the parsley.blog.landscape.life

originally posted October 27, 2009

Two years ago, I was at the new Frederic C Hamilton building at the Denver Art Museum, just a short time after it opened.  The building, an extension of the original Gio Ponti building, was designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind, and was the first building by Libeskind to be completed in the US.

I never did get a good shot of the entire exterior; it was a blustery day when I went (the titanium skin doesn’t look nearly as pretty when the sky’s not blue) and I didn’t manage to stand far back enough.

but I guess any effort on my part to take some kind of iconic shot of the exterior would have been superfluous, considering the many better photographers that have already done so.  and it sure does make a striking photo.

I had read some reviews of the museum, which generally liked the building but felt it was ‘inimical to the art,’ that the angled walls were gimmicky, that it made for too many weird situations trying to fit the program and services into the jaggedy shapes.

but I experienced the building just a few weeks after it opened, and it was filled with enthusiastic people clearly enjoying themselves, and in short, it was a trip.

(literally, in some cases, as I got some closeups of the problems caused by the angled walls, including tiny guardrails placed on the floor to keep people from bumping their heads on walls that were angling in toward them:

and places where the walls were already scuffed up, weeks after the opening, by people stubbing their toes on talls that had angled away from them.)

maybe there could have been better solutions to these problems.  but, on the other hand, if we let nothing but practical considerations rule our decisions, will we ever see anything new or exciting?

I don’t know how I’d feel about the building if I’d seen nothing but glossy architecture magazine pictures of the interiors. like the exteriors, the interiors are a shutterbug’s dream, but what really makes them worth seeing is noticing the ways in which people interact with them.

this building has a lot of surprises in store. the interiors themselves surprise you, because you never know what’s coming around the next corner. the way you interact with the art surprises you, as you never know what you will see next, from what angle you will approach it, or how it will affect you. and the unexpected angles and turns also bring you into contact with the other museum patrons in ways that catch you off-guard.

granted, I was there with a happy Denver crowd, not grumpy Easterners, but I found myself talking unexpectedly to strangers more than once, or at least experiencing eye contact…

it’s not all that often that we get to see a truly new thing. I’m as skeptical as anyone of some of the flights of fancy of architecture.  just because we can model it, doesn’t always mean we should build it. but for me, the real test is getting in there and experiencing a place.

a lot of movies have predictable plots. I like to be surprised for a change.