Summary
Highlights
The speaker introduces the dual meaning of 'museum art': the art of creating museums and the art displayed within them. He recounts a formative experience in 1975 at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona, designed by Carlo Scarpa. Initially unimpressed by the collection, he later revisited the museum with a focus on its architecture and exhibition design, which profoundly shifted his perspective on museum-making.
The Castelvecchio Museum is presented as a complex entity encompassing art, a rehabilitated historical monument, and an urban landscape. The pleasure of visiting stems from the integrated diversity of these experiences, where the museum's design articulates the historical layers of the building and its connection to the city. Scarpa's work highlights how the museum environment, including views of the city and strategic passages, is integral to the visitor's experience without detracting from the art.
The speaker emphasizes Scarpa's unique approach to displaying art, treating pictorial works as three-dimensional objects that can be viewed from multiple angles. This challenges the traditional flat presentation of paintings. He argues that Scarpa's design demonstrates a profound understanding of how to position art within an architectural volume, making artworks physically present like sculptures. The concept of 'space' in art, he notes, arose with 20th-century avant-garde movements, often in opposition to the bourgeois notion of the 'artwork'.
The speaker critiques contemporary museum design, citing architects' frequent neglect of artworks. He mentions the 'Guggenheim effect,' where spectacular architecture overshadows the collections, turning museums into urban attractions rather than spaces primarily for art. He also criticizes trends like overly dramatic lighting that transforms paintings into 'slides,' stripping them of their material presence, and the pervasive 'hyper-design' that saturates museum spaces.
Drawing on Michel de Certeau's distinction between 'place' (a stable, coexisting order of elements) and 'space' (a dynamic, mobile environment shaped by movement and time), the speaker argues that successful museum design, like Scarpa's Castelvecchio, combines both. He proposes that 21st-century museums should integrate art and culture, combining architectural (place) and assemblage (space) principles to create diverse and engaging experiences for visitors.
The speaker presents two examples of exemplary museum design: the Neues Museum in Berlin and the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg. The Neues Museum, restored by David Chipperfield, integrates ancient and modern art in a way that fully engages the visitor with the artworks. The Lehmbruck Museum, designed by Manfred Lehmbruck, son of the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, is praised for its open, theatrical space that transforms sculptures into 'characters' in a public arena.
The Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest, conceived by Horia Bernea, is highlighted as a masterpiece of 'assemblage museography.' Bernea's approach avoids traditional ethnographical reconstitution, instead creating varied thematic rooms that combine everyday objects and ritual artifacts. The museum is described as a 'perpetually nascent' project, constantly evolving and reflecting Bernea's belief in the active, living charge of objects, creating a dynamic interplay between 'artwork' and 'activity.'
The speaker discusses two additional examples: the de Young Museum in San Francisco (Herzog & de Meuron) and the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid. The de Young Museum's display of New Guinean art, with its tall vertical showcases, creates a 'constellation of objects.' The Reina Sofía is lauded for its sophisticated combination of artworks and historical documents, tackling the challenge of integrating art and culture for the 21st-century museum. This approach of 'problematizing' collections rather than simply displaying them offers a new perspective on modern art history.
Finally, the speaker touches upon the Musée Unterlinden extension in Colmar (Herzog & de Meuron). This project aims to integrate ancient art, vernacular culture, and 20th-century art. The design features a long underground gallery with smaller cabinets and proposals for suspended panels in modern art rooms, breaking away from continuous wall displays. The presentation concludes with a drawing by Carlo Scarpa, illustrating his layered and superimposed approach to design, reflecting his belief in creating profound, historically rich spatial experiences within a building.