THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, EAST BUILDING Natasha Amladi GSAPP Spring 2013 Instructor: Kazys Varnelis, Ph.D. Associate: Leigha Dennis
A timeline investigating the means of conservation entailed in the design of the modern extension by I.M. Pei (1974-1978) for the National Gallery, Washington D.C
The East Building I.M. Pei
Natasha Amladi GSAPP Spring 2013 Instructor: Kazys Varnelis, Ph.D. Associate: Leigha Dennis
MEMORY
WHAT IS IT THAT WE MUST CONSERVE THROUGH MEMORY AND HOW DO WE SHAPE THE MEMORIES PRESENTED BEFORE US? THE CONSERVATION OF MATERIAL, PHYSICAL AND SYMBOLIC QUALITIES OF SPACES BOTH ON A MICRO AND MACRO SCALE, ARE INFORMED THROUGH THE WAYS IN WHICH OUR MEMORIES ARE FORMED AND STORED. REFERENCING ARTIFACTS OF THE PAST AND HARNESSING THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE FUTURE, WILL SHAPE THE WAY IN WHICH MEMORIES OF PHYSICAL SPACE AND IDEALISTIC INTENTIONS ARE COMMUNICATED AND INTERPRETED. CONSERVING IDEAS CREATES MEMORIES THAT REMAIN EITHER SOLIDLY INTACT, OR BECOME FRAGMENTED AND REARRANGED OVER TIME, AS THE OBJECT OR IDEA PRESERVED, EVOLVES WITHIN ITS CONTEXT. SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL INFLUENCES ARE MERELY THE PRIMARY FACTORS THAT INFORM THE CONCEPTION AND SUBSEQUENT GROWTH OF A SET OF CONSERVED IDEAS. AS WE MOVE FORWARD, WILL THE ACT OF CONSERVING MEMORIES REMAIN THE SAME OR WILL THE INCREASING NUMBER OF CONSTRAINTS IMPOSED THROUCH CONSERVATION LAWS AND LEGISLATION, START TO PROVIDE A LARGER SET OF PARAMETERS TO WORK WITH? OUR RESPONSE TO THESE PARAMETERS IS CRUCIAL IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMPORTANCE OF HOW WE CONSERVE MEMORIES OF OUR BUILT ENVIRONMENT.
1974 1978
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART NATIONAL MALL, WASHINGTON I.M PEI
WEST BUILDING
Widely Admired; Stylistically Dismissed The new East Building responded directly to the ambitions of both the National Gallery and the city of Washington. This direct response can be reflected in two poignant images. Nineteen fortyone: The West Building is accepted by the president on a cold March evening. Supported by a gathering of distinguished dignitaries on the platform, president Roosevelt, in black tie himself, addresses an assembly of formally clad guests with considerable eloquence. Nineteen seventy-eight: on a hot June afternoon, President Jimmy Carter, not celebrated for sartorial formality and wearing a light coloured suit, accepts the East Building, outdoors, before a somewhat casually dressed audience, shortly to be admitted though its door. The two constants are the Marine Band and the presence of Paul Mellon but otherwise the string of contrasts sums up the differences between a somber Depression-era America on the eve of global military involvement and the contentious, rambunctious, establishment-challenging 1960s and 1970s. The National Gallery of Art and it’s Sculpture Garden are a national art museum in Washington D.C, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at
Constitution Avenue. The original gallery (the West Building) was established in 1937, for the people of the United States of America by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew Mellon donated a substantial art collection and private funds for the construction. Designed by John Russell Pope, it is linked to the East Building (designed by I.M. Pei in the 1970s) via an underground concourse level. It was completed in 1941 and accepted by President Franklin D Roosevelt on behalf of the American people on March 17, 1941. Neither Mellon, nor Pope lived to see its completion. At the time of it’s inception, it was the largest marble structure in the world. Composed of pink Tennesse marble, it is designed in the neoclassical style and centred on a domed rotunda modelled on the interior of the Pantheon in Rome. Pope was an architect for whom refinement and reinterpretation of a few canonical archetypes held greater creative possibilities than inventions of new forms. To overlay Renaissance details onto antique forms was well within the tents and practice of the American Beaux Arts traditions. As a significant proportion of the art in the National Gallery was Italian High Rennaissance, Pope conciously designed a modernised Renaissance setting in which to display it.
1937
(Above) John Russell Pope’s sketches for the design of the West Building
In exemplary Beaux Art fashion, the relationship between plan and elevation is expressed clearly by the exterior volumes. The continuous unbroken surface of the moat walls tends to concentrate the architectural forces on the porticoes and domes The interplay between linear and the volumetric, which at first one supposes reveals the influence of modernist geometries on Pope, was present in his earliest work and derived from his interest in Italian High Renaissance architecture. Behind the marble surface was a steel structure, however unlike Pei’s East Building, these marble panels are stacked upon each other as marble revetment, fixed with mortar to the brick infill within the steel structure. It has been been noted by Bruce Cole in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “inside it’s rooms, one is aware only of the art, as Pope’s architecture recedes to give the paintings pride of place.” Unlike criticism of Pei’s future project (the East Building) that was accused of providing insufficient exhibition space, relative to the overall square footage, Pope’s building was seen to give priority to the art it housed. There are other elements of Pope’s building that can be seen to inspire Pei’s East building. The central rotunda acts as a point of calm between the visitor entering from the bustling Mall and the exhibition
spaces housing the art. It is seen by many critics as the perfect spatial and emotional preparation for the treasures awaiting the visitor, and the interior of the gallery continues to be commended to this day as being one of the most workable and commodious museums ever designed. Pei harnessed the essence of Pope’s rotunda and manifested the same qualities through the internal rooflit plaza within his own design
alive to witness the grand opening, modernists denounced the building as a , “pink marble warehouse, “ and , “a costly mummy.” Foremost of these detractors was the then dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design who claimed that, “surely the time cannot be far distant when we shall understand how inadequate the deathmask of an ancient culture is, to express the soul of America.”
However the West Building’s size soon became a challenge in that it could no longer support the growing modern art collection that was being slowly cultivated by the Mellon family. A growth not only in art works but also in the number of visitors to the gallery, alerted Paul Mellon to undertake his own project to expand the National Gallery in order to accomodate its growing success. In doing so, Mellon hired I.M. Pei to design the extension but when the fledgling East and original West building sat side by side; the relationship caused a mixed reception. Pope’s West building was merely a canvas upon which art sat, the building receding into the background, unlike Pei’s strong design that was seen by many to overshadow the art and provide very little exibition space relative to it’s overall size. By 1941, upon the building’s completion, with both Pope and Andrew Mellon no longer
1941
EAST BUILDING
1966
“...this building has to last forever....� I.M. PEI (Right) Pei worked to maintain views to historical monuments in order to draw surrounding context into the building.
Pei with Paul Mellon (far left) ad another trustee (of The Mellon Foundation) who generously funded the entire $94 million project of the East Building. Mellon’s father, Andrew funded the original West building 30 years earlier.
“Kahn was an outsider.... Pei was an aristocrat...” Kahn was already designing a gracious gallery to house Paul Mellon’s vast collection of British art in New Haven. The Yale Centre for British Art was arguably closer to Mellon;s heart than the National Gallery, for he was, by his own description, “a galloping Anglophile.” He had begun collecting English hunting prints and illustrated books whilst at Cambridge University, not as an investment, but as a reflection of the British countryside he loved. Kahn enshrined Mellon’s art collection in a gallery as urbane and understated as the patron himself. A masterpiece of serenity and sunlight, it is both intimate and grand. However, although the Yale Centre for British Art was one of the revered museums of the time, Kahn was never a serious candidate for the more visible National Gallery project. Kahn was also seen as incapable of selling himself; according to Michael Cannell (in ‘I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism’) Kahn never learnt to mask his personal awkwardness and baffling wordplay, and uninitiated patrons found him flaky. Cannell goes further stating that his portfolio also did not inspire confidence, as Kahn concentrated on places of reflective congregation like synagogues, churches, laboratories and classrooms instead of what was seen at the time, as
the obvious emblems of architectural success, like skyscrapers and corporate office buildings. Having absorbed the scale and shape of antiquity in his studies, his projects did not express serenity nor the ‘prettiness’ required for such a project as the East Building. As with the Kennedy Library , Pei excelled in all the ways Kahn failed. He was an acknowledged master of propriety backed by an impressive Madison Avenue studio, bustling with a refined corps of ambitious young architects. While Kahn was a “rumpled Jewish intellectual and academic” (Cannell), Pei associated himself with clients like the Kennedys, the city government of Dallas and Boston and the Christian Science Church. His discreet geometries embodied high toned civic architecture; they were bold but never disconcerting, striking but well mannered. And they came with Pei’s famous knack of diplomacy and protocol. Pei was invited to Washington to meet Mellon and the trustees after they toured the USA inspecting his past projects and marvelling at the way in which he could accomplish creating spaces that felt both monumental and user friendly. Mellon chose Pei, and the trustees followed with their pro forma blessing in 1968, duplicating Mellon’s decision, made three decades earlier, to build in a conservative style associated with institutional America.
1966
Unsolicited proposal for the East Building (Top) Site plan (Bottom) Front Elevation mirrors the main entrance of the West Building to create a clear relationship between new and old
Unsolicited proposal for the East Building; perspective sketch showing the similar form of new and old is used to draw a strong link between the two buildings. This literal interpretation of the West building is a far cry from Pei’s modern move
“This is probably the most sensitive site in the United States....� I.M. PEI Aerial photograph showing the location of the East building on the National Mall, with the Capitol Building in the distance
No Imperfections Allowed Pei now inherited one of the most irregular patches of real estate produced by Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 city plan; a trapezoid where the axial reach of Pennsylvannia Avenue converges at an awkward 19.5 degree angle with the green longitudinal thrust of the Mall. Building an ungainly wedge burdened with three facades and no backside would normally have posed no problem for the facile Pei, but this was the last in a procession of showy Mall-side monuments after which visitors looked up to the Capitol dome. Its privileged site among seats of power demanded a monumental flourish. The site required monumentality, but it also demanded modesty. After all, it would be unseemly for the new project to divert attention from the older building that flanked such a historically rich site. The site is full of tradition and was rather ‘sacred’ to Americans, which intimidated Pei when first attacking such a project, “this is probably the most sensitive site in the United States.” Pei also had to find a graceful way to stitch his new building to its older sibling, but argued outright that the Pope’s West Building was closed and complete and that no obvious move should be made to add to it. It was observed by one trustee that Paul Mellon and I.M. Pei shared the same experience of being overshadowed by their
fathers when growing up; both had bankers as fathers and neither felt their fathers understood their appreciation of art. In respect of this, Pei wanted to create a building, under Mellon’s patrongage, that would not hide in the shadows of his father’s own commision 40 years earlier; the West Building. The ingenuity of Pei’s plan lay in it’s ability to echo the neoclassicism of Pope’s Roman temple without stooping to literal imitation. The wide side of the larger triangle became a broad post and lintel entrance sympathetically facing its older counterpart across a four-acre courtyard warmed by a door to door carpet of cobblestones. Facades of father and son faced each other from a respectful move, separated by one generation and a revolution in style. They were physically joined by a subterranean concourse.
1966
Pei was certain that the new building had to recognize the axis of the old building and that form of recognition for ignite the evolution of its form. However many in Washington failed to see the virtures of an unconventional design that departed so radically from the bland neoclassical diet to which they were so accustomed. Congressmen and their staffs mourned the loss of a much-loved plot of open space with tennis courts at the foot of the Capitol Hill. Even the gallery’s planning consultant, David Scott, used to park his car and stare at the site, trying to imagine the structure’s finished form, “it was very hard to visualise the sheer elegance of the building.” Pei might have faced a major public relations disaster had it not been for a vigorus endorsement from Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture’s most influential critic of the time, “The rigid rule of mediocrity through uneasy compormise with an uncertain past that has charcterised the best and worst of Washington construction in our day will be broken by the new East Building....Let’s go further; it can be a great building for all time.” (Huxtable, 1971)
(Opposite page) photograph taken from the side entrance of the West building, showing the direct visual link to the East Building. This strong axis between entrances to both buildings was critical to Pei’s aim to integrate old with new
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.
Washington Monument National Museum of American History National Museum of Natural History National Gallery of Art West Building of the National Gallery of Art East Building of the National Gallery of Art United States Capitol 8. Ulysses S. Grant Memorial United States Botanic Garden National Museum of the American Indian National Air and Space Museum Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Arts and Industries Building Smithsonian Institution Building (“The Castle�) Freer Gallery of Art Arthur M. Sackler Gallery National Museum of African Art
The current plan of the National Mall identifying the location of the different monuments, museums and institutions that line the stretch of preserved land.
In 1967, as the lengthy process of planning the East Building got underway, John Russell Pope’s building for the National Gallerywas twenty-six years old, widely admired and stylistically dismissed. The last of the greatest of its breed, arguably the most distinguished structure on the Mall, the building seemed a magnificant anachronism whose scale and detailing reflected a time gone by. While its civic prominence was undeniable, it could no longer serve architects as a model for designing a new museum of art. The challenge for the National Gallery was how, at the same time to harness some of the expressionist energies in its own interest, reclaim it’s once dominant role in Washington cultural life, and retain its older ambitions as an institution of record for artistic masterpieces. For in the mid-1960s it faced the danger of being outflanked. On one side were proposals, one of them coming from Baltimore, for a great centre of art historical scholarship to be established in Washington, exploiting the presence of the Liberty of Congress and the various museum collections, run, perhaps, by a consortium of universities.
tation was close to its nadir. Stories of poverty and crime abounded in the national media. Running for the presidency in 1968, Richard Nixon had decided the city as one of the nation’s crime capitals and suggested that D.C. could stand for Disorder and Crime. The destructive rioting following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in the spring of 1968 took place just blocks away from the National Gallery. Recovery was slow and painful. While the East Building was being planned, some of the trustees wondered whether the plentiful display of glass, so inviting a target to potential marauders, would put the art inside at risk.
Washington’s problems included not merely the effects of civil unrest, disenfranchisement, and a declining share of the area’s commercial activity, as evidenced by the somewhat frowsy face of its downtown. Washington’s political and business leadership vigorously denied that the city’s bad reputation was merited. The 1970’s brought an enormous construction boom to the city, some of it stimulated by the national bicentennial celebration of 1976 and an anticipated onrush of visitors. By 1978, the Washington Post declared that in downtown The construction of the East Washington more than one billion Building, in fact was meant to reas- dollars worth of new construction had been completed, started, or sert the Gallery’s intimate relationannounced in that single year. The ship to the fabric of the city. This, figure included the cost of the East in the period from the late 1960s Building, which consumed almost to the mid-1970s, was no mere lip service. The capital’s national repu- 10% of the budget.
(Opposite) Incisions through the building permit views to existing historical monuments. Visual sightlines were crucial in helping integrate the new modern building into the fabric of the city.
If the West Building provided “a sense of place directly related to the uniqueness and irreproduceability of great works of art,” and would continue to house the major exhibition spaces, the East Building “would symbolise the activities of the Gallery and its dissemination of information at every level.” The basic concept as of 1968, then, was to present the National Gallery as process, its back stage becoming front stage, acknowledging the new transparency of the 1970s and the enormously expanded range of enterprises that the West Building had failed to envisage. The new facility would house temporary exhibition galleries and serve as a showcase for loans, but this was certainly not its initial purpose. The drama of exhibition became a more central aspect of the building’s personality, to Pei. In creasingly, the building was described to the press in terms of the experience it would provide for its exhibition visitors. many museums of the times operated without any zones of transition from exterior through to the exhibition spaces; they confronted the visitor with the artworks, failing to allow for any sensory adjustment. The function of the atrium as an aesthetic anteroo, suggesting an order of things different from the mundane experiences left outside, was crucial to the larger program. Whatever its origins, then, the atrium met Pei’s conceptual needs.
1967
Consumerism of Culture and Commerce The goal was not moreover, a hushed, highly structured, or tightly disciplined visitorship, but active, animated, even congested gatherings of people. Indeed, the atrium promised to have its greatest impact when the space was most crowded. In this sense, the West Building’s rotunda and its garden courts, with their emphasis on tranquility and repose, were sharply different in their impact, although they also serveda mediating functions. The atrium’s effort to marry monumental space with aggressively welcoming, informally ingratiating, and contemporary ambience was, at heart, the broader goal of the Gallery’s project of reinvention and a goal shared by other museums, particularly those engaged in construction projects at about this time. Commenting on Pei’s West Wing for Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts in 1981, Ada Louise Huxtable noted that, like the East Building, it emphasised “spatial and pedestrian movement at the social and spectator level,� acknowledging the logical connection, “between the consumerism of culture and commerce.� Pei himself was quoted as saying that museums, “have become much more than storehouses for art, they have become also important places of public gathering.� The, “primary functions
Pei’s model of proposed iteration of facade This scheme was not chosen, but as one of many options, it shows Pei’s emphasis on the role of the faacde and the way in which it would communicate with the original building, designed by John Russell Pope
of the central atrium were to offer an appropriate space for public coming and going - for people watching.â€? The greater activism on the part of the National Gallery signaled a new relationship as well with potential donors and supporters, for the ďŹ rst efforts to create any kind of membership support groups came with the East Building project and the need to commission and install, inside and out, contemporary works of art.
“...located at the intersection of two avenues: pennsylvania and constitution. These two important avenues have different height limitations. We had to accomodate both...� I.M. PEI
Pei established, through elevation sketches,, the way in which the height of the East wing would sit along the Mall in relation to the existing Congress building and the National Gallery west building
From Complexity to a Simple Solution Pei’s response to the project grew directly from the site at a size much larger than anyone had previously thought possible; classic but not classical, fully of it’s own era without historical reference or hint of then-popular postmodernism. According to Carter Wiseman’s biography of Pei, the solution came early on a flight home from Washington when Pei drew a diagonal to connect two points on a site diagram, creating a large isosceles triangle (the museum) and a smaller triangle to the right (the centre for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts). In a stroke, Wiseman states that Pei cut through stunting complexity to a simple solution, obvious only after he conceived it. The site’s triangular geometry became the leitmotif of the entire design. Pei locates the entrance of the East Building at the midpoint of the large triangle’s base, directly opposite the then unused but now important side entrance of the original Pope building. The new building mirrors the symmetry of the old and continues its powerful east-west axis. This was the key to harmoniously tying together two buildings seperated by a city street for which getting permission to prevent vehicle access, proved impossible. This move merged the two buildings, seperated not only by the physicality of the street, but also four decades,
and a revolution in architecture that distanced modernism from everything that came beforehand. But once inside, the Beaux Arts axis disappears; movement veers south in the shifting space of the central atrium, a third triangle that links the other two; unifying the East Building as a whole. The East Wing was undertaken by Pei, with the aim to attract not the connoisseur but families and youths visitng the Mall. The building would have to entice people inside and make them want to stay. “It’s not the amount of time spent in a museum that’s important; it’s the quality of the experience. I learned that many years earlier when we’d take our children to museums. They were never very interested in the Metropolitan despite it’s terrific collections, but always loved to go to the Guggenheim. I never forgot that.” (I.M. Pei) Although the trustees’ program made scant refernce to public space, Pei carved out a 16,000 sqft atrium. It provided the National gallery with what the original museum lacked, including a large ceremonial space for receptions and special events, place where museumgoers could wait and groups gather, a change of pace between galleries where visitors could recharge.
Mediating Tradition and Innovation There was an overall desire to make the Gallery visit as appealing as possible, to rescue the main public restaurant from the designed dreariness that had over taken so many of the federal eating places, and to address the ‘edibility gap’ that afflicted almost all of them. In terms of visitor flow from old to new, even though there was no feasible way to build through fourth street, Pei described the proposed area as a “great urban space, a kind of outdoor room,” a, “carpet of stone connecting the two buildings.” The atrium, like the cafeteria, captured Washington’s special need to humanise its concentrated governmental sector with mundane uses and functions, acknowledging the city’s commercial and tourist needs more candidly than the West building, while holding on to some of the dignities of the federal establishment. The burden of being equal to the special destiny of Pennsylvania Avenue dominated the rhetoric surrounding the announcement of the architect and the public presentation of the building’s plans as they emerged in the 1970s. The proximity of the Capitol and the heritage of the grand official buildings lay at the very core of the interpretive explanation and justification. This theme was reiterated relentlessly by planner, National Gallery officials,
Floor Plans: Fragmented internal plans make for a complex interior arrangement of gallery towers linked by open walkways whilst incisions into the plan create sight lines out towards the surrounding historical context
and the architect’s office, both as an argument in itself and as a response to those who questioned the building’s unusual appearance as construction slowly moved forward. Mediation between tradition and innovation also accommodated the National Gallery’s larger need; to demonstrate unmistakenably, its fidelity to the original mission so clearly exemplified by Pope’s monumental structure and its simultaneous service to the spatial drama, contemporary references, and user needs of a rather different generation. The buildings’ marriage of two mirrored forms, indeed helped simulate what is now taken for granted in the gallery’s broader exhibitions and public programme. Pei’s East Building provided through its public spaces, inside and out, a powerful symbol of commitment to the transformation of the contemporary museum and an intimation of what would follow in the next twenty-five years.
(Previous spread) The central atrium provides a space for large numbers of people and encourages cross communication leading to a dynamic space for visitors (Above) Photograph of the main entrance to the East building showing the marble curtain wall. The facade mimics the stone revetment of Pope’s West Building
The Postwar Culture of Material
A Demanding Design Exercise
While Pei may have given the marble cladding the appearance of load-bearing masonry, its real function was that of a modern Critics have admired the By 1968, when Pei was curtain wall. Like a curtain wall, smoothness of the pink Tennesee selected to be the architect of the the cladding is conceived as the marble cladding and the precision of East Building, he and his firm were assembly of prefabricated mechaniits assembly. They have also lauded recognised experts in the use of cal elements. Like a curtain wall, the superb finish of the concrete high quality concrete for designs the cladding provides the protecthat was moulded in formwork con- that integrated structure with the tive skin of the building and plays a structed by highly skilled cabinetbuilding envelope. The buildings that central role in the expression of the makers. By all accounts, this artful tipped the committee’s balance in scaleless, pristine, geometrical built combination of marble and concrete favor of Pei - the Boulder research form. To endow the East Building was central to the impression of centre and the Everson and Des with a sense of monumentality and monumentality and permenance Moines museums - were all made permenance, Pei was to return to sought by the the architect and of a sophisticated kind of exposed the very strategies and techniques the client. In this building, materials concrete. However the commission he had abandoned in the the late played a key role in imparting mean- for the East Building was to set the 1950s. ing to architectural form. If materials stage for a substantial recasting of are central to the meaning of archiPei’s personal construction of the In continuity with Bruer’s tectural form, they are also central meaning of materials. Whitney Museum and Bunshaft’s to the building’s uncanny presence. Hirshhorn Museum, Pei used At the point at which the smooth, honed cladding to highlight Though the study of materi- project was commisioned, many the sculptural qualities of the built als in architecture in not a new topic, constraints were imposed on the volume, an approach in line with the recent scholarship has done much project from the outset, including modernist convention developed in to bring attention to the meaning the requirement that the same Ten- the 1960s. Yet by using the veneer of materials. Some scholars have nessee marble of Pope’s building be cut to the same size as Pope’s examined the fundamental connec- used. The goal was to ensure that building, Pei gave the impression tion between building materials and the new building would harmonise that the cladding was load beararchitectural invention; others have with the 1941 gallery as well as with ing, hence advancing a design that shown that materials are part of a the stone architecture of the Mall. was at odds with current modernist semiotic system in need of deciHowever the act of sheathing an practices. phering. Their reserach has revealed entire building in marble proved a that a material is not a technical demanding design exercise. And if given - a clearly defined entity in the Pei had mastered the use of conphysical and linguistic senses - but crete as a material that could be an architectural construct, whose both structure and surface, he had nature is defined by aesthetic, culnot yet worked with a material that tural, and social considerations. could be used only as a revetment.
1968
No Imperfections Allowed The long concrete spans and bridges help to provide the spatial experience and permit column free flexibility for gallery exhibition changes. Their long spans must also be able to carry unusual sculpture loads at any location, while the architectural design required that the depth be held to four feet (two stong courses), and in many cases, incorporate air supply for the main space, introduced at the base of the glass rails. In many instances the massively reinforced structure also incorporates precisely located electrical outlets and lighting tracks for increased flexibility. Constructing all of these elements with the exposed finish on the concrete of a quality commensurate with the marble walls was the builder’s major contribution. Thus the design expressed in the early architectural renderings was realised, with the architect/engineer team always present to help; strength, precision and fine finish were mandatory, with no imperfections or mistakes allowed.
struction was a result of research, experiments, and pressure chamber testing. Each piece of stone is seperately supported on stainless steel angles, bolted into specifically cast concrete units borded into the brick back up wall. These support angles are custom engineered for each size and weight of stone, especially varied at the escalator ‘scoop’ wall, and precisely located relative to the stone joints. Unanticipated, however, was the public’s response to rubbing and polishing the 19 degree corner as a touristic rite, teaching us all that tactility in not just limited to curves.
The design of the building includes long expanses of wall surfaces without traditional mouldings and shadows on concealed expansion joints; this problem coupled with the the objective of maintaining 1/8” joints as in the original Gallery building, required a new technical solution. The exisitng facade con-
Photograph of the study centre with full height glazing to promote visual permeability, situated in the secondary ‘triangle’
1977
Internal plaza punctured with ‘bridges’ that connect three gallery towers, whilst full height glazing permits views to historical monuments (Opposite) Pei’s development sketches that work to help define a strong axis that can relate to that of Pope’s West Building
Floor Plans (left to right) Row 01 - Concourse level (below grade); first floor; second floor; third floor Row 02 - fourth floor; fifth floor; sixth floor; seventh floor Row 03 - Roof plan
Interior exhibition spaces were criticised by many as being too small and hidden away in dungeon like rooms off to the side. It was felt that given the immense square footage of the building overall, not enough exhibition space was provided
The Poshest of Suburban Shopping Malls If the main building provided “a sense of place directly related to the uniqueness and irreproduceability of great works of art” and would continue to house the major exhibition spaces, the East Building “would symbolise the activities of the Gallery, and it’s dissemination of information at every level.” (Paul Mellon) However, not all crtics celebrated Pei’s design, with a common thread running through negative analyses, that focused on the size of the exhibition spaces. “Well. I came, I saw, I cried. It is a magnificent monument, truly a beautiful building, fascinating to no end, and really something to see. But as an art museum it is a giant jungle gym. I would venture that there is less exhibition space per cubic yard, not to mention per dollar of construction cost, than in any other major museum. Unless, of course, you call the great central shaft of light the major piece of art being exhibited.” (writer from Noriis, Tennesee) There was a strong feeling that the paintings were too hidden away in rooms too small; this negative response reflected not only a negative reaction to the building itself, but the public’s long standing mistrust of modernism that was as
common as those that welcomed such modernist moves with open arms. There were also dissenting opinions from architectural critics, Christian Otto, for example, a professor of architectural history at Cornell, who claimed that Pei did not use the triangular motif to explore a multiplicity of forming and meaning, leading the building to fail, architecturally. Martin Filler, critic for Progressive Architecture, called the atrium, “the poshest of suburban shopping malls, “ whilst Richard Henessy of Artforum, stated that he, “was completely unprepared for it’s shocking fun-house atmosphere and its deeply philistine unseriousness.” These critiques of crass commercialism reflected the prevalence of left leaning political correctness that still held strong at the time - a viewpoint that would diminish with changing political conditions and the validation of materialism as a principlal value in American national identity, “The building has been hailed as a soaring symphony of light and marble, which in deed it is, but it is also a disaster as a museum building.” (Arts Guardian, London, December 1978)
museum buildings of the past 100 years,” and after it’s opening, the building was described as, “a masterpiece on the Mall.” However, within the same article, the design was compared to that of the Centre Pompidou, and the way in which the art works themselves, struggled to be seen amongst the architecture which housed it, reducing the art to mere, “patches of information.” Although praised by many critics and love by the public for its visual quality, it was dismissed or ignored by polemical theoreticians, critics, and historians during the era of reaction against moderism. This situation has inhibited serious criticism of its use, purpose, performance, historical and contemporary meaning, and aesthetic antecedents. Little attention was also paid to the connecting space between the old and new building. Unlike the West Building that reflected the manner of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the East building had no sequence of defined spaces that led to areas of prominence. This processional aspect of the museum experince is pushed aside in favor of providing multiple points of access, reflecting the prevailing sense of pluralism of the time.
Regardless of such criticisms, the public flocked to the building in large numbers. Robert Hughes, writing in Time Magazine, predicted that the building would, “take its place among the grreat
1978
From Opening Night to Withstanding the Test of Time In 2004, the East Building was awarded the Twenty-Five Year Award for architectural landmarks that have withstood the test of time, by the American Institute of Architects. In identifying the building as a monument that continues to delight and impress visitors, the award appeared to confirm a canonical status. At it’s opening, the East Building was a critical success as well as a major public attraction. But despite it’s quality and visibility, it has not as yet, been included in the canon of twentieth century icons. Why have historians of modern architecture neglected the building? The answer to that may lie in the artistic and cultural contexts of the late 1960s, when the design process began, and in the ways in which those contexts were changing when the building opened in 1978. The anticipation surrounding the opening of the East Building, the first addition to the National Gallery of Art, was intense. There had been criticism during the design and construction from writiers who could not foresee the impact of it’s massive volumes. William Walton, former chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, the review board for the design of federal and other buildings in the capital, had claimed that the
new building was “grandoise - too big in relation to the existing Mall buildings.” But his objections were overruled by his own commission on a vote of eight to one. Critical previews began in late spring, 1978, leading up to the opening on 1st June. The New York Times featured the Calder mobile floating in the atrium as the cover illustration of its Sunday magazine and included other photographs with reviews by two of its most revered critics; Ada Louise Huxtable and Hilton Kramar (left). Huxtable called the building, “a powerful, palatial statement of the creative accomodation of contemporary art and architecture... a genuine contemporary classic,” that signalled the triumph of modernism in erecting a monument in Washington. Huxtable also provided the first extended formal description of the building, extolling the qualities of it’s atrium; “The space is flooded with the moods and patterns of light, sun and clouds; it changes with the time of day and year. The effect is dazzling.” The public celebration of the opening took place on June 1, 1978, with President Jimmy Carter and other dignitaries in attendance. After an invocation by an Episcopal bishop, Paul Mellon thanked the major contributors and participants in the project, and the President accepted the building on behalf of the nation. Jacqueline Onassis, who
had worked with Pei on the design of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston (1977-1979), decribed him as, “the greatest architect of our day.” Indeed, the opening of the East Building catapulted Pei to the covers of major magazines, including Esquire, which also featured him wihtin it’s pages. Other puclications such as Smithsonian, the Washington Post and the New York Times ran countless features, often focused on the central atrium, and even Vogue ran three pieces on the building and its art in its June 1978 issue. Among them, Barbara Rose wrote an article that declared, “American civilisation comes of the age: the new East Building of the National Gallery of Art, is a fitting monument to our country’s imagination.” William Marlin of the Christian Science Monitor was the first critic to also perceive the link between Pei’s building and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright; “Frank Lloyd Wright, with his fascination for the symbolic, structural and aesthetic virtues of the triangle and the tetrahedron, would have loved what has happened here and what is happening to the outlook of people who are visiting the new Gallery wing.” In fact the East Building is seen by many for the time as a greater demonstration of the organic, non rectilinear geometry of triangles than Wright ever achieved in his career.
1978
Pei on the cover of ‘Esquire Magazine’ after the building’s completion (June 6, 1978)
Pei inside the central atrium space/plaza soon after the building’s completion in 1978
(Clockwise from top left) Panels removed from the facade; construction details showing how the marble panels were fixed to the concrete frame; foreman restoring one of the marble panels.
Remove, Restore, Replace
itself provided some of the most compelling examples for cladding for the East Building in the 1960s as Pei was in accord with the it served as fertile ground for experirequirement that the East Building be covered with the same marble as mentation in the use of thin stone veneer. For example, Edward Durell the original building by Pope. However, sheathing the entire building in Stone’s John F Kennedy Center for marble proved a demanding design the Performing Arts (1962-1971) was clad with a travertine veneer exercise. The expressive treatment of marble was to pose a new set of only 1” thick that was cemented to the concrete block work and placed technical and aesthetic challenges. upright in orientation to confirm their Pope’s building was constructed status as revetment. Bunshafts’s of a concrete and steel frame with Hirshhorn Museum (1966-1974) is an infill of masonary blocks. This supporting structure was then faced another building situated near the with marble measuring 2’ by 5’ and East Building which uses a veneer varying in thickness from 4” to 8” or of precast concrete panels made of Swenson pink granite aggregate. even more. It was quickly decided that in the new building, the marble Pei had learned about the would be cut into thinner panels weathering of marble revetments and treated as a veneer that would in the Washington climate from the be hung from the reinforced conNational Museum of History and crete structure. Technology and via the Hirshhorn, had learned of the need to find a In the United States, since proper match between the concrete the early 1960s, thin stone veneer and the stone revetment. But Pei has been defined by the building was not about to follow their cladindustry as stone cut to less than ding pattern; he opted instead to 2” thick and applied in a non load return to the configuration of tradibearing manner. The use of stone tional masonary. His marble was cut cladding in American architecture across the bed to reveal the veins has a long lineage, however the of the material. They were placed in return to emphasising the opacity, long lines, on edge, to resemble the mass and weight of the wall in the bond of loadbearing stone. For the early 1960s triggered a renewal of exterior, the panels were cut 3” thick the technology and aestehtic of and 1” thick for the interior. Howstone cladding. ever, cutting so thin led to problems in terms of thermal expansion and One of Pei’s key design contraction, hence Pei introduced decisions regarding the marble reneoprene gaskets in the joints to acvetment had to do with the exprescomodate such movement between sion of the cladding. Washington
the 1 1/8” joints without revealing the gaps on the surface. Considerable effort was made to maintain the appearance of mass and solidity and avoid any veneer like quality. The marble, hung on metal clips attached to the concrete frame of the building, acts as a curtain wall. However, what Pei termed a ‘technological breakthrough’, would in fact, 30 years later prove a mammoth and extremely costly task in re-hanging the entire facade. Over time, gradual shrinkage in the concrete frame as well as the drying out of the neoprene gaskets, has led to many of the panels coming loose of their metal clips and hanging off of the building. At a cost of $84 million, work has been underway since 2010 to remove, restore (or even replace) and rehang every single panel on the facade. Each panel has had to be removed, tagged and retunred to its original place, meaning the task of conserving the building is a lengthy and drawn out process. The cost of this task a mere 30 years after the building was completed is an act of conservation in itself. the building was meant to ‘last forever’ - the cost of lasting forever is clearly high and over time, in order to consevre this building, the cost will no doubt accumulate.
2010
“.... as with flavour in cooking you put in a touch of something to create a familiar taste...” KEVIN ROCHE (TALKING ABOUT THE USE OF STONE AS REVETMENT)
Construction of the 19 degree angle in the summer of 1977, showing the layering of the marble panels upon the concrete structural frame underneath
“.... to remove, restore and reposition the facade will cost the National Gallery, $84 million...� JOHN KELLY, WASHINGTON POST (8th February, 2012)
(Clockwise from top left) Construction on site in 1977 showing detailing of the marble panels and the steel angles used to clip them in place; photoraph of building in 2012 mid restoration; main entrance of the East Builidng is being slowly replaced, 2010.
Showing Signs of Age
problems.
As a public venue, because no one was able to model or predict the rate of failure, National Gallery officials decided in 2008 to reinstall all of the 16,200 exterior panels. Paul Mellon funded the initial build of the East Building, but it is the tax payer that will have to foot the bill of this $84 million refurbishment. It is interesting to note that the cost of this act of conservatio is indeed linked to the problem of time and cost at the very inception of the project. Pope had constructed the West building using marble panels 4� to 8 thick; Pei had actually intended to do the same, however the necessary quantity of Tennessee pink marble was not obtainable within a reasonable amount of time and to speed upthe process would have far exceeded the budget allocated.
The act of remving and replacing the panels is also one that has been carefully constructed; each panel is removed, photographed, measured and given a number that indicates where it came from. It also gets given a barcode and is scanned with an iPad. Each stone panel is removed and placed in cradles that slide along a monorail. The aim is to take 50 stones off the building each day, send 50 stones through the workshop and put 50 stones back onto the facade.
The curtain wall system used was in fact a compromise that had to be made and with the advanced technology of stone cutting, it was now possible to cut the panels into such think layers that the weight of them would be able to be held by the metal clips tailored to the project. However it was the size of the joints, cut to only 1/8� that many see as the major reason for the failure. Allowing little room for movement when also taking into account human error when cutting the panel to size, the minimal joint would no doubt, over time, cause
Amladi, Natasha THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, EAST BUILDING