Galleries: The Latest Architecture and News

Museums play a critical role in preserving local cultures, promoting a better understanding of our collective heritage, and fostering dialogue, curiosity and self-reflection. In recent years –and largely driven by the Covid-19 pandemic– technological advances have enabled users from all over the world to visit exhibitions virtually, at any time and from the comfort of their own home. However, although online tours are a good way of increasing accessibility, there is something about the in-person museum experience that will never get old: the ability to witness, embrace and closely admire artefacts, paintings and sculptures in their true form, as well as the chance to experience the unique ambiance and essence of a traditional museum setting. Viewing the Mona Lisa virtually will never live up to appreciating it face-to-face at The Louvre, for instance.

Sir David Adjaye has created an inclusive new vision for Princeton University Art Museum’s new building. Located at the heart of the campus, the project will replace and roughly double the square footage of the existing facility. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2021 with an anticipated opening in late 2024.

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Museums are complex organizations: curators, exhibition designers, conservationists, editors, and marketers have to work together to ensure that artworks in galleries and exhibitions are properly displayed to the public. Instrumental to this process is the use of effective display cases, which must both protect the art and highlight it aesthetically. Below, we delineate some of these visual and practical considerations with photographic examples from Goppion, giving some indication how one should choose which display cases to use.

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“The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise / Were all at prayers inside the oratory / A ship appeared above them in the air. / The anchor dragged along behind so deep / It hooked itself into the altar rails.”[1]

These words by Irish poet Seamus Heaney have had a profound impact on the work of architects Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey, who cited the poem as one of their inspirations for the Glucksman Gallery – an exhibition space commissioned by the University of Cork in the early millennium. Named for its patron Lewis Glucksman (a Wall Street trader and philanthropist), the Glucksman Gallery was completed in 2005 and nominated for the Stirling Prize that same year. Thanks to its outstanding site-specific design, the building has since become one of the most celebrated works of contemporary Irish architecture.

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On May 3, Lisson Gallery New York will open beneath the High Line between 23rd and 24th Street. Designed by studioMDA and Studio Christian Wassmann, the 8,500 square foot space is split between a gallery, offices, viewing rooms, and storage. Although the main gallery is directly under the High Line – the steel columns in the photos are actually supports for the elevated railway – it will receive ample sun from dramatically angled skylights along the space’s edge, which also aid to extend the walls vertically. The gallery's polished concrete floors, white walls, and natural light are typical of today's contemporary art spaces, but also maintain the aesthetic of Lisson's other galleries. The public will access the space via 24th Street, while the 23rd Street entrance will be reserved for staff purposes and private functions.

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Earlier this week Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Modern, announced that Herzog & de Meuron's extension will officially open on Friday 17th June 2016. The gallery, which originally opened in 2000 housed within a former power station in London's Bankside, dramatically transformed the UK's relationship with modern and contemporary art. Since then, the Tate Modern has become a bastion of trend-setting and high-profile exhibitions, and has grown to be one of London's most visited cultural venues.

The Mauritshuis, a Dutch 17^th century city palace in The Hague, will reopen this week following a large scale renovation and extension designed by Hans van Heeswijk with servicing and fire engineering undertaken by Arup. Similar to Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, which reopened after a ten year restoration and remodelling in 2013, the Mauritshuis Royal Picture Gallery exhibits one of the finest collections of Dutch Golden Age paintings including Johannes Vermeer's Girl With a Pearl Earring. Alongside a large scale renovation, Hans van Heeswijk have also extended the galleries with new exhibition spaces, an auditorium and educational spaces.

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