Saturday, October 25, 2008

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

First Installment of my Featured Architects Series: Frank Gehry

Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, Seattle, Washington
EMP/SFM is a museum founded by Paul Allen to promote the history and exploration of popular music and science fiction (awesome combination). EMP opened in 2000, and SFM in 2004. The museum features a permanent collection and also hosts visiting exhibits. On view now at EMP are Jimi Hendrix: An evolution of Sound; and American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print which features historical American posters that were used to advertise a variety of musical productions. A past exhibit I would love to have seen is Artist to Icon: Early Photographs of Elvis, Dylan, and the Beatles! And now at SFM is Robots: A Designer's Collection of Miniature Mechanical Marvels. I want to go!
Official Website EMP/SFM

Dancing House (Fred & Ginger) Prague, Czech Republic

Officially the Nationale-Nederlanden building, the Dancing House is the design collaboration of Frank Gehry and the Croatian-born Czech architect Vlado Milunic, completed in 1996. Originally conceived to be a cultural center, the structure now houses the offices of several multi-national firms.
(Could you imagine going to work every day to a building that looks like this? :) I am so curious to know what it looks like on the inside.)
Official website Dancing House

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis

The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art is a teaching museum at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Frank Gehry's building was completed there in 1993. The museum's permanent collection specializes in American Modernism, ceramics, mimbres pottery, and Korean furniture. The collection also includes works by many contemporary artists. Modernist painters featured in the museum's collection include Roy Lichtenstein, Georgia O'Keeffe, and James Rosenquist.
Official Website Weisman Art Museum

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

A popular tourist attraction built in 1997, the Guggenheim Bilbao is a Modern and Contemporary Art Museum that displays works by Spanish as well as internationally known artists. In addition to paintings and sculpture, the museum features many installation and electronic form pieces. Two of the large scale works on display here are Tulips, by Jeff Koons and The Matter of Time, by Richard Serra.
The museum makes a cameo appearance in the Bond Movie The World is not Enough.
Official Website Guggenheim Bilbao

(web photos)