The Guggenheim Museum building in New York rivals the art ensconced within its own walls. Designed by architectural legend Frank Lloyd Wright, the Guggenheim was built between 1956 and 1959. The museum still serves its original purpose - to showcase some of the best 20th century art.
Wright’s unusual spiral design has been controversial even before the first stone was laid. In part, because there were no stones to lay. The building is a continuous concrete pour in the shape of a sand-colored ribbon that winds from bottom to top, widening as it goes. The building makes use of cutting edge modern architecture, but the effect is quite organic. The building is so original, it is in a class all its own.
The Guggenheim building’s unique design resulted in a lack of window light around the exterior. To make up for this, light pours in through the open cylindrical atrium that runs through the center. From every angle, this skylight-fed area illuminates the walls within, though the paintings and sculptures are somewhat shadowed by the continuous walkway ramp that curves around the interior.
Despite Lloyd Wright’s original intention, in which a visitor would take an elevator to the top and walk leisurely down the ramp to view the displays, most visitors walk UP the ramp. Something about the design makes the effort more than worthwhile.
Along these curved walls you will see some of most of the famous names in 20th century art: from Picasso to Pissaro and Giacometti to Kandinsky. You will even spot a few Lichtensteins. Both sculpture and paintings compete for flat wall space as most of the surfaces follow the gentle curve of the building.
It has been a challenge to maximize display space because of the lack of level floors to stand sculpture and flat walls for hanging paintings. Several years ago a partial solution was reached when a 10-story tower was erected behind the original, once free-standing, building. The tower now holds many of the paintings with more of the sculpture finding a home in the original museum.
The building itself is best viewed from across the street on the west side of 5th Avenue. From this vantage point, you can get a variety of views of the building’s revolutionary shape.
In the New York Guggenheim, you will see less of Wright’s signature architectural markers. Still, you will spot some moderate-sized cantilevers that are the trademark of the master. Not least is the large one several feet above eye level that runs the length of the site. Inside, standing in the center of the atrium at the bottom or top, you will clearly see hints of the equally well-known Johnson Wax Building completed many years earlier.
Located a few blocks north of the Metropolitan, the 88th Street location is easily accessible by cab up Fifth Avenue, or from the Lexington Avenue subway station at 86th Street.
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