Museums and Libraries: The Latest Architecture and News

In his article about Renzo Piano’s revised vision for the Whitney, Nicolai Ouroussoff explains that the neighborhood’s criticism and the museum board’s indecisiveness have continually provided stumbling blocks for the museum during its attempts to expand. Upon agreeing to realize Piano’s design for a satellite museum in the Meatpacking district, hope were high that finally, after 25 years, the museum would complete its much needed expansion.

Yet, it seems that Piano is in the midst of a new struggle resulting from the global economic downturn. While construction costs have dropped, allowing the cost of the project to slide under $200 million (persuading the board to commit to breaking ground), the museum is still struggling to contain costs and begin building before prices rise.

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.”

“You do not have to look at it for long before you realize that this is as sensual a building as New York has seen in a very long time,” stated Pulitzer-prize winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger of the American Folk Art Museum. Completed by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien in 2001 the museum is 40 feet wide and 100 feet long and is surrounded by the Museum of Modern Art on three sides. It was the first new museum built in New York in over three decades.

More on the American Folk Art Museum after the break.

As part of the Triennial program at the Cooper Hewitt, the showing exhibit Why Design Now? presents some of the most innovative designs of contemporary culture. The exhibition, which addresses human and environmental concerns, includes designers dappling in all areas of the design field – from architecture, to fashion, and graphics to materials.

More about the exhibit after the break.

Eli Broad, an American philanthropist, is getting ready to design the newest home for his extensive art collection. For his latest museum project, on the corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street in Los Angeles, Broad invited six of the professions’ leading minds to compete. Resting across the street from Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and Arata Isozaki’s 1986 Museum of Contemporary Art, Broad’s museum with include approximately 40,000 square feet of top-floor exhibition space, along with offices for the Broad Art Foundation.

wHY architecture shared with us their proposal for the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec (MNBAQ) international competition, which was won by OMA. See more images and architect’s description after the break.

G.Lab* by Gansam Architects and Partners sent us their proposal for the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Seoul, using a mix of reinforced concrete and steel structure to create two interesting volumes to house 5,000 years of history.

Images, drawings and the project statement after the break.

Allied Works Architecture in association with Fichten Soiferman et Associés Architectes was selected as one of five finalists in an international competition (won by OMA) to design a new pavilion for the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) in Québec City, Canada.

More images and architect’s description after the break.

The Jewish Museum Berlin held a press conference yesterday to reveal the design by Daniel Libeskind for the Jewish Museum Berlin Academy. Mr. Libeskind designed both the Jewish Museum Berlin (completed 2001) and the Glass Courtyard (completed 2007) which is an extension to the original building.

More images and complete press release after the break.

What began in a rented townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side has grown to become an internationally recognized preeminent source for exhibitions and publications related to historical and contemporary African art. The Museum for African Art will finally find a permanent home along Manhattan’s “Museum Mile” and will be open to the public next April. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, the museum will bring the prestigious row of museums of Manhattan to Harlem, one of the country’s most important centers of historic and contemporary African-American culture.

More about the museum and more images after the break.