Hasta La Ideas

Though the Washington Post beat them to having the first review, and let’s just ignore the recent news of founder Alice Walton‘s DWI, Architectural Record has scored a personal tour through the soon-to-open Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art by none other than the architect himself, Moshe Safdie. AR is far more positive than the Washington Post in their review of the highly anticipated museum, which opens at the start of next month, though they admit that it’s a bit tricky to really judge how the space will actually function since it’s still in the midst of wrapping up construction. They’ve also included a handful of photos, if you’re eager to take a look but don’t have plans to visit rural Bentonville, Arkansas anytime soon. Here’s a bit from their early look:

Ambitious as it is, the museum is never overbearing. It contains some of the loveliest galleries since Safdie’s Peabody-Essex Museum opened in Salem, Massachusetts, in 2003. At Crystal Bridges, the two main exhibition spaces parallel the stream, in long, gently curved rooms that seem to hold back the surrounding hillsides. Their roofs, supported by the timber beams, curve gently downward toward the river, mimicking the shape of the valley and giving the curators a variety of wall and ceiling heights to work with. They have used the low walls for paintings by the likes of Frederic Church, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer, and the high walls for monumental pieces by Louise Nevelson, Joan Mitchell, and others.

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Looks from the Miu Miu spring 2011 and Prada resort 2012 collections flanked by Elsa Schiaparelli gowns designed with Jean Cocteau (left) and Salvador Dalí (right)

“Fashion is instant language,” Miuccia Prada has said. That gives curators Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton plenty of material for the conversations they’ll imagine between Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973) for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2012 Costume Institute exhibition. Opening in May, “Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion” will explore the affinities between the two Italian designers from different eras. “Given the role Surrealism and other art movements play in the designs of both Schiaparelli and Prada, it seems only fitting that their inventive creations be explored here at the Met,” said museum director Thomas Campbell in a statement announcing the exhibition. “Schiaparelli’s collaborations with Dalí and Cocteau as well as Prada’s current Fondazione Prada push art and fashion ever closer, in a direct, synergistic, and culturally redefining relationship.”

Inspired by a series of “Impossible Interviews” written by Miguel Covarrubias for Vanity Fair in the 1930s, Koda and Bolton will collaborate with director, screenwriter, and producer Baz Luhrmann and film production designer Nathan Crowley to develop and film simulated conversations between Schiaparelli and Prada on topics such as art, politics, and women. The resulting videos will be shown in the Met’s first-floor special exhibition galleries alongside approximately 80 designs by Schiaparelli (from the late 1920s to the early 1950s) and Prada (from the late 1980s to the present). Meanwhile, Luhrman and Crowley will assist Raul Avila in designing the 2012 Costume Institute Gala Benefit, which will be co-chaired by Prada, Anna Wintour, and actress Carey Mulligan, who will play Daisy Buchanan in Luhrman’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Another bookish tie-in? Amazon is sponsoring the exhibition, and Jeff Bezos will serve as honorary gala chair. Does this mean Prime members get to jump the line?
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In case you missed it given how much was going on with the Occupy Wall Street protests over the weekend, and because it was seemingly all over before it began, contingents of the movement, aptly calling themselves Occupy DC, stormed the entrance to the National Air and Space Museum on Saturday before they were pushed back and pepper sprayed by Smithsonian guards, after which the museum closed for the remainder of the day. That’s interesting enough (for instance, wondering why exactly the Air and Space Museum was targeted), but it’s since gotten more curious now that the event has long-since passed. First, writer Patrick Howley from the conservative magazine the American Spectator wrote this snark-filled piece about infiltrating the ranks of the Occupy DC group and was among those who were pepper sprayed, initially claiming that he was in part responsible for the move into trying to occupy the museum. The Washington Post‘s Suzy Khimm picked up on the story, commenting that Howley’s description of how the events transpired didn’t match up with how the media reported the event. In two updates thereafter, Khimm reports that American Spectator removed the story entirely, only to have it pop back up again shortly thereafter, re-written with changes to the narrative, now explaining that Howley had simply been there to “observe” and not to instigate, as he’d originally written, with no explanation from the magazine as to why it had been revised. As the Guardian writes, there are now calls for not only the magazine to be investigated, but for criminal charges be handed down to Howley for inciting an obstructive riot. In general, it’s also being called lousy journalism, embedding a reporter who is there purely to mock and undermine.

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Considering how occasionally difficult some of his recent health-based rough patches had been over the past couple of years, legendary architect Oscar Niemeyer seemed to be having a pretty great 103rd year. In addition to a new book released this summer, profiling the dozens of churches he had designed during this still-going career, he rang in his birthday last December with the opening of two in now-a-series of dazzling modern buildings housing eponymous cultural organizations, first with the Oscar Niemeyer Foundation in his home city of Rio de Janeiro, followed closely by the opening of the Centro Cultural Internacional Oscar Niemeyer in Aviles, Spain. However, despite the positive, things may have taken a slight turn in the opposite direction. The Guardian reports that the center in Spain, often referred to as akin to a cousin to Frank Gehry‘s Guggenheim in Bilbao, has been forced to close, just months after opening. The paper writes that the local government alleges that it has found a number of troubling issues with the organization’s finances, saying that “too much had been spent on hotels, trips and restaurants.” The outpouring of support for the center has reportedly been steady, and the organization itself says it disagrees with the government’s findings, but for the time being, with no re-opening date set, the building remains closed, adding it, as the Guardian writers, to “a growing list of ambitious publicly-funded projects in Spain which have run into trouble.”

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Architects MVRDV of Rotterdam and COBE of Copenhagen and Berlin have won a competition to design a rock-music museum at a former concrete factory in Roskilde, Denmark.

The ROCKmagneten project comprises the conversion of the factory halls plus three new structures to house the Danish Rock Museum, the headquarters of Roskilde Festival and their new Roskilde Festival Folkschool.

The museum will be clad in gold spikes while the black office block will be covered in speakers, to be used for outdoor events in the plaza below.

The former factory site is currently occupied by musicians, artists and skaters and the company hopes to maintain this platform for informal creativity, with space around the site for temporary exhibitions, events and pavilions.

The first phase of construction is due for completion in 2014.

See all our stories about MRVDV here.

Renders are by Luxigon.

The following details are from the architects:

ROCKmagneten: MVRDV and COBE win Danish Rock Museum competition in Roskilde

The MVRDV and COBE scheme for the transformation of a former concrete factory into a multifunctional creative hub was chosen as the winner of an international design competition.

The masterplan proposes an informal transformation of the 45.000m2 site into a dense neighborhood, incl. 8.000m2 existing factory halls, organized around a plaza for events.

Three new volumes will be added on top of the halls: The 11.000m2 ROCKmagneten consists of The Danish Rock Museum, The Roskilde Festival Folkschool incl. student housing, and the headquarters of the famous Roskilde Rock Festival.

They share program in a public creative communal house. The museum with a total of 3.000m2 will be completed as the first phase in 2014.

The site is located between Roskilde city centre and the Festival grounds of the annual rock festival. The brief demanded preservation halls of the former concrete factory Unicon and the informal character of the site which is currently used by artists, skaters and musicians.

How to organise liberty, creativity and informality? The main idea is to create contrast by preserving the existing fabric as much as possible and positioning the new volumes above the existing halls. The masterplan defines areas for future buildings and temporary pavilions around a large event plaza connecting the halls and the ROCKmagneten with the main street. As a result Unicon becomes Musicon.

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The old industrial halls will be insulated and opened for daylight but keep their rough character. The big open spaces inside the halls will then be interconnected and partly filled with elements of the ROCKmagneten’s public program and partly consist of ‘undefined’ space where temporary activities, events, exhibitions or the unplanned can take place. The halls function as the heart of the creative hub for the Musicon area.

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Three new volumes will be added on top of the halls. The Danish Rock Museum (3.000m2) is the main focus of the masterplan with a facade of gold colored spikes. The exhibition concept of the new museum is based on the rock star experience, like ‘the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust’. Visitors can arrive by limo on a red carpet, stand in line to get a ticket and then enter the main exhibition hall through a stage elevator. The descend down through the bar marks the exit of the museum. The foyer of the museum not only provides access to the whole ROCKmagneten but can also be used as an outdoor concert stage, performing to either the big event plaza or the halls.

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The Roskilde Festival Headquarter is an office block on top of one of the factory halls shaped as a stack of loud speakers with a black rubber facade. Some speakers are real and can be used for concerts on the plaza.

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The Roskilde Festival Folkschool will occupy one of the halls with rooms for lectures, study, lounges etc. positioned around an open space containing a fireplace. A 3-level circular volume on top of the halls contains 80 double rooms for students.

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The ambition is to create a green machine; based on the smart combination of proven technologies the buildings will act in accordance with the environmental vision of Roskilde Festival. The annual rock festival is the biggest in Northern Europe and organised as a charity which donates its profit. Bands such as U2, R.E.M., Coldplay, Pet Shop Boys, Prince, Rammstein and Robbie Williams perform to an enthusiastic crowd from all over Europe.

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MVRDV and COBE conceived the plan with Arup engineering, Wessberg engineers, LIW planning landscape architects and Transsolar for climate and energy.

See also:

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Alphabet Building by MVRDV	Comic and Animation Museum by MVRDV	Le Monolith by MVRDV