The view from Mori Tower, looking northeast. Photo: Anna Blair
On my first evening in Tokyo I looked out from the Mori Art Museum, on the 53rd floor of Mori Tower, and saw only the city, stretching to the horizon in every direction. Tokyo doesn’t seem to have any periphery, from this vantage point, but instead has multiple centers—and highways hinting at other centers unseen.
Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine. Koolhaas Houselife. 2008. Video (color, sound), 58 min. Gift of Andrea Woodner. © 2016 Bêka & Lemoine
We are proud to announce the acquisition of Living Architectures, a suite of films by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine. These films imaginatively (and often hilariously) explore the daily life of contemporary architecture as it is inhabited and experienced. This acquisition represents the first inroads for the Department of Architecture and Design into the medium of film.
Kazuyo Sejima & Associates. Model of Villa in the Forest, Chino, Nagano, Japan. 1992–94. Acrylic, 6 1/2 x 29 1/2 x 29 3/4″ (16.5 x 74.9 x 75.6 cm). Gift of the architect in honor of Philip Johnson. © 2016 Kazuyo Sejima. Photo: Anna Blair
Some visitors to MoMA’s Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture exhibition tell me Frederick Kiesler’s designs don’t have enough windows. His Endless House couldn’t have connected the inhabitants with their environment, they say, comparing Kiesler’s model to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, a glass and steel box intended to float among the trees.
As I’ve been going through the architectural models in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Archive—in preparation for future display—I’ve seen all kinds of condition problems, from acidified paper, to warped and crushed elements, to losses and detachments. But this is not too surprising. Unlike more traditional museum objects like bronze sculptures or oil paintings, architectural models are utilitarian: they exist to articulate a design. Thus, their materials are more often selected for expediency than for longevity.
Left: Historic photograph of St. Marks Tower model on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1930. Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art and Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York); Right: St. Marks Tower Model at MoMA, before treatment, 2013
The painted wood and paperboard model for St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie Towers represents one of three apartment buildings Wright planned to build around St. Mark’s Church in New York’s East Village. Of the 19 models in the Archive, St. Mark’s Tower is undoubtedly in the worst condition; it has suffered just about every kind of damage I’ve seen among the models. It arrived acidified and embrittled, with approximately 50% of its exterior missing, its floors warped and separating, its wooden base and finial exhibiting large jagged losses, and every surface covered with an accumulation of dirt, cobwebs, and mouse droppings (see images below).
Loss to wooden base
Soiled floor of an apartment unit
Frank Lloyd Wright. St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie Towers, New York. 1927–31. Aerial perspective. Graphite and colored pencil on tracing paper
When loss to an object is as severe as it is to this model, conventional restoration techniques are brought into question: to introduce so much 21st-century material to an object from the early 20th century raises issues of originality and authenticity. In consultation with curators, a range of options were considered, from leaving the model incomplete and damaged, to restoring it entirely, to fabricating a whole new model. To strike a balance between restoring Wright’s vision and respecting the history of the object, we decided to restore it partially, leaving a quarter of it in its damaged state. From a specific angle, the model will look completely restored, but the unrestored portion will present primary evidence of the extent of the model’s loss and retain its material history. I will use materials in the restored sections that can be distinguished from the original, making the restorations reversible so that future generations can undo the additions if they so decide.
After extensive vacuuming and surface cleaning, the paperboard elements needed to be consolidated and reformed. For this task, I benefited from the expertise of our paper conservators, who advised me to use a combination of moisture, pressure, wheat-starch paste, and time to manipulate the model’s floors back into plane.
Left: Damaged paperboard floor; Right: After humidification/reshaping treatment
Replacement parts were cut from acid-free matboard. The thicker elements, such as the vertical window casings, were cut by hand. Creating these elements, which are repeated 468 times over the model, made for monotonous but meditative work (not unlike that undertaken in Wright’s studio, some 80 years ago). But I’ve been fortunate to work on this at a moment when it’s possible to also take advantage of new, time-saving technologies, like laser cutting, which was employed to cut the thinner elements such as the window mullions, and ink-jet printing, which I used to replicate repeated, hand-drawn pencil designs found on existing exterior walls.
Left: Laser-cut window mullions, before toning; Right: Printing exterior designs onto mulberry paper
After painting these parts with acrylic paint, I attached them to the model with a water-resoluble adhesive and a clamping system of cotton string loops.
Left: Apartment unit with missing exterior; Right: New exterior applied with string clamps
I then applied the designs, printed on mulberry paper, which become transparent when saturated with adhesive.
Left: Applying printed designs to the building’s exterior. Photo: Jackie Russo; Right: New walls with printed designs circled
This process has taken over 450 hours, 60 of which are condensed in this time-lapse video:
Now nearing completion, the restored model looks less like a ruin and more like an idea. In 2017, it will be exhibited for the first time in over half a century, allowing today’s visitors to gain insight into both Wright’s groundbreaking innovation and his working process. New Yorkers in particular may enjoy imagining how a trio of towering glassy structures would have transformed the landscape of the downtown lowlands.
Left: Before treatment; Right: During treatment
Frederick Kiesler. Endless House. 1947–60. Preliminary perspective, 1947. Ink on paper, 11 7/8 × 18″ (30.2 × 45.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase, 2015
At the entrance to the current exhibition Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture is Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House (1947–60). He envisioned this eclectic, flexible habitat as “a living organism, not just an arrangement of dead material.” He saw the house as a composition of spaces “as elastic as the vital functions.” A selection of drawings features his exhaustive investigation of forms for it, drawings which, through his lively use of ink and superimposition of multiple sketches on transparent overlays, approach animation.
Chicago skyline, taken from Grant Park. Photo: Jessie Parsons
In early May I set out on a four-day journey to Chicago, Illinois. I began the trip wondering how architectural organizations in Chicago, a city so densely packed with renowned buildings and structures, approach the challenge of engaging their viewers with these works. How can architecture be made more accessible? What techniques are used? Curated exhibitions of images, models, and research, or tours and activities that physically involve the structures? What methods have been found to be the most successful?
Jimenez Lai. White Elephant (Privately Soft). 2011. Aluminum, rubber, sandblasted polycarbonate, fabric, cowhide, and polyfill batting, 144 X 147 X 90″. Photo: John Wronn
With its fully furnished interior space fitted-out in overstuffed cowhide, and an exterior clad in poly-carbonate panels Jimenez Lai’s White Elephant (Privately Soft) operates as both a free standing mini-building and as maxi-furniture.
Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Mauricio Pezo, Sófia von Ellrichshausen. Cien House, Concepción, Chile. 2009–11. Concrete model, 14 × 14 × 5″ (35.6 × 35.6 × 12.7 cm). Photo: Pamela Popeson
I’m a big fan of buildings, which is to say walking around looking at buildings, taking city architecture tours by bike, or car trips out to a particular site, checking out exteriors, interiors—all of it. But for me, architects’ models and drawings are really where it’s at.
There’s an intimacy to architectural drawings and models that fosters a feeling of a sort of partnership, offering an insider’s invitation to that place where it’s clear that the ideas behind making buildings are about so much more than the plans for access elevators or where to put the closets.
![Drawing of Broadacre City by Frank Lloyd Wright. From B. Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright 1943–1959: The Complete Works [Vol. 3], edited by Peter Gössel, published by Taschen, 2009](https://www.moma.org/wp/inside_out/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Image-13-643x480.jpg)
Drawing of Broadacre City by Frank Lloyd Wright. From B. Pfeiffer, Frank Lloyd Wright 1943–1959: The Complete Works [Vol. 3], edited by Peter Gössel, published by Taschen, 2009
Rio de Janeiro, 2013. Photograph by Pedro Gadanho
Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities, the third iteration in MoMA’s Issues in Contemporary Architecture series, has just launched with a lively public conversation in MoMA PS1’s VW Dome.
If you are interested in reproducing images from The Museum of Modern Art web site, please visit the Image Permissions page (www.moma.org/permissions). For additional information about using content from MoMA.org, please visit About this Site (www.moma.org/site).
© Copyright 2016 The Museum of Modern Art