Ep 203: Ten Museums to Visit Before You Die

This is Life of an Architect, a podcast dedicated to all things architecture with a little bit of life thrown in for balance. There are certain buildings that are worth going out of your way to see. Not because someone told you they were important unless it was Andrew and I, but because being there changes the experience. Museums are especially good at this when they get it right because the building, the art, the light, the route and the city around it all start working together. The best museum building to do more than store culture, behind climate controlled walls, they give you a reason to slow down, look harder and remember the visit is something larger than the optics on display. Welcome to episode 203, 10 museums to see before you die. Today's episode is generously brought to you with support from construction specialties. Make our architectural building products design to master the movement of buildings, people and natural elements. Welcome to the Life of an Architect podcast on Bob Borson and I'm Andrew Hawkins. Today we're going to be talking about museums, quite literally the ones that Andrew and I think that you should go out of your way to see before you kick the bucket. Pretty straightforward. I will tell you this was a hard one to do. Yeah, this is 10 of them. I think there's probably more. Our combined list was getting close to 20. So what Andrew and I did is I sent my list because we said, hey, let's do 10 museums before you die, but we didn't actually articulate how do I choose an Andrew choose and we didn't want this to be 20 museums to see before you die because we each have our own 10. So I just went off top my head, boom, this is my bucket list. That's what it is. And I think there was like eight on that list. And I said it to Andrew and he came and goes, all right, well, three from your list were on my list. And these are the ones that I didn't put on the list. And I said, okay, well, I don't like that one. You're like, let's keep seven of mine and then you can add one. No, that's exactly not what. So what we did is we took the three that we had overlap. That means we had to choose seven. Yeah. And then we did our best job to split that list of seven, which obviously doesn't split equally. But I think we ended up with. Yes, a good list, I think I think it's. Yeah, I think there's consensus. There might be like one from my list, maybe two from my list, the enders like, I wouldn't made my list. And I might have one or possibly two from Andrews list that wouldn't make my list. But would I still like to see it before I die? Yeah, absolutely. It just might not have been on the first 10. For me, the ones that maybe weren't on my radar or maybe on my list, I should say, when I went and looked at them, they moved up. Yeah, they still may not be in the my top 10, but some of the ones that you had to, oh, yeah, either, I didn't remember that one off the top of my head. And when I started looking at images, I was like, Oh, yeah, I remember this museum. It would be cool to go see. Yeah, or there was one I was like, I don't even know what that is. And then, but once I looked at it, I was like, Oh, yeah, that'd be a good place to go. So here's one of the other challenges. So the reason why I'm just going to admit it. Part of the reason we're doing this is because I wrote a post about 12 or 13 years ago about forever ago. Yeah, cathedrals that you should go see before you die. And every single day, that's one of the most visited posts on my site. And I'm not a pimping myself out for views. I stopped even looking at that stuff a long time ago. But it made me go, well, maybe it's some value to it, right? Yeah, it's there, not just because there's no shortage of things or places where I can tell you I'm going to this place should I go look at a church or something. But it made me think, all right, maybe we should push this out to other typologies. And the natural one that came to mind was museums because there's a million of them in their cool. Yeah. And I thought I could come up with a hundred museums to go see with a little bit of time, energy and resource because to be honest, I get some that come across my Instagram feed that I don't know. And it's all like boat making museum or something. And it's not huge and it's not just big splash, but it's like a really beautiful building. And I go, yeah, I totally would like to see that. Yeah, I did not put any of those little bespoke jewels on this list. And I'll tell you why I don't think anyone who listens to this podcast is so well off that they're going to get on their private jet fly to go see a museum and then go to the next. Like there needs to be more than just right. So how do you decide which museum you're going to choose? So I kind of expanded my criteria, not for whether not the museum was worth seeing it was already on the list. But how do I push it up to the ones that I want to talk about first. And I was like, well, these are all places that I think you should also go to like there in cities that are amazing. You have other things that are worth your time. So you can not just go see the museum and bounce. Gotcha. Yeah, do something else. So yeah, and that was not my approach. But yeah, now that it's bad. That's how I came up with my list before I even sent you mine. My list was just thinking about the architecture of the museum. Yeah, but how do I don't know how you get it to the five that you get to own on the list. Like these are the five most amazing museums you've ever well, yeah, I know I don't know how that works. No, because like you're going to we're going to talk about. I haven't been to all of these anyway. So yeah, well, that's the other thing that made this particular one hard because Andrew and I are. I don't know. It's probably smarter than we act sometimes. I'd like to like to think so. And the challenge we have with some of this is that we recognize that podcaster, you know, auditory experience. Yeah. And so if I start talking about a museum and you have no clue what I'm talking about because I can't put a picture in your brain. I mean, I'm fairly descriptive, but that's not really the point of this. Yeah, you can just go look it up on the internet when you get to your desk or whatever. But I thought, okay, how do we talk about this in a way that makes it interesting? How do we talk about it in a way that can add some value to someone going. All right, I got so much bandwidth in me. I'm going to be in this area, which I go to. These are all museums that I generally think that if you went and didn't love it, you and I can't be friends. I don't know another way to put it. So that's a big part of what we're trying to work through today. So you want to get into the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just going to say so bear with us if we don't start talking about the imagery as much or if we do when it's hard to follow, but we're trying to stay out of that realm. I think I was talking about it from that perspective. Yes, which is difficult for. Yeah, architectural podcast. But yeah, we're going to give it a shot. Well, here's the other thing that makes us, I guess, if you have the right edge, you could say this is what makes this episode fun. I spent a lot of time researching all these museums. Yeah, a lot of time looking at stuff, trying to understand it because of the 10 that are on the list, I've only been to three of them. And I kind of go, all right, I'm 58 years old. I'm 30% through the 10 museums that you have to see before you kick the bucket. I'm like, OK, I need to pick up the pace. Maybe a little bit. I'm a little bit behind. Yeah, yeah. Well, the truth is I was just thinking about this. I haven't done like a heat map to actually map where all the 10 that ended on our list. Oh, yeah, me neither. But you know, actually, I've been to I might have been a four, but the four that I've been to on this list are all in the US, which is maybe why I've seen them. Yeah. And I haven't seen the ones that are in other countries. Yeah. So, all right, well, let's just get into it because I don't think this is going to be a profoundly long. Every time we say that it turns out to be something otherwise. So yeah, all right, I get to kick it off. This is the first on the list, and I'm not suggesting that this is the number one on the list. Yeah, yeah, these are not in order. These are not any sort of ranked order. They are just in random retrieval order. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's hard to rank things. I haven't been to versus things. I haven't been to. Of course. Okay, so the first one on this list is the Guggenheim in New York. And the proper name is actually the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect, and it opened in October of 1959 in New York City. I have been to this museum. Once in my life, and it was in July of 2022. So not that long ago. And I went there to look at the auditorium as part of an exercise that my firm was helping out with Dillersca video and Renfro. And we bounced around this part of the country for a little while, looking at different auditoriums because we were going through the process of looking to see how can we address the Khalida Humphries theater that's in Dallas. So we were going to. So that's what brought me here. Yeah. And I will tell you that the Guggenheim is one of those museums that if you're talking museums, it's going to enter the conversation before you invite it. That's just kind of how it is. And yeah, probably you say the word museum. And there it is. It's on 5th Avenue, kind of like a white spiral cone dropped into the, you know, it's a cigarette. There's so many little weird facts about this building. Yeah, that you go in because I think most people can visualize people who are listening to an architectural podcast. This is probably one of the easier ones to visualize in your brain. And it's familiar enough that almost everybody kind of stops seeing how strange this really is as a museum, which is one of the risks that museums go through about becoming iconic. Some point, this is a way of looking at art. Like it's brand new. It had never been done before. And the truth is, the people who actually put it together, they didn't love it. There was a lot of controversy around this because it's kind of hard to figure out how you want to break this out. In a lot of ways, the building is more important in the content, the art that's contained within it. And for people that are all about the galleries-- - The content, yeah, the art. - They hate it in a lot of ways. - Yeah, I've got a little bit of that. Some of my entries. - Yeah. Well, so here's the thing, I have two fun facts to this one. - Uh-huh. - 'Cause I didn't know it. And I got this information from the American Alliance of the museums, 'cause I believe them to be an authority here. And the building color, which we all think of as white, it's not actually white, it's a light gray. But the original color was kind of a brown buff, which was a color that was chosen, other options that Frank Lloyd Wright had suggested. One of which was pink. - Yeah, I remember the pink color is a thing. - Yeah. - So we all know that to distill it down to something that's not very intelligent, the connection that architecture has with nature was a big consideration. And everything that Frank Lloyd Wright did. And Wright believed that white rarely occurred in nature, snow being the one example where it does. But I didn't know this, Frank Lloyd Wright associated white with death. So he didn't really use it. And we all kind of think of it as white, it's actually light gray. And that light gray showed up in 2007. It was approved and painted in 2007 by the Lamar Commission. Which I did not know that. I'm curious, the beige color that it was. - Yeah. - How much that would have changed my perception of, 'cause most of the pictures I see it looks white and it's actually not white. Another fun thing. And I don't know, there were some challenges that the Guggenheim had when it was getting built because the existing New York City building codes, which were governed by Robert Moses and the board of standard and appeal. And for those of you who might not know, Robert Moses was an American urban planner and a public official who worked for the New York metropolitan area from about the mid 20th century on. A lot of people consider him one of the most powerful and influential people in the history of New York City and New York State for all the things that he did. And he drove how what and where things could be built, which was very complicated. - Yeah. - And this building, the way Wright designed it, violated a lot of the building codes where setbacks are required. And the entrance juts away from the spiral shape, the kind of inverted cigarette. And the way it juts out, it actually violates proximity to the sidewalk regulations. And so it prompted legal action. And of course, Wright considered it as his artistic privilege to create this kind of move that tried to skirt the regulations. In the end, the violation was allowed. And here comes the fun fact. Robert Moses, who I told you who he was a minute ago, who was related to Frank Lord Wright by marriage. Did you know this? - No, I did not. This is all new to me. - I didn't know. He wrote to him and said, "I don't care how many rules you have to break, the Guggenheim must be built." (laughing) I was like, so that's a-- - That's a cart blotch there for that thing. - Yeah. So I thought that was interesting. - That's interesting. - Yeah. - I will tell you that Frank Lord Wright was commissioned to do the Guggenheim in 1943. And it was supposed to be a museum specifically for Solomon R. Guggenheim's collection. But the building didn't open until 1959, which was six months after Frank Lord Wright had died. And 16 years is a long time, at least in the last, I don't know, 150 years, for any building to kind of gestate and come to reality. And I would say, especially when you're Frank Lord Wright building, and you've already shown up on day one with your own self-importance, right? I mean, you can just look at this and go, this is all about me and what my thing is. But anyway, the thing that made it interesting was this. So right, when he designed it was breaking the norm that was accepted at the time because it wasn't a sequence of rooms that there were the galleries. He, in his mind, was designing a journey. And that's where the continuous ramp that curls around this central void and all the people who come to visit it become part of this public procession that happens. So you don't just go into the Guggenheim and choose a gallery to go to, you go to a path and you go along that path and that path becomes part of the act of looking. This is one of the few museums where the building tells you how to move, how to turn, how to be aware of the people that are across the void on the other side of the ramp. It's all those things and it's, I don't know how much, I wanted to do research on this. And this is, I know I'm burning up more time than I probably should on this particular project. But this was such a departure from the norm at the time, like just completely flipping the script on everything. I'm wondering if it was one of the projects that really said, okay, architects, you're gonna design a museum. You get to do something here. Your building isn't just gonna go sit quietly in the corner, it's all about the stuff that we're gonna hang on the walls. The building gets the chance to have a personality and be part of the destination in addition to the content that's being curated. - I don't know. I think it was definitely the first museum to do that, I would imagine, but I mean, there have been others since then to do the same thing. - Oh, but also there's been many museums that have been pushed back into that, you are a piece of background. You're not the thing, the art is the thing. - Yeah, and I don't know any of those, 'cause why would you ever go to a museum that, I will tell you, enough told the story before. So when I went to Paris when my daughter was five, 'cause there's so many amazing museums in Paris, and I wanted to go to all of them, 'cause I love going to our museums. Not the sort of thing a five year old wants to spend hours upon hours to do. So that one trip changed fundamentally how I view museums in their role. So part of it was how I gauge with my daughter with what was hanging on a wall, but part of it was just like, it's like a public space inside, became part of what it is. So now I view museums and their success by almost how extravagant they are. And I don't mean like gilded extravagant. I just mean, they really are like, hey, part of the reason you're coming here is because of me. - Yeah, I get that. - That's a big part of how the ones that are on my list, they all check that box for me. - Yeah, I think that's a fairly common attitude for an architect to have though. - Yes, I would expect that. - Okay, so that's my number one, the Guggenheim in New York. - Yes. So my first one on my list is also in the United States, and it's the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. This is a building by Louis Conn, right Louis Conn, if you're not familiar with that, but hopefully you are. It opened in 1972, interestingly enough, I think this was also, I think one of his last buildings that got built, kind of like you were talking about Frank LeBrandt, I don't think he died before this one was done. (laughing) This was one of the last buildings that Conn actually completed in his lifetime. It's about 120,000 square feet, is not overly large. I mean, it's not small, but it's not large. It sits in Fort Worth. I'm not, I want to say in the center of Fort Worth, but I mean, it's in the urban area, do a certain extent. I've been there, you may have been there more times than me, but I've been there quite a few times. - Yeah. - It's more in your backyard than it is in my backyard, but trying to say, the first time I'm with you, there's probably in the 90s when I was a student in architecture school, because I think that, if you're in Texas, it's almost a prerequisite. Somehow, that you have to go to the Kimbell, at some point in your education, which now I do that, this will be the third summer in a row. I'm doing that, I take students in my summer school class to the Kimbell. So just their class summer, been there a few other times in between. I think when the piano edition opened, I was there around then, I mean, not the day it opened or anything, but since then, to go see that part. But I think that many architects consider this the one of the greatest museums on the planet. - Yes, count me among them. - I think to me, that's one of the interesting facts about it, is you mentioned how we start talking about museums and the Bugleheim always works his way in. I think you talk about museums, at least in my architects. This is like the number one thing that comes up, almost all the time. The reputation of this museum and the quality of it is known among us as architects. I'm hopefully familiar with it. And the idea of, it's a really clear idea of this vault, yes, that con made, it's just repeated over and over. You know, there's 16 of them, they span about 100 feet. But the real thing about it, for me, is the intention and the purity of those vaults is just fabulous. The geometry here that's executed as a singular idea that's just repeated because all of those vaults are just, I don't wanna say perfectly executed, but they're really close and the considerations of where everything goes and all the things that you don't see that are close to the point. happening in and around those vaults and the way that it's done with the air conditioning and all of that. And then on top of that, the lighting system that he conceived of that's the other reason why this is such an interesting museum is because it's naturally lit, which is very uncommon. At least when it was developed, that was not a thing that you did. Nobody wanted sunlight coming in on their art. But he spent so much time working with light that this lighting system in the way that it works. And I'm going to get into the intricacies of it. But there's a slit in the center of the vault that lets light come in that in that light is reflected and bounced off down the sides of the vaults. Yeah, it grazes down. Yeah, to produce the natural light that illuminates the space. It's just amazing to see actually many experience the way that that works and how great it is. I don't know how else to describe it. It's one of the best examples of museum design with this idea of geometry. Let me throw this in there because I was there a little over a week ago because it is. It's like a 30 minute drive from where I live. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I've probably gone there 30 plus times. It's a lot. And we had this theme and part of the reason I went was I was like, okay, let me get my architecture, juices flowing and I'm going to bounce out to the Kimball because it's that good. It's that good. And I saw the museum itself describes the building that the idea for the building is light. Light is the theme for this building. Yep. And I was walking around it and I thought the Kimball belongs on this list because it's one of the very best arguments ever made for the idea that museum architecture should improve the act of seeing the art. And that building checks that box 10 times over. Oh, yeah. It's that good. Yeah. The funny thing about this is framed the Guggenheim is like, it's about the building and it's wise here. Con's approach was not really about that. It was about this building is like the container for all the art and the art is really important. But in the process of making that happen, it's like this iconic thing, which is funny. He wasn't striving for that. I don't think but that's how it turned out. Yeah. Absolutely. The light is the most important thing in the vault structure. The combination and creates that in a way that is really just fantastic and nobody's really been able to replicate, I would say. A little fun fact about talking about the light part. So this was in the late 60s. I mean, he got the commission in the mid 60s and started working on it and spent a lot of time studying the way that the vault lighting mechanism was going to work was one of the first things evaluated or like the geometry to complete it and to get it perfect was actually done with computers in the 1960s. It was one of the first times that computers were ever used to do this kind of stuff. So that's the one little fun fact. The other thing I think that's a fun fact to a certain extent is that he got the job because they, I don't know if it was K Kimble or just the committee, but they liked him because he was like super serious about making this thing up all about the art and that other architects that they interviewed didn't quite do that. So I mean, there's an interview process that took several years, but they chose him because he seemed to be really serious about this is a place for art and that that was his sort of driving factor. Yeah. Which I thought was really interesting. At the time that he'd already done the solve, he'd already done the accident. I mean, he'd finished some pretty major accomplishments, but they chose him because he was really serious about it. It took the whole thing like very seriously about it's the art that matters. Yes. And so you know, it'd be interesting. You're going to, everyone's going to be able to tell which museum we've been to because we're going to talk about him a lot. And then we have it like, it looked good in the photos. Yeah. Next. Now, I will say the one thing in this is where we're going to differ, but yes, I already know what you're going to say. Yeah. I know. There was an addition done. That's one of the things. The collection here is really not that big in that it's on purpose because the chemical foundation quality over quantity is the model that they have. And so it's maintained a fairly small collection, but at some point they needed to expand and they chose Rinse of Piano because he actually worked with Con for a while. Yeah. That's why they chose him. That's what they said. And he did the addition. Yes. Which I don't think is that detrimental. I like the addition. But to me, I can separate it from the original. Right. I think you have a problem in doing that. No, no, no, that seems like because you think it trashes the, no, no, you got it wrong. Oh, okay. I hate the building as like if it's considered as part of the Kimbell. I don't have any problem separating the Kimbell that Lou Condod from, yes, from this. That's easy. Yeah. In fact, last time I went to the Kimbell, I didn't even walk into Rinse of Piano's. Yeah. Because it's bad. It's just it is all the things that the Kimbell that Lou Condod didn't need to do. The clarity, the simplicity, the ex, it's spectacular. It is about as nonfussier building as you can get to have this level of spectacular execution in it. You go to Rinse of Piano. It's everything that a Rinse of Piano building is. It is unbelievably well coordinated. The detailing is spectacular and refined and it's as fussy a building as you will ever find in your life everywhere. And it's in such a contrast that my brain cannot connect to it. It doesn't want to connect to it. I guess that's my difference. I don't connect to at all other than they occupy the same space. But I think that most of the stuff I read said that many, most people consider the addition is one of the most thoughtful additions to in expansions of any museum in the history of expansions, which is funny. I think it's just a different building. And to me, if you're coming to Fort Worth and you're going to the Kimbell, you're going to see the Kimbell. You're not going to see Piano. Right. And that's just how it is. Again, I'll agree about that. And it's still worth seeing. Yes, yes. But it ain't the Kimbell. No, it's not. And it's actually much smaller. It's a similar size, but really the gallery spaces are much less prominent. Most of that building is the education space and auditorium and that kind of stuff. So it's good to go see it when you're there, but it's not why you're there at all. That's no part of it being on this list is Rinsows Building. No, this is the Kimbell by Luke Khan. That is it. That's right. More from life of an architect in just a moment. Jennifer Mahalski is a business development manager at construction specialties, bringing over 20 years of experience in business development with the healthcare construction industry. A proud alumna of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Jennifer plays a key role in developing and implementing strategic growth initiatives for construction specialties, healthcare product lines. She works directly with health systems to establish healthcare standards and collaborates closely with sales support teams to address the evolving needs of healthcare design individuals. Hi Jennifer, good morning. How are you? I am doing fantastic. Thank you for asking. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Well, it's lovely as always to see you. We get to spend our morning with you once again. And we're going to talk about a topic that's a near and dear to most architects heart. And that is design for function. So what does design for function mean in today's healthcare environments? Well, if I had to define it, I would say it's the continuous movement towards a model of how is the space used? Can it be adaptive and does it work for staff and patients to deliver the best care possible? So looking example that I would use in this situation would be if a patient has to walk too far to go for physical therapy, it can cause unwanted stress on the patient and it can also add to additional fatigue for the staff members, like if they had to take five or ten patients a day on that long walk. So this will lead ultimately to an unhappy patient and you're also going to get a staff that is tired. Yeah, nobody wants that when you're coming into the hospital. So how can function design improve the experience for patient visitors and their families? The first thing to think about is what type of facility is it? Is it a standard hospital, children's hospital, behavioral health, senior living? All will have different needs in terms of furniture, equipment, bathroom spaces, etc. So when we look at furniture, I like to ask, is there enough furniture? What if families want to spend the night? Or can they sleep? Do we couch convert into a bed, etc.? For non-patient room spaces like our dining rooms, cafes, lounges, this helps families and staffs stay close so that they don't have to leave the property or potentially shorten their visit with the patient that's there. What role do non-clinical spaces play in hospital operations in revenue? So operationally, well-designed spaces for the back of the house and the staff can help in room turnover. When we look at a patient perspective, we're going to go back to the lovely HCAP scores. So they're going to ask questions like Was it easy to get in and get out or to find your way through that hospital? Did your family have a good experience while they waited for you for your surgery or your test results? Do you feel that there were areas for privacy during conversations? How your family and friends share their experiences with you can influence how you answer some of those questions on that HCAP survey? Yeah, I can imagine that. So how can hospitals better support staff through functional design? So I would say the first thing that we would look at would be evaluating those traffic patterns through a hospital space. Relocate things where maybe where we need supplies a little bit closer to the use spaces. We look at decentralization of nurses stations. So it's bringing the staff in the nurses closer to the patients and also looking at in-room stocking of linens and medical supplies so that when they're needed they're easy reach and staff doesn't have to come in and out of a room. Keep it everything close. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Jennifer, thank you for being here today to talk about what it really means to design spaces that work well for patients, families and staff. We appreciate your time. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks so much. Okay, well let's move on to number three, which neither one of us have been to before. Number three is the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, which was designed by Jean-Nuvel. It opened in November of 2017. It's on Sadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, part of the UAE. And I don't know if people should kind of understand where this area of the world is, but on the chance that you don't, it's in the Persian Gulf. Once you go past the Gulf of Oman, and then you kind of end up into the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Gulf. And this particular project juts into the Persian Gulf. This is one of those projects. It's just not gonna piece of dirt in some part of the city because there are museums on this list that this is just where they're at. Yeah. Where this one was built has everything to do with what it looks like, where it's at, how the form made the location. So during the concept phase, people you just gotta go look up. If you're not familiar with it, it's basically it has like a giant dome, metal dome. It's like this lattice work. It's very much like the in Paris. Jean-Nuvel did the Arab embassy. Oh yeah, the embassy is it? Yeah. And it had these panels that were supposed to open and close to control the amount of light that was coming through. For the most part, they don't really run. Yeah. But as a pattern making from that part of the world, it's pretty spectacular. Look at this lattice work dome kind of evokes some same imagery, but it is massive. It's huge. It's really massive. And during the initial concept phase, Jean-Nuvel, and I guess I should say his team, designed the museum as a seemingly floating dome structure. So it just looks like a giant bowl is just set down on top of all this stuff. And it looks like it's just floating there to a certain amount. And the web pattern dome does allow sun to come through it. But as the sun moves, the shadows, everything changes constantly. Everything changes. Yeah. That effect was meant to represent rays of sunlight, passing through date palm fronds in an oasis. And if you know about that part of the world, you know, sun and light control, it's a big part of it. It's hot. It's bright. You need shade. You need control. And so this is a lid that's supposed to be for the oasis. That is the art in the the buildings that are below this dome. The other thing I will say, the UAE's got a lot of cool stuff. But I looked up to see what other museums might be in the area. It just is a little diversion. Listen to this. You have the Ziya National Museum that's in design by foster partners. You have a Guggenheim Abu Dhabi that's currently in design by Frank Gary, um, office Frank Gary's office, which is expected to be the world's largest Guggenheim museum. You have a performing art center that was designed by I guess Dame Zaha Hadid. And you have a maritime museum with the concept that was designed by Tadau and O. I know that's like a pretty power punch group of folks. Yeah. That are designing all these pretty made. Anyway, it's a reason you should go. But I will tell you about this particular project quickly is that the Louvre Abu Dhabi is a museum where the atmosphere is a part of the whole consideration because so much of its outside, but it's under this giant roof. So before the galleries, before the collection, and before, I don't know, any of the kind of conversations about whether the use of the Louvre name is Cultry elegant or I don't know, geopolitically complicated. It's all about the massing, the form of this. Because the idea that this was a Louvre, the building was started before the Louvre became partners. That was just part of it. They ended up having an agreement, the UAE, and it's I don't know, border regions that people that make decisions. They actually entered into dialogue with the Louvre in Paris. And the name is on loan to them until 2047, when it will not be the Louvre anymore. The Louvre Abu Dhabi, it'll be whatever, Bill and the Blank, Abu Dhabi. Interesting. So, yeah, that's a really interesting project. I mean, I've studied it for class and for my students a bunch of times and a bunch of different ways. Yeah, that big dome acts as a canopy for all of these other smaller buildings that are underneath it. And, you know, it's again, you see it's floating in the water and there's water spaces around. It's really interesting. Another little fun fact that they had the Pritzker Prize announcement awards ceremony there. I want to say last year or the year before, in the past couple of years. So, that's a kind of a big deal, I guess, as far as that goes. So, moving on to my next entry is the Musea de Art in São Paulo. The M.A. SP shows up a lot. This is a project by Elinable Barte. It opened in 1968. It's again, about 120,000 square feet, seems to be the magic number at least of the ones I have. But this project, if you're unfamiliar with it, I think you might recognize the image if you ever saw it, but you might not know what it is. This building, because of its location in the center core of São Paulo, when the project was being commissioned, one of the big issues was its location and its site that putting a building there would block the view from certain, I want to say it was like governmental buildings, but certain parts of the city to be able to view down the valley of São Paulo. And so, what happened and the reason that this building is the way it is, the building is now lifted up. So, there's a large glass box that is the gallery space that is lifted up in the air by these large concrete trusses and pillars on either end that are red, that hold that building up out of the air to apparently, at least approval enough. I mean, to me, I don't know how much of you you could have, but maybe, obviously since I've never been there, I don't know, but now the view is maintained, because all the view from those buildings is actually underneath this building as the valley drops down below São Paulo, so you can still see everything's going down, right? I'm assuming it blocks the sky, of course, but not the view down range. So, that is the, I think, one of the reasons that this building has been important or interesting, at the time, I mean, it was built, it was one of the largest concrete, or de-largest concrete, spanning structure in the world, was this claim to fame. The other interesting thing about it is really part of Lina Balbari's idea for it and what really has happened is that space that's underneath the museum is now a giant, a really public space that serves a lot of functions for the city. I mean, they have markets under there, they do get a lot of demonstrations and stuff. I mean, a lot of cultural events, concerts, there's all kinds of stuff that happen underneath this museum. So, the idea of this museum being in the urban center and it becoming about art that's in the museum part, but what it does for the location that it's at and the city that it's in and creates this interesting combination of uses that, to me, sets it apart. One of the interesting things that I think a little tidbit of this project was, so the glass volume is just a big rectangle essentially and she devised a different way, this is funny because I think it was architects at that time or something, but a different way to display the art. So, it wasn't going to be hung on the walls, her idea and what she designed and they'd created when it opened was everything was on glass easels. All the artwork was placed on all these glass easels around the space and people were allowed to see the back of stuff and walk around these easels. They were more set out from the wall and gave a different perspective. The idea was that in her mind all the art was floating. Well, once she died, they took all those things away because at the time, it's a big controversy. Most of the idea of who's talked about the people who liked the contents, the people who were the art people didn't like the art being displayed that way, but all the architects and everybody else thought it was really awesome. And so, when she died, they took all the glass easels away. But I don't know exactly when, but in the last 10 years or so, she's seen a resurgence of an interest in her work and become a much more prominent figure in architecture history. So, they went back and now, if you were to go. Let me guess, did they put the glass easels back in? Oh, amazing. Yeah, they put the glass signals back in so all the glass easels are back. It's actually like if you got to see it without them, you're a more historical trick than if you did. That's it. This is almost to me one of the most iconic South America pieces of architecture that come to my mind almost instantly. That's the reason why I'd love to be able to go there at some point. This is one of the ones that you mentioned and I was like, I've seen it. I couldn't tell you one thing about this museum. Yeah. So I mean, I'm glad I get to see the glass easels as if I go because that's the original tent. I mean, that's how I think I would prefer to see it. So okay, moving along. This is another one I've never been to. The next one on this list is the V&A Dundee, which is Victoria and Albert Museum, which is actually fun fact, the largest Victoria and Albert Museum outside of England. So it's in Scotland and it's just north of where and burrow is. I'm not sure how many people actually have a map of Scotland in their head. It's been a while since I've been there myself, but when I kind of look it up to figure out where it is, it's in, I don't know, the top of the bottom third right when the intersection of one third hits two thirds. The V&A Dundee is a museum that has a bit of a civic burden, quite honestly. So just like some of the other museums on our list, it's located on the River Tay. The burden that was put as part of the solution for this project was what needs to be on the water, but the city's relationship, which is the city of Dundee, with the River Tay had been damaged over time because of infrastructure and docks and roadways and waterfront changes that have all started to separate the city from the water that defined it. Obviously the River's still there, but the civic connection has been weakened. So they decided to have a complete larger waterfront redevelopment and the public architecture of this area was aimed at repair. It was a competition that was submitted. This was completed in 2018, it's about 90,000 square feet. And Kengo Kuma and Associates are the group that actually won the competition. It was an international competition. And the form, if you had to guess, you'd probably get it because the form is rugged, it's layered, it's coastal. It has kind of these horizontal precast concrete elements that wrap the exterior, which we've seen that here in Dallas. More posters have done that with our own museum down here, but this is a much smaller scale. But it's supposed to suggest the cliffs and the erosion that takes place and the weathered landscaping that the building's not smooth. And in the case of the concept, this is how the building was supposed to be. So this particular project, in a way that they addressed it was, how do we build a building that helps repair this whole coastal edge that we have? While it doesn't look like it was just air dropped from someplace onto the site, which is, I would say that's a little bit how the Guggenheim is. Like the Guggenheim exists as a thing unto itself. Whereas this has literally everything to do with where it's at and materials that chose the way that they chose to express them, everything to do with where they're at with the additional responsibility of tying down and repairing this coastal edge. So it was interesting. And the construction of this project, if you go and look at it, has like another layer to the the story of this museum because the cliff-like form acquired pretty complex modeling and curving walls and thousands of undulating concrete panels, which means, hey, this conceptual, beautiful, abstract idea of cliffs, how do we turn this into buildable geometry? And that's when the civic metaphor really starts turning into things that have to do with cladding intolerance and drainage and budget and weather resistance. And yeah. Anyway, so just as an experience to go look at, it's another one of these museums that has everything to do with where it's at. And I think it's why it made my list. It's an amazing building. I'm a fan of Kanko Kuma and a lot of the work that they take on. I like the form making that it does. I haven't found anything that says that it doesn't work as a museum or that it's power of the building is not the only star. You haven't heard any of that complaints about the particular building. That's on my list. That's when I'm looking forward to go to sooner rather than later. Yeah, that's an interesting project. Moving on so we can go faster here. My next entry is the Getty Center in Los Angeles. This one is maybe a little bit different than some of the ones we talked about this thing is gigantic. Yeah. It's 110 acre site. I mean, it's just a behemoth. It's quite possibly one of the largest collections in the world of things. And it's all kinds of art. Of course, this is a project designed by Richard Meyer. It opened in 1997. It's in the hills above Santa Monica, which is one of the things that was controversial about it when it was built and designed. There was some pushback against it being in that location, destroying that natural element. The reason for me that it's on this list is that if the idea that the Kimball is a single geometric perfection that is just repeated, for me, the Getty is perfect geometry but complex. Everything here is so well refined and defined and done, but it's all very complex. But it's also the geometry is all resolved very well. My mind almost perfectly, but it's not a simple geometry. It's a lot of complex geometries. To me, this is the one on this list that exists actually probably, if I had to guess, it's probably the largest one on this list. It's just a testament to an architect being able to do something or everything down to the eighth degree. That's the way that Meyer did it. And the other thing about it is interesting is this is one of the first times that Richard Meyer had to break from his everything's white because the city ordinance this wouldn't allow it to be white. So he chose this light stone, but again, it's also to me turning point in his career where he stopped doing a lot of everything's white. But an interesting fact about this, and at the time when it was done, it was over a billion dollars. Yes. It was one of the most expensive projects at the time. And this was in the 90s, right? A billion dollars in the 90s is pretty, pretty wild. It's a profound amount of money. So, meaning that's really it. I mean, we could go into more. There's a lot of things about it that I find interesting. But to keep things short, there it is. This is about resolving complex geometries, almost to perfection. All right. Well, let's jump into number seven on the list, which is I counted. I've been to four museums that are on our 10. So I'm feeling a little bit better than I was at the beginning of the show when I thought it was only three. Well, I've only been a three. So all right. Well, this Clifford still museum. So I went back and I put this one on the list for me because it might have been one of the most interesting experiences I've had visiting a museum ever. So I went and saw this in 2013 after the AI National Convention that was in Denver. And it was enough to where I wrote a post about it. It was called the beginning of the end. Yeah. What was fascinating is it's in this. And I talk about just how much I liked it. And I said in here, I said, the Clifford still museum. It's really beautiful. And at the time, all the color palette and the materials that they use literally identically matched the house that I was living at the time, which I felt pretty, that was awesome. I will tell you that this museum, it is not very large. It's 28,500 square feet, open in 2011. But the building was designed to house the work of one artist. So when they designed it, they knew what painting was going to go on what wall, which is a pretty unique situation. Yeah. The building, it's resolved. It's serene. It's ethereal. It's considered. It's cool. It's all these things that I look for in the kind of building of the way that my artichael brain wants to resolve things. And it was such a memorable experience that I brought it back up as my object of design. And one of our podcasts, those like number 49, I believe. And it is a spectacular experience. But the story behind how it came to be will impact the way that you visit the building because 25 years after Clifford still died. Clifford still what he died. I can't remember the exact. He had like 825 paintings and a barn on his property. He was so sick up with how art galleries worked, how the work of artists was shown that he said, I'm done. And I think he finished it after like he had a couple of shows and he's like, I'm out. I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. But yet the dude continued to paint for the rest of his career. And when he died, his wife, Patricia still, she ended up choosing the city of Denver to take this museum. And they ended up selling. I didn't do a total one, two, three, four, four paintings. They sold four paintings to fund the construction of this for $114 million. And this guy has another 821 that were painted on canvas and almost 1600 drawings and limited edition prints that he made. So this, it's a wild experience. You have not been to many museums in your life that were designed to house the specific And let's their Picasso because there's like 800,000 of those like every city has its own Pablo Picasso museum. That's a bit of an aberration. But this is a small project beautifully executed amazing materials, very warm, very thoughtful, and to see work designed in the space that was specific to how's that piece of work does make a difference. This is a lot of large format paintings that Clifford still did. So that's on my list. Yeah, and it sits like right next to Leibskins' giant. It's across the walkway. Yeah, it's funny to the comparison. Speaking of that, Leibskins, my next entry is the Jewish Museum in Berlin. This one is here, I think mainly because it changed the way that, or maybe really pushed the boundaries of this whole thing is about the building and not so much the art that it held. So this was a competition to how sort of the history of Jewish culture in Germany. The funny thing about to us one is that this was Daniel Leibskins' first major project. I think he had done a single building before this, and he won a competition. There were 189 entries, and the jury chose his as a real direct deviation from what would typically be chosen, which is something that is more neutral and sort of static. But this building is very much intentional. Goes back to the idea of some of the things he mentioned about the Guggenheim of trying to force people to go in a certain path. This is a very linear progression. But the building also is meant to evoke a lot of emotions in certain areas and do a lot of things to where the space that you're in becomes more important than what you're actually looking at or dealing with. So, project is this linear zigzag shape that sits next to an older, a much older building in museum, and that that's actually how you enter into Leibskins' building is you actually don't go into that building. You go into the building next door and you go down into the basement and come up into the Jewish museum. So, it's this whole almost counter-cultural museum experience. It does almost everything the opposite of what you would typically expect, but it's also very, very provocative and evocative as a piece of architecture. One of the little fun facts on this one is the building was open for two years before there was any art in it and there was something like 500,000 people that went to see the empty building. And that puts it in perspective about how much the building matters in this whole scenario is like people were going to walk through the empty building because the building was so spectacular. Yeah, so moving. Yeah, that was a big part of it. This is one if like I really want to go see this building. You know, this is a Holocaust museum. It's part of what the story that they're telling there. Well, it's part of it though. It's only a small part of it. The whole thing is. Yeah, well, that's why I said it's part of it, but it's still it's got that component to it. So, yes. This is a heavy building. Yes, it is a heavy building and there are a lot of people that talk about being really emotionally moved by going through this space. Definitely one that should be on everyone's list. Let's go to number nine on this list, which this one's on this list and this one is interesting to me. I don't know much about it. Ever since I saw it, it was on my I would like to go there and look at this this museum and maybe that's the only criteria that needs to take place. So the museum is the Zites Mocha, which is Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. And it was designed by the architect was Heatherwick Studio in an open September of 2017. It's in Cape Town, South Africa, and it's just over a hundred thousand square feet. What I learned is that the museum, the Zites Mocha starts with a building that had no original interest in being cultured. It was a grain silo complex in Cape Town, which was part of the and the industrial machinery of the harbor where it's located. And it was designed to store and move corn maze. It was never intended to be repurposed into a museum to frame contemporary art. Yeah. And so the original structure was repetitive as grain silos are. It was massive. It was utilitarian. And it was I don't know that maybe that's another way of saying that it had the architectural honesty that people, at least the people like us would probably appreciate. And so when Heatherwick Studio got brought in the silo had outlived its industrial purpose and they could have demolished it, but adaptive reuse became part of the conversation that they decided to pursue. And so if you can imagine in your brain before you go look this up, them taking a grain silo and carving curved shapes through the vertical cylindrical shapes, you start to get an idea of what the interior form is because they basically just carved away a big part of these grain silos to create the space and then everything get built within it. It's a remarkably clever form of space making. I don't know what it would be like to view art there, but I'm viewing it as you're going to view the building as a museum, as a cultural space, as a gather of people in addition to the art that it's curating. But it's a remarkable adaptive reuse structure that I think has the kind of purity architects would like. So that's why it's on my list. Yeah, I think it's a really interesting reuse of an industrial facility. And the one thing I would say that maybe wasn't quite clear, but there are think like 10 large concrete grain silos that are grouped together. And that's where they went in and carved out these pieces. So there's parts of those grain silos that are completely gone, but then they're hanging over your head as well. It's a really wild looking volume. Yeah, but really interesting. That one wasn't on my list, but I knew of the building when you had it, I didn't know the name, but then when I went to see the images, I was like, oh yeah, this is, I know this building. A really different character, I think, than most of the ones we've got, but really, really interesting. Yeah, definitely worth being on the list. So the last one here that we've got is the Chichu Art Museum, Batadau, on Do in Japan, Nau Shima, which is an island in Japan. And the way this whole thing evolved was that there was a wealthy entrepreneur on the island that really started to invest back into this island. And there's, I think there's a group of a couple of islands, but this island for sure, because it was an economic downturn in all these sorts of things. And this guy decided to invest his money into the island and trying to restore it. And part of that was he had collected some art. And this is another one of those where the art was really specific. And known when the project was being built. So this is also a pretty small project. This is about 28,000 square feet. So about the same size as the the Clivard still. It's mainly houses five or six monets. And then some wallard de Maria work. And then it is also kind of a joint effort. I don't know how to describe it, but it's got several jams to real spaces in it, which makes it interesting. Because typically those things are stand alone in random places. And there are three works here in this gallery. The other thing that's entering about this is this whole thing is underground. Yeah, that's what Chichiu means is I think of the earth, right? Yeah. Yeah. So and the most striking thing about it is that again, this is another interesting study in light. Because what Ano does is he's cut holes in the earth to let light in to these spaces. So in some of them, it's a literal hole in the roof and the light shines in. And it's really bright. But then there's others where it's controlled, but it's still all natural lit. But it is also all underground with various openings. So when you look at it, any one of the things that red was like one of the hardest things to photograph because it's not very big and it's all underground. But too, when you look at the site plan from it, it's really just usually these geometric slices or cuts or forms coming out of the ground. And that's really it. So I think it would be a really interesting experience, but a unique museum in the way that it responds to everything. Not having a real building, so to speak, but also dealing with the light. And then being specific to just a few pieces of art. Like there's the mo neighborhood, which is where all five of them are. And that's all it is. Good room to go to. Yeah, right. To funny thing is, in the end, it did work. This museum kind of had a the Guggenheim effect of Bilbao. It reinvigorated this island and people now come here to see this museum and it's reestablished this island's economy and all kinds of stuff, which is really interesting. And I don't know if I said this was completed in 2004. I will tell you, this is one of those ones that was on my list as well. And it had more to do with the fact that it was like the anti building in some regards because it's completely underground. Yeah. And it's got lots of openings and how they control the light coming down. And it really has to do about the sequences of underground, but exterior space. They're both interior and exterior at the same time. It's a big part of it. It's what you would expect from a to dal on Do concrete building. And be honest with you. Yeah, but underground. It's so crazy. Yeah. Well, I got one of his building, you know, the Fort Worth modern on Do did. Yeah. And I could go see that whenever I want. So I mean, I kind of get what that looks like and what his projects are, but this one is higher on my list to go see. So yeah, for sure. Okay. So that's our 10 museums to go see. before you die. It was a harder process than I thought to go through to pick the 10 that I want to go see first like what would my 10 be and I know Andrew had a hard time with it as well. I'd be interested to hear if you think there's any notable museums that we should have included on this first list so with that I think we've reached a point where I'm gonna call today show a wrap. Thank you for being with us for episode 203. 10 museums to see before you die. Special thanks to our sponsor construction specialties maker of architectural building products designed to master the movement of buildings people and natural elements construction specialties has been creating inspired solutions for a more intelligently built environment since 1948 visit mastering movement dot net to learn more. 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