8 Most Original Art Museums Exterior Designs
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado (DUH!). New design of the building was created by Studio Daniel Libeskind and Denver company named Davis Partnership Architects. As you can see this concept design is based on shape irregularities and changing vectors. Pretty impressive and spectacular exterior design makes this building one of the most remarkable sights in Colorado.
Lentos Art Museum
Lentos Art Museum is situated in City of Linz, Austria. Zurich architects Weber & Hofer are the authors of this building design. Despite 130 meter long building 8000 m2 of useful area this museum looks very airy and coherent. Transparent glass casing attractively glows at night making this building one of the sights in the town.
Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of the best buildings in the world is the part of museum complex and it is called Quadracci Pavilion,designed by Santiago Calatrava. This project simply erases boundaries between engineering, sculpture and architecture. According the Wikipedia “the structure contains a movable, wing-like brise soleil which opens up for a wingspan of 217 feet during the day, folding over the tall, arched structure at night or during inclement weather.”
Museum of Islamic Art
The Museum of Islamic Art is located in the Qatari capital Doha. The museum lies on the edge of Doha harbour at the south end of Doha Bay and such original disposition creates surreal impression. This spectacular building was designed by architect I. M. Pei. The museum has combined ancient Islamic architecture and unique modern design.
Niterói Contemporary Art Museum
The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum is located in the city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Original UFO exterior design attracts with elegant round lines and smooth cupola. Saucer-shaped modernist structure is another feature that links this building design with the extraterrestrial motifs. This art museum deserves to be called one of the most elegant buildings in the world.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a famous museum located in New York City. This building is the one of most important landmarks in modern architecture. This building has become a cultural icon and symbolises modern culture. Perfect round lines of the main tower, cylindrical structure and other exquisite details make this building an architectural masterpiece.
Weisman Art Museum
Weisman Art Museum is located on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The building presents two faces, first one presents a brick facade that blends with the existing brick and sandstone buildings. The opposite side, the museum has a spot of curving and angular brushed steel sheets.
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
The curves on the building were designed to appear random. The architect has been quoted as saying that “the randomness of the curves are designed to catch the light”. When it was opened to the public in 1997, it was immediately hailed as one of the world’s most spectacular buildings in the style of Deconstructivism, although Gehry does not associate himself with that architectural movement. Architect Philip Johnson called it “the greatest building of our time”.
The museum’s design and construction serve as an object lesson in Gehry’s style and method. Like many of Gehry’s other works, it has a structure that consists of radically sculpted, organic contours. Sited as it is in a port town, it is intended to resemble a ship. Its brilliantly reflective panels resemble fish scales, echoing the other organic life (and, in particular, fish-like) forms that recur commonly in Gehry’s designs, as well as the river Nervión upon which the museum sits. Also in typical Gehry fashion, the building is uniquely a product of the period’s technology. Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) and visualizations were used heavily in the structure’s design.
Computer simulations of the building’s structure made it feasible to build shapes that architects of earlier eras would have found nearly impossible to construct. It is also important to note that while the museum is a spectacular monument from the river, at street level it is quite modest and does not overwhelm its traditional surroundings. The museum was opened as part of a revitalization effort for the city of Bilbao and for the Basque Country. Almost immediately after its opening, the Guggenheim Bilbao became a popular tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the globe. It was widely credited with “putting Bilbao on the map” and subsequently inspired other structures of similar design across the globe, such as the Cerritos Millennium Library in Cerritos, California.
The building was constructed on time and budget, which is rare for architecture of this type. In an interview in Harvard Design Magazine Gehry explained how he did it. First, he ensured that what he calls the “organization of the artist” prevailed during construction, in order to prevent political and business interests from interfering with the design. Second, he made sure he had a detailed and realistic cost estimate before proceeding. Third, he used CATIA and close collaboration with the individual building trades to control costs during construction.
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