Born in Clermont-Ferrand, France, 1953
Education: École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1978; École
Supérieure des Ponts et Chaussée, Paris, 1979; École des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1980
Selected projects: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 198995; Ecole
Supérieure, Marne-la-Vallée, France, 198487; Olympic Velodrome,
Berlin, Germany (under construction)
The work presented results from the quest for several architectural solutions.
It is not simply a catalogue of projects; following analysis of a given
context, our diagnosis...clearly identifies the elements to be protected,
and those to be created. The former constitute the system's common core; the
latter reveal the Museum's future evolution and metamorphoses. These variations
on a single theme form the basis of our architectural responses.
Our design approach eschews aesthetic bias and calls for the intellectual
participation of all. Flexibility, interactivity, and an open mind put quality
at the heart of the architectural work.
A priori reflections as to what a great modern art museum of today "ought to
be," though doubtless interesting, seem to me to be of the order of a purely
intellectual pleasure....The "reality principle" is the bedrock on which
the idea of the new Museum will emerge, and not vice versa.
All our work is based on a pragmatic approach to working with what exists in
the context without preconceived notion. The new MoMA will germinate, emerge,
and acquire conviction on the basis of its true situation; far from rejecting
its past, the Museum will assimilate its novel geography, constituting both a
pole of identity within the neighborhood, and a landmark for the city of New
York.
What are the positive aspects of the existing situation? The range and quality
of the Museum's collection, the MoMA team's commitment to the communication and
conservation of modern art, a 1930s facade, and a garden—all facets of
the genius loci.
What are its negative elements? Uncomfortable, ill-adapted workplaces; cramped,
inflexible exhibition spaces; and above all the absence of natural lighting and
a lack of visual or physical relations with the Museum's urban surroundings.
Initial analysis reveals differences in character and function between 53rd and
54th streets. The former is predominantly pedestrian, with public or private
access to the Museum and proximity to a branch of the New York Public Library,
the Museum design store, and other activities in the vicinity. The latter is
primarily a thoroughfare furnishing access to service vehicles, but more
importantly is the site of a patch of nature, the garden. The opposition
constitutes MoMA's specific identity within the city street (53rd Street) and
garden (54th Street).
This ambivalence sums up the whole history of MoMA; its specific geography
forms the basis of our design solutions. The resulting diagnosis privileges two
avenues of development: extension of the Goodwin and Stone front, in order to
create a homogeneous street front and highlight Cesar Pelli's soaring tower;
extension of the garden in two directions toward Fifth Avenue and on the site
of the Dorset Hotel.
This reading clarifies the urban situation by dividing the block lengthwise
into two distinct parts—built facade overlooking 53rd Street; open
facade overlooking 54th Street. And yet one cannot speak of a "front"
and a "back"; rather, there is a street Museum front, and a garden Museum
front.
The public or private entrances, like so many addresses along a street,
punctuate 53rd Street while preserving the beautiful main entrance, which
guarantees direct visual access to the garden. The idea of further access on
54th, via part of the garden, is in no way incompatible with this. Our
transversal configuration "opens up" the Museum to the life of the
neighborhood. The stroller, attracted by the "open space" of the garden, will
be able to enter the Museum without having to walk around it.
The entrances situated on either side lead into MoMA itself, whose
organizational structure can be compared to that of a tree. It extends into the
ground as if in search of "life force"; an elongated main body forms a sturdy
"trunk"; while its "branches" and foliage extend "aside," "along," or "above."
To crown it all, Pelli's tower soars skyward in concert with its neighbors.
Whatever these roots and branches, the trunk is our initial concern. It
constitutes the heart of the project. Architectural and functional analyses of
the existing building show that the exhibition spaces are not in their
"rightful" place.
By installing the library and conservation departments on floors currently
given over to the exhibitions we optimize the existing building, both
functionally and in terms of the quality of its workplaces. Extended office
spaces occupy the top of the building and are lit naturally. Our clarification
puts "things" back in place without requiring costly restructuring—we
privilege efficiency, quality, and economy of means.
Extension of the garden hall throughout the length and height of the edifice
creates a living space bathed in natural light, furnishing access to all levels
via a system of vertical and horizontal distributions. This artery constitutes
MoMA's spinal cord.
The garden hall becomes a promenade within the Museum. Leading directly off to
the entrance halls, overlooking the garden throughout its length, and bringing
light to the Titus theaters and the temporary exhibition gallery below, this
ambulatory space intersects with the library and reading room at the second
level, brings the public into contact with the departments, and leads into the
Museum's treasure—the collection galleries....
Thus the "trunk"—the beating heart of MoMA—is constituted without causing
major disruptions, and develops and amplifies the morphology of the existing
building. From there, three possible configurations are imagined for the
Museum's exhibition spaces: aside, along, and above.
Aside
In the "tradition" of MoMA's extensions to date, this variant constructs a new
building termed "large gallery" on an adjacent site earmarked for this.
A structure overlooking 54th Street, equivalent in volume to that of the garden
(void equals solid), sits above the temporary gallery. Accessible from both
streets, a vast entrance hall leads off to all the functions open to the
public. A flooring system consisting of freely organized plateaux constitutes
the Museum's museographic spaces. Carefully filtered and modulated natural
light penetrates to the inner recesses of the building. This translucent glass
case makes for a considerable degree of flexibility in its organization. One
might even envisage sliding floors or partitions, allowing for easy modulation
of the exhibition spaces.
The garden front, visible from Fifth Avenue, forms a grand window onto the
city, in particular the skyscraper group culminating in Philip Johnson's AT&T
Building.
Along
This tribute to the modern movement takes the form of an elongated block
running the whole length of the existing building. Especially noteworthy are
the precise geometrical relations between vertical (the Pelli tower) and
horizontal (the low-rise block itself). The length of the garden on 54th Street
is equal to the height of the tower....
The global morphology of MoMA can be thought of as a musical stave, a series of
parallel lines punctuated with various events (or "notes"). The first of these
lines is the trunk or common core along 53rd Street, as previously described;
the second is the garden hall, a vast promenade bathed in natural light; the
third is the horizontal line of collection galleries and their peristyle, or
colonnade, which in turn liberates a fourth line, the garden, running the whole
length of the Museum on 54th Street.
The temporary exhibition spaces are deployed beneath the garden, alongside the
"theaters" and their common foyer....The space divides up into several
exhibition spaces, from the "cabinet" to a vast plateau for works that are
"monumental," whether in size or in significance.
We thus imagine a "line of light"—a translucent structure filtering direct
natural light by day, which becomes opalescent when artificially lit at night.
Careful geometrical treatment confers a large degree of architectural unity on
the Museum as a whole.
The tower no longer overwhelms the Museum, but rather crowns it in the manner
of a campanile, highlighting the purity of the building, the generous
dimensions of the garden, and the soaring tower....
Above
Our search for possible architectural developments of the exhibition galleries
from the common core or trunk led us to envisage a third possibility, that of a
hanging extension.
This technically more intricate variant liberates generous open spaces (garden
and garden hall) and protected spaces (temporary exhibition and collection
galleries): an inhabited roof floating above the garden covers the existing
building; a large roof resembling a thin foil or leaf federates the various
buildings in the manner of a shelter—a mythical "first dwelling" protecting
the human group and its culture against a hostile world; a spacious, well-lit
roof that lets in light and water at given points and thus enables the garden
to "breathe" naturally; a roof caught between earth and sky that borders 54th
Street without walling it off or shutting out light; a roof crowns the 53rd
Street group of buildings, forming an attic story of freestanding glass; a roof
whose breadth affords diverse possibilities of development so as to adapt to
the management and growth of the collections; a roof within which the
museographic promenade is free and flexible; a roof that hallmarks MoMA's
identity as a cultural institution open to the public at large; a roof
reflecting the sensibility and vision of modern art as an "installation,"
conferring "another" meaning on the site and effecting a metamorphosis, perhaps
even a transfiguration; a roof conferring identity on the site while preserving
the diversity of its component parts, in the manner of de Tocqueville's
conception of democracy; a roof suggesting an architecture freed from the
constraints of gravity—a "certain idea" of immateriality.
Project Credits
Dominique Perrault; Aude Perrault, Gabriel Choukroun, Maxime Gasperini,
Gaëlle Lauriot-Prevost, Anne Kaplan, Guy Morisseau, Georges Fessy, Didier
Ghislain.
These works have been selected from a larger collection of drawings that were
submitted for the charette. In addition, the architect's statement has been
abbreviated.
Initial analysis reveals differences in character and function between 53rd and 54th streets. The former is predominantly pedestrian, with public or private access to the Museum and proximity to a branch of the New York Public Library, the Museum design store, and other activities in the vicinity. The latter is primarily a thoroughfare furnishing access to service vehicles, but more importantly is the site of a patch of nature, the garden. The opposition constitutes MoMA's specific identity within the city street (53rd Street) and garden (54th Street).
The garden hall becomes a promenade within the Museum. Leading directly off to the entrance halls, overlooking the garden throughout its length, and bringing light to the Titus theaters and the temporary exhibition gallery below, this ambulatory space intersects with the library and reading room at the second level, brings the public into contact with the departments, and leads into the Museum's treasure—the collection galleries....
