carefully choreographed tribute highlighting the best games and their best features, whether it’s the full choir accompanying Halo or the light show complementing Tron or the montage of archival and future video clips for Zelda.”
The Science Of What We Believe
“Once the preserve of philosophers alone, belief is quickly becoming the subject of choice for many psychologists and neuroscientists. Their goal is to create a neurological model of how beliefs are formed, how they affect people and what can manipulate them. And the latest steps in the research might just help to understand a little more about why the world is so fraught with political and social tension.”
Here’s A Downer – The Worst Decision Humans Ever Made…
“Archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress. In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.”