The Louvre Pyramid (Photo: TTstudio via Shutterstock)
Paris’ Louvre Museum is one of the most famous examples of old-meets-new architecture. Its world-class collection of ancient to 19th-century art is housed in a former French Renaissance-style palace whose wings wrap around two large courtyards. Within one of these courtyards is the Louvre Pyramid, a contemporary glass-and-steel structure.
In 1983, President François Mitterrand commissioned Chinese American architect I.M. Pei to design a new entrance to the museum. Pei, whose prior projects included the National Gallery of Art’s East Building and John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts, proposed a 71-foot pyramid that would bring guests to a luminous underground lobby. His concept was approved and construction was completed in 1989.
The Louvre’s lobby
Since then, the Louvre Pyramid has become a universally understood symbol of the popular museum.
THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM
뉴욕 구겐하임 박물관
On top of its jaw-dropping collection of modern and contemporary art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City’s Upper East Side is famous for its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building.
Like other Wright creations, the Guggenheim showcases the architect’s interest in organic shapes and forms. Unlike the sharp rectangles of the buildings that surround it, the museum features a round silhouette separated into tiers. This aesthetic is echoed by the building’s open-plan atrium, which is framed by a spiraling, shell-inspired ramp and topped with a spider web-like skylight.
Inside the Guggenheim’s atrium
Wright was approached with the project in 1943. Fifteen years and 200 sketches later, the museum finally opened to the public—and it has dazzled ever since.
TATE MODERN 영국 런던 테이트모던미술관
Unlike the Guggenheim and the Louvre Pyramid, London’s Tate Modern museum was not built from scratch. In fact, the steel-and-brick building that exhibits this world-class art collection was an electricity generating stationuntil 2000.
The Bankside Power Station was built in the middle of the 20th century on the south bank of the River Thames. After closing in 1981, it risked demolition. However, in 1994, the Tate Gallery announced it would house its artworks, with Herzog & de Meuron architects leading its renovation.
Following its transition, the building retained much of the original architecture, including its iconic central chimney and large turbine hall. However, in 2016, an 11-story Herzog & de Meuron-designed tower called the Blavatnik Building was added to the existing site.
The Blavatnik Building
This new extension offers panoramic views of London while “allowing visitors to engage more deeply with art” by increasing exhibition space.
NITERÓI CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM
브라질 니테로이 미술관
The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum is one of Rio’s most popular tourist destinations. A floating, saucer-shaped structure accessible by a large outdoor ramp and flanked by a flower-inspired reflecting pool, the museum is one of Oscar Niemeyer‘s most celebrated creations.
Known as the “Picasso of concrete,” Niemeyer is a pioneer of modern architecture and a master of abstraction. He is particularly fascinated by forms found in nature. “I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing, sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire Universe, the curved Universe of Einstein.”
The Niterói Contemporary Art Museum entrance (Photo: Nick Albi via Shutterstock)
The out-of-this-world white concrete structure was completed in 1996 after five years of construction.
THE DENVER ART MUSEUM
미국의 덴버 아트 뮤지엄
The Denver Art Museum has an encyclopedic collection that spans cultures and centuries. However, the architecture of its main edifice, the Frederic C. Hamilton Building, is wildly contemporary.
The deconstructivist building was designed by Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind and completed in 2006 . The shard-like structure features 20 topsy-turvy planes made out of titanium and steel. As these planes interact with each other, an abstract landscape forms.
Libeskind explains that this nature-esque aesthetic is intentional, as he was “inspired by the light and geology of the Rockies.” Additionally, the distinctive design was influenced by the museum’s community, as he notes that another muse was “the wide-open faces of the people of Denver.”
POMPIDOU CENTER 퐁피두 센터
파리의 3대 미술관 중 하나
The Georges Pompidou Center is Paris’ premiere destination for 20th-century art. The museum houses Europe’s largest collection of modern art, making its avant-garde architecture a perfect fit.
The museum was conceived by Renzo Piano, who was awarded the commission after winning an architectural design competition in 1971. His design featured an “exposed” exterior that reveals its inner workings in a whimsical arrangement of coded color: blue hues designate air conditioning, yellow is for electrical circulation, water pipes are green, and escalators and elevators are red.
This unique approach turns the concept of the traditional museum building inside out—literally.
“On the Piazza side, and outside the usable volume, all public movement facilities have been centrifuged,” Piano said. “On the opposite side, all the technical equipment and pipelines have been centrifuged. Each floor is thus completely free and it can be used for all forms of cultural activities—both known and yet to be discovered.”
THE GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO
스페인 구젠하임 빌바오 박물관
In 1991, the Basque government and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation announced plans to build a new Guggenheim Museum along the Port of Bilbao.
Architect Frank Gehry was selected to design the building. Looking to the the local landscape for inspiration, Gehry imagined an undulating exterior that frames a flower-shaped atrium with views of the Basque hills. Furthermore, the materials used—including glass, stone, and titanium—and its deconstructed aesthetic fit in perfectly with the museum’s industrial surroundings.
Since opening to the public in 1997, the museum has garnered praise across the board. “The building blazed new trails and became an extraordinary phenomenon,” art critic Paul Goldberger said in 2009. “It was one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something.”