Why I Love Modern Architecture
(This post should actually be called “Why I think some Modern buildings are made of awesome, especially the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.” But that’s rather long and wishy washy for a title. :p )
Above is a fairly iconic photo of the Rose Center for Earth and Space. (Assuming one can call any picture of such a new building iconic.) It is immediately recognizable as Modern Architecture. Not just because of the large expanses of glass and use of steel, but also because of it’s sculptural quality, which has become a hallmark of modern museums.
(left to right, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles)
Looking at the Rose Center from a distance, it clearly reads as a duck, and an ostentatious one at that. Especially when one knows that the main feature of this portion of the American Museum of Natural History is the Hayden Planetarium, which, yes, is housed within the celestial-like globe. This makes it tempting to dismiss it as nothing more than a flamboyant novelty; devoid of subtlety, unconcerned with scale or experience, and lacking anything other than the most elementary of symbolism.
In my experience, this is a common mistake when it comes to modern, publicly accessible buildings. Critics, and not always just casual ones, forget that buildings like this one, in order to work well in our media saturated age, must not only be effective on an intimate scale, but also find a way to both integrate and yet stand out in vast urban geographies. Such buildings are designed to loom large in the public’s memory and imagination when viewed at a distance not (just) as a testament to the architect’s ego, but also because doing so is vital to the building’s survival. Unfortunately, being effective at being noticed at a distance (and through a professional photographer’s lens) often ends up meaning that this one way of knowing a building tends to dominate public discourse about it, even when the design also works quite elegantly when experienced up close.
This assumption, that being a gilded duck necessarily means that the idea of actually using the building has been ignored by architects in favor of making a splash, could not be more wrong when it comes the the Rose Center.
When viewed from the sky, as a small but significant part of the vast urban landscape of New York City, it’s impossible to tell how a person would even try to enter the Rose Center. If one actually approaches the Rose Center at ground level, however, it becomes immediately obvious; there is no question of where to begin one’s journey. Just as importantly, the closer one gets to the building, the easier it is to grasp it’s scale in terms of human experience. The building’s sculptural quality and overwhelming size never completely disappear, but the structural grid of the glass cube and even the frames of the entryway doors begin to communicate to visitors how exactly they fit in and compare to the building.
Many might argue that simply having such an abstract and overwhelming facade makes the Rose Center feel unwelcome to visitors, but I suspect anyone who says this has never experienced being one. If they had, they would know that as one get closer to the entrance, the gilded duck characteristics of the structure become increasingly hidden from view. Not only because of the arched entryway, but more specifically because the main structure is significantly stepped back from the ground level entrance. This is not something that is noticeable when viewing the facade straight on, but you can see in angled photos that the lateral distance between the entrance and the giant glass cube is hardly minor. Altogether this makes the experience of entering the Rose Center one that is full of expectation and excitement, but yet also increasingly welcoming and reassuring as one gets closer and closer to the doors.
More importantly though, anyone who has actually walked throughout the Rose Center knows that the globe does more than just communicate information about the purpose of the building to people still outside of it. The globe itself - and most especially visitors’ ability to comprehend how large it is - is a vital and integral part of the educational experience within the structure.
(apologies if I begin to gush. the Rose Center is one of my most favorite museums *ever* and I am about to explain why)
When one arrives within the Rose Center, one finds oneself underneath the celestial globe. Not just for dramatic effect, but also because this perspective serves as an important reminder of just how large the space actually is. As a consequence, the ground floor is actually rather barren. This minimalism both allows the sphere to dominate and makes it easier for the functions of that level - which mainly consist of service counters, displays, and entrances - to make themselves readily apparent despite any disorientation the unusual space might engender among visitors.
After purchasing planetarium tickets for a slightly later time, visitors generally make their way up the stairs and ramp to the main exhibit. Once on the second level, they find themselves on catwalk that follows the perimeter of the cube. Facing outward are eye catching views of the surrounding buildings and open space, facing inward towards the globe are fairly traditional, if modernly styled, exhibit placards.
I expect many visitors begin their journey through the exhibit with relatively low expectations regarding the how much of their interest the glossy but definitely old-school-style displays will hold, especially in comparison to the architecture of the building itself. I certainly know I did.
Once you begin reading the placards, however, you realize that the architecture is the exhibit. Starting with subatomic particles and ending with the universe itself, the exhibit takes visitors on a journey of scale thusly: each display comes with it’s own sphere or globe or constellation thereof, while the text beside it or them tells visitors not only what the objects connected to that placard represent, but also what the central globe represents in the context of that display. So, if the tiny metal ball bearing in front of you is an electron, the massive globe is now a proton.*
The brilliance of the exhibit lies in not only in the way the architecture and the exhibit are one in the same, but also in the way incremental progress leaves everyone who comes with much deeper understanding of the vastness of the universe. Each portion of the exhibit builds upon the one before it; visitors do not simply go from small to large. As you move from one plaque to the next, the smaller objects in front of you represent the same general concept as the giant globe did a moment before. So as you leave the display on Jupiter and it’s satellites and move to the replica of the solar system, the globe transitions from representing Jupiter to acting as the sun, forcing visitors to make a mental jump in scale that feels very tangible. To assist even further with this, each section explains (roughly) what the size of the objects is in comparison to the 1:1 scale through which humans experience the world; visitors watch the numbers on these displays gradually grow from 10 to the power of -31, to 10 to the 27th power.** Making the whole exhibit not just a flashy model of the solar system, but an extremely effective lesson in scale itself.
It cannot be overstated just how profound the experience of walking through this exhibit really is. And do not forget that most visitors are far from done! By now it is time to venture inside the spherical Hayden Planetarium for one of the shows. Which will be that much more fascinating and awe-inspiring as a result of having walked through the exhibit.
If you have enough room in your brain after that, you can venture further into the museum in search of more scientific knowledge. If, however, you are - as my family was - maxed out on epiphanies for the day, you would likely make a quick stop in the gift shop to buy some astronaut ice cream or a space pen before heading home to contemplate the boundaries of the known universe and the vast amount of stuff and space within it.
*or the nucleus? I don’t quite remember anymore, sorry. It has been a decade since I’ve been there. :p
**again, it’s been a while. I don’t quite remember how small the exhibit starts and how large it ends, so this is a rough estimate.
Above is a fairly iconic photo of the Rose Center for Earth and Space. (Assuming one can call any picture of such a new building iconic.) It is immediately recognizable as Modern Architecture. Not just because of the large expanses of glass and use of steel, but also because of it’s sculptural quality, which has become a hallmark of modern museums.
(left to right, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Guggenheim Museum in New York, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles)
Looking at the Rose Center from a distance, it clearly reads as a duck, and an ostentatious one at that. Especially when one knows that the main feature of this portion of the American Museum of Natural History is the Hayden Planetarium, which, yes, is housed within the celestial-like globe. This makes it tempting to dismiss it as nothing more than a flamboyant novelty; devoid of subtlety, unconcerned with scale or experience, and lacking anything other than the most elementary of symbolism.
In my experience, this is a common mistake when it comes to modern, publicly accessible buildings. Critics, and not always just casual ones, forget that buildings like this one, in order to work well in our media saturated age, must not only be effective on an intimate scale, but also find a way to both integrate and yet stand out in vast urban geographies. Such buildings are designed to loom large in the public’s memory and imagination when viewed at a distance not (just) as a testament to the architect’s ego, but also because doing so is vital to the building’s survival. Unfortunately, being effective at being noticed at a distance (and through a professional photographer’s lens) often ends up meaning that this one way of knowing a building tends to dominate public discourse about it, even when the design also works quite elegantly when experienced up close.
This assumption, that being a gilded duck necessarily means that the idea of actually using the building has been ignored by architects in favor of making a splash, could not be more wrong when it comes the the Rose Center.
When viewed from the sky, as a small but significant part of the vast urban landscape of New York City, it’s impossible to tell how a person would even try to enter the Rose Center. If one actually approaches the Rose Center at ground level, however, it becomes immediately obvious; there is no question of where to begin one’s journey. Just as importantly, the closer one gets to the building, the easier it is to grasp it’s scale in terms of human experience. The building’s sculptural quality and overwhelming size never completely disappear, but the structural grid of the glass cube and even the frames of the entryway doors begin to communicate to visitors how exactly they fit in and compare to the building.
Many might argue that simply having such an abstract and overwhelming facade makes the Rose Center feel unwelcome to visitors, but I suspect anyone who says this has never experienced being one. If they had, they would know that as one get closer to the entrance, the gilded duck characteristics of the structure become increasingly hidden from view. Not only because of the arched entryway, but more specifically because the main structure is significantly stepped back from the ground level entrance. This is not something that is noticeable when viewing the facade straight on, but you can see in angled photos that the lateral distance between the entrance and the giant glass cube is hardly minor. Altogether this makes the experience of entering the Rose Center one that is full of expectation and excitement, but yet also increasingly welcoming and reassuring as one gets closer and closer to the doors.
More importantly though, anyone who has actually walked throughout the Rose Center knows that the globe does more than just communicate information about the purpose of the building to people still outside of it. The globe itself - and most especially visitors’ ability to comprehend how large it is - is a vital and integral part of the educational experience within the structure.
(apologies if I begin to gush. the Rose Center is one of my most favorite museums *ever* and I am about to explain why)
When one arrives within the Rose Center, one finds oneself underneath the celestial globe. Not just for dramatic effect, but also because this perspective serves as an important reminder of just how large the space actually is. As a consequence, the ground floor is actually rather barren. This minimalism both allows the sphere to dominate and makes it easier for the functions of that level - which mainly consist of service counters, displays, and entrances - to make themselves readily apparent despite any disorientation the unusual space might engender among visitors.
After purchasing planetarium tickets for a slightly later time, visitors generally make their way up the stairs and ramp to the main exhibit. Once on the second level, they find themselves on catwalk that follows the perimeter of the cube. Facing outward are eye catching views of the surrounding buildings and open space, facing inward towards the globe are fairly traditional, if modernly styled, exhibit placards.
I expect many visitors begin their journey through the exhibit with relatively low expectations regarding the how much of their interest the glossy but definitely old-school-style displays will hold, especially in comparison to the architecture of the building itself. I certainly know I did.
Once you begin reading the placards, however, you realize that the architecture is the exhibit. Starting with subatomic particles and ending with the universe itself, the exhibit takes visitors on a journey of scale thusly: each display comes with it’s own sphere or globe or constellation thereof, while the text beside it or them tells visitors not only what the objects connected to that placard represent, but also what the central globe represents in the context of that display. So, if the tiny metal ball bearing in front of you is an electron, the massive globe is now a proton.*
The brilliance of the exhibit lies in not only in the way the architecture and the exhibit are one in the same, but also in the way incremental progress leaves everyone who comes with much deeper understanding of the vastness of the universe. Each portion of the exhibit builds upon the one before it; visitors do not simply go from small to large. As you move from one plaque to the next, the smaller objects in front of you represent the same general concept as the giant globe did a moment before. So as you leave the display on Jupiter and it’s satellites and move to the replica of the solar system, the globe transitions from representing Jupiter to acting as the sun, forcing visitors to make a mental jump in scale that feels very tangible. To assist even further with this, each section explains (roughly) what the size of the objects is in comparison to the 1:1 scale through which humans experience the world; visitors watch the numbers on these displays gradually grow from 10 to the power of -31, to 10 to the 27th power.** Making the whole exhibit not just a flashy model of the solar system, but an extremely effective lesson in scale itself.
It cannot be overstated just how profound the experience of walking through this exhibit really is. And do not forget that most visitors are far from done! By now it is time to venture inside the spherical Hayden Planetarium for one of the shows. Which will be that much more fascinating and awe-inspiring as a result of having walked through the exhibit.
If you have enough room in your brain after that, you can venture further into the museum in search of more scientific knowledge. If, however, you are - as my family was - maxed out on epiphanies for the day, you would likely make a quick stop in the gift shop to buy some astronaut ice cream or a space pen before heading home to contemplate the boundaries of the known universe and the vast amount of stuff and space within it.
*or the nucleus? I don’t quite remember anymore, sorry. It has been a decade since I’ve been there. :p
**again, it’s been a while. I don’t quite remember how small the exhibit starts and how large it ends, so this is a rough estimate.