Hasta La Ideas

The Rhode Island School of Design, which loyal UnBeige readers will recall boasts budding “artrepreneurs” and President John Maeda, is welcoming new leadership to its museum. John W. Smith (pictured), who currently serves as director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, has been appointed director of the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design (a.k.a. RISD Museum), the institution announced today. He’ll begin work this fall.

Among Smith’s most notable achievements at the Archives: expanding the exhibitions and publications program, integrating contributions of contemporary artists into the programming, and raising nearly $15 million. He also acquired the Leo Castelli Gallery archive (swoon!) and led a project to digitize the Archives’ collections and redesign its website. And did we mention he’s only been there for about five years? Smith’s previous experience includes 11 years with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. “This appointment signals a new era at the Museum,” said Merrill Sherman, chair of RISD’s Board of Trustees, in a statement announcing the hire. “John Smith’s contemporary flair and his sensitivity to the past are sure to thrive here.” Home to freshly restored galleries showcasing collections of ancient art, and medieval and early Renaissance art, the Museum at RISD is currently showcasing a bit of its own flair with “Cocktail Culture,” a fizzy exhibition that explores the social ritual of the cocktail hour through the lens of fashion and design. We’ll drink to that!

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While the Smithsonian wound up being able to avoid having to charge its threatened $7.50 per ticket, other Washington DC-based museums haven’t fared the same. The National Building Museum has announced that, effective June 27th, it will begin charging an entry fee, $8 for adults and $5 for children. While that certainly likely won’t destroy any visitor’s wallets, considering nearly every museum in the country seems to start at around $15/per, it’s a big change for the organization, which had been free to visit since its opening in 1985. The museum had tested the fee-charging waters with its popular Lego Architecture exhibition, which ran for nearly a year and cost visitors $5 a pop. That experiment having been successful and the financial issues plaguing nearly every museum in the world certainly not passing them by, the museum made the decision that now was the time to implement the new policy. Here’s a portion from a letter to the museum’s staff from the NBM’s executive director, Chase Rynd:

Over the past few years, the recession has been particularly devastating for the culture and arts community, as well as the building and design industry. The many people who have deep affinity for the National Building Museum understand all too well, therefore, that this institution has been greatly impacted by the economic crisis.

Around the world and in our backyards, the landscape for nonprofit organizations has shifted dramatically. Those who wait too long to realize this truth or dismiss it entirely are likely to become casualties of the era. Under no circumstances will we allow this to be the fate of the National Building Museum.

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We really wish we’d told you about this yesterday, but fortunately there are a few more Mondays left between now and early August. Late last week, Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art announced that famous street artist, and included exhibitionist, Banksy, has sponsored free admission to the museum every Monday for the duration of its controversial street art exhibit, Art in the Streets. Like we sort of halfheartedly apologized for above, you missed yesterday, but if you want to catch the show and don’t want to pay for it, you have until August 8th, when it closes up shop and prepares for how it will terrorize Brooklyn next spring. Here’s a bit:

“I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it,” said Banksy. “MOCA is very grateful to Banksy for his unprecedented gesture,” said MOCA Director and exhibition co-curator Jeffrey Deitch. “Art in the Streets is drawing record attendance, and opening it up to everyone will have a lasting impact on communities in Los Angeles, many of whom have not been to the museum before.”

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While calls for budget cuts and voluntary resignations might still be all the talk around the Smithsonian, the organization can rest easy in the knowledge that they’ve finally put at least one pressing issue to bed this week. Although overshadowed by the National Portrait Gallery/David Wojnarowicz debacle, you might recall back to this past March when Capitol Hill demanded that the Smithsonian start selling more American-made products in their gift shops…or else (feel free to imagine a representative of the government shaking their fist right here). There was even a bill called the “Buy American at the Smithsonian Act,” which was introduced by West Virginia Representative Nick Rahall. The mighty power of the government was apparently felt and now all seems right at the Smithsonian again, as the Washington Post reports that Virginia Representative Bernard Sanders toured the National Museum of American History‘s gift shop and found he liked what he saw: lots of American-made products. They report that the fella even bought himself a new t-shirt. Here’s a bit:

Escorting Sanders was Brent D. Glass, the director of the museum, who had promised to work on the store’s items. “Now 100 percent of the products in this store — the books, the puzzles, the throw rugs are all made in America,” Glass said.

The museum reported that the business unit that oversees the stores has added 90 vendors since March 1, with 19 of those furnishing U.S.-made merchandise. More than 12,000 items are sold throughout all the museum stores, according to the Smithsonian, one-third of them U.S.-made.

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Norwegian architects Snøhetta have unveiled their design for an extension to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), which will double the gallery’s exhibition and education spaces.

A glass-fronted gallery along Howard Street will create a new entrance to the museum on a part of the site currently occupied by a fire station.

From here a five metre-wide pathway will lead up a set of stairs and across a public square towards Natoma Street.

The new buildings will be over 15 metres taller than the existing SFMOMA building, which was completed by architect Mario Botta in 1995.

Read more about Snøhetta’s competition-winning entry in our earlier story on Dezeen Wire.

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Here are some more details from the press release:

SFMOMA unveils preliminary designs for its expansion

Expansion Will Double Exhibition and Education Space

Design Transforms SFMOMA and Neighbourhood
Opening New Routes of Public Circulation and Access
With New Entry and Pedestrian Promenade

May 25, 2011—The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) today unveiled the preliminary design for its expansion that will double the museum’s exhibition and education space while enhancing the visitor experience and more deeply weaving the museum into the fabric of the city. The new building will both transform the museum and enliven the city by opening up new routes of public circulation around the neighbourhood and into the museum. Completion is projected in 2016.

Developed by architectural firm Snøhetta in collaboration with SFMOMA and EHDD of San Francisco, the over 225,000-square-foot expansion will run contiguously along the back of the current building and extend from Howard to Minna streets, allowing for the seamless integration of the two structures. The new building will provide SFMOMA with a greater public profile and an openness that will welcome visitors and project the museum’s role as a catalyst for new ideas, a center for learning, and a place that provides great art experiences for Bay Area residents and visitors.

On its east side, the building will feature a sweeping façade and an entrance in an area that is currently hidden from public view and largely unused. This will be achieved through the creation of a mid-block, open-air, 18-foot-wide pedestrian promenade running from Howard Street through to Natoma Street that will open a new route of public circulation through the neighbourhood and bring Natoma Street, currently a dead end, to life. The public promenade will feature a series of stairs and landings terracing up to an entry court that extends from the new east entrance, providing additional public spaces.

The building also introduces a façade on Howard Street that will feature a large, street-level gallery enclosed in glass on three sides, providing views of both the art in the galleries and the new public spaces. At this time, the museum is also exploring the creation of a number of outdoor terraces, including one on top of its current building. The Snøhetta building will rise fifty feet higher than the Botta building, and its roofline will be sculpted to frame the skyline of the buildings beyond it to the east when viewed from Yerba Buena Gardens. The new entrance will be accessible from both Howard and Natoma streets and will align with the new Transbay Transit Center being built two blocks east of the museum. This entry will complement SFMOMA’s current Third Street entrance, which will be revitalised to enhance visitor flow and access.

On Howard Street, the glass-enclosed gallery and pedestrian promenade will be located on a site currently occupied by Fire House 1 and its neighbor at 670 Howard Street. SFMOMA is designing, financing, and constructing a new, replacement fire station on nearby Folsom Street, representing a gift to the city of more than $10 million, that will provide the Fire Department with a state-of-the-art facility that will enhance emergency response time.

The planning of the expansion continues as an intensive collaborative process of museum leadership, trustees, visitors, other stakeholders, and the design team. The design of the interior spaces and integration of the two buildings will be unveiled at the end of this year.

Says SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra, “This is a transformative design for the museum, the neighbourhood, and the city. The new resources we are creating for SFMOMA are a response to the incredible growth of our audiences over the past 15 years and increased public demand for the museum’s programming. The welcoming and luminous character of Snøhetta’s design and its embrace of the surrounding neighbourhood further SFMOMA’s role as a center for learning, interaction, and inspiration for the people of San Francisco and the region.”

“Our design for SFMOMA responds to the unique demands of this site, as well as the physical and urban terrain of San Francisco,” says Snøhetta principal architect Craig Dykers. “The scale of the building meets the museum’s mission, and our approach to the neighbourhood strengthens SFMOMA’s engagement with the city. Pedestrian routes will enliven the streets surrounding the museum and create a procession of stairs and platforms leading up to the new building, echoing the network of paths, stairways, and terracing that is a trademark of the city.”

SFMOMA has raised more than $250 million toward a projected $480 million campaign goal for the expansion, including $100 million for the museum’s endowment. The project also encompasses an expansion of the permanent collection, which forms the foundation of the museum’s programming. This past February, SFMOMA launched a multiyear campaign to further strengthen the collection, which has more than doubled in size to 27,000 works since the museum moved to its current home in 1995. In September 2009, the museum also announced that the Fisher family would share its renowned collection of contemporary art with the public at SFMOMA. The museum holds one of the foremost collections of contemporary art in the world and the leading collection of modern and contemporary art on the West Coast.

SFMOMA first announced plans to expand its building in April 2009, spurred by growth since it moved to Third Street in 1995. The move catalyzed incredible growth in the museum’s audiences, educational programs, exhibitions, and collections. Over the past 15 years, SFMOMA’s annual average attendance has more than tripled to some 700,000, membership has grown to 40,000. SFMOMA has also developed one of the strongest exhibition programs in the world, organising groundbreaking shows that travel internationally, including recent surveys of the work of Diane Arbus, Olafur Eliasson, Eva Hesse, Frida Kahlo, William Kentridge, Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Jeff Wall.

Snøhetta on SFMOMA
In describing the design concept, Craig Dykers stated:

SFMOMA sparked the dramatic transformation of San Francisco’s South of Market district when it transformed a run-down neighborhood into a cultural anchor for the city in 1995. After 15 years on Third Street, SFMOMA is now further invigorating the city by opening up a place that has been out of sight and out of mind.

SFMOMA’s expansion will enliven the neighbourhood through a generous plan that frees connections between well-known surrounding streets and more hidden urban spaces. The building will encourage people to enjoy the intimate small streets as much as the heavily used thoroughfares of the district. The new building does not push tightly against its property lines; instead it creates new public spaces and pedestrian routes through the neighbourhood along with open views of the surrounding streetscape. By organising the complex configuration of the museum’s expansion site into a unified whole, the new SFMOMA will promote connections to portions of the city that are already becoming more publicly accessible with the construction of the new Transbay Transit Center. Having been a partner to the creation of the cultural hub around Yerba Buena Gardens, SFMOMA will now further enliven the entire neighbourhood as an urban destination.

Formally, the new SFMOMA is designed to engage with the skyline that surrounds it. Its sculptural identity is found in a formal language that embraces and invites the silhouettes of its neighbours to participate in the dialogue of the new urban identity of South of Market. SFMOMA’s new, low slung shape will create a horizon in the skyline that connects rather than segregates the different parts of the city that border it.

See also:

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Opera House Oslo by Snøhetta	Petter Dass Museum by Snøhetta	MAXXI by Zaha Hadid