Ando's Modern : Reflections on Architectural Translation
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
24 J p i > n g [ioI 2 u InI i I C i I e 17 Nolurol light floods a concrete gallery bay in the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art, by Tadao Anda and Associates wilh Kendall/Heaton Associates (2002). Floor sculpture: Slil by Carl Andre. Ando's Modern : Reflections on Architectural Translation Tadao Ando designed a sublime building for the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. As built, it's merely great. BY RICHARD R. BRETTELL Cite 5 7 2 o o 11 5 p r i n g 25 Tadoo Ando's (ompelilion mode! showed eight lucite lozenges floating on o blue reflective surface. Ando's competition rendering revealed a light filtering roof, intended lo be realized in glass and steel. The Competition and Ando's Ando's competition model was a Winning Entry series of eight gorgeous lucite lozenges In 1996, the architectural review commit- (lour ol which were connected longitudi- I tee lor the Modern chose sis architects to nally in pairs to form six bays), floating I compete: two Japanese ("Fadao Ando and on a blue reflective surface. Its shimmer- J Arata Iso/aki), one Mexican (Ricardo ing ambiguities ol surface combined with I 1 cgoretta), and three Americans (Richard us lucid geometry to be utterly com- Gluclctnan, Carlos Jimenez, and David pelling, and most viewers of the model Schwarz). Why llns bouquet? File most attempted to "visualize" it as an actual unusual aspect of the selection was how building with little success. Ando's basic relatively non-trendy ir was — no fashion idea was a museum of parallel two-story r;_ —_ v—I- • able Europeans, DO chic Americans, no concrete galleries. 24 feet wide and 1-44 rried-and-true architects. Indeed, among feet long, each encased in glass (rool the group ot sis, only two, Isozaki and included) and topped by a horizontal Legorctta, had internationally recognized "brisc soleil," or sunscreen, to modify the careers (Ando had not yet buill a major extreme Texas light. The sunscreen itseli building outside Japan), and all but one <il was not delineated and appeared in dif- the rest, though potentially exciting, had ferent forms in various drawings. The reputations as thoughtful architects who ends ot the gallery roots were supported needed an important building. No Gchry, by Y-shaped columns placed inside the I loll. I ladid or I ibeskind — or no Pei, glass wall, with vertical members ol con- Meier, Piano, or Foster — was invited to crete and diagonal members of steel. compete in Fort Worth. Between these concrete galleries, Ando Each ol thee architects was given a proposed 40 foot wide bays given archi- [ompelilion skelch by Tadao Ando. TADAO ANDO'S BUILDING tor tin M o d e r n A r t general building program and informa- tectural form by non-structural \\;ills, Museum of Fori W o r t h (henceforth "the tion about the newly acquired site and presumably covered in practical painted Modern0 ) opened to unprecedented — asked to submit preliminary plans and a sheetrock. Most of the drawings made in almost universal — accolades. There is model to the Modern. These were care- connection with the competition dealt n o d o u b t in anyone's m i n d that Ando's fully studied by the museum's committee with the relationship between concrete, Modern is ihe niosi i m p o r t a n t museum ami submitted to public scrutiny in an glass, and reflecting warer on the north I m building in Texas since Rcnzn Piano's exhibition held in the museum's galleries. and east sides of the l.-plan building. Few Menil Collection , and in the w o r l d since I laving seen this exhibition, read the details of the facade facing the Kimhell Frank dehry's Guggenheim M u s e u m in local criticism. MU\ discussed the competi- were apparent. Ando, unlike his country- ! Bilbao. Its seriousness ol purpose, archi- tion with many prominent regional citi- man Iso/aki, allowed the Modern's build- tectural purity, and a m b i t i o n are unques- zens, I can say thai there was a consensus ing to be taller than its distinguished tionable. It yearns, in fact, to he in the that Ando's design was superior as a neighbor and to face south, rather than company of the ur-rmiseums of art: Sir work of architectural imagination. west toward the Kimhell, effectively John Soane's D u l w i c h Picture Gallery, Neither the regional/modernist designs ol undercutting a lace-to-face comparison. Ando's competition site plan. Fricdcrich Schinkel's Aires M u s e u m , Legoretta and Jimenez nor the cerebral The entire effect of the model was of Adolphc von Klen/.e's Alte 1'mokotek. minimalism ol Gliicknian struck a chord floating pavilions that were, in them- Ludwig Mies van der Robe's N a t i o n a l in Dallas-Fort Worth, and David selves, reflective, and, thus, markedly dif- Gallery in Berlin, and Louis Kahn's Schwarz "s generic Beaux Arts galleries ferent from Ando's by-now Lumbar archi- Kimhell Arr M u s e u m . were thought repulsive by almost every- tecture of massive concrete walls inter- As a m b i t i o us as Atido's b u i l d i n g is, one. To me, lso/aki's plan was much secting with the ground and horizontal it could have been better. This review more compelling than it was considered sheets of water. In the original plans for will consider Ando's masterpiece in three to be by either museum insiders or the the Modern, the only direct meeting of ways: I i its position in the competitio n public, (lad it been selected and con- concrete and water occurred in the oval from which it emerged, 2) the translation structed, it would have been more adven- restaurant pavilion, which pushed from a of the concept to actuality, and <l the turous in museological terms — and more glazed pavilion into the water with a relationship of the Modern to other decidedly modernist — than Ando's com- Corbusian force. The competition draw museums ot modern art. pleted building. iligs also suggested that the second-floor 26 i p i t n o [2001 i I C i I B S 7 LJHB The enltonce locode, composed of gloss ond oluminum panels. An elevoted stulplme terrace offers a view of Vortex by Richard Serro. I I I I I 1 I , - ti J-JJl I >l iris:: IRZITI hni-rU rHi Wrm rf-Ti ttj^'.'tf first Hoot plan. 1) Entrance hall. 7) Shop. 3) Auditorium. 4) Cafe. S) Parking. 6) Galleries. 7) Storage. Second-floor plan. I) Offices. 7) Sculpture terrace 3) Classrooms. 4) Galleries. Bl Loading. 9) Workshop. galleries w o u l d he lit w i t h natural light immediately of the first internationally w w II from above, in the manner f a m i l i a l to important museum b u i l d i n g in Texas, u students ol Beaux-Arts painting galleries. Mus \.\\i der Kobe's addition to the i Those on the lower galleries w o u l d , pre- Museum of Fine A r t s , H o u s t o n . The I sumably, he artificially lit w i t h natural Brown Pavilion placed contemporary art 1 light leakage through doors and light in i i i i r s e d . glass-called structuri that wells and f r o m the glazed v i e w i n g plat- appeared to float — not on water, but on forms in between the concrete gallery a recessed limestone base. Another nod to structures and the side light reflected off f loustou was the echo of Ken/.o Piano's the water t h r o u g h the curtain w a l l . A n d o buildings for the M e n i l Collection. Bulb also separated art f r o m life hy c o n f i n i n g these buildings have glass roofs under or , .31 the galleries to lour parallel hays, while over w h i c h Piano positioned floating sun- all social, administrative, and educational screens to c o n t r o l the intense Texas sun. him tn m^ were arranged in t w o I. inger Also, m the case of the b u i l d i n g for the entrance hays, hi fact, the entire effect of Vlenil ( ollci in HI, Piano si paratcd .H I from lilt m a manner comparable to that the b u i l d i n g was of transparent metal of A n d o . A n d o effectively subsumed in a "roots" floating a hove tuulhori-less walls single building the materials and architec- ol glass, through which one could S I T the tural solutions of the very best art muse- Site plan. 1) Fori Worth Museum of Modern At). 2) Kimbell Art Museum. Concrete structures. N o t h i n g like it had um buildings in Texas. appeared in Ando's published w o r k . Clearly, the chance to conceive a large- scale museum across f r o m Kahn's How Ando's Competition Designs Became Kimhcll inspired A n d o to new heights an Actual Building of visual poetry.