Hasta La Ideas

Function meets form in these handy items soon to hit shelves at the Museum of Modern Art

Perpetually stocked with an exciting supply of functionally clever items, the MoMA Design Store is a never-ending source for curious shoppers. Each season the amped-up museum gift shop adds even more well-curated wares to its inventory, spanning jewelry, gadgets and more.

Here we highlight three items culled from 2011 that stand out for their equally appealing aesthetic and ease of use. Keep an eye out for these on MoMA shelves and online in 2012.

Terrain Vase

Created by Stephan Jaklitsch, the architect behind several Marc Jacobs stores, the crafty Terrain Vase features a removable lid that easily slides off the reservoir at the base. The 11 interlocking dividers keep the stems intact even when disposing of the dirty water that has collected at the bottom, ensuring your arrangement never has to be reconfigured. Made from biodegradable cornstarch-based PLA plastic, the vase can also be positioned in two different formations for a wider variety of display. $48

Verso Snack Dispenser

The Verso Snack Dispenser is not only a sophisticated way to pass Skittles around the office, but by keeping hands out of a communal bowl, it’s also a healthier system for sharing treats. Created by skilled designer Mario Taepper, the German-made dispenser stands upright—working as an elegant, petite vase when not stocked with snacks—and is crafted from 18/10 mirror-polished stainless steel. $85

Cutting Board with Collapsible Bin

Joe Kent adds a handy element to the ubiquitous cutting board with the simple addition of a removable bin. Dishwasher safe and leak-resistant, the receptacle catches scraps pushed off the edge of the slip-resistant board. $25

Cavernous holes in the courtyard of three museum buildings in Graz, Austria, lead underground into a new, shared entrance by Spanish architects Nieto Sobejano and local firm eep architekten (photographs by Roland Halbe).

The extension adds a conference hall, reading areas and an archive to the Joanneum Museum complex, which comprises a regional library, an art gallery and a natural history museum.

Glass surrounds the conical openings and each one tunnels down through one or two storeys to bring diffused natural light into the underground rooms.

Visitors enter the building via an outdoor elevator into the largest cone.

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos have completed a few museums this year – see them all here, including another one that tunnels underground.

Here’s some further explanation from Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos:

Joanneum Museum extension and refurbishment
International Competition 1st Prize 2006

Surface and Depth

The ground surface, the horizontal platform upon which most of our movements in the city occur, is very rarely the generating argument or the spatial support of a project. Perhaps as a result of that yearn for an identity that every new intervention seems to demand, architecture has tended to express itself throughout history by means of objects, volumes that have often established a difficult relationship with the scale of the urban environment in which they were inserted. In contrast, the extension of the Joanneum Museum emerged from the intention of acting within the strict limits of the horizontal plane of the city, offering a new public space based on an architectural proposal that is paradoxically simple in its depth and complex in its surface.

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The Joanneumsviertel of Graz is formed of three buildings of different periods and uses that up to now gave their back to one another and towards a residual rear courtyard: the Museum of Natural History – from the 18th century –, the Regional Library of Styria and New Gallery of Contemporary Art, the latter built at the end of the 19th century. As organisms belonging to the same institution, the project set out the need to endow the complex with a common access, welcoming spaces, conference hall, reading areas and services, aside from a lower level for archives and storage. Instead of falling into the temptation of developing an iconic intervention, as has often happened in recent extensions of existing museums, the project meant, however, a unique opportunity to carry out an at once urban and architectural transformation.

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If the historic center of Graz is known for its expressive roofscape, our proposal develops entirely below ground: we simply define a new pavement that as a large carpet takes up the whole exterior space between buildings and conceals below ground the spaces that house the required program. This decision allows acknowledging the value of the existing historical constructions – carrying out a refurbishment that is respectful towards their architectural characteristics – which acts only punctually in some interior areas without affecting the original exterior image and volume. The horizontal continuous surface of the new square is marked by a combinatorial series of circular patios that bring natural light into the underground spaces and house the entrance, the lobby and shared areas of museums and library, a gathering place from which to reach each one of them.

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The geometric abstraction implicit in every architectural work appears in the proposal with the boldness of a contemporary installation in the public space, transformed into an apparently random sequence of conical intersections derived from a single, virtual three-dimensional figure. Curved glass surfaces with a continuous silkscreen print filter light towards the interior and, inversely, illuminate the square with artificial light at night. A cultural institution like the Joanneum Museum, on which the Kunsthaus Graz is dependent, thus expresses the changing relationship between art and city.

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The square that centralizes the access to the museums is an unusual intervention in the urban space: a bet on the common action between plastic arts and architecture that will incorporate specific installations in collaboration with contemporary artists. The new extension goes almost unnoticed, concealed beneath the pavement that connects the historical buildings, as a materialization of a perforated horizon that expresses, and not only literally, that the depth of an architectural work can reside, unexpectedly, on its surface.

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Location: Graz (Austria)
Client: Government of Steiermark (Austria)
Architects: Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, eep architekten

Project: Fuensanta Nieto, Enrique Sobejano, Gerhard Eder
Collaborators: Dirk Landt, Christian Egger,Bernd Priesching, Daniel Schilp, Michele Görhardt, Udo Brunner, Anja Stachelscheid, Sebastián Sasse, Nik Wenzke, Ana-Maria Osorio, Michael Fenske
Structure: zt-büro dipl.-ing. Petschnigg
Mechanical Engineers: Pechmann GmbH, Ingenieurbüro f. Haustechnik
Models: Juan de Dios Hernández – Jesús Rey
Project: 2007-2008
Construction: 2009-2011

Architects Herzog & de Meuron have positioned a scaly crown over the top of this Basel museum (photographs by Roland Halbe).

The renovated Museum der Kulturen reopened in September and exhibits ethnographic artefacts and images from around the world.

The architects added a new gallery floor to the building, beneath the irregularly folded roof of shimmering ceramic tiles. A steel framework supports the roof, creating a column-free exhibition area.

On the existing storeys the architects extended a selection of windows down to ankle-height and removed a floor to create a new double-height gallery. The entrance to the museum is relocated to the rear, where a courtyard slopes downs to lead visitors inside.

Dezeen visited Basel back in October and talked to Herzog & de Meuron partner Christine Binswanger about the recently opened museum – listen to the podcast here.

Click here to see more stories about Herzog & de Meuron.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

The Museum der Kulturen Basel goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Replacing the Augustinian monastery on the Münsterhügel, the classicist building by architect Melchior Berri opened in 1849. The “Universal Museum,” as it was then called, was the city’s first museum building. Designed to house both the sciences and the arts, it now holds one of the most important ethnographic collections in Europe thanks largely to continuing gifts and bequests. In 1917, with holdings of some 40,000 objects, an extension by architects Vischer & Söhne was added. A second extension was projected in 2001 to accommodate what had, by now, become holdings of some 300,000 objects. Modifications would include an entrance especially for the Museum, thereby giving it a new identity.

Extending the building horizontally would have meant decreasing the size of the courtyard, the Schürhof. Instead the Vischer building of 1917 has been given a new roof. Consisting of irregular folds clad in blackish green ceramic tiles, the roof resonates with the medieval roofscape in which it is embedded while functioning at the same time as a clear sign of renewal in the heart of the neighbourhood. The hexagonal tiles, some of them three-dimensional, refract the light even when the skies are overcast, creating an effect much like that of the finely structured brick tiles on the roofs of the old town. The steel framework of the folded roof allows for a column-free gallery underneath, an expressive space that forms a surprising contrast to the quiet, right-angled galleries on the floors below.

Up until now, the Museum der Kulturen and the Naturhistorisches Museum shared the same entrance on Augustinergasse. The former is now accessed directly from Münsterplatz through the previously inaccessible rear courtyard, the Schürhof. The courtyard, in its patchwork setting of the backs of medieval buildings, has now become an extension of the Münsterplatz. Part of the courtyard has been lowered and an expansive, gently inclined staircase leads down to the Museum entrance. Hanging plants and climbing vines lend the courtyard a distinctive atmosphere and, in concert with the roof, they give the Museum a new identity. We look forward to having the courtyard become a social meeting place for all kinds of Museum activities and celebrations.

The weighty, introverted impression of the building, initially concealing its invaluable contents, is reinforced by the façades, many of whose windows have been closed off, and by the spiral-shaped construction for the hanging vegetation mounted under the eaves of the cantilevered roof above the new gallery. This is countered, however, by the foundation, which is slit open the entire length of the building and welcomes visitors to come in. These architectural interventions together with the vegetation divide the long, angular and uniform Vischer building of 1917 into distinct sections. The white stairs, the roof overhang, the climbing plants, the series of windows in the “piano nobile” and the glazed base lend the courtyard direction and give the building a face.

The windows were closed up not just to enhance the weight and elegance of the building; the additional wall space provided by this measure was equally important. The few remaining openings have been enlarged and now extend to the floor. The window reveals are so deep that they form small alcoves that look out onto the old town.

The sequence of rooms follows the same pattern on all three gallery floors. Only two rooms stand out: on the second floor, directly above the entrance, a large room with windows on one side faces the courtyard. Further up, a ceiling has been removed, creating a two-story room with a narrow window slit, where larger objects in the collection can be displayed. Visitors can look down on this new anchor room from above, much like the room containing the Abelam House, thus also providing orientation within the Museum.

The renovation of the galleries followed similar principles throughout. The older rooms have classicist coffered ceilings; those added later have concrete beams in one direction only. With the goal of restoring the original structure of the rooms, dropped ceilings were removed and technical services integrated as discreetly as possible into existing architectural elements.

Project Name: Museum der Kulturen
Address: Münsterplatz 20, 4051 Basel, Switzerland
(formerly Augustinergasse 2)

Project Phases: Concept Design: 2001-2002
Schematic Design: 2003
Design Development: 2003-2004
Construction Documents: 2008-2010
Construction: 2008-2010
Completion: 2010
Opening: September 2011

Project Team 2008-2010 Partner: Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger
Project Architect: Martin Fröhlich (Associate), Mark Bähr, Michael Bär
Project Team: Piotr Fortuna, Volker Jacob, Beatus Kopp, Severin Odermatt, Nina Renner, Nicolas Venzin, Thomas Wyssen

Project Team 2001-2004 Partner: Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger
Project Architect: Jürgen Johner (Associate), Ines Huber
Project Team: Béla Berec, Giorgio Cadosch, Gilles le Coultre, Laura Mc Quary

Stimulation is always in store with the Guggenheim’s annual Hilla Rebay lecture, an endowed program named for the Strasbourg-born baroness and artist who made her mark as Solomon Guggenheim’s art advisor and curator. The twenty-fourth annual lecture is set for the evening of January 11 (admission is free, but get there early to stake out a seat) and has a distinct design angle, as Tom McDonough, associate professor and chair of art history at Binghamton University, will discuss the prominent role of typography in contemporary art. “The Artist as Typographer” will highlight the work of artists such as Dexter Sinister (the design and publishing collaborative’s 2010 unpronounceable glyph, “A skeleton, a script, or a good idea in advance of its realization,” is pictured at right) Shannon Ebner, and Janice Kerbel. Learn more here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Apparently when James Cuno enters a cultural institution, he doesn’t just take the reigns, but takes over completely. Just four months ago, the former head of the Art Institute of Chicago took over as the new President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, and all the various museums and organizations that fall under that giant blanket. Now the Getty Museum has announced that its acting director, David Bomford, who replaced Michael Brand just last year, has stepped down to move back to his native London. In his place as the new acting director? You guessed it: James Cuno. This, of course, makes him the boss of himself, which in turns means that he can now having meetings about the museum in mirrors or even just relatively shiny surfaces. As for Bomford, here’s his statement about his leaving:

I have been privileged to serve as acting director of the Getty Museum and to have the opportunity to lead an incredible staff. Whether working with curators as they identified objects to add to our growing collections, interacting with the highly creative teams who work collaboratively to develop the Getty’s internationally recognized exhibitions, or with our dedicated team of educators, my experience has been extraordinarily rewarding in every aspect.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.