Ever Increasing Circles Apr 27, 2009
Kandinsky, Chagall, Van Gogh, Picasso. Among some of art's greatest names sits a gallery network that has become synonymous with the intersection of art and architecture. At the centre of that network sits Frank Lloyd Wright's own masterpiece.
In 1943, Hilla Rebay, the art advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, invited Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new building in New York to house Guggenheim's four-year-old Museum of Non-Objective Painting.
"I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build his great museum, but we will have to try New York," Wright wrote in 1949. However, eventually a Fifth Avenue site between 88th and 89th Streets was chosen, close to Central Park.
The resulting collaboration between Guggenheim and Wright took more than 15 difficult years from vision to completion, and proved to be the swansong of both men.
Its outcome is predominantly a curving inverted ziggurat (a stepped or winding Mesopotamian pyramid). This inversion funnels natural light into each level. Visitors reach the top of the building by elevator, then follow a gentle continuous downward ramp back to ground level.
Dave Mann from The Building Intelligence Group took an even more singular approach during his recent pilgrimage, by walking both up and down the spiral, to view the space from both directions. These unique experiences are made possible by a space that is as stimulating as the art, and defy the traditional approach to gallery design - where the audience is herded in one direction through a pathway of interconnected boxes.
As visionary and creative as its environment, the permanent collection houses some of
20th century art's heaviest hitters. Unlike the majority of art museums, the Guggenheim is not divided along lines of medium or era. Instead it can change and grow in response to what it houses.
The galleries are self-contained yet interdependent, with the open space offering the unique ability to view several sections on different levels simultaneously. With its continuous spaces, the organic design echoes the complex inner chambers of a seashell. Or, as Wright called its seamless spiral, "the quiet unbroken wave". From the outside too, the structure is a striking departure from the cubic restraints of the surrounding buildings. It is the Guggenheim's ability to step beyond the realm of gallery into art itself that makes it such a talking point in The Building Intelligence Group offices.
One of the most significant architectural icons of the 20th century, and a work of art in its own right, this building has altered not only the way architecture looks, but the way we look at architecture.