ARCHITECTURE OF MUSEUMS
Ludwig Glaeser, Emilio Ambasz [Designer]
New York: Museum of Modern Art, September 1968. First edition. Slim quarto. Thermographically printed black saddle stitched wrappers. 24 pp. 20 black and white illustrations. Housed in maling envelope that doubles a 17.25-inch square poster [folded as issued, see scan]. Poster neatly and partially split along one fold. Withdrawn and Kimbell Art Museum library stamp to textblock margin. Two photocopied text pages attached inside rear cover dealing withe the specifics of Louis I. Kahn’s designs for the Kimbell Art Museum, collated by Kimbell Art Museum Curator of Architecture Doctor Patricia Cummings Loud. A very good copy of this unique edition.
8.25 x 8.25-inch softcover exhibition catalog with 24 pages and 20 black and white images, designed by Emilio Ambasz for the MoMA show on view from September 24 to November 11, 1968. Includes work by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Frank lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Junzo Sakakura, Philip Johnson, I. M. Pei, Franco Albini, Gordon Bunshaft of SOM, Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates, Manfred Lehmbeck, Amancio Williams, and others.
Doctor Patricia Cummings Loud (Beaumont, TX 1930 – 2021) served as Curator of Architecture at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas from 1981 until her retirement. As Curator and Archivist, Doctor Loud presented the public face of the Kimbell to the Architectural pilgrims who trekked from around the globe to Fort Worth to experience the magic of Louis Kahn’s temple of light.
She wrote “One visitor recently told me that she had merely stopped by to “bathe” in Louis Kahn’s luminous spaces; she would come back another time to see the special exhibition currently on view. She seemed to be saying that the building’s environment was enough for a spiritual lift even when there was not enough time to look thoughtfully at art. The art of architecture was fulfilling its role.”
Doctor Loud received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University Texas, Austin, in 1951; Master of Arts, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954; Master of Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954; and her Doctorate of Philosophy in Fine Arts, again from Harvard University, 1990.
During her teaching career, she served as a Ford fellow in Art History, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 1956—1960; a Senior Resident Cabot Hall Radcliffe College, 1964—1968; a Lecturer University of Connecticut, Groton, Connecticut, 1971—1972; and an Instructor at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, 1972—1976. She then moved into Arts administration as the Executive Assistant at the Van Cliburn Foundation, 1980—1981.
She was an honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects, and a Member of the Dallas Architect Association, the Society Architect Historians, the College Art Association, and the 1998 recipient of the honorary John G. Flowers award from the Texas Society Architects.
A Press Release from the Museum of Modern Art states: “Architecture of Museums will be on view at The Museumof Modern Art from September 25 through November 11. Directed by Ludwig Glaeser, Curator of Architecture and Design, the exhibition consists of models, photo murals, and color transparencies of seventy-one museums. While most of the examples were built during the ‘50s and ‘60s, several designs still under construction are shown as well as a few important historical prototypes and unrealized 20th-century projects.
“Selected at a time when museum building has reached unprecedented proportions, the exhibition is relevant to the current debate on the function of museums in our society, "The educational role intended for the museum has not only been revived but increased t o an unforeseeable extent, " Mr. Glaeser points out in the exhibition catalogue,' ' "Yet despite these new tasks, the museum can never deny its original function of housing: art , Even the most rebellious contemporary work, if i t survives the judgment of time , will become a treasure. Architecture that acknowledges this fundamental nature of the museum can arrive at solutions unattainable by accommodations based exclusively on temporary and often undefinable functions. This is why some of the most successful new museums have been established in renovated European castle s and palaces, " Underground museums, open air museums, variations on the blank-walled solid cubic form and museums recently remodelled in old building s have been selected for the exhibition from twenty-two countries.
“Museums devoted entirely to 20th-century art, a Pavilion for Antique Toys, a National Museum of Anthropology, a Gallo-Roman Lapidary in Belgium, the Peace Memorial in Hiroshima, a Spanish Museum of Architecture, a Theatre and Science Museum, and a Cabinet of Prints and Drawings in the Uffizi in Florence are among the buildings that illustrate such practical aspects of museum design as lighting and installations in solutions which contribute to the broader concept of the museum. "In addition to their architectural excellence," Mr. Glaeser says, 'the examples chosen suggest an ambiance coordinated to the immanent values of the collection and to the contemplative moments of the viewer."
“Among those architects whose work contributed to new techniques, none has applied his concepts more consistently to exhibition design than Mies van der Rohe. Paintings as well as sculptures are used as if they were walls and columns defining an open space. This concept requires the large uninterrupted space that appears first in his 1962 project, the museum for a Small City, then in Cullen Hall built in Houston, Texas, and finally the recently completed New National Gallery in Berlin. This is shown in a large mural, plans, and a model.
“Le Corbusier, a painter as well as architect, projected museums throughout his life. In addition to his concern for studio-like lighting, a recurrent theme in his designs is the spiral plan, not only does it permit unlimited additions but it also reflects his notion of exhibitions as didactic, expository sequences which predetermine the viewer's movement. Among the seven examples of Corbusier's work in the exhibition are his first square spiral scheme, the world museum project of 1929, the Cultural Center designed in 1954 for Ahmedabad in India, and his 1959 National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.
“Frank Lloyd Wright amplified both Le Corbusier's and Mies van der Rohe's ideas in the Guggenheim Museum In Nexr York by enclosing a large domed hall in a continuous spiral ramp. The 1945 model for the Museum is shown along with a photo mural of the interior.
“A section of the exhibition deals with open-air museums or sculpture courts which are incorporated into most museums built today, ''Few museums can provide adequate space for sculpture, and the traditional outdoor architectural setting remains the most suitable exhibition environment. The Renaissance again provides the prototypical examples," Mr. Glaeser says, citing the sculpture-filled garden of Bramante's Belvedere Pavilion in the Vatican.
“Today's architectural settings include terraced gardens, like the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden of The Museum of Modern Art, walled courts, or open ended pavilions, like Aldo van lilyck's compostion in Sonsbeek Park. In some instances the entire setting has been roofed and regarded a building, as in the Lehmbruck Museum designed by the sculptor's son Manfred. The adaptation of an existing structure to better suit museum purposes was the first stage in museum architecture, Glaeser points out, and is still one of the most successful solutions. "Italian architects are renowned for their renovation of buildings and reorganization of collections. Their success has depended upon the cooperation of museum directors willing to surrender some of their prerogatives to architects. " The extent of the renovation, shown in the exhibition, varies from Carlo Scarpa's adapted original interior in the Museo Correr in Venice to the introduction of completely new interiors in the Pinacoteca at Bologna.”