curiouser and curiouser: the new Barnes Foundation

fun signs: the single sign of life on the Parkway

A trip to the new Barnes is a curious excursion.  Because of the shady (if not downright nefarious) manner in which Alfred Barnes’ great collection of Post-Impressionist art was commandeered by the Philadelphia Art Mafia (see this post if you need a refresher), it already promises a slightly uncomfortable visit.  It’s hard not to feel a little wrong about enjoying the spoils of a robbery, which is maybe how the cheering Romans felt when watching a triumph.  But the Romans were really good at designing a splendid parade in a gorgeous setting that probably made people forget how nasty the instigating event really was.  That’s not the case at the Barnes, where the building fails to rise above the ugliness of the heist.  In fact it just exemplifies—maybe exacerbates—it.

galleries with Mr. Barnes’ “ensembles” (WHYY)

The most gracious part of the building is the sequence of galleries that follow the lines of Paul Cret’s original design for the collection as it was displayed in Merion and installed by Albert C. Barnes himself in 1925.  This is important since the Barnes isn’t just some rich person’s collection curated by some expert with an art history degree and lined up in chronological order.  The manner of its arrangement—the compositions of paintings in a group on a wall, often interspersed with metal objects and joined with furniture—is very particular to the personality of Barnes.  These “ensembles,” as he called them, record the way he thought about the collection; the visitor’s consideration of how, say, a Matisse painting, a German portrait, a Cézanne  landscape, a still-life, two hinges and a Pennsylvania Dutch chest work together is part of the intellectual riddle and aesthetic joy of viewing the collection.  It’s to the credit of the Barnes Foundation (or the judge that ordered them to do it) that the ensembles and rooms were replicated as closely as possible to Barnes’ original intent.

eyes to a building’s soul (we see torment)

But the fact that these galleries of Cret’s inspiration are stuffed into an unapologetically contemporary building is just strange.  It’s an odd experience to cross the threshold from the giant, modernist holding tank (where visitors line up and wait, wait, wait, in spite of timed tickets) to the relatively small, and lovely, galleries.  It’s a transfer from a cold, empty, lifeless space, to a compressed sequence of rooms teeming with people jockeying for the best view of the 100th naked Renoir lady in a bathtub, while the guard nudges you back from the tape border on the floor, lest you get too close to all that brushwork.  Odd as it is to step from the new building to the old galleries, this interior move is easier than witnessing the way they clash on the outside. The window sizes, proportions, detailing, and placement make all kinds of sense inside, but they look very strange from the street.  In particular, the sense of scale articulated by the wooden muntins is completely at odds with the abstract, scale-less quality of the building mass.

the shipping container that defied gravity

Even in purely contemporary terms this is not a great building.  It is basically two big stone boxes on the ground with a hovering box sheathed in glass or plastic or plexi or something in between them, with a tremendous cantilever to the west.  There’s no clear reason why this box has is expressed distinctly through the different materials and striking structure.  Also curious is the articulation of the façade, with different sizes of limestone slabs separated by joints of a mystery material.  The joints are not all the same width, possibly to allow for mistakes that the architects expect the masons to make.  We can’t think of any aesthetic or structural reason to justify this weirdness, so that’s our best guess.  Also, the limestone was sourced not in Pennsylvania, which might have been a nice boost to some struggling local economy, but rather from Israel, meaning it traveled 5,700 miles to get to Philadelphia.  (The fact that the Foundation is still seeking Platinum LEED certification, and could even get it, with this blunder, makes us see red, but that’s nothing new with LEED.)

Sometimes buildings raise questions that can be riddled out (say, a Flamboyant Gothic church).  Sometimes they can’t be, but the joy in thinking about what was going on in the architect’s gray matter makes the weirdness its own reward (like with a Borromini church).  At the Barnes Foundation, it’s just curious, and strange, and ultimately unsatisfactory. Our best guess is that time and time again the architects, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, challenged each other to spend through their giant budget as quickly as possible.  Their choices certainly weren’t made to serve art, to craft a singular museum, or to reveal anything about Philadelphia, so that’s as good a guess as anything.

the decent garden

The best of the non-Cret parts of the project is the landscape by Laurie Olin to the north and east of the building.  This is a slick modern garden, all right angles and interesting textures.  Its sensibility is in harmony with the building but it is generally more visually interesting, and pleasant to be in, as long as you don’t mind walking in very straight paths, and turning on perfect right angles. It is a memorial to Corb’s dictum that the modern man’s city is one of rationality and ninety-degree turns; cutting corners and winding paths are for uncivilized goat herders.  Near a good modern building, it might be a boring garden, but since the Barnes is not a good modern building, Olin’s garden looks pretty great.  And it ought to, since, even though this is the back of the building (in reference to the tradition of the city), it’s used as the front (according to the architects’ desire to stir things up?  challenge our preconceptions?  make it easier to access the Whole Foods parking lot when we need a snack?  Hard to say.).

Bank Barnes (ha, ha!)

It’s the south side of the building, along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where the design really goes astray.  The building, already suffering from those odd windows, is landscaped with the charm of a bank barn in Indiana (actually, far less so.).  A stepped little hill runs down from the building and is separated by a strict line of trees that mark the edge of No Man’s Land along the Parkway.  There’s nothing on this side of the building that says, come on in and see some paintings (as long as you buy your tickets in advance, because they’re always all gone before we open).  At best, it says, go ahead and pitch the hay through these here windows and we’ll bring the cows in around the other side.  But what it really says is, these architects never learned that buildings that ignore pedestrians, contribute nothing to the street and expect no life to be there anyway make bad cities and are, themselves, bad.

plans for the BFP: PMA at top (photo credit)

Truthfully, the Parkway has never been a particularly good example of what it wants to be, which is a little piece of Paris, an elegant and lively boulevard. The Philadelphia planners got the formal part right, but loaded it with institutions of a single kind a little too far away from the street, without the shops and restaurants and density that would have made the thing work (Classical aesthetics, Modernist single-use zoning; again we say, well done, Philly).  Still, that stumbling plan is no excuse to contribute another bad example of bad planning to the Parkway.

Had the Foundation moved the Cret-designed Barnes building with its collection, and added a few attributes to liven up the sidewalk (the ubiquitous gift shop?  an outpost for Beiler’s Bakery, maybe?), that would have been a great start.  It’s appropriate that the gallery spaces are the most enjoyable part of the museum; it’s a shame that the rest of the project falls so far beneath the “copied” Cret interiors. It raises the obvious question: as long as they were recreating the interior Barnes experience, why not also build the original Cret building–all of it?  This would have made a lot of sense in its particular site, in between the Rodin museum (designed by Cret in 1928) and the Free Library (Horace Trumbauer, 1917).  It could have been a marvelous Classical trio to fill out one the country’s great attempts at White City planning.

Of all the curiosities attending the new Barnes, the greatest one is that it recreates the guts of the old Barnes, but sticks it in a boring husk that completely turns its back on Benjamin Franklin Parkway.  In short, it looks very much like the Barnes Foundation does not want to be in Philadelphia at all—which is very curious, given the number of lawyers and briefs and filings and fights that were required to uproot the collection from Marion and deliver it to Parkway in the first place.

once upon a time: Barnes in Merion (Paul Philippe Cret, 1925; photo credit)

tastometer 2011

Alfred C. Barnes, when he was alive, and still able to forcibly beat the crap out of anyone who suggested dismantling his collection

Although taste can neither be judged on a perfect continuum (since so often events and objects evince both good and bad taste) nor be comfortable within delimiting factors of a ten-part end-of-year list, the turning of the calendar does seem an appropriate time to take pause, consider the year that has passed, and acknowledge special achievements in Taste: the good, the bad, and otherwise.  MoT‘s Department of Tastemetrics offers the following study of events of 2011, ranging from the Worst of Bad Taste to Tasty of the Tasty, recognizing that bad taste is sometimes enjoyable and good taste can be downright boring.

Rather than apply a simple numeric system to this slippery study, the Department instead adopts a system of word-pictures.  These Taste Indicator Determinant arBited Illustration Types (TIDBITs) have been assigned somewhat like the party election symbols used in India–not that those were judgmental, as MoT‘s are, but they are illustrative little morsels none the less.  Join us as we start at the scuzzy, slimy bottom:

Bunga-bunga? Buh-bye!

The resignation of Silvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister of Italy finally took place on 16 November.  There’s nothing redeeming about this story; he was a schmucky guy who took advantage of everything and everyone.  Yuck.  TIDBIT: Flaming Bag of Poo

The celebration of “Architect Barbie” by people who should know better: it was bad enough that this crummy parody of a female professional was unleashed, it’s worse that there has been so much praise and excitement about it from professionals and academics.  Ugh, we’ve been through this enough and have submitted the Barbie Department here at MoT HQ to redundancy downsizing, so just read their now-historic report here.  TIDBIT: Cat Barf

A nut that was cracked wide open in an interview on ABC in February, Charlie Sheen’s simultaneous meltdown and reinvention was sad, overplayed and tedious, but somehow heroic, albeit in a deluded sort of way.  We include it here mostly to emphasize how much we hate Architect Barbie by making her the meat in a crap sandwich with Silvio & Charlie as the bread.  TIDBIT: A Crap Sandwich

one monstrosity OMA hasn't managed to get built yet

There’s plenty of stupid spectacle architecture out there, both built and proposed (here’s an exemplary late entry), but the La Paille Dans L’Åil Du Voisin is the stupidest (watch the video if you have excess IQ points to spare).  TIDBIT: Whatever Tastes Like The Head of Michelangelo’s David With A Big Beam Rammed Through It

On July 3 the Barnes Foundation closed. What a travesty.  Readers unaware of what a slimy business the art world is (especially in Philadelphia, but not uniquely so), need to read up or see this good documentary.  Glimmer of hope: with this theft, more people will be able to see and enjoy the art at the center of the controversy.  But that’s the same kind of thin excuse that protects a lot art in European museums stolen by marauding armies.  This time the crime was perpetrated by very slick culture vultures, but the result is the same.  TIDBIT: Heirloom Tomato, Rotten and Worm-Eaten

Josh: SHOULDDA

A one-time favorite around HQ, Project Runway concluded season 9 by naming Anya the winner. Inconceivable!  Anya, who can make only one dress, for one climate, but sew no sleeves, and never heard the word “zipper.”  This, especially when the duo of Joshua (left) and Viktor were actual contenders, dripping with loads of talent and versatility and skill.  Although the award raises an interesting point–how essential is design education vs. natural talent?–it revealed the producer’s interest, finally, in favor of sizzle over steak.  TIDBIT: Beadazzled Crap Sandwich

Mixed blessings from England: someone newly hired at Mini somehow missed the memo that “mini” means “small,” and urged the developement of maxi-size minis.  The Mini Cooper “Countryman” (what does that even mean?) is weird, and dumb.  Problem: it was first advertised with this commercial, and the catch phrase cram it in the boot, that we really kind of like.  However, when MoT crams it, we cram it in a properly-scaled mini Mini boot, thank you very much.  A proper Mini is more than adequate for our needs, and we have stretched it to accomode, at one point, two of MoT‘s junior staffers toting backpacks, viola and cello, and a pitbull, for good measure, and did so while maintaining the spirit of Mini as encapsulated in the great commercial that celebrates the “Best Test Drive Ever, Period.”  (However, MoT‘s six-word “Best Test Drive Ever, Period.” would be described thusly: MrDarcy, Quadrilatero’d’Oro, Ringstrasse, Scone, Hogwarts, Siouxsie.)  But that’s just not happening in a Countryman.  TIDBIT: Poofy Scone, Oversized For American Market 

We needed a lie-down, too

MoT staffers have anticipated few movies for their artistic promise alone like they have Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.  What a visual treat it was . . . until we had to run out of the theatre due to severe nausea caused by over-indulgence of the shaky-cam.  Why, Lars, why?  We were ready for the cinematic version of German Romantic paintings, and instead were sickened by camerawork that would be too jerky for a Bourne installation.  TIDBIT: Sad Scone.  A Beautiful, Sad, Nearly-Vomiting Scone. 

There’s good taste, and bad taste, and then there’s excellent bad taste.  Hello, Honey Badger, the short film first posted to YouTube in January.  Nasty indeed, but humor that fresh and funny is something to celebrate.  TIDBIT: Steak ‘n Shake Chili Deluxe With Cheese Fries

the Lake Shore Drive "graveyard" in February

That leads to the mid-point of the Tastometer and the potentially taste-neutral matter of time and weather.  The latter was dealt a wallop near MoT HQ in February, when SnOwMaGeddon swept into the Chicago area.  It’s only weather if you notice it, and it’s only tasty if something cool happens because of it: behold Jim Cantore’s response to thundersnow!  (How this has not been autotuned is beyond our understanding.)  Also, all those abandoned cars on Lake Shore Drive became the subject matter of great Snowpocalypse photography.  TIDBIT: Flaming Baked Alaska

Likewise, dates tend to be  untasty.  But no day for years and years will live up to the graphic simplicity and regularity of 11 11 11; likewise, no date will ever emphasize one of cinema’s most tasty scenes, ever.  TIDBIT: Shark Sandwich.*

Launched in April, the architecture blog Philaphilia wins high marks in a similar vein as the Honey Badger, but for buildings (and so it’s better than studies of “nature”).  Philaphilia is remarkably active and consistent, has a very specific point of view, is historically spot-on and full of sage wisdom (a favorite bon mot: “don’t build buildings out of sidewalks.”)  That’s all we can quote here and keep our PG rating.  If you like your architectural criticism sprinkled with F-bombs, hearken ye to Philaphilia.  TIDBIT: Salty Caramel

The Tastometer begins to pick up now, with the very tasty news that the British Library now offers an e-classics app for the iPad, huzzah!  For a monthly fee (say, the cost of an Aztec cocoa, or two whoopie pies, or half a bottle of Essie nailpolish–all tasty things) one may access tens of thousands of books, scanned from the original, on an iPad.  With this service, Hermione’s beaded bag has nothing on your own Birken, virtually full of 30,000 nineteenth-century tomes.  Actual books are still better than their electronic versions, but since MoT‘s collecting habits in nineteenth-centry books are, alas, somewhat limited, we are grateful to the Brits.  Once again.    TIDBIT: Scone with Clotted Cream

MoT hearts books

With its new director, the Art institute of Chicago seems to be going gangbusters with exhibitions, but many of them have fallen flat.  Not so for our favorite of the year, a very small collection of printed materials arranged in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries in celebration of the citywide “Festival of the Architecture Book,” marking the 500th anniversary of the publication of the first illustrated architecture book.  ”Design Inspiration: Nineteenth- Century American Builders’ Manuals and Pattern Books” was a wonderful show.  More, please!  TIDBIT: Chocolate Chip Cookie

A certain big box retailer scored big with another blockbuster designer collaboration with the storied house of Missoni for Target.  Fashionista Bargainistas saw zigzags . . . then saw red (more about that here), as stores were cleaned out and the Target.com website went kaput.  Several months later, very slow boats from China are still struggling to fill open orders.  TIDBIT: Bruschetta di Milano

Trrrooolllllllll!!!

The big and little screen made us happy, from the visually and intellectually stunning Cave of Forgotten Dreams to the local favorite Munger Road, also big Scandinavian ”tummar-upp”  (well, that’s what Røger Ebertssen would say) for Trollhunter, which managed to blend aspects of The Blair Witch Project, Jaws, and Scandinavian myths together in an effective way that makes us eager for a sequel and a prequel to learn more about the stoic hero for whom the movie was named.  We applaud two humane shows in the midst of dreck on television: Parks and Recreation features characters who are actually genuinely likeable people, and The Walking Dead mixes up the good and the bad, and makes a person wonder every week which one they are.  TIDBIT: Zombie Waffles, with Lingonberries

Colin Firth, action hero

Was 2011 The Year of Firth? An Oscar, London Film Critics Circle, the European Film Award, and that was after raking in a few dozen similar trophies in the last months of 2010, all for The King’s Speech, which was released on dvd in April, and you bought it immediately, didn’t you?  And in June he was presented at the Queen’s Honours with the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).  (Bryan Ferry was also honored in that program, prompting our consideration that the whole event should have a special award for Tastiness.)  The year closes with the opening of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which also holds the promise of the action figures we most look forward to seeing under our Christmas tree.  TIDBIT: Scone With Clotted Cream *And* Jam.

Speaking of men we love, David McCullough published The Greater Journey, a book that celebrates some of America’s greatest architects, artists, writers, and others who aspired to greatness and pursued it in Paris.  Like all of Mr. McCllough’s books, it is an inspirational and wonderful tale.  We have long admired this fabulous historian who writes history that people actually want to read.  The fact that MoT‘s Chief of Literature Consumption met him at a book signing, where he was marvelously sweet, kind, supportive, personable, gave him the edge over Mr. Darcy.  (No, she still hasn’t washed the hand that he so warmly shook.)  TIDBIT: Boeuf Bourguignon

Always.

A dominant force in the Tastiverse this year was the final installment of the Harry Potter movies, the Deathly Hallows, Part II. Fine film it was, but that’s not why it ranks so high on this list: it’s just that the final installment finally gave a platform to Snape’s long suffering.  At last, Alan Rickman was able to let loose and reveal Snape’s heartbreakingly courageous lonesome lovelorn sacrificial self as a main pivot point for the whole story.  (Too bad the filmmakers crapped up the ending so bad, or this entry would have crept closer to the top of the list.)  TIDBIT: Flourless Chocolate Torte & Port

One of the tastiest events to blow into New York–a city that knows from taste–blew away all previous exhibition records at the Met: Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, dominated the summer.  MoT‘s Department of Exhibition Critique worries that museums are not doing their job if a fashion designer can out-draw painters and sculptors who have made a more proven and lasting contrition to civilization, but even so, admit that it was an extraordinary and amazing show. It is a rare treat when an exhibition encapsulates the spirit of its subject without overwhelming it.  TIDBIT: Any Two Or Three of These Cakes

kiss me, Kate

Nearing the top of the list, it’s hard to deny that Britain had the corner on taste in 2011, for no event was more anticipated and drawn out and over-reported and yet still left us somehow unsatiated than the great fabulous Royal Wedding of April 29, for these four reasons: (1) Kate Middleton, (now Her Royal Highness Princess William Arthur Philip Louis, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn and Baroness Carrickfergus), not only looked great but has acted with admirable demureness through this whole crazy affair; (2) the beautiful sublimity of the gorgeous day was thrown comfortably and realistically off by the crazy hats, especially  Princess Beatrice’s Fascinator (don’t you feel better about what your embarrassing cousin wore to your wedding now?), and the peevishness of Princess Grumpsalot (left);  (3) it inspired one of our favorite websites of the year, Kate Middleton For The Win, and (4) it was a great excuse to get up early, make scones and finally figure out where in town we can source clotted cream.  TIDBIT: Just The Clotted Cream

Finally, what’s tastier than The Taste?  Well it’s the tasty readers of the Taste of course, a readership that has gone berserker in the last weeks of 2011 thanks, as far as MoT‘s  Electronic Media Research Team can tell, from a post from two years ago being circulated like gang busters.  MoT has now been read on at least four continents and translated into Chinese.  For that, 作者 sends a hearty 谢谢 to our new friends at renren.com, and also our friends at Google Translate, who allowed our Department of Poor Language Skills to put the Chinese back into English, to hilarious results.  Plenty of traffic was also prompted by the tweeting of tasty folks at Dwell.com and postings at Archinect.com, but we especially thank Artmagonline.wordpress.com, since they introduced our post on a page with Helena Bonham Carter, so now MoT and HBC are BFFs.  Glad to have you all along for the ride, please introduce yourselves to the faithful who have been around since our launch on Borromini’s birthday in 2009.  TIDBIT: You!  (Or Almond Bark)

Savage Beauty: McQueen, 2005

*that one is for you, MoT CFO