Category: visual

Norman Foster’s new tower on the London skyline (it looks like a gherkin) demands your attention. It is “the most conspicuous eruption on London’s skyline in a quarter of a century; a single building that is as big as a small town, with 500,000 square feet of space and able to accommodate 4,000 people with ease. Whatever it’s called, this is the tower that ignited London’s current preoccupation with the skyscraper, breaking the 600-feet barrier in the Square Mile for the first time since 1979.”

“Five years ago, when the celebrated Rotterdam architect Rem Koolhaas won a much-hyped design competition for a campus center at the Illinois Institute of Technology, there was breathless talk about the sexy new building, and how it would devise a new architecture for the 21st Century… Now the future has arrived, complete with a sensuous, 530-foot-long, stainless steel tube that wraps around the elevated tracks and swallows Chicago Transit Authority trains. It’s a wild, often wonderful vision of urban life, a bit like entering an oversize pinball machine. It is, as advertised, full of brilliant concepts. But it is not a brilliant work of architecture.”

We’ve all seen them, the glossy, glittering “architectural renderings” of buildings yet to be built. They leap off the page, dazzling us with the promise of a skyscraper which will blend seamlessly with its surroundings, and yet add a brilliant new dynamic to the city skyline. It all seems too good to be true, and it often is. Architect’s renderings are, by necessity, targeted to the audience to whom they are presented, with the overall aim of getting everyone with a say to sign off on a project that they otherwise might not view favorably. It would be too strong to call it manipulation, perhaps, but at the very least, it is architecture’s signature marketing device.

As the Detroit Institute of the Arts plows ahead with a major expansion project, slated to be completed in 2006, the museum is also undergoing some major changes behind the scenes. Earlier this year, the DIA laid off 55 staffers, and now, a shuffling of curator positions is reportedly causing some grumbling. The curatorial changes will see some departments combined, and others expanded. Some longtime curators are being reassigned to positions which could be seen as less prominent. DIA’s chief curator says that the changes are merely meant to streamline the museum’s operations.

As Chicagoans begin to adjust to the new look of historic Soldier Field, home to the football Bears, an intense PR campaign is being waged in an effort to shout down the folks who are calling the renovated stadium an architectural joke. But somehow, even the best slogans and outreach efforts fizzle somewhat when the public gets another up-close look at what one Chicago critic has dubbed “the eyesore on Lake Shore.”

The Bellevue Art Museum outside Seattle, which opened in a new Stephen Holl-designed building less than three years ago, has closed after failing to attract an audience. “The architectural community gave Stephen Holl’s building a solid thumbs-up, but the visual arts community was considerably less impressed. In essence, the building is full of personality and high style, yet it is a difficult place to display art.”

Want to see how thieves stole a valuable Leonardo painting from a Scottish gallery last month? Here’s a Crimewatch reconsruction of the crime.

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has made a series of design changes to its $425 million expansion plan. “Most dramatically, the crystal spine designed by architect Norman Foster will be lowered from 100 to 70 feet. Locals had raised concerns about shadows that would be cast on the Emerald Necklace behind the MFA. In addition, the museum has agreed to keep Museum Road open.”

In a big surprise, the mayor of Fort Worth, Texas proposes slashing the city’s public art funds. “Mayor Mike Moncrief’s unexpected plan would cut funding for public art from 2 percent to 1 percent in the Feb. 7 bond election, shifting about $2 million in funding.”

It looks like the Barnes Collection will be moving to Philadelphia. “This plan was being painted as a boon to all parties: The Barnes would be saved, and Philadelphia would derive lucrative tourist income from the relocation. But you didn’t have to scratch too far beneath the surface to reveal a web of influence that indicates that what is really under way is a raid on a beleaguered, helpless art collection.”