CultureNOW | A Celebration of Culture & Community

Nader Tehrani discusses the process of rethinking the branding of British Petroleum through architecture. The project is a way of reconceptualizing the idea of a gas station in a moment of time when we realize there are alternative sources of energy. 

Enrique Norten discusses the challenge in designing the Mercedes House in that the footprint was nearly an entire Manhattan city block. Due to its location being close to the Hudson River, and the fact that the majority of the building is residential, the architects took advantage of the views of the river and of the city skyline. 

The artist, Hiromi Moneyhun, talks about her inspiration: the story of survival of the Menorcans who were brought to Florida to be indentured servants and became an integral part of the community and about the location of the obelisk at the Oldest Wooden School House.

Jennifer Sage talks about the Ocean Breeze Track & Fieldhouse, which was built as part of New York City’s Design Excellence Program. The Ocean Breeze Indoor Athletic Facility sits within a new 110-acre park being developed as a part of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative, whose primary goal was to bring large scale regional parks to every borough. Located on Staten Island’s Eastern Shore, the building overlooks the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, lower Manhattan, and the Freedom Tower.

In the final stage of construction, Ocean Breeze has been open for track events since November 2015. Raised above one of the few remaining areas of native upland coastal grasslands on the island, Ocean Breeze’s minimal interior footprint – largely comprised of an open-air parking area – enhances both views and the potential for natural ventilation, while protecting the building from storm surges and rising tides.

Chuck Redmon discusses the San Antonio Museum of Art building. It was once an old brewery; the architects used the old design of the brewery and transformed it into a space that held art. In the early 1970s, the growth of the Association’s fine art collections led the Trustees to consider securing new space for the art collection. Plans were initiated to purchase the historic Lone Star Brewery complex for conversion into the San Antonio Museum of Art. The buildings were acquired in the 1970s. Following a $7.2 million renovation, the Museum of Art was opened to the public in March of 1981. Funding for the renovation was secured through grants from the Economic Development Administration, the City of San Antonio and a number of private individuals and foundations. A National Endowment for the Arts challenge grant helped establish the operating endowment.

At its outset, the Museum of Art emphasized the art of the Americas including pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial and Latin American folk art. Included as well were eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century American and European paintings, photography, sculpture and decorative arts. In 1985, the Museum received the unparalleled collections of Latin American Folk Art formed by former Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller and Robert K. Winn, establishing it at the forefront of American institutions collecting in this area.

In May of 2009, the Museum Reach extension of San Antonio's famed Riverwalk was opened. To accommodate the Museum's new riverfront access, SAMA built the Glora Galt River Landing, a shaded pavilion, esplanade and terrace along the Museum's north side. Architectural Record described Cambridge Seven's conversion of the old Lone Star brewery to a new art museum as work "of great distinction."  The article praised the architects for executing "a technically demanding task without letting the effort show," referring in part to the inserting of new electrical and mechanical systems throughout the building so as to allow the original industrial interiors to take on a new-found elegance as reticent galleries for an art collection. A subdued palette of suites, grays, and light colors articulate details of ceiling vaults, cast iron columns, exposed steel beams, and lighting tracks.  Changes of floor materials reinforce the individual identity and exhibit content of the galleries. 
 
A public circulation loop organizes the museum visit.  Glass elevators, artwork in themselves, provide a kinetic experience within the stacked gallery spaces.  A glass enclosed bridge connects the two gallery towers at the top, recalling the original bridge of the brewery, which was used for moving hops.  Exterior brick elements, such as arched windows and playful parapet forms, were restored and complemented by the addition of color accents. New architectural elements, such as the glass bridge, skylights over the lobby, and a rooftop pavilion, were developed in a crisp vocabulary of dark glass and steel, both to celebrate the original building and to signal its new use, through contrast. 

Pieranna Cavalchini, Curator of Contemporary Art at Gardner Museum, talks about the living room. The new wing of the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum designed by Renzo Piano provides a bustling complement to the serenity of the historic palace.  The form of the expansion features four volumes that seem to levitate above the transparent first floor.  Characteristic of Piano's work, glass facades and skylights abound, creating a light and functional space that contrasts with the heaviness of the original museum building.  The design privileged sustainability features, such as a geothermal well system, daylight harvesting, water efficient landscaping techniques, and the use of local and regional materials.

Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works talks about the firm's first museum commission- the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. The Contemporary is a non-collecting exhibition, educational and event space in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The site is located in the Grand Center District, adjacent to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Together, the institutions are a focal point for the arts community in St. Louis and a catalyst for the redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood. The Contemporary’s mission is not to preserve, but to provoke: presenting work from noted artists such as Maya Lin, Bruce Nauman and Cindy Sherman, as well as emerging contemporary artists.

The two-story, 27,000 sf museum provides open, flexible space for exhibitions and programs while emphasizing transparency at ground level. The building is formed by two intersecting ribbons of concrete and stainless steel mesh that weave and overlap to define the principal volumes. The lower walls bound the museum and create a series of large interconnecting galleries. The walls alternately delineate the site boundaries and fold inwards, inviting the public to enter and providing views through the building from the neighboring streets. The upper walls span above the galleries, providing spaces for administration and education. Between these walls, ceiling planes are held at varying heights to create variations in scale, proportion and enclosure, providing a diversity of day lighting conditions and curatorial opportunities.

This building is a simultaneous act of enclosure and invitation, allowing the landscape to flow through the entire site, while tenuously capturing and containing rooms for art. The museum is not a privileged domain, but an open field that concentrates the forces of the city in preparation for later occupation by the artists.

Michael Lehrer talks about the Water + Life Museums in Hemet, the first LEED Platinum museums in the world. He describes the ideology behind the buildings, which is evident both in their museum content and their architectural design. The Water and Life Museums are born of the construction of Diamond Valley Lake (DVL), the largest man-made water storage lake in North America. 
Set in the semi-arid Southern California desert near Hemet, DVL is an integral part of the state's water infrastructure.  The lake provides a 6-month emergency supply of water for all of Southern California.  Diamond  Valley existed between 2 mountain ranges.  Diamond Valley Lake was created by damming the Valley's open ends with two 300' high dams.  The East Dam is 2.5 miles long.  The Dam, is made from rock mined from these mountains.  The Museums sit near the base of the East Dam of DVL.  The construction of these dams is the largest earthwork project in American history.

Hagy Belzberg talks about the design concept of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. The new building for the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMH) is located within a public park, adjacent to the existing Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial.  Paramount to the design strategy is the integration of the building into the surrounding open, park landscape. The museum is submerged into the ground allowing the park’s landscape to continue over the roof of the structure.  Existing park pathways are used as connective elements to integrate the pedestrian flow of the park with the new circulation for museum visitors.  The pathways are morphed onto the building and appropriated as surface patterning.  The patterning continues above the museum’s galleries, further connecting the park’s landscape and pedestrian paths. By maintaining the material pallet of the park and extending it onto the museum, the hues and textures of concrete and vegetation blend with the existing material palette of Pan Pacific Park.  These simple moves create a distinctive façade for the museum while maintaining the parks topography and landscape.  The museum emerges from the landscape as a single, curving concrete wall that splits and carves into the ground to form the entry.  Designed and constructed with sustainable systems and materials, the LAMOTH building is on track to receive a LEED Gold Certification from the US Green Building Council.

The Associate Curator for Architecture & Urbanism at the Guggenheim Museum, Maria Nicanor, shares the story behind the commission of the Guggenheim Museum and talks about the iconic design by Frank Lloyd Wright. In June 1943, Frank Lloyd Wright received a letter from Hilla Rebay, the art advisor to Solomon R. Guggenheim, asking the architect to design a new building to house Guggenheim's four-year-old Museum of Non-Objective Painting. The project evolved into a complex struggle pitting the architect against his clients, city officials, the art world, and public opinion. Both Guggenheim and Wright would die before the building's 1959 completion. The resultant achievement, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, testifies not only to Wright's architectural genius, but to the adventurous spirit that characterized its founders. Wright made no secret of his disenchantment with Guggenheim's choice of New York for his museum: "I can think of several more desirable places in the world to build his great museum," Wright wrote in 1949 to Arthur Holden, "but we will have to try New York." To Wright, the city was overbuilt, overpopulated, and lacked architectural merit.