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Figure 3.4
Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4
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Axonometric, Resting Station. Perspective, Resting Station.
Museum Typology
The Resting Station design charrette demonstrated an architecture that did not require a context, program, and a relationship with people to exist. Though it was an abstracted attempt to draw an Introvert Architecture, it demonstrated how an architecture that was considered introverted required a deeper connection to real, physical, and social factors. Introvert Architecture cannot exist separate from these factors, because a project without them is not far from a monument and therefore could not be distinguished from an extroverted identity. To be able to support and critique an Introvert Architecture, and the Introvert Equation, these concepts must be applied in a design project that grounds the design, and its research, in a real, practical setting. A setting that carries the realities of building in a contemporary environment and shares similar challenges that many existing (extrovert) projects have faced in the past, and present. This allows the Introvert Architecture to exist within a prospectively real context, with a real program, and with real occupants. Factors that are seemingly essential to the understanding and creation of a genuine Introvert Architecture.
To strengthen the discussion of the extrovert ideal in architecture and therefore, an Introvert Architecture study, the conversation of architecture as a broad range of building types has been narrowed down to the museum typology. The museum has remained an iconic building typology, as well as a prominent contributor to architectural conservation throughout history.
As this thesis has outlined, architecture has succumbed to its own extrovert ideal, where the museum is no exception. Many museums erected from late modernism to present times could easily be classified as Extrovert Architecture. As museums seek to remain relevant in the contemporary context, they have begun to adapt image-centered operations and therefore, their architecture has become reflective of such. Unfortunately, this adoption has led to museums becoming less didactic. The extroverted museum promotes an architecture driven by visuals and allows the architect to focus on making an iconic building to match the visually stunning, fast-paced, marketable space that capitalism promotes. As expressed by Macleod, a reoccurring criticism of many new and renewed museums is that the vision and desire of the architect to create a signature building has completely overshadowed the needs and aims of the traditional museum.37 While some of these buildings may succeed as icons and cultural landmarks, they often
do so without achieving the levels of accessibility, usability, and relevance for both visitors and staff, promised during their conception. Macleod continues to state, “iconic buildings can compound the separation between the building, its contents, and its context, assuring the persistence of a rather limited and partial understanding of architecture as the aesthetic outcome and privileged activity of the architect…” which is “…a view that ignores the complexity and difficulty of any architectural project.”38 This demonstrates that architects feel an immense need to create architectural symbols and icons, rather than addressing the contexts of the museum. Furthermore, Macleod reaffirms how museums often desire to be portrayed as architecture existing in its purest form, before the communities of use move in. This has led to architectural histories privileging the museum as an architectural object above all else.39 Therefore, recognized as often drawing mass appeal and admiration, buildings such as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao and Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, work against the other agendas of the museum. Confirming to the broad public that museums, and their inherent programming, are not for them.40
Even in Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, the renovation by Daniel Libeskind, Studio Libeskind describes the building as “a structure of organically interlocking prismatic forms turning this important corner of Toronto, and the entire museum complex into a luminous beacon… The design succeeds at inviting glimpses up, down, and into the galleries… (The Crystal) transformed the ROM’s fortress-like character, turning it into an inspired atmosphere dedicated to the resurgence of the museum as the dynamic center of Toronto.”41 It is apparent that Libeskind’s facelift of the ROM was motivated by the buildings need to be an icon, or a ‘luminous beacon,’ as if the museum culture in Toronto would suffer if the project took a non-extroverted approach. Like many other museums, the ROM became a success story for Toronto, it’s tourism and museum attendance, platforming its success on its monumentalism. Unfortunately, this project disregards the complexity and difficulties that should be a part of a museum design project. On its interior, the spaces offered to the museum exhibition by the Crystal expansion fail to offer the museum any effective didactic or curatorial experiences. Its organization is confusing, and it forces people, as well as the art, to yield to the physical boundaries of The Crystal. The architecture removes agency from the art, artists, and its visitors.
