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56 | views magazine The Redesigning of the Museum of Modern Art by yoshio Taniguchi The new Museum of Modern Art – the first building Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi ever designed outside his native country – has more than doubled the museum’s gallery space, altered its configuration, lengthened its garden, added an atrium and showcased contemporary art with an astonishing sense of completeness. Taniguchi’s redesign, consummated in November of 2004, endeavored to solve the museum’s spatial problems by creating a physical and intellectual platform that prevented it from becoming what one artist in 1990 called a «safety deposit box for its collectors.» The architect succeeded admirably in this task by taking advantage of the museum’s unique location in midtown Manhattan. Windows and skylights were used extensively to let both light and life flood in, allowing the museum to reach out beyond its own walls. Taniguchi did away with the traditional white-cube gallery space, instead creating a series of areas more conducive to displays of contemporary art – and, thanks to multiple entrances and exits, more welcoming to visitors too. The galleries on the second floor clearly withstand unprecedented loads. Configurations with or without walls are now available, with a soaring atrium in the center that both links and partitions the seven functional units. Perhaps the most dramatic exhibitions held in the new facility to date have been those involving contemporary artists such as Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist and Richard Serra, to name but a few. Each of these artists has consciously sought to integrate Taniguchi’s building itself into their presentation of art, enabling art and the very city that surrounds it to become inextricably intertwined. Meeting Yoshio Taniguchi in 2010 proved to be quite a revelation. Tall, poised and perfectly assured, he began by sharing a little of his background with me. He was born in Japan in 1937, the son of Yoshiro Taniguchi, a well-known architect in his own right. The elder Taniguchi belonged to the first wave of modernist architects in Japan, who believed that creating structures with clear design lines and an absence of extraneous detail was of paramount importance. The family lived in Tokyo; and as a young man Taniguchi studied at Keio University, the city’s oldest and most prestigious institute of higher learning, where he earned his mechanical engineering degree in 1960. From there, he went straight to the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, receiving a degree in architecture in 1964. Taniguchi was one of the first Japanese architects of the postwar generation to receive his architectural education outside Japan. I am not sure exactly how the three and a half years he spent at Harvard affected his outlook. However, the way in which his works have subsequently evolved and his rigorous attention to detail make it clear that his thinking and the fruit of his labors are far removed from, say Mediterranean or Germanic influences. It would only be natural for his knowledge of and interest in the engineering aspects of architecture to play a part in his designs; and it seems reasonable to assume that his father’s interest in early European modernism during Taniguchi’s youth may have planted a seed that has since borne ample fruit in his son’s undertakings. The architect’s works pay considerable attention to the use of primary elements such as walls, slabs and stones. Characteristically, these elements are deployed in rhythmical, flowing or static patterns, or in undulating sequences that bend the line of vision. One is struck by the skilful dramatization of experiential elements that appeal to the senses: the way in which the next space is anticipated and signaled, for example. For all that, however, Taniguchi’s works remain shot through with a traditional Japanese understanding. Yoshio Taniguchi worked briefly in the studio of Walter Gropius, one of the founding fathers of architectural modernism. Back in Japan, he spent eight years working for another giant, Kenzo Tange, perhaps Japan’s foremost modernist architect. The years Taniguchi spent here were the period when Tange’s office was seeing the Tokyo Olympic complex and St. Mary’s Cathedral to completion. He also worked on projects in Skopje, (then) Yugoslavia, and San Francisco, California, living on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley during the latter deployment. He would later go on to collaborate with Isamu Noguchi and American landscape architect Peter Walker. By 1975, Taniguchi had boldly opened his own practice and begun taking on design jobs for libraries, institutions and other public buildings. Fundamental conviction caused him to set a limit on the number of projects his firm accepted, so that he would best be able to personally oversee the details. He later confided to me that he thought of himself as the «doyen of the group» and liked the idea of spreading his own idealism to his younger associates. In the 1980s and 1990s, Taniguchi rose to prominence as one of Japan’s leading museum architects. He famous-
ly designed a number of Japanese museums, including the Nagano Prefectural Museum, the Marugame Genichiro- Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Tje Toyota Municipal Museum of Art and the Gallery of Horju-ji Treasures at the Tokyo National Museum. Other proud works include the Shiseido Museum of Art and the Tokyo National Museum’s Gallery of Horyuji Treasures. Yet it was his design for a less austere site – the Tokyo Sea Life Park – that drew the greatest accolades. Taniguchi’s buildings have a solid but cool minimalism to them. He prefers to let the wood or stone itself convey the building’s esthetic beauty. As he rightly says: «In my generation, a lot of architects give prominence to design. I manage to conceal details.» When he took part in the design competition for the Museum of Modern Art expansion project, he told the MoMA trustees in all earnest that, if they were to raise a lot of money for the project, he would deliver very good architecture. However, if they were to raise lots more money, he would make the architecture disappear! Taniguchi then presented them a model that featured glass, aluminum and black slate. Fearing his presentation would be rejected, however, he made a rather hasty exit and, out of sheer frustration, headed for the nearest watering hole! His misgivings proved unfounded, however, and in late 1997 he became the architect of choice for the MoMA project, beating ten other internationally acclaimed architects – people of the caliber of the Netherlands’ Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi and Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. «Life presents surprises in various boxes and we have to wait graciously for them to be handed to us!» Taniguchi told me with a quiet chuckle. Some regard his style as overly corporate, ill-suited to a museum. For others, however, Taniguchi has created nothing short of architectural perfection! Take, for instance, the famous verdict by Alfred Barr, the museum’s founding director: «The museum is a torpedo moving through time which, as it rockets forward, leaves history in its wake.» My thanks go to you, Yoshio Taniguchi, for making this all possible! Thomas P. Campbell – Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art In September 2008, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that Thomas P. Campbell, a highly accomplished curator from Oxford, England, whose specialty is European tapestry, had been elected its next director, succeeding the legendary Philippe de Montebello, who had led the museum for 31 years. Tom Campbell was born in Singapore and raised in Cambridge, England. He re- ceived his Bachelor of Arts degree in English language and literature from the University of Oxford in 1984, followed by a diploma from Christie’s Fine and Decorative Arts course, London, in 1985. While studying for his Master’s degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art (1987), he realized the extent to which mainstream art history had overlooked the major role tapestries have played in European art and propaganda. Thereupon, he spent seven years working hard to rectify this omission by creating the Franses Tapestry Archive in London, which, with more than 120,000 images, is the largest and most up-to-date information resource on European tapestries and figurative textiles in the world. His early research culminated in several ground-breaking articles and a Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute (1999) on the art and culture of King Henry VIII’s court. Campbell has spent 14 years in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, rising through the ranks as Assistant Curator (1995-97), Associate Curator (1997-2003) and Curator (2003 to the present). During this time, he conceived and organized the major exhibitions Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence (2002) and Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor (New York, 2007; Palacio Real, Madrid, spring 2008), both of which incorporated drawings, paintings and prints, as well as actual tapestries, and drew immense worldwide acclaim. The 2002 exhibition was named «Exhibition of the Year» by Apollo magazine, and its catalogue won the Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Award (College Art Association) for distinguished exhibition catalogues in the history of art (2003). Campbell was also responsible for adding to the museum’s stock of European textiles, including the acquisition of extremely rare tapes- views magazine | 57
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