By the end of May 2010 I attended the 11th MDM Conference in Kansas City. Right after the conference I flew to New York City to visit one of my best friends Awen, and to visit the amazing NYC. It was a cloudy Thursday, while the sun came out sometimes shortly. Without sunshine NYC was still struck me as one of the most amazing, fabulous, and impressive cities.
Besides the landmarks like Statue of Liberty, any building on the corner could become another landmark of NYC. The city is a live museum of modern and contemporary architecture. Actually, USA is the cradle of modern architecture. Two of the three most important architects of modernism from Europe went to the States in 1930s, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. Only Le Corbusier lived in Europe. Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the greatest modern architects from the States. If the number counts, 3 of those 4 are from Europe, while 3 of those 4 have lived in USA in the end. To trace Frank Lloyd Wright seems to be somehow one of my goals at traveling to the states, since I happened to visit his Robbie House in Chicago in the spring of 2005.
S.R. Guggenheim Museum is the last masterpiece of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. It is really a pity that the museum was opened six months after Wright’s death. How did a 92-year old man think of lives in his last period of life? What kind of architectural work he liked to leave to the public? Was it to save the last to best? Getting off the subway line C at West 86th Street, I walked along the big lake in Central Park on the late afternoon. As I was approaching the east part of the city, I could almost see Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from some view points. It is bigly-round, outstanding white, thus, remarkable. The air in Central Park was fresh, the walk was delighting, and I was like a sincere pilgrim.
I had imagined S.R. Guggenheim Museum for many times since many years. It would look outstanding and unbalanced with its partial reverse white cylinder. It would look huge and upscale on a narrow NYC street. It would look like a strange snail. It would look … But at that time when I came to stand in front of it, I lost all my words. It is beyond any of my imaginations.
S.R. Guggenheim Museum Building is complete due to the repeated round motif. Many round elements are applied in different sizes by the architect, from the main cylinder to detailed window frame. It is elegant, because of the simpleness. Only round and square elements are in use. It is demure due to the white cement façade with merely a few windows. The sculptural essential is just a featured part beside stars in urban spaces. This reduces the contrast to the environment somehow. It also makes the museum actually fit the environment on the Fifth Avenue much better. But it is not perfect, as many architectural critics have pointed out its sharp contrast to the typical Manhattan box buildings. The supplementary adjoining rectangular tower built in 1992 gives a good foundation of the old part. It makes the museum fit the street view better, while the other color than white does not influence the completeness of Wright’s masterpiece. The old part was not standalone any more, but got a steady background to lean. The museum is a compromise, because Wright gave up adopting his favorite red color for the façade. That kind of red façade does not belong to New York City’s color palette. The museum is even a little “insane”. A cylinder is not a good and appropriate form for museum design at all, because it is hard to display paintings on its curve interior walls. However, who cares these details except the curators?
What does Robbie House in Campus of Chicago University look like which was built a good half century before S.R. Museum? I found out some old photos from my last US trip. It looks like a kind of classical style. In the fact, it is not. It stretches to each direction and looks lower than its actual hight, in order to have a better dialogue with the ground. Frank Lloyd Wright never built a building without his stubborn innovation, whatever a big or a small innovation point. He was a great architect paving a revolutionary way.
The museum was close shortly before 6 pm. I was not able to go inside. But I got a Lego model of it with 280 pieces. I am making my Lego masterpiece of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
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