Case Study: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Back in my school years I used to visit many historical museums, where I learned a lot about the culture and society of the past. As I have always been interested in history and arts, all that was a breathtaking experience for me. I believe that these museums is the best way to get closer to lives of our ancestries and it can help us to see the world in a different way. However, to be more knowledgeable about the world we live in, it’s also extremely important to be familiar with modern art. So this time I decided to experience something new and started searching for a museum which would contain works of contemporary artists. Tampa Museum of Art was a great option. This Museum was founded in 1979 and since then it has curated three exhibitions covering the Classical World to Mid-Century Modernist works,

Never before have I seen a museum as grand as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From its architecture to its massive art collection, The Met has a little bit of everything and one is sure to find something that captures his or her interest. Considering that The Met is the United States' largest art museum, it is easy to get lost within its many corridors and wings. My visit to The Met took place during the last week of July. Despite the almost unbearable heat and humidity that hung in the air, visiting museums under these climate conditions is a welcome respite from a suffocating, yet bright summer afternoon.

Without a doubt, Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the greatest architects in American history and the greatest architect of the 20th century. Nature was his muse and his architectural structures embodied organic qualities. He took full advantage of the technological advances of the 20th century but redirecting the concept of space and employing new techniques; Wright was known for his modern and innovative designs. He believed that, “architecture was not just about buildings, it was about nourishing the lives of those sheltered within them”. Wright is not only one of the most well known architects in America but he is also thought of as one of the most influential architects in the world.

Perhaps illness so influenced the artistic style of Van Gogh, but the picture turned out completely different to all that the artist wrote so far. This is not a Van Gogh, who was known. In the canvas, there is tension, anxiety, dense colors and warm shades of olive-mustard. On the contrary, here there is some kind of lightness, airiness, and transparent weightlessness. On the manner of execution, the pattern resembles Japanese prints: iris field full of peace, a lightness, and transparency. "Irises" are simple and unique, they are striking in their serenity and the ability to remove the internal stress of everyone who saw at least reproduction. Painting simply breathes watercolor, translucency and make to look at it more than one hour.

The building at 111 South Michigan Avenue, home of the Art Institute of Chicago, was opened in 1893 as the World’s Congress Auxiliary Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition. The building was passed on to the Art Institute after the end of the exposition. Designed in the Beax-Arts style by Boston firm Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, building has become an icon for chicagoans an tourists alike. The Modern Wing, the Art Institute’s latest and largest addition to date, opened on May 16, 2009, and was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano. The 264,000 square foot addition now houses the museum’s collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography. The new

The painting work done by C. Bertram Hartman was the first piece of art I observed inside the Dallas Museum. This painting, completed in 1930, consists of a campanile-type tower, most likely a representation of a historic skyscraper (Walker 73). The painting applies a fractured perspective blended on an urban look with muted color palettes accompanied by harsh shadows (MacDonald & Brettell 117). The painting is a reflection of the dynamism and energetic expansion of the current New York City. The geometrical arrangement of the buildings in the painting resemble the current scenes witnessed in New York, championing a fast pace and a

The Whitney Museum of American Art has often been referred to a citadel of American Art, partially due to the museums façade, a striking granite building (Figure 1), designed by Bauhaus trained architect Marcel Breuer. The museum perpetuates this reference through its biennial review of contemporary American Art, which the Whitney has become most famous for. The biennial has become since its inception a measure of the state of contemporary art in America today.

With exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is one of the Nation’s largest facilities devoted to the art of our time (“About the MCA”) . The mission of the MCA is to offer a direct experience to the public of modern day art and living artists. German architect Joseph Paul Kleihues designed the new building with seven times the square feet of its previous facility (“The Building”) . October of 1967 the museum opened its doors to the public for the first time. The Museum of Contemporary Art is a symbol of modern art, culture, and the artist of our time. It is a stepping stone in history and will leave footprints in the heart of Chicago for many generations to come.

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in the year 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin. Both an architect and writer, he is considered a genius of the American architecture (Kaufmann 1). Wright went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a few terms where he took engineering courses (Kaufmann 3). He finally left Madison after a few years and found work with J.L. Silsbee, in architectural detailing. After a few years he opened his own architectural practice. One of his styles that became the residential design of the 20th century in the United States was the Prairie Style. The Prairie architecture was known for its revolutionary approach to the building of modern homes. Wright built about 50 prairie houses in ten years. Two of his major works that stand out is the Guggenheim Museum located in New York and the Marin County government Centre located near San Francisco.

The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 damaged the old de Young museum building located in Golden Gate Park and uncovered severe seismic flaws in the building and hence a comprehensive plan to rebuild the building in stages was overtaken to make the de Young museum up to date. In January 1999 the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron were chosen to rebuild the De young museum, due to their willingness to engage in an extended process of architectural design and also because their prior work demonstrated a drive to explore new building solutions for each client. Each of Herzog & de Meuron’s prior buildings were known for their strikingly different façade treatments and the use of uncommon

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most important architects of the twentieth century; with his buildings and his ideals of an organic architecture, he got to be known by everyone. Who does not know about the Fallingwater? This building is considered his masterpiece and represents all his principles. For him, organic architecture was designing by integrating a building to its site and context, and he was able to achieve it with most of his projects. However, Wright’s career did not started like this; he went through a lot of complex periods that ended consolidating his ideals as an architect. Moreover, each of these phases had different kind of influences that Wright took and learned from. Therefore, it’s important to acknowledge how outside architecture and social factors influenced his “Organic” idea.

Positioned alongside Central Park within the heart of New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest and most influential art museums in the world. The Met houses an extensive collection of curated works that spans throughout various time periods and different cultures. The context of museums, especially one as influential as the Met, inherently predisposes its visitors to a set of understandings that subtly influence how they interpret and ultimately construct meanings about each individual object within a museum. By analyzing two separate works on exhibit at the Met, I will pose the argument that museums offer a unique expression of a world view that is dictated through every element of its construction.

Barr submitted the concept of what was to become of the museum. It had to be organized as a multi-departmental structure each devoted for Architecture and Design, Photography, Film and Video, and they should stand side by side with traditional arts such as Painting and Sculpture. Architect Philip Johnson built on this idea. The multi-departmental structure seemed to best fit with the burgeoning International Style, a modernist architectural movement from which Philip Johnson belonged. In this architecture, buildings are designed with simple geometric lines and clean, precise surfaces and with minimum decoration. Walls are made almost entirely of glass, known as curtain walls—a signature Johnson was known for—that are used to give the building a light and airy appearance.

The couple stored the collection in their home for a long period of time, the even agreed to loan two hundred pieces to a “New York Dali retrospective” before finally deciding to give the collection a permanent home. Dali encouraged the couple to build a museum in New York, although they thought this was a wonderful idea they still kept searching. One of their goals for the collection was to preserve the collections historical integrity. When word reached St. Petersburg, attorney, James W. Martin worked quickly to persuade

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum that represents modern and contemporary art. Its story first begins when Thomas Krens the director of Solomon R. Guggenheim foundation in New York City, was looking for a museum location in Europe. He chose the industrial wasteland in the middle of the city on a curve of the Nervion River. The site was located in the center of