Basilica of St. Denis to Have Its Tower Restored

My students are almost always bothered when we study the birth of Gothic architecture, because the façade of the Basilica of Saint-Denis currently has only one spire. Medieval church spires are often mismatched by design, but it turns out that the missing spire at Saint-Denis was toppled during a bad storm in the 19th century. There is finally a plan to rebuild it, according to an article by Florence Evin (La basilique de Saint-Denis devrait retrouver sa flèche, July 2) in Le Monde (my translation):

"Today we have the green light," rejoiced Didier Paillard, the mayor of Saint-Denis. "Preliminary feasibility studies can begin for technical studies and financing." No question of building it new: "all the materials have been kept in storage in the church, according to the mayor. It is only a matter of putting the carved stones back in place, which have been resting for 150 years at the basilica's feet." The Basilica of Saint-Denis, prototype of Gothic cathedrals, the rival of Notre-Dame de Paris, founded in the 6th century, enlarged by Saint Louis in the 13th century, to house the necropolis of the kings of France, has been abandoned for decades, without the necessary conservation care, not even heat, despite receiving 300,000 visitors each year. Without the government, its owner, caring until the recent restoration of the façade.

In 1846, a tornado called the « Trombe de Gonesse » (Gonesse Waterspout) hit Saint-Denis. It destabilized the spire raised from 1190 to 1230, reaching 85 meters (90 meters with the cross), while twelve other bell towers in the region collapsed. François Debret, chief architect of historic monuments, who was then responsible for the building, judged the fragility of the spire dangerous. He decided, in 1847, to take it down, stone by stone, as was the practice then, according to the principle of anastylosis still used today.

"M. Debret took care to number each block and to make careful linear drawings of the dismantling, with a precision like that of a scanner," says Jacques Moulin, the chief architect today in charge of the basilica, who carried out the restoration of the façade. "The 70 drawings are have been preserved as well as the plan to put them back in place," claims the architect.

Viollet-le-Duc, the successor of M. Debret, had no plan to restore the spire, instead having the idea to completely remake the entire basilica façade. Fortunately, he did not have the money to carry out his plans, and the medieval basilica remained in place, under centuries of detritus, down to its 12th-century sculpture. This is happily the reverse of Viollet-le-Duc's disastrous reconstruction of the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, which has turned out to be one of the embarrassing debacles of architectural history.

Filharmonia Szczecińska

The European Union's architectural award, given by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, went earlier this week to the Filharmonia Szczecińska, the symphonic hall in the Polish city of Szczecin (shown above), created by the Italo-Spanish firm Barozzi Veiga. Covered in glass that is all white and translucent, it has the look of an ice cathedral or, as it struck me the first time, Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Jean-Jacques Larrochelle has a report on the hall (Le prix Mies van der Rohe attribué à la Filharmonia Szczecinska, May 9) for Le Monde (my translation):

The building, completed in 2014 after three years of construction, offers 13,000 square meters of functional space. It includes a 1,000-seat concert hall, a hall for chamber music that seats 200, a multipurpose space used for exhibits and conferences, and a large entry hall. Its cost: 30 million euros.

Built at the intersection of the historical site of the Konzerthaus, an old neighborhood bombed during the Second World War, then renconstructed, the Filharmonia Szczecinska is made up of vertical façades capped with pointed gables. Built up against the headquarters of the Wojewodzka police, made of brick and stone, it generously faces out on green spaces. The architects Barozzi and Veiga wanted to give it "a luminous element." The glass façade, illuminated from the inside by a stiff grill, offers a broad range of color scenarios that play with the architecture, especially at night. During the day, as shown in photographs, the contrast is just as striking between the stark whiteness of the new building and the lackluster environment that surrounds it.

Larrochelle also points that, although singular, the building does not stand out from its surrounding in other ways: its height is in keeping with its surroundings, for example. The architects even speak about its austerity, at least on the outside, because the interior is more colorful and varied.

Le Corbusier and Fascism

In France it has been customary to sweep the Vichy period under the rug, except when a major cultural figure's connections to that part of the past can no longer be ignored. Last month there was such a connection alleged with composer Henri Dutilleux, which was ultimately shown to have been exaggerated. Another case in the news this week is modernist architect Le Corbusier. Marion Cocquet spoke to Antoine Picon, president of La Fondation Le Corbusier about it ("Qui a peur de Le Corbusier ?", April 25) for Le Point (my translation):

Just when the Centre Pompidou is devoting a major retrospective to him, the architect is taking some hits: three books have appeared that underscore his fascist sympathies. We knew about his belief in regenerated man, healthy in body and of use to a mechanized society. Xavier de Jarcy, Marc Perelman, and François Chaslin go farther, recalling his friendship with the doctor Pierre Winter or the engineer François de Pierrefeu, eugenicists and members of fascist splinter groups in the 1930s, drawing attention to antisemitic parts of his correspondence, underscoring his conception of a hygienic war and his stay in Vichy between 1941 and 1942.

In that more fascist era, where must we place Le Corbusier?

It is clear, first of all, that he was attracted to those ideas of authoritarian planning. This is not new, and the Le Corbusier Foundation, where his correspondence has been available for more than twenty years, has never tried to hide it. Furthermore, there is evidence that Le Corbusier was flattered by the attention given to him by the fascists and thought some of their ideas were interesting. For a time, he admired Mussolini, and he went to Italy hoping for commissions. But he also repeated many times that he was not a fascist, and he was never tempted by Nazism. One is always reminded of the example of the Italian Giuseppe Terragni who designed the Casa del Fascio in Como, but we forget that the Germans wanted to raze the Weissenhof Estate in Stuttgart, created by Mies van der Rohe! Le Corbusier represented a style of architecture that most fascists found Arabized, fraudulent, foreign...

Picon, who teaches at Harvard, adds that "if there is a reproach to be made against him, it is that he had no political sense." His belief in the superiority of his architectural ideas led him to such ill-considered alliances. At best it may be described as naive.

Ionarts in Santa Fe: San Miguel Mission

On this last trip to Santa Fe, I spent more time in Santa Fe itself, rather than in the surroundings. On Sunday afternoon, that meant visiting the Loretto Chapel, whose beautiful spiral staircase is the subject of Barbara Hershey's movie The Staircase, and another visit to the city's cathedral, which features in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, the best evocation of the mystery of this part of the world. The oldest church in Santa Fe -- and supposedly the oldest surviving church in the United States -- is the Mission of San Miguel, which was first constructed in 1610 by the Tlaxcalan Indians. It has been altered quite a bit since then, although there are wood and adobe vestiges from at least as far back as the 18th century. Behind the altar is a typical New Mexican reredos, brightly colored with statues and paintings in roundels, with St. Michael, the church's patron, at the top and as the statue at the bottom (shown at right).

The most precious artwork in the church, though, are two tapestries painted onto deerskin, a crucifixion (on the left side of the nave) and a John the Baptist (on the right). The images and colors on these have faded since they were made at some point in the 17th century, but like so much in Catholic churches in New Mexico, they are a fascinating mixture of Native American and European. The church has served many different purposes over the years, but it is, unlike the Loretto Chapel, still a functioning church, hosting an austere Mass in Latin (Extraordinary Form) on Sunday at 2 pm, which offers quite a look back into history. At the end of that Mass this past Sunday, the celebrant explained that the new altar in the church is actually the church's old altar, which had been removed to a location across the street. It has just been put back in place, on the wall directly under the reredos -- suitably for Mass said ad orientem.

Virtual Restoration of Cluny

The Benedictine abbey of Cluny was founded 1,100 years ago this year: it was perhaps the most important center of monastic life in the Middle Ages, the mother house from which radiated a far-reaching reform of the Benedictine order. At its height the community had the largest church in the western world, 187 meters long, with five naves, a multiple choir, large and small transepts, three hundred chapels, seven bell towers, a building eventually surpassed only by the new St. Peter's in Rome. In 1791, the abbey's community had dwindled from the 400 monks living there in the Middle Ages to only twelve monks, who were expelled by order of the French Revolution. The abbey's precious objects were sold, and most of the buildings were reduced to rubble: the vast, fortress-like church had to be detonated with a mine, and the demolition lasted some twenty-five years. The French government has spent three years restoring the convent building to its 18th-century state and laying out a way for visitors to envision that grand church. Florence Evin had a report (L'abbaye de Cluny boucle son chantier-cathédrale, September 9) for Le Monde (my translation):

It is this abbey "in pieces" that the architect [Frédéric Didier] has made "readable" to the visitor. Already the 180 meters of the church, the grand perspective, its dorsal spine -- from the two tall, decapitated entry towers to the transept -- have been measured and made visible on the ground by a map engraved on the stone. The little cloister has regained its serenity around the ornate door given by Richelieu, abbot from 1629 to 1642. The palace of Pope Gellas, its façade restored, has been devoted to the reception of visitors.

And then -- surprise! -- three touch-responsive and rotating screens allow you to discover the "augmented reality." Projected in 3D images, the grand abbatial church has regained all its scope and splendor (a fourth screen is planned). This remarkable digital device, directed by Christian Père, was realized from stone fragments, drawings made before the demolition, and research by archeologist Kenneth John Conant, conducted between 1928 and 1985, whose excavations allowed the site to be rediscovered.

Le Monde also has a some images and a video showing some of the virtual reconstruction on its Web site, although it does not always seem to be working.

Jean Nouvel's Philharmonie de Paris

The financial disaster continues to claim cultural victims, with opera companies and orchestras cutting back their seasons or closing down completely. The plans of the French government for a new concert hall, the Philharmonie de Paris to be built to a design by Jean Nouvel, have also hit a major bump. Where could one possibly build a major structure like this dans l'enceinte de Paris? In a neighborhood that is exploding at the moment, the XIXe arrondissement, at a site planned behind the Cité de la musique near the Porte de Pantin. The costs of 200 million € were to be shared by the City of Paris (45%), the national government (45%), and the regional government (10%). As reported by Ariane Bavelier (La Philharmonie de Paris cherche à naître sans fausse note, January 8) for Le Figaro, fiscal resolution is wavering (my translation):

"The Philharmonie is not a concert hall, says its director, Laurent Bayle. "It was conceived as a 21st-century tool to expand the audience base for historical artistic forms." [...] A sign of the times, the concert hall itself will be more intimate. "At the Salle Pleyel, there are 1,900 seats, with the farthest one 47 meters away from the conductor. At the Philharmonie, there will be 2,400 but the farthest away will be 32 meters from the conductor," adds Laurent Bayle. An anti-ivory tower, the hall will be adaptable to host concerts of amplified music with 3,000 spectators. On the outside, the building will be conceived as a walking space for all people, with a strong architecture and a roof-walk 37 meters above the ground on which people can stroll.

To help children learn to love music in their youth, there will be a teaching role for the building, with practice rooms and classes for performance and composition. To help artists work their magic, rehearsal rooms will be open to the public in some cases, to allow people to follow the preparation of concerts like they watch practices for soccer matches. With the tax base on the decline, something from the plans is probably going to have to go: the Mairie de Paris has already had to take out more debt to keep to its part of the financial obligation.

M Is for Museum Leuven

A new museum opened yesterday in Leuven (Louvain), Belgium -- dubbed "the M" for Museum Leuven, the updated name of the old Museum Vander Kelen-Mertens -- so new that the Web site is still under construction. Architect Stéphane Beel created a "sober and magnificent" building, near the Place Mgr Ladeuze Ladeuzeplein, at the cost of 20 million €, of which 5 million were raised by the Flemish community. See some lovely photographs of the completed building on Flickr. Guy Duplat published a preview ( Musée "M", pureté, lumière, September 19) in La Libre Belgique (my translation and links added):

It is above all four times larger and more contemporary [than the museum it replaces]. As the result of a competition, it was Stéphane Beel's project that was chosen. The architect is one of the Flemish stars: after having built the Raveelmuseum and the Rubenshuis, he completed the new wing of De Singel and is going to begin the transformation of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. Here he has built a museum of 13,500 square meters, including 6,000 square meters of exhibit space, which is an area, in terms of surface space, on par with the S.M.A.K. [Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art] in Ghent. Stéphane Beel incorporated two existing buildings, the old conservatory and the old museum, to transform them and integrate them into two new buildings in a complex ensemble that still manages to have fluidity.

"It was a challenge being in the middle of the city, but by that same fact, it was very interesting," Beel said. Once you are through the gate, you can descend into the museum or go up to the public garden from where you can admire the new buildings, in warm and tan travertine, pierced by big windows. Pure lines harmonize well with the two older preserved buildings. "We wanted to give back some open space to the historic town center, sparing the trees, creating open corridors typical of Leuven." The architect imagined a complete route for the visitor on one single floorplan, playing with slight differences in level to compensate for the slope of the terrain. He had to keep in mind that the museum could exhibit modern art as well as medieval art. "The fluidity of the floorplan allows one to pass cleanly from one to the other." It is architecture that respects the city's height restriction and does not raise itself higher than the neighboring houses but that is not afraid to be unveiled, with its two little towers that mark off the space, offering magnificent terrace views of the city and showing off the museum to the outside.

The inaugural exhibit, Rogier Van der Weyden (1400-1464), Master of Passions, is a must-see for anyone in that region of the world and will be open through December 6. Duplat also wrote a review of what will likely be one of the blockbuster exhibits of the fall.

À mon chevet: The Arcades Project

À mon chevet is a series of posts featuring a quote from whatever book is on my nightstand at the moment.

World exhibitions are places of pilgrimage to the commodity fetish. [...] The phantasmagoria of capitalist culture attains its most radiant unfolding in the world exhibition of 1867. The Second Empire is at the height of its power. Paris is acknowledged as the capital of luxury and fashion. Offenbach sets the rhythm of Parisian life. The operetta is the ironic utopia of an enduring reign of capital. (pp. 7-8)

Baudelaire's genius, which is nourished on melancholy, is an allegorical genius. For the first time, with Baudelaire, Paris becomes the subject of lyric poetry. This poetry is no hymn to the homeland; rather, the gaze of the allegorist, as it falls on the city, is the gaze of the alienated man. It is the gaze of the flâneur, whose way of life still conceals behind a mitigating nimbus the coming desolation of the big-city dweller. The flâneur still stands on the threshold -- of the metropolis as of the middle class. Neither has him in its power yet. In neither is he at home. He seeks refuge in the crowd. Early contributions to a physiognomics of the crowd are found in Engels and Poe. The crowd is the veil through which the familiar city beckons to the flâneur as phantasmagoria -- now a landscape, now a room. Both become elements of the department store, which makes use of flânerie itself to sell goods. The department store is the last promenade for the flâneur. [Baudelaire] sides with the asocial. He realizes his only sexual communion with a whore. (p. 10)

-- Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (from the German edition)

Most of this book is an edited cahier of Benjamin's notes for a grand work on the passages of Paris that he was never able to complete. Or did he? The translators of this edition examine the current understanding of the book: was it a "monumental literary fragment or ruin? a torso? Is it "the blueprint for an unimaginably massive and labyrinthine architecture -- a dream city, an edifice?" There is clear evidence the Benjamin revised the entries from much less finished notes. Was the book instead an attempt to create a new literary genre from the process of montage -- "with its philosophic play of distances, transitions, and intersections, its perpetually shifting contexts and ironic juxtapositions" -- indeed, examples are found in Benjamin's later work. Perhaps The Arcades Project is in exactly the form that Benjamin intended.

Unashamedly Traditional and Unapologetically Beautiful

Tomorrow, March 24th, an intimate exhibition of architectural watercolor renderings by the New York based architectural husband-and-wife team Irina Shumitskaya and Anton Glikin opens at the Gelabert Studios Gallery (255 W 86th Street, NY). The opening reception starts at 5.30PM, complimentary tours by the artists take place on Friday, March 27th, Tuesday, March 31st, Thursday, April 2nd, from 5:45 pm to 6:30 pm.

Shumitskaya and Glikin studied at the St. Petersburg’s Architecture & Construction Institute in the 1990’s, where they took advantage of its traditional training in the art of architecture. The Academy was founded in 1757, hundred and nine years after the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and thirty six years before the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The three schools were the focal points of Europe’s artistic education.

During the late 18^th century, the Academy’s program was closely modeled after the École, subsequently even surpassing the École’s model in some aspects. As the result of this educational evolution and the element of isolation in St. Petersburg, by the 1990’s the Academy offered some of the most flourishing and sophisticated living tradition of architectural rendering.

“Alas,” say the artists, “the cultural crisis that went hand-in-hand with the Russian economic recession has destroyed this last bastion of traditional education. Essentially, the Academy followed the tragic fate of École, which closed its traditional program in 1968.” Shumitskaya and Glikin share their (living and practiced) memories of the Academy in this exhibit which pays homage to the traditional education it once offered, with a wistful eye to the ease with which such a tradition can and did succumb to fads that don’t always--in fact: rarely--replace adequately what is lost with the old. If H.R.H., The Prince of Wales’ stance on architecture--admirable at the very least for not being afraid of being called musty (or worse)--appeals to you, this will, too.

French News Bits for the New Year

It's Matthias Grünewald time! There is a special exhibit at the Musée d’Unterlinden in Colmar, in honor of Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece. At the same time, the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe is hosting an exhibit called Grünewald und seine Zeit. The centerpieces are the five major Grünewald works in the museum's collection, surrounded in this exhibit by another 150 works on loan. Guy Duplat has a review on this Ionarts favorite (La folie singulière de Grünewald, December 7) in La Libre Belgique: "The exhibit confims the singular talent of Grünewald for choosing very realistic images to show the lives of the saints and the suffering of Christ in a way that elicits compassion." Tell me about it. (Also see Duplat's review of the Colmar exhibit.)

We have covered the ongoing restoration at the Château de Versailles, part of the attempt to return the building and grounds to the state it was in during the life of Louis XIV. This includes reconstructing the salons de verdure (secret groves hidden in the woods used for garden parties), hosting equestrian spectacles, and recasting the grille royale in the courtyard. Béatrice de Rochebouët reports (Versailles ressuscite le mobilier d’argent du Roi-Soleil, December 3) in Le Figaro on a special exhibit, Quand Versailles était meublé d'argent, rather than an actual restoration. The seven rooms of the Grand Appartement leading to the Hall of Mirrors have been reappointed with the legendary silver furniture found there for a brief time. Louis XIV was forced to melt down all of the original pieces to finance his European campaigns, but copies made for other courts have been loaned from around Europe. For some pictures, Paris-Match has a short video report. The exhibit is on display through March 8.

This is one is for Miss Ionarts, who has recently discovered the evil attraction of Barbie. The Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine in Paris is hosting an installation by ten architects, all of whom are women, called La Villa de Mademoiselle B.. Marie-Douce Albert wrote a review (Barbie s'offre une villa idéale, December 31) in Le Figaro. Each architect was assigned a room in the luxury house to design for Barbie, with the added goal of saying something about the state of architecture, too. The show is on exhibit through January 27, during which time children who come to see it can submit a drawing showing their plan for a house for Ken.

French feathers got ruffled over an article by Don Morrison in the European edition of TIME Magazine (The Death of French Culture, November 21). None other than Maurice Druon (pictured), former Minister of Culture and member of the Académie française, took up the gauntlet with a response (Non, la culture française n’est pas morte !, December 4) published in Le Figaro. The tone of withering sarcasm in the opening paragraph is razor-sharp and the counter-attack, against the crassness of American media, is on target (my translation):

And so it begins again. Every four or five years, the United States is seized by an anti-French fever and one of its mass media outlets decides to communicate with the universe. Enough time has passed since the preceding crisis that it could be forgotten, so the attack seems all new. If I were a teenager, I would be in despair. [...] Uncultivated America! I was about to cry. But no, the United States has many researchers, scholars, thinkers, and creators who are at the highest level. It is just that they do not write for TIME.

Druon's essay was accompanied by articles about the reputation of French artists and cultural figures beyond the borders of France. In effect, TIME, whose coverage of the arts, not to speak of classical music, is paltry, is throwing stones in glass houses.

Hometown Pope Makes Good

A man named Enea Silvio Piccolomini was born in 1405 in the obscure town of Corsignano in the Tuscan countryside near Siena. The town was named for the castello known to have existed there since the 9th century. Piccolomini received a good education and became a knowledgeable man, a poet and humanist, and he began to travel. He is remembered now by another name, Pope Pius II, and he gave back to his little hometown in a big way, so much so that his papal moniker was incorporated into the town's new name, Pienza. His autobiography, Commentaries (sections in Latin, online), was long mistaken as the work of its scribe, Gobelinus. I read an interesting article by Roderick Conway Morris (A pope with an aesthetic legacy, August 14) in the International Herald Tribune, which might interest some of you:

But Pius also bequeathed to posterity a more public monument to himself, one grander, more eccentric, more richly emblematic than any other papal memorial. He transformed his remote home village of Corsignano, a hilltop hamlet amid the rolling countryside south of Siena, into a miniature ideal Renaissance city, renaming it Pienza ("Piusville") in honor of the title he took as pontiff. Pius was born in 1405, and in slightly tardy celebration of this 600th anniversary, Palazzo Piccolomini in Pienza is playing host to a fascinating exhibition: "Pius II: The City and the Arts." There is also a parallel show in Siena, "The Rebirth of Sculpture" at Santa Maria della Scala, devoted to the resurgence of this art form during and after Pius's reign. Both shows continue until Oct. 8. [...]

At home, he set about advancing Piccolomini family interests and consolidating them by creating a new fiefdom centered on his home village. He elevated this out-of-the-way place to the status of a bishopric and redrew local boundaries to make it the administrative heart of a much larger territory. But most ambitious of all was his scheme to rebuild the place according to the classical revivalist ideas of Leon Battista Alberti. The core of the project involved laying out a new piazza, flanked by a cathedral, family palazzo, bishop's residence and city hall. Bernardo Rossellino was chief architect, but Pius was a constant participant, defining what he wanted, sometimes in the most minute detail. The main components were finished in the astonishingly short time of five years. Encouraged by these major works, other individuals set about rebuilding and expanding the rest of the fabric of the city.

Palazzo Piccolomini was exceptionally luminous and comfortable, with a sophisticated system for gathering, filtering and distributing water; winter and summer rooms; concealed servants' staircases; and kitchens on every floor. The spacious loggias of the Palazzo Piccolomini, facing the countryside to the south and the distant Mount Amiata, looked out over the first "hanging garden" to be laid out since antiquity. Pius's visionary blending of architecture and the surrounding countryside into a seamless whole speaks volumes about his unusual and historically precocious appreciation of nature and landscape (a passion that runs like a leitmotiv throughout his writings).

Read the rest of the article for more information about the rest of this remarkable little town. I went there years ago, the last time I went to Siena and Montepulciano.

Vaison-la-Romaine

I lived in France and have been on extended visits to several different regions, so I think I know the country fairly well. I should just stop thinking that, because I am always learning about places that I need to visit. Most recently added to my list is a Roman site, about to undergo a major restoration, described in an article by Sophie Latil (Vaison-la-Romaine : un théâtre si vivant, December 17) in Le Figaro (my translation and links added):

The stone steps of the ancient theater of Vaison-la-Romaine are covered with black gashes, indelible marks of the running water that has worn them away for two thousand years. Lichen has grown on the columns, irrevocably attacking the stone brought from Mont-Ventoux. "Leaving the monument in this state would be to condemn it to destruction," says Jean-Christophe Simon, curator of historic monuments at the Direction des affaires culturelles (Drac) in Aix-en-Provence.

In the first century, Vaison-la-Romaine (Vasio) was the capital of the Vocontii, a tribe of Celtic origin settled in the region stretching from Valence to Digne. The theater, judging by its architecture, dimensions, decoration, and materials used, gives witness to the ancient town's prosperity and is one of the rare structures visible today of the monumental city once found on the La Villasse and Puymin sites. Its construction goes back to the first century with renovations throughout the second century.

There are mosaics that were discovered at the site, and they will be restored, too. The restoration work has been planned so that it will not disturb the Choralies singing festival, which happens every three years in Vaison-la-Romaine, next scheduled for 2007. The Romans built a small bridge over the Ouvèze River in Vasio, too, which is still there.

New Architecture Museum in Paris

Paris has so many good museums, most of which I know fairly well. However, here is something new to see on my next trip. In an article (Dernière ligne droite pour la Cité de Chaillot, December 10) for Le Figaro, Anne-Marie Romero describes the new Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, in the Palais de Chaillot, which will open partially to the public next September and completely in February 2007 (my translation):

A place of becoming, the renovations of this patrimonial site have something magical, enchanting, and disturbing about them. The 22,000 square meters of the former Musée des monuments français, the future Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, installed in the Paris wing of the Palais de Chaillot, in Paris, has that poetic grandeur of the vast abandoned factories so important in Tarkovsky's films, that Piranesian irreality appropriate to unfinished buildings. [...] Caged temporarily in sophisticated wood scaffolding, the portals of our Romanesque churches rise up, phantom-like, in the grand gallery that has been returned to the superior light desired by Davioud, just like the upper level, which will shelter 20th-century architecture, has regained its windows formerly blocked off from the Trocadéro gardens and its oculus windows reopened in the ceiling. With the murals restored, immense plaster mausolea placed here and there wait to be moved and presented in illuminated niches, like the church apses of which they are faithful copies.

In a companion article (Francis Rambert : «Donner des clés de lecture», December 10), Mme. Romero interviewed Francis Rambert, director of the Institut français d'architecture, which is preparing a massive exhibit of architectural models, of modern and contemporary buildings constructed from 1851 to 2001, to be shown in the new museum. It's definitely going to be worth a visit!

What to Do with the Volkspalast in Berlin

Here at Ionarts, we covered this story back in the summer of 2004 (Pompidou Center in Berlin, August 25, 2004). A group of German artists want to transform the Volkspalast, the seat of the Communist government in (formerly East) Berlin, into a "second Centre Pompidou." It's a fairly recent building (constructed in 1976) on the Spree River, which was the symbol of old East Germany. The federal government of the reunited Germany, in 2002, had decided to tear down the building, to reconstruct the Hohenzollern Palace (destroyed by the East German government in 1950). The group of artists, led by film directors Volker Schlöndorff and Frank Castorf, took over the building, in an attempt to stop the government's plans to demolish it. They have been hosting a series of exhibitions in this retro-hip space. I had not given the story much thought since then, but then I read an article (Berlin's Indoor Mountain of Art and Protest, August 25) by Geeta Dayal for the New York Times, about the latest of those exhibits, a piece called Der Berg (The Mountain):

Days before the end of a mammoth protest exhibition, government officials on Wednesday unveiled the results of a feasibility study to raze the crumbling old East German parliament building and make way for a replica of a Prussian castle that would house a five-star hotel and big museum collection. The exterior of the old East German parliament building on Unter den Linden that is to be demolished to make way for a re-creation of a palace. The German culture minister, Christina Weiss, said the government hoped to start construction by 2007 on the new building, which the study says could cost $650 million to $950 million.

In recent months, proponents have sought to cast the proposed castle, an imitation of one that once stood on the site on the famed Unter den Linden, as an architectural and cultural counterpart to the Louvre in Paris. "Here is one of the world's most famous historic ensembles in the center of Berlin, with the university and the opera house and the cathedral," Wilhelm von Boddien, head of the group lobbying to rebuild the old castle, said in an interview on Monday. "The Palace of the Republic is disturbing the ensemble," he said of the old building, a boxy orange-hued 1972 structure that stands out amid the gray and grandiose neo-Classical architecture lining the boulevard. But a very vocal group begs to differ. Arguing that the building should be preserved as a reminder of postwar history, about 160 artists and architects from around the world banded together this month to create a mountain inside the Palace of the Republic.

We like to give some background to stories in the Times when we can.

Hirst's Haunted Mansion

This sounds like such fun, and I'm filing it under the rubric of collector-focused museums (like the Phillips, the Barnes, the Estorick, the Meyerhoff's plans here near Washington). It comes from Steven Morris's article (Hirst snaps up rotting Gothic manor, September 1) for The Guardian today:

Most potential buyers would be put off by the red-tinged blooms of dry rot, not to mention the overwhelming gothic style of the architecture and rows of haunting, crumbling statues of long-dead kings. Yet these features may have attracted the new owner of Toddington Manor, Gloucestershire. Damien Hirst, the sometime shark-pickler and cow-halver [my emphasis: ha!], yesterday revealed he had bought the mansion and intends to turn it into a museum to house his collection of his own and other people's art.

Hirst fell in love with the grade one listed building as soon as he saw it and now regards it as a lifetime's work to restore the mansion and grounds, which have fallen into serious disrepair. His ambition will not come cheap. He is believed to have spent about £3m to acquire the 124-acre estate and may need as much as £10m to refurbish it. Villagers and conservationists who have long feared for the future of the house welcomed the news that Hirst, who has a large working studio in Gloucestershire, is to be the new lord of the manor. Adam Stanford, a historian and archaeologist who has written about the house, said: "It's an eerie sort of place which I could imagine would chime with Hirst's imagination.

The beautiful image above, which took some searching to locate, will allow you to connect a picture of the place with the story. The manor is on the English Heritage registry.

Jean Nouvel Interview

Also on Ionarts: New Opera Houses (May 29, 2005) William Christie's Poppea in Lyon (January 28, 2005) New Museum at the Quai Branly (December 28, 2004)

Jean Nouvel is the architect of the new opera theater in Lyon and the new Musée du Quai Branly. Although he did not get the commission to rebuild Les Halles in Paris, he is presently building the new concert hall in Copenhagen, and the Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst there is currently showing an exhibit on Nouvel's work, Jean Nouvel: Louisiana Manifesto, right now (through September 18). In a recent interview with Frédéric Edelmann ("La provocation n'est pas un moteur architectural", August 14) for Le Monde, he talks about his theories of what good architecture is (my translation):

I think that each site, each city deserves individual consideration. I begin by analyzing the situation, by listening, partaking in dialogue, bringing together all the people who might make a project richer, before making a sketch. It's an ethical position, and that puts me in conflict with most of my friends and colleagues. I had the pleasure of rediscovering all of that in the Louisiana Museum, which represents for me an exemplary work of architecture, full of simplicity, delicacy, depth. I don't know if I could do as well, but I know that it is my ideal. Of course, it's a small museum, situated in nature, and it's easier to be "Louisianan" in those circumstances that when you are building a mall in the suburbs.

Louisianan?

Projects are Louisianan when they seek to serve the spirit of the location, the desire of people, of the countryside, of the buildings that came before it. Projects that begin with the idea of modification rather than disconnecting from the context. What is important is to consider that each place is a stage in a mutation and must be part of a geographic and historic continuity. At the same time, my attitude is not modest. Let's make this clear: the desire to analyze and understand does not prevent me from expressing something, from inventing, and in that sense Utopia is a part of it.

I hope that David Sucher at City Comforts will weigh in on whether Nouvel is actually building what he thinks he is.

New Opera Houses

Not to throw fuel on the fire, but I'm going to say something more about architecture. Following up on the Le Corbusier exchanges with Fred Himebaugh, David Sucher, and A. C. Douglas, I made a humorous suggestion for a present to get them, which provoked a "rant" (his word) from David Sucher at City Comforts. David presented again his thoughts on Le Corbusier's Ronchamp chapel:

But my point is that so much of our reaction to famous buildings (and other famous things, too, of course) stems from a mediated view of them, from knowing who designed it and therefore being primed to be impressed. I believe that this Chapel has facades so ugly that if you saw them in media, you would be turned off...so you rarely get to see them. The post was an attempt to deal -- not with Le Corbusier -- but with the formation of public opinion in which so-called connoiseurship -- the sort of thing you see at certain well-informed but snobbish blogs, in fact -- preempts your own reaction.

I'm not sure if I am one of those certain blogs, but I just wanted to say again that I meant my gift suggestion post only as a joke. David is right about Le Corbusier being known mostly by a reputation based largely on a few approved images. His buildings are, for the most part, somewhat off the beaten path, which may explain why I haven't seen any of them in person. David has some valid and interesting ideas about public architecture, too, so I wonder what he might think about the trend to build new modernist opera houses these days. (Concert halls and museums, too, but that's too much to think about right now.)

I didn't comment on Henning Larsen's new opera house in Copenhagen when it opened, but the pictures look nice (again, I am proving David's point). Lucky Alex Ross was there earlier this year, to review Poul Ruders's opera Kafka's Trial, and gave us this photodiary in addition to his review (Kafka Sings, New Yorker, March 28). There are some more pictures here. An excellent article (High Drama at New Danish Opera House, January 15) by Kirsten Grieshaber ran in the New York Times around the time of the opening, recounting the architect's opposition to the finished version of Denmark's first opera house, because the donor insisted on some changes to his design. (The metal grid that was added to Larsen's all-glass plan for the façade was compared by the Danish newspaper Politiken to the grille of a 1955 Pontiac.)

On the evening news from France 2 the other day, I saw a little piece on the new opera house in Beijing. The architect is Paul Andreu, who will unfortunately probably always be remembered in association with the new Terminal 2E that he designed at the Roissy airport (Charles de Gaulle), part of which collapsed suddenly just over one year ago. The National Grand Theatre was commissioned as part of the updating of the Chinese capital in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, and much of the building is being done by non-Chinese architects. It's huge, with seats for 6,200 people inside (the Copenhagen house sits only 1,400), and as you can see from the picture shown here, it's an eye-catcher (reminding me somewhat of Anish Kapoor's sculpture Cloudgate in Chicago). The video on the French news showed that the exterior shell is now mostly in place. David Eimer's article (Anger builds over Beijing's 'alien' theatre, May) in the London Sunday Times has a lot of good commentary on the project.

Lastly, earlier this month (article from May 3), the Koreans announced their plans to build a new opera house on a manmade island in the middle of Seoul's Han River, which began with sponsoring an architectural competition. Proposals are due on June 10, and the city plans to make a decision by the end of July, with the building finished in 2009.

UPDATE:
On June 1, David Sucher at City Comforts graciously accepted my symbolic penny for his thoughts on these new opera houses. His response was, as always, well considered:

if the site is an urban one (or wants to be one) and creating a comfortable walkable environment is part (unstated or not) of the program then the only thing which interests me is how does the building meets the sidewalk? It is of no personal interest to me whether it is "modernist" or "traditional." A good architect can do a pretentious and sloppy job in either style if he/she ignores the street, as did Gehry in Los Angeles or Koolhaas in Seattle.

Take a look at the whole thing. Thanks, David!

Palais-Royal Columns

An article (Buren, le nouveau scandale, March 26) in Le Figaro announces the expensive work that is required for the upkeep of Daniel Buren's public artwork Les Deux Plateaux. That is the title of the installation of columns in the cour d'honneur of the the Palais-Royal in Paris. Cleaning and restoration costs will total 2.6 million €, which adds up to just over twice what it cost to install the piece:

Sure, that was 18 years ago, but inflation does not explain everything, and questions are being asked about the durability of such contemporary architecture, often experimental and fragile, which requires more upkeep than the "temples of millions of years" built by the Egyptian pharaohs 4,000 years ago.

What is so seriously wrong that this has happened? "Under the Palais-Royal main courtyard," [Palais-Royal architect] Alain-Charles Perrault explains, "there was, until the year 1900, a little electric power plant with a smoke stack that poked outside. It was shut down, the ground was covered in concrete, and the place became a parking lot for the Conseil d'Etat, but the foundation remained there and there are still several rooms beneath including one, the Salle Escande, used by the Comédie-Française for rehearsals." When Daniel Buren, after two years of fierce polemic battles, finally completed the project that Jack Lang had commissioned, his architect, Patrick Bouchain, did not dig up this soil but just added another layer of concrete under his flagstones. Plus, no one verified the porosity of this complicated construction, which was a serious error, in that the water, running in little channels covered over with grills, was an integral part of the overall work.

The result: microfissures have appeared, causing water leaks in the Salle Escande. In any case, the water is no longer circulating because the pumps are no longer pumping, and the pumps are no longer working because the electricity is no longer working properly. In short, Alain-Charles Perrault is going to have to take the columns off their bases, to which metal rings are attached, to insert an elastic film under the cover. In other words, he will have to reconstruct the entire main courtyard of the Palais-Royal.

It sounds like a nightmare. I think that, more and more, preservation concerns will and should become a part of the planning for public art commissions.

Charles IX's Wall Under the Orangerie

At various periods in its long history, the city of Paris was surrounded by a series of fortified walls. Parts of the wall built by Philippe-Auguste, which originally joined with the fortifications of the old Louvre, are still visible at a few places. A recent article (Le mur de Charles IX a rétréci, January 28) by Anne-Marie Romero for Le Figaro describes the discovery of another of Paris's walls and what happened to it.

It is no longer 41 meters [134.5 feet] of the long wall of Charles IX, discovered under the Musée de l'Orangerie, in Paris, that will be preserved, as promised by Jean-Jacques Aillagon exactly one year ago, but only 19 meters [62.3 feet]. Without a permit for modifying construction, simply by agreement between the leadership of Architecture and the Patrimony and that of the Musées de France. Behind the scenes. Just like the wall of Charles V under the Louvre was mutilated. All that can be said is that archeology truly appears to be an unneeded hassle for the Ministry of Culture. The modification of the project was denounced by Le Canard Enchaîné, in its January 26 edition, which even specifies that only "70 blocks of stone will be put back up" from this magnificent embankment wall of 55 meters, which had been ordered from her son by Catherine de Medici to protect her Château des Tuileries.

The wall was "discovered" last year, when the basement of the Orangerie was being enlarged, although specialists had known of its existence since the 19th century. It was begun by Charles IX and continued by Louis XIII. There were calls to make a special archeological crypt beneath the museum and thus to preserve the wall. The Commission du Vieux Paris recommended that "the greatest care be given to the preservation and treatment of this wall." The national government team says that the Minister's original statement was made without having had all of the information at hand, that the project evolved according to purely technical considerations, obviating the need for a new type of building permit when the plans changed.

However, the article L-421-6 does require a modified permit when the work overlaps with a historical monument, which is the case. Who is wrong? Who is right? Whatever the decision, the wall will cross through one of the basement rooms and will be cut through by a passage 1.4 meters [4.6 feet] wide. One meter [3.3 feet] high for most of its length, it will grow progressively to three meters [9.8 feet] high as it nears the Seine. That at least was not some architect's choice, but quite simply the state in which the wall was uncovered. We will have to be content with that.

The Orangerie is still closed while the renovation is completed.

UPDATE:
I should have known that David Nishimura at Cronaca would already have a handle on this news, but I somehow missed his post from September 2003. Thanks for the link, David!

Philip Johnson Dead at 98

Selected Newspaper Articles: Paul Goldberger, Philip Johnson Is Dead at 98; Architecture's Restless Intellect (New York Times, January 26) Nicolai Ouroussoff, A Tastemaker Propelled by Curiosity (New York Times, January 27) Complete Coverage on Philip Johnson (New York Times Web special) Bart Barnes, With Glass and Steel, Prolific Architect Cut A Towering Figure (Washington Post, January 27) [front-page obit] Benjamin Forgey, Philip Johnson, Blueprinter of Change (Washington Post, January 27) [Style section appreciation] Frédéric Edelmann, Philip Johnson, maître de l'architecture moderne (Le Monde, January 28) Maura Jane Farrelly, 'Glass Box' Architect Philip Johnson Dead at 98 (Voice of America, January 27, with a nice set of 11 images of his works)

Christopher Hawthorne, Philip Johnson, 1906-2005: America's Dean of Architects (Los Angeles Times, January 27) The Architect Who Flirted With Fascism (Deutsche Welle, January 28) Patricia C. Johnson, Philip Johnson steered course of 20th-century architecture (Houston Chronicle, January 27) John King, Philip Johnson, 1906-2005: Architect's legacy seen in cities (San Francisco Chronicle, January 27) Blair Kamin, Philip Johnson, 1906-2005: America's dean of architecture (Chicago Tribune, January 27) Selected Blog Posts: Roger Kimball, Philip Johnson, 1906-2005 (Armavirumque, January 26) Mike Grass, Philip Johnson, Master Architect, Dead at 98 (DCist, January 27) Kriston Capps, Philip Johnson (Grammar.police, January 26)

On Tuesday, renowned modern architect Philip Johnson passed away at the age of 98, in the Glass House, the beautiful home he designed for himself, related to both his senior thesis project at Harvard and his Rockefeller Guest House (1949-50, at 242 East 52nd Street, in Manhattan). The Washington remembrances of him have focused on two of the beautiful things he built here, the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art at Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown and the private home that is now the Kreeger Museum. Johnson also designed and built another building in Washington, mostly unknown, about which I will have more to say in a few days.

Are we in the middle of another "gay closeting brouhaha" with Philip Johnson? Not from what I have read, but there are too many articles nationwide for me to get a good idea of what has been written. He was somewhat more open about his homosexuality than Susan Sontag, whose sexual identity was largely left unstated by the press, to some uproar. The Advocate has done its best to make sure the issue is not glossed over, with its obituary headline, "Gay architect Philip Johnson dead at 98." I have seen several mentions of Johnson's sexual orientation and the fact that he is survived by his longtime companion, David Whitney.

It was fun to read some of the generally less interesting articles in smaller American newspapers, only because they sometimes mention a Philip Johnson building in the local area. "Hey, this guy who died may not mean anything to you, but he built that crazy building downtown." You can see some examples of what I mean as found in Indianapolis, Miami, Minneapolis, and Fort Worth. There are almost certainly others. It's great to see this story, which really is important, connected to something local and tangible to readers.

UPDATE:
After the initial rush of appreciations, the jackals swept in to take bites out of the carcass. Thanks to greg.org for the links to Andrew Saint, Philip Johnson: Flamboyant postmodern architect whose career was marred by a flirtation with nazism (The Guardian, January 29) and Mark Stevens, Form Follows Fascism (New York Times, January 31).