Guggenheim Museum: The Latest Architecture and News

Not that many films can have the amount of high-end architecture as location for their scenes. In “The International” the characters goes to a secondary position – through architects’ eyes - since the movie is a showroom of well known buildings and cities.

The mythic Guggenheim Museum in New York by Frank Lloyd Wright serves as the space for one of the main scenes, jumping to the Phaeno Science Center by Zaha Hadid in Wolfsburg, Germany. Cities where the movie was filmed include Istanbul, Berlin, Lyon, Milan, and New York, showing us an impressive catalogue of “international” architecture.

Let us know your thoughts about the movie and international architecture. What does this concept mean today? Or was it only an utopian modern movement?

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was the last major project designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright between 1943 until it opened to the public in 1959, six months after his death, making it one of his longest works in creation along with one of his most popular projects. Completely contrasting the strict Manhattan city grid, the organic curves of the museum are a familiar landmark for both art lovers, visitors, and pedestrians alike.

A few months ago, the Guggenheim Museum exhibited Contemplating the Void in honor of the museum’s 50th anniversary. After receiving 200 submissions, curators from the museum selected five winners. We’ve shared different proposals with you previously on AD, and today, we bring you Bad Architects Group’s winning Void Codition. In German, void or “Luftraum“, literally translates to “air-space“. By conditioning the given air, which is already present in the void, the architects create the possibility to access the space as is without interrupting how it currently exists. The proposal “adds another dimension or layer to the existing experience in form of a vertical wind tunnel.”

The Guggenheim Musuem’s newest exhibit features the work of Julie Mehretu, an abstract painter best known for her densely-layered paintings. Her work expresses an obsession with architecture, in particular, densely populated urban environments. In her pieces, Mehretu takes recognizable architectural components, such as the column, façade, and elevation, which are then compressed and combined to capture different perspectives. “Her paintings present a tornado of visual incident where gridded cities become fluid and flattened, like many layers of urban graffiti.”

During 2009 the Guggenheim Museum celebrated its 50th anniversary. The museum commissioned nearly 200 artists, architects and designers to imagine their dream interventions on the most significative space of Frank Lloyd Wright’s building, the central void.

As promised, more projects for the Guggenheim’s Contemplating the Void.

This time we feature Iwamoto Scott‘s proposal.

LIGHTCONE uses fiber-optic lines to turn the void into a light channel with different purposes:

It seems fitting that since the Guggenheim is currently featuring the works of its designer, Frank Lloyd Wright, we should feature some of the process work of the iconic museum. Well known for its white curving form, it is important to note that the current rendition of the museum is vastly different from Wright’s original ideas. The struggle between the architect and the client (in this case Solomon R. Guggenheim, a wealthy mining entrepreneur) to see eye-to-eye is not something new, however it is interesting to consider whether the renowned museum would still have its status if it were as Wright had originally envisioned: a polygonal structure, partly in blue or perhaps a red-marble structure with long-slim pottery red bricks.

More about the Guggenheim after the break.

This year we not only celebrate the 142nd birthday of Frank Lloyd Wright, but also the 50 years of the Guggenheim, one of his master pieces (completed the year he passed away). These dates are not only commemorated with Lego Kits and exhibitions, but also with a very interesting competition held by the Guggenheim Museum and Google Sketchup.