Architectural Shifts, Global and Local
Overwhelmed by the globetrotting needed to keep up with the new museums opening every year? Well, put on your track shoes. Keep up the pace.
The ribbon cuttings this season begin at the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, finally opening after a decade of delays. Bernard Tschumi’s delicate exercise in blending contemporary architecture into a weighty historical context carries a political message from the Greek government. It is an argument for bringing home the Elgin Marbles.
In Washington, Norman Foster’s handsome new courtyard addition to the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art, part of the Smithsonian, is to be unveiled in November. The courtyard’s lacy new glass-and-steel canopy is meant to give a touch of elegance to the Greek Revival setting.
The Broad Contemporary Art Museum, Renzo Piano’s building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is scheduled to open in February. Though not as adventurous as an earlier proposal by Rem Koolhaas, Mr. Piano’s sparkling new structure, to be accompanied by a renovation of the existing 20-acre museum campus, should add light and clarity to its currently motley collection of six buildings.
Read full article (New York Times, September 9, 2007)
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