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Museum Architecture, NYU (New York City, 8.-9.6.01)
NYU Arts Administration
Museum Architecture: New Buildings and Additions June 8 - 9, 2001
The conference is held at New York University's Washington Square campus in the heart of Greenwich Village. NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies offers a wide range of Arts Administration courses. For more information, including registration for the conference:
http://www.scps.nyu.edu/dyncon/arts/conf_muse.html, or write/call:
Arts Administration Program
NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies 48 Cooper Square, Room 108
New York, NY 10003 (212) 998-7130.
In a 1975 article in ARTnews, Paul Goldberger, then the architecture critic for the New York Times, announced that "the great era of museum building is over, beyond argument." And yet, some 25 years later, it can be said that a museum "building boom" is under way in many countries.
There has been a dramatic upsurge in the popularity of the arts, accompanied by an increased demand for buildings to serve the varied needs of museum staff and audiences worldwide. According to social forecasters, John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, since 1960, Japan has built more than 200 new museums, while from 1985 to 1995, Germany built over 300. Architectural historians and critics, preservationists, and planners have been examining these and other new museum buildings with great zeal, and, concomitantly, there has been an explosion of books and articles dealing with museum architecture.
Of equal import are the number of museums that are building additions or extensions. Writing in "Architecture View" in the New York Times, Witold Rybczynski observed that the new addition to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts "is the most recent example of a new kind of architectural program that has become increasingly common during the last decade: the museum addition."
According to Naisbitt and Aburdene, an Association of Art Museum Directors
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survey revealed that between 1977 and 1988, some 92 American museums undertook expansions costing $5 million or more. Many institutions are finding that, in addition to the greater number of visitors, their
facilities cannot accommodate their expanded functions and collections.
The architects of new museums and museum additions face many similar problems. All aspects of the museum field have been professionalized, a process which has necessitated larger quarters for administration,
publication, conservation, and collections storage. These demands, and the
requirements that museums also house large works and accommodate large-scale and multimedia installations, have influenced the design of new museums and have led many to expand their facilities. In addition, financial constraints have compelled museums to seek the means of generating increased revenue;
hence, museum shops, restaurants, parking, and other amenities are increasingly important features of new museums and are often included in additions to older institutions.
Museum architects also face added challenges: they must also respect the existing physical context created by surrounding communities and environs;
deal with the fundamental question of whether the museum is itself a work of art or should be subservient to its contents; and resolve tensions between existing museum buildings and their personal architectural styles.
Conference Schedule Friday, June 8, 2001 1.45 p.m. Welcome.
William F. Cipolla, Associate Dean, Division of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities and Paul McGhee Division, NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies.
2 p.m. Welcome and Introduction.
Lisa Koenigsberg.
2.15 - 3 p.m. Museums by Design: The Next Generation.
Joan Darragh.
3 - 3.45 p.m. The Art Museum as a Setting for Art as Well as a Setting as Art.
Robert Venturi.
3.45 - 4.30 p.m. Museum Architecture: Meeting the Challenges of New Buildings and Additions.
Charles Gwathmey.
6 - 8.30 p.m. Evening at The Frick Collection 1 East 70th Street (at Fifth Avenue)
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6.15 - 6.55 p.m. The Architectural Evolution of the Structure of The Frick Collection.
Samuel Sachs II.
7 - 7.40 p.m. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: One Building, Five Master Plans, and Twelve Architects.
Morrison H. Heckscher.
--- Saturday, June 9, 2001
9.30 - 10.15 a.m. Beyond the Box: Transforming the Art Museum.
Richard M. Olcott.
10.15 - 11 a.m. Museum Installations: A Critique.
Stanley Tigerman.
11 - 11.15 a.m. Break.
11.15 a.m. - 12 p.m. The Object or the Setting Museums Additions and Their
Purpose.
Hugh Hardy.
12 - 12.45 p.m. Working with Architects: Designing Storage that Is Conservationally Appropriate.
Paul Himmelstein.
12.45 - 2 p.m. Lunch (On your own).
2 - 2.45 p.m. Museum Lighting Design: Sculpting Visual Perceptions.
Steven Hefferan.
2.45 - 3.30 p.m. Designers and Architects: Creating Spaces for Exhibitions.
David Harvey.
3.30 - 3.45 p.m. Break.
3.45 - 4.30 p.m. Securing the Institution: Working with Architects to Create a Secure Environment.
Robert W. Ducibella.
4.30 - 5.15 p.m. Master Plan for a Small Art Museum in an Historic Landscape.
Chad Floyd and Jeffrey W. Andersen.
6 - 8 p.m. Reception and Viewing "Frank Gehry Architect"
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th Street)
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CONF: Museum Architecture, NYU (New York City, 8.-9.6.01). In: ArtHist.net, May 27, 2001 (accessed Feb 27, 2022), <https://arthist.net/archive/24473>.
