The book is a compendium of gallery architecture that has become so dominant over the last 40 years. It discusses galleries as diverse as the Guggennhein Museum in Bilbao, to galleries as yet unbuilt by Frank Stella (and also includes Peter Blake's ideal museum for Jackson Pollock that I have mentioned in a previous post).
The book is well illustrated and the descriptions offer insight into the architects vision and references easily missed by the casual viewer. For example, the gallery built to house the paintings of Felix Nussbaum (p. 96), was designed to reflect the spaces in which Nussbaum worked whilst he was in hiding from the germans before he was tracked down in 1944. The architectural features are based on axises tracking through local features and Auschwitz. Newhouse is partially critical of the museum and questions 'whether this particular [gallery] fulfils its function as an exhibition space as effectively as it calls forth the horror of persecution' (Newhouse, 2006).
I read somewhere that architecture was considered the highest form of art and when exposed to forward thinking and diverse galleries, as represented in this book, it is hard truth to deny.
For the purpose of this project, it offers a fresh view of gallery design and help to dispel those preconceived ideas that I am finding so hard to encourage people to do. The book discusses over 70 galleries and most of the reviews are well illustrated and include floor plans... just flicking through the pages offers up so many ideas for gallery design that push the boundaries, that are so easy to recreate or develop in VR, that will hopefully encourage boundary pushing in this new technology.
Newhouse, V.(2006). Towards a New Museum. Monacelli Press, New York. (ISBN-10: 1580931804, ISBN-13: 978-1580931809)
If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.
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