Is the curatorial voice dead? 

In a Medium post, the developer of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s new app delivers a fascinating, data-rich rebuttal to the Wall Street Journal's critique of the SFMOMA's new audio tours which "feature a range of fascinating hosts, including high-wire walker Philippe Petit, Avery Trufelman from the 99% Invisible podcast, members of the SF Giants organization, and comedians from HBO’s Silicon Valley.” Get the app here.

The WSJ critic feels that “SFMOMA would do well to rely more consistently on its own curators for cogent, pungent audio commentary.”  

But the data shows that visitors are overwhelming more engaged with the new tours. The piece that the critic likes best, "a curator-led audio clip about Mark Rothko’s No. 14 1960… ties for last on this list in completion rate (i.e. how far people make it before they stop listening), which we’ve found to correlate strongly with what people like.”

It is akin to the long-running argument about exhibit labels. Certainly the curatorial voice will always matter. But isn’t it wonderful when it is overwhelmed by other voices with other ways of seeing the world, as appears to be the case here? 

Crowdsourcing the new Guggenheim Helsinki

A fascinating, and scary, approach to museum design:

The Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition is the first open, international architectural competition to be organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. This initiative reflects the Guggenheim’s long history of engagement with architecture and design and its belief that outstanding original design can speak across cultures, refreshing and enlivening the urban environment.

What is fascinating? The competition is open to any architect and all entries are anonymous--there is no shortlist of the usual suspect starchictects. The jury will select six finalists without knowing which firm submitted the design. So far more than 1,700 designed have been submitted. Many are interesting. A few are quite odd. Some are strikingly beautiful.

What is scary? The goal seems to be to create an architectural landmark rather than a great museum. Here are the project's principles:

• Outstanding, engaging, original design
• Potential to become a landmark and a symbol of Helsinki
• Sensitivity to historic waterfront setting
• Sustainable placemaking from an economic, social, and environmental perspective
• Strong connections to the historic city center, harbor and urban context, which are evident and enjoyable in all seasons
• A design informed by Nordic ideals, including openness and accessibility

Where is "Be one of the world's great art museums"?

To be fair, the project brief does includes functional requirements and, admirably, says that "all areas of the museum should be conceived in terms of how they support social interaction and the experience of art. They should enhance the dialogue between visitors and art,"

The Guggenheim got luck in Bilbao by hiring an architect who fundamentally understands museums (see the Norton Simon), while also being able to create dramatic design solutions.  Will they be so lucky in Helsinki?

For some lowlights see The 36 Weirdest Proposals for the Guggenheim Helsinki.

Daylighting for Museums

The Integrated Design Lab at Montana State University School of Architecture has a very good short guide to daylighting for museums (PDF) with basic guidelines and many good examples. It is a good sign that they open with a photo of the Kimball Art Museum and a quote from Louis Kahn:

So this is a kind of invention that comes out of the desire to have natural light. Because it is the light the painter used to paint his painting. And artificial light is a static light . . . where natural light is a light of mood . . . the painting must reveal itself in different aspects if the moods of light are included in its viewing, in its seeing. I think that’s the nature, really, of a place where you see paintings. 

The Ubiquitous Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano museums seem to be everywhere and everywhere they are, they seem to be well received. Restraint is a good thing in a starchitect. The NY Times has a short piece about his many buildings: A Portfolio That Surprises Even Its Creator.

Mea Culpa: Milwaukee Art Museum

The Milwaukee Art Museum raised a lot of eyebrows in the museum world (including mine) several years ago when they needed to borrow money to finish their new Calatrava-designed addition, which included an extravagent folding Brise Soleil (an architectural sun shade). The board hoped that increases in attendance would pay the interest on the debt. When that did not happen, the museum reportedly laid off a significant number of staff as a consequence. Many of us shook our heads in a sad "I could have warned you" manner.

Perhaps we could have, but I am glad I didn't shake mine too vigorously. I finally had a chance to visit the museum with its new addition and I can now see why the board felt it was worth taking the risk.  The building is both beautiful and functional. The Brise Soleil  has not become an international icon, as some had hoped ("another Sydney Opera House"), but it is an icon for Milwaukee that everyone loves. It tells the world that Milwaukee is no longer just "famous" for being the home of Schlitz beer. The Brise Soleil punctuates the end of one of the city's most prominent avenues and is visible all along the waterfront, even when closed. I can't imagine Milwaukee without it.

While the Brise Soleil gets all the attention, the rest of the building is equally beautiful in a sculptured structure way. It takes the modernist dictum of form follows function and turns it into sweeping curves that are cathedral-like in their strength, symmetry, and repetition. The Brise Soleil marks the entrance, as it should. The rest of the building is essentially one long shed that connects the new entrance to the older building and its existing galleries. The new spaces include a large, open temporary gallery for major changing exhibits, a new store, an expansive lobby/event space, a new cafe, and parking under it all. These spaces connect to and compliment the traditional and contemporary galleries in the existing museum.

What I liked: The windows into the service entrance from the cafe and coat check level. The way the garage connected to the entrance. The entrance from parking, where you enter just as someone coming through the front door would. The children's workshops in the midst of the main galleries. The "Animation: Art goes to the Movies" exhibit, which was putatively for children, but which I found fascinating because of the juxtaposition of real works of art with the animations they inspired. The "Color Rush" photography exhibit. The "Museum Inside Out" exhibit, despite the fact that it didn't seem to be working for visitors.

What I didn't: The circulation was a little awkward: the new exhibitions space is in the middle of the "shed" with corridors on either side. The east, lakefront, corridor takes you to the entrance to the existing galleries; the west corridor seems almost superfluous. The lobby was filled with tables and chairs, presumably from an event. I suspect there is no convenient place to put them on the main level.

Most interesting artifacts: The Biedermeier Settee and clock. Wow!

Biggest disconnect: The old and the new.

Failing Museums: Endowment versus Engagement

Two recent news stories highlight “lack of endowment” as the reason for the failure of two very different museums, the Higgins Armory and LA's Museum of Contemporary Art. 

The Higgins Armory, in Worcester, Massachusetts, has struggled for several years and just announced that they would be closing their doors and transferring their collections and what is left of their endowment to the Worcester Art Museum. A statement from the board says that the "Higgins’ biggest challenge is our lack of a deep endowment."

LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has been in economic trouble for several years. They are now in discussions to merge with the LA County Museum of Art. The museum's explanation for their problems? "there's nothing that a hefty infusion of endowment cash could not solve.” (LA Times article)

From my (admittedly distant) perspective, The issue is not lack of endowment, but lack of engagement with the museum’s potential supporters, ranging from visitors to major donors. Both museums have failed to address the fundamental question that people ask when asked to give up their money, whether it is $10 for admission or $10 million for endowment: "Why does this matter to me?" 

It is easy to say “If only we had more money, we could do wonderful things!” It is much harder to say “We do wonderful things! Won’t you support us?” 

Any museum can keep its doors open if it has a deep endowment. Many manage just fine with hardly any endowment at all. It is easy to say “If only we had more money, we could do wonderful things!” It is much harder to say “We do wonderful things! Won’t you support us?” The real challenge is generating enthusiasm among many different constituent groups so that funding comes in from all kinds of sources, admissions, donations, and contributions towards endowment. "Lack of endowment" is simply the most convenient explanation, and one that shirks responsibility. 

I'd like to see these museums ask themselves "Where did we fail to engage people? What could we have done differently to build support?" Probing answers to those questions might not help the Higgins and MOCA, but they may help other museums that are struggling with similar issues.

Trouble on the Way?

The Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney has a plan to add on to their museum. The AU$400 million addition sounds like it would be filled with useful space.  The potential for trouble comes with their ambition to build something that will be as significant as the nearby Sydney Opera House.

"We have the opportunity to create an iconic new building that will take its place alongside the Opera House as an international beacon of modernity, of creativity, of a celebration of the human spirit in Australia."

It is a noble idea. Many have tried. Not many have succeeded.

The existing Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Visitation isn't the only metric

The Virginia Gazette leads its piece on Colonial Williamsburg with the headline "Colonial Williamsburg paid attendance tumbles to 40-year low."Visitation is important, but the organizations other metrics are substantially more positive:

• The foundation's endowment value rose to $730 million with a 13.1 percent return on investment. 
• Donor gifts rose from $40 million to $63.7 million with 18,000 new donors.
• Internet traffic and educational outreach both increased.
• More people played the RevQuest game, which begins online and ends in the Historic Area.

This sounds to me like Colonial Williamsburg managed its finances very successfully, has made a strong case to donors that what it does is important and valuable, and has staked a claim in the online world. A more nuanced and balanced analysis of these metrics might tell us that Colonial Williamsburg is actually doing a a good job of achieving their mission and balancing their budget, despite steadly declining attendance. Far from "tumbling," it sounds like they are doing a good job adapting to new realities.

Visitation isn't the only metric, especially in an increasingly uber-connected world.

Escher as architect

From the New Yorker. 

The Met adds a visitor-friendly plaza

The Met just broke ground on a new visitor-friendly design for their Fifth Avenue plaza. Designed by OLIN, the new plan creates many more places to sit and a new emphasis on the street level entrances that have long been there, but were not readily apparent. The iconic steps will remain, but, with luck, may not be as crowded.

I'll have to see it in person, but the ideas seem simple and sensible. I like that. The Brooklyn Museum tried to solve some of the same problems in a much more radical way with generally disappointing results. Images via the NY Times.

Can Roanoke be the Next Bilbao?

Read this fascinating case study from the folks at the University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center about the development of the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia.

The case study traces the evolution of the museum from its former home in a renovated warehouse to its new home in a striking $68 million building. The case for the new museum was driven by a need for more space and by a desire to create a new cultural icon for the community.

The museum’s home, Roanoke, was striving to get noticed, and to retain and attract information age companies and young, educated professionals and creative individuals. When the idea for a brand new museum finally surfaced, both the museum and the city were ready to saddle the fledgling initiative with dreams for national acclaim and community transformation. 

While the building is remarkable, the story does not have a happy ending.  The introuction to the case study summs it up:

In November 2008, after a $68 million project to build a new museum building in Roanoke was complete, the Taubman Museum of Art reopened. The $15 million needed to fund the new building was still to be raised, and by the end of the 2008 fiscal year (FY) in July, $14.4 million had been borrowed. Before the move, the museum was provided with its space free of any rental, maintenance, security, custodial, and utility fees by a local operating foundation at its Center in the Square. After the move, the costs of staffing and maintaining the facility far exceeded estimates, while the revenues proved far below expectations. In the first year, the museum’s operating budget before depreciation was $5.5 million. In fiscal year 2009, an additional $2.8 million had been borrowed and $945,000 paid in interest. This debt expense alone was larger than the entire pre-expansion operating budget. For the grand opening, the Taubman Museum had hired additional staff for a total of 52, but the financial pressure forced four rounds of layoffs, during which the staff was trimmed to 17. At the same time, the admission fee increased, from nothing before the project’s beginning to $3 during the capital campaign to $10.50 after opening. Even after these drastic measures, the museum is still struggling, fighting for its very survival. Moreover, other arts organizations complained that the museum had become a drain into which cultural funds were being sucked from foundations and philanthropists in Roanoke Valley.

Why did the Taubman Museum’s fortunes change so drastically after its move? To what extent was the new building—rather than the depressed economy—to blame for the severity of its crisis? What measures during the planning process could have been taken to prevent this catastrophe?

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures initial concepts

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the preliminary concepts for their new Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles. This is a project I have been working on for five years  now. The project looks like it is going to move forward quickly with a concept approved by the Academy and $100 million in committed funding towards a $250 million budget.

The new museum will be at the end of the current Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus in the former May Company building, at the start of Los Angeles' Miracle Mile. The design architect is Renzo Piano in association with Zoltan Pali (these are their renderings). The conceptual design fully restores the Wilshire and Fairfax street-front facades of the 1938 department store building, including the iconic gold cylinder on the corner (which is vaguely reminiscent of an Oscar statuette). More striking is the new translucent glass dome  on the north façade of the building which will house a state-of-the-art movie theater.

The museum's brochure is available here: Academy Museum Brochure This brochure is short on details about the building, but does a good job of selling the vision. 

The Hoki Museum: Breaking down barriers

The goal of the Hoki Museum in Japan is to "create an experience in which nothing comes between museumgoers and the art."

The first impression is of a building designed to startle and impress.  It does that, as do many recent museums, but in this case, it appears that the visitors are as important as the architecture. The museum uses specially designed and "tuned" LED lighting to de-clutter lighting systems, steel walls with a magnetic mounting system to eliminate visual distractions, windows below the art work to let in indirect natural light without the detailing necessary for skylights, and rubberized flooring to ease the strain on visitor's feet and knees.

A good overview is available in the Daily Yomuri and from the Japanese version of Metroplis magazine.The English version of the Museum's web site has limited information. The Japanese version has many more images, including many from the museum's collection of stunning contemporary realist Japanese art.

Deconstructing the Museum Building Boom

Remember when everyone wanted to emulate the so-called "Bilbao-effect" of Frank Gehry's remarkable museum built for the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain? Many museums got built, but emulating Bilbao's success has proven elusive for other museum projects.  

The Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago has just released a fabulous data-driven study of museum and performing arts building projects from 1994 to 2008 that may finally put the Bilbao-effect to rest for good. The report (Set in Stone) provides a detailed analysis of more than 700 building projects  with budgets ranging from  $4 million to $335 million.

The bottom line? “At least in the beginning, each of these projects was based on the assumption that a new facility would help increase audience size, increase earned and donated income, and at least indirectly, help realize the institution’s mission. In some cases, this worked. But in many instances, the experiences in these new and expanded facilities were much more difficult and challenging than predicted, and put enormous strain on institutions."

Among the key findings:

• More than 80 percent of the projects studied ran over budget, some by as much as 200 percent. 
• Before formulating a final plan, institutional leaders and donors need to take time to adequately understand the precise reasons for launching a major building project, determine if there is actual need, and if there is adequate support in the community both for attendance, and for financial support. Skeptics need an opportunity to voice their concerns as part of this process.
• When it came to motivation for the work, the most successful projects were driven by both the organization’s mission and by clear and definable need.
• Projects were successful when leadership was clear and consistent throughout the process. It helped enormously when there was one project manager, answerable to the board, in charge of the details and accountable for progress.
• Success also depended upon the flexibility of the organization in generating income after project completion, and on how effective the organization was in controlling expenses as the building took place.
• People interviewed in the study said they may have made different recommendations had they had the chance to understand fully the scope and cost of the project from the beginning.
• A big problem is estimating the actual demand for cultural projects.  Although increased education and income are usual predictors of demand, actual vs. predicted attendance does not follow a scientific formula. “It’s not an automatic, ‘you build it, and they will come.’”
• In some cases, building projects suffered because they were not in sync with the mission of the organization, or were built more because of the individual aspirations of donors or local community leaders than because of an actual need for a facility.
• Some projects stumbled when they became signature pieces for leading architects who ended up designing a significantly more expensive building than the organization could afford to build or maintain.
• The initial cost projections for some of these structures were frequently extremely (and unrealistically) low, making the final tab much more expensive than originally forecast. 
• Because it could take up to ten years to plan and complete a project, the actual needs of the communities served by the project could end up being very different from those originally envisioned.
• As a result of these miscalculations, sometimes very substantial, some cultural arts facilities ended up being forced to reduce access, rethink performance and exhibition schedules, and lay off staff in order to meet their budgeting targets.

None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who watched it happen, but it is very helpful to have it laid out so clearly. We do have many wonderful new buildings because of the building boom. Now we also have some well-documented analysis that may help take the pain out of future building projects.

Note: The NY times has a nice overview article, but the full report is well worth reading through.  The introductory video on the report's web site has a very nice overview. The Quick Overview is a nice two-page info graphic.

Too much natural light?

It is a given (at least to most museum people) that natural light is the best way to experience works of art. But sometimes there can be too much of a good thing as there is now at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. The reflected light from the windows in a new condo across the street is "threatening artworks in the galleries, burning the plants in the center’s garden, and blinding visitors with its glare."

Dallas Museum Simmers in a Neighbor’s Glare

(NY Times photo)

Who pays for Museum Tickets?

Fascinating info-graphic from Good magazine that clearly illustrates the difference between
what people pay for entrance to a museum and the actual cost of a visit for each museum.
Click here for the original.

Amplifying Visitor Satisfaction

Good advice when designing museums and museum exhibits. (Adapted from Seth Godin)
Research shows us that what people remember is far more important than what they experience. What's remembered:
-- the peak of the experience (bad or good) and,
-- the last part of the experience.

The easiest way to amplify visitor satisfaction, then, is to underpromise, then increase the positive peak and make sure it happens near the end of the experience you provide. Easy to say, but rarely done.

How Visitors Changed the Oakland Museum

The new art gallery spaces at the Oakland Museum of California are different from the typical row of paintings on white walls designed to provide a contemplative experience. The Oakland installations look like they were designed by a history curator, or perhaps by an animated group of teenagers. The traditional artist and period categories are largely missing, replaced by a lively mix of many different organizational techniques. The impact is jarring at first--Look here! No, look here! But then, as you spend more time, it is engaging--What's this? Why is that here? Have you seen this?

One thing the exhibition isn't is contemplative, and that is perhaps the point. Most visitors don't have the background to enjoy many art museum exhibits. A didactic exhibit that sought to explain would be deadly.  The OMCA opens up access to the art by seeking to engage visitors and then to validate individual responses. The spaces are inviting. The experience is comfortable. The result is visitors who have a fulfilling aesthetic experience and are, perhaps, inspired to learn more.

This is not the approach most art museum directors would choose. Contemplative experience are what many visitors expect, but it works here.

The Museum has published a book about their transformation: How We Visitors Changed the Oakland Museum (the strike-through is theirs). Lori Fogarty, the Executive Director, writes in the foreword:

When I first began here, we couldn’t capture the right word for what we were doing – except that they all began with “re.”  Remodel?  Not quite right – sounds like the kitchen.  Renovation? Suited more for an old farmhouse.  Reinstallation? Who knows what that means.  Reinvention? Well, only if we’re tossing our history aside. 

As we moved further into the process, however, I began to see that this project involved much more than the physical change of expanding galleries, enhancing the infrastructure, and improving our visitor amenties.  This project touches every aspect of the Museum – from the way we work together as a staff, with our visitors, with our community – an ultimately the vision of this institution.  We are transforming.  And, as the dictionary so aptly notes, this means changing our composition and structure; our outward appearance; and most fundamentally, our character and constitution.

(The quote is cribbed from the Arts Forward blog.)

Visiting the Clifford Still Museum

I finally had a chance to visit the Clifford Still Museum in Denver and liked it even more than I thought I might from the pictures. I liked:

• The paintings, especially the early abstractions. Seeing these in any kind of reproduction does not do them justice.
• The serenity of the simple, rectangular building nestling into the ground literally in the shadow of the Libeskind addition to the Denver Art Museum. (The looming will be less of an issue as the areas near the museum are redeveloped and provide more of a context for the building.) 
• The lack of a store and cafe, de rigueur for museums these days, but prohibited in this museum by a provision of Still's will.
• The perforated screens on the ceilings. According to the museum these are "a highly sophisticated systems of skylights, which bring selective spectrums of light into the building, which then pass through a cast-in-place concrete 'screen' that functions as a floating ceiling in the galleries." This system has the added bonus of creating a background texture for the ceiling that swallows up the often-intrusive light fixtures.
• The texture of the exterior concrete. "Fins" of a sort stick out as much as two inches from the surface and soften the stark lines of the building. These are oddly lovely.
• The openings between the galleries and between the floors which draw you up and down, in and around.

Overall, it worked very well as a building and as a place for Still's paintings. Well worth a visit for the paintings and the building.

Clyfford Still Museum

The Denver Art Museum has some new competition, the about-to-open Clyfford Still Museum right next door.  The two museum buildings could not be more different.  The Liebskind addition to the DAM is wildly exuberant. The restrained Still Museum is mature and settled. 

Designed by Brad Cloepfil, principal of Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon, the new museum underwhelms where the Libeskind addition dominates. The Still building itself is beautiful in the way that Lauren Bacall is beautiful--simple, elegant, and gracious. And she needs to be gracious with Lady Gaga sitting next to her. I love both women and both museums, for very different reasons, and it is remarkable to see them next to each other. Where Liebskind's building focuses on the architecture, Cloepfil's defers to the art. It is a simple box (modernist revival?), but that is what the program calls for for most art museums. In the Libeskind building, you can't escape from the architecture--it looms and threatens to capsize. In Coepfil's building, it is the art that is outrageous. Lady Gaga might be a lot of fun, but Lauren Bacall is the better bet for the long haul, as Humphrey Bogart certainly understood. 

The Denver Post has a few articles. (Photo credit to them, too). There will be many more once the museum opens tomorrow.