(www.arquitectura.

com)

Denver Art Museum

Architect : Daniel Libeskind

Built in : 2003-2006

Cost : $62,000,000

Location : West 14th Avenue Parkway, Denver, United States

Introduction

Extension of the Denver Art Museum was given by Daniel Libeskind. It is the first architects design to
be built in the United States.

Collaborated in building the firm Davis Partnership Architects and construction MA Mortenson
Company that has been in charge of projects such as the Pepsi Center and the Walt Disney Concert
Hall in Los Angeles.

Extensions role is to expand the existing museum. Seven levels of the building, designed by Italian
architect Gio Ponti, the work was performed biggest expansion in its last thirty years.

The history of the museum dates back to 1893, when a group of artists founded the Denver club
whose purpose was to sponsor lectures and exhibitions. 23 years after the Artists Club was renamed
as the Denver Art Association, later to become the Denver Art Museum. In 1932 the city of Denver
gave some galleries in the museum just finished the City and County Building. In 1948 the museum
acquired a land to build a new headquarters, but had great difficulty in finding funds, and the
building was not completed until 1954. Once again, during the 60s, the seat was small and in 1971
opened a new wing, designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti and local architect James Sudler. The
influx of many works and the presence of an ever-required in the twenty-first century to build a new
wing, designed in this case by Daniel Libeskind.

Work began on April 9, 2003 with the celebration of the laying of the first stone, and were completed
in 2006 with a total cost of more than 62 million dollars.

With an area of 13,564 m2, the new building Frederic C. Hamilton almost double the space from the
host to several special collections never before been displayed on a permanent basis to provide the
opportunity to make other national and international events and programs.

The new spaces are designed to showcase collections of design, architecture and art of Oceania.

Opposite the entrance to the new building was placed a giant bronze spider by sculptor Louise
Bourgeois.
Situation

The new building is located directly south of the twin towers of the original building, and adjacent to
the Denver Public Library, designed by Michael Graves.

Is the core of the new cultural district of the city. The entrance is opposite the new plaza that links
the Civic Center in Golden Triangle, a neighborhood of villas, before scorned, which is currently being
converted into a fashionable neighborhood.

From the inside, visitors can see the mountains and the city of Denver.

Meaning

The museum consists of a series of interlocking rectangles. This is an aggressive form of geometric
design, pure and irregular, glass and titanium, reflecting the peaks and rock crystal from the nearby
mountains. A volume overhang crosses the street to link the structure of the Gio Ponti building by a
bridge of steel and glass.

The aim of the designers has been to prevent the rebuilding of ideas already on the existing
structure, pointing to a building that also communicate outside the particularity of its content, in
which art and architecture are the real protagonists.

The project is designed as a single building, but as part of a composition of public spaces,
monuments and gateways in the development of this part of the city, which contributes to the
relationship with neighboring buildings. Museums, shops and a loft-type apartment complex, also
designed by Libeskind encourage the public square.

The most striking feature of the museum is the triangular shape of a corner that is fired out of the
street toward the old Gio Ponti building.

Other forms are deployed out into the square, partially covering the entrance. But the generality of
the exterior lies in how it changes its appearance when looking in different directions. Fragments of a
peak can guess outstanding between the towers of the city. From another angle, the structure seems
static and has the appearance of bnquer. At night, the building tends to give a visually achatarse
strange sense of stillness.

At the base of the building, is an approach that does not differentiate inside and outside, but a union
and creates a synergy between the container and its contents.

It also has great attention to all the functions necessary to ensure maximum comfort to the visitors,
also given the special characteristics of the city of Denver, subject to continuous changes in climate,
temperature and lighting.
Spaces

The new structure provides the main entrance to the complex and exhibition hall will be marked by
the access that leads to the other new areas, such as the cafeteria, an auditorium for 280 people,
bookstore and other shops.

The project promotes the energy available directly upwards. The hall takes a height of four levels.
Highlights its sloping walls and a staircase esperial moving along the walls, through which you access
to the exhibition galleries. As it stands, the stairs are narrow and becomes more intimate. Pieces of
light entering through skylights where the walls are ready intersect. Above beams intersect in the
area to prevent the walls of a tumble. The planes intercepted and produce complex geometries such
spaces peculiar characteristic of an attic.

The main areas of this expansion are three: the Gallagher Family Gallery on the first floor for
temporary exhibitions, the second floor of the Anschutz Gallery for contemporary art collections and
Martin & McCormick Gallery, also on the second level is where art Contemporary Native American.

The exhibition also includes areas of green outdoor sculpture show.

They are part of the expansion, a bridge 31 meters above the building to communicate with
Hamilton, a parking lot for 965 cars and an area of residential and commercial uses surrounding the
building of 25,000 square meters.

Materials

The structure is steel and concrete. For the siding was chosen titanium and granite, thus looking for a
dialectical relationship with the other elements of the context: monuments, public spaces,
infrastructure.

In 2740 the building was used tons of steel, 21,368 square feet of titanium and 5658 cubic meters of
concrete.
(www.arquitectura.com)

Felix Nussbaum Museum

Architect : Daniel Libeskind

Built in : 1995-1998

Location : Osnabruck, Germany

Introduction

In 1994, calls for a tender for the construction of a small building to house works of Hebrew origin of
the painter Felix Nussbaum, a victim of the Holocaust at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944
and a native of this city.

One of the objectives is the creation of a museum complex that serves as headquarters for the
collection Nussbaum, and also somehow transform the traditional notion of this type of building,
making the museum set the historical context to the city of Osnabruck through the revelation of
cultural values.

Location

The Museum is located in the city of Osnabruck, a medieval town founded by Charlemagne in the
eighth century a little over 160,000 inhabitants in the province of Lower Saxony.

The complex occupies what would be the backyard of the old Museum of Popular Art, which
paradoxically also hosted the Nazi party in 1933 and also bordering History Museum, although
separated from both the building connects with them and generating linking a new composition and
morphology.

Part of the Museum is also on ancient remains of an eighteenth-century bridge that was part of the
fortifications of the city, the Museum is accessed laterally through a passage that opens to the
outside.

Concept

In the project each of the elements of the spatial organization of the geometry and content of the
program refer to the career of Nussbaum paradigmatic expression of the continued absence, the
museum of the unknown and the significance of the Holocaust unrepresentable abyss.
The various components of the complex work as elements that connect and form a integral
structure, while demonstrating a permanent horizon of disconnection which paradoxically serves as a
link between a number of significant places in the city: historical points that act as a reference for
memory space, but intended meaning as a new dominant form but acts as a background of hope
Folk Art Museum and the Museum of History, which are treated as family figures, but lonely, at the
same time the site was reorganized around a new topography which connects the city itself,
becoming a link to a lost history in mysterious element that transmits the irreversibility of time and
fate.

This project is endowed with great symbolic value, because of his condition and his family as Jews
who experienced the Holocaust firsthand, the building speaks for itself, and inside you can feel the
anguish and suffering suffered by its people.

Its plant tortuous, the rebels ripped through the entries of light, the key elements that pass through
walls, etc. particularly in the building is designed for visitors to experience something more than a
simple visit to a museum, in fact for most visitors the content of the museum is the least important.

Proceeding from outside to inside, the experimental and enigmatic character of this work undergoes
a metamorphosis produced by the accumulation of meanings, emotions, memories, to put the
question on the possible existence of an architecture of the senses.

Spaces

The work comprises three large volumes, each of whom has a special meaning with a cruciform
distribution. The first volume input surprised by its dramatic form of parallelepiped with openings,
this place is called House and houses the exhibition halls.

This place is a passage that refers to the martyrdom and the importance of public space and the
absolute nature of the crime, the interior of this place is compressed and illuminated by triangular
skylights, where one is faced with a displacement volume that contains the vertical volume entry and
its functions.

The second volume is one long blind room called the way characterized by a series of dimly lit
corridors superimposed from above.

Inside, after passing the narrow passage of the entrance are two overlapping paths illuminated by a
crack on the cover, repeated on the floor the first floor that results in high variability of the
brightness, the route is slightly downhill, symbolizes the interrupted way in the life of Felix
Nussbaum.

The present exhibition rooms features a rectangular maze, where are triangular volumes that house
the library and the bodies of the stairs of which are well calculated distortions of perspective, subtle
and oblique openings that interrupt the regularity of the walls and also modulate the light and bright
interior with unexpected ground inclinations.

The third volume is the bridge that connects the new building with the existing museum, this place
is divided into two levels, here are alternate simple geometry symbolic spaces, where the initial
sense of lost and conceptualize the abstract originally projective approach dissolve in the physical
experience of architectural space.

Triangular center consisting of these three volumes is a small and quiet courtyard open at one side
through the thin crack formed by the volume of the bridge, which seems almost touch the ground.

Structure and Materials

The structure is made entirely in concrete, without coatings in the path, the area of exhibition halls
known as the house is externally covered with wood and the bridge has an outer coating of zinc.
(The Wohl Centre - Libeskind.htm)

Eli Golding The Wohl Centre

Status: Completed

Client :Bar-Ilan University Maurice Wohl Foundation

Building Size :38,000sq.ft1000Seating

Description

In this major expansion to the Bar-Ilan University Campus in Ramat-Gan, Israel, Studio
Libeskind gives visual form to the concept of `voices and `echoes as symbols of Bar-Ilans
essential qualityrespect for the secular and the sacred.

The building is made up of an open book perched on top of two horizontal walls like the
spine of a book. The book-like form holds a 1000-seat auditorium, which is acoustically
suitable for musical performances and lectures. The auditorium lighting on the ceiling is a
labyrinth of Hebrew letters. The interior spaces are bright and clean spaces. Flexible ground
level rooms hold seminar and meeting rooms for more than 400 people and accommodate
large group events.

As described by RIBA, Another bravura performance from Libeskind brings scale, humanity
and sense of new possibilities to an otherwise workaday university campus. Clearly built to a
budget, the building makes a virtue of stark surfaces and uncluttered interiors, and a simple
programmea convention centreis imbued with enigma and a sense of the numinous.

For the 38,000-square-foot convention center, which stands at a highly visible crossroads in
the campus, the Studio worked with Ortam-Sahar ltd. The project was generously funded by
Maurice Wohl.
Victoria and Albert Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Victoria and Albert Museum

Entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum

Location within Central London

Established 1852; 165 years ago

Cromwell Road
Location London, SW7
United Kingdom

Coordinates 512948N 01019W

Collection size 2,278,183 items in 145 galleries

Visitors
3,432,325 (2015)[1]

Ranked 6th nationally (2015)[1]

Director Tristram Hunt[3]

Public transit
South Kensington
access

Website vam.ac.uk

In 2000, an 11-metre high, blown glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly was installed as a focal point in the
rotunda at the V&A's main entrance.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A), London, is the world's
largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over
4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert. The V&A is located in the Brompton district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and
Chelsea, in an area that has become known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with
Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial and the major cultural institutions with which he was
associated. These include the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Royal
Albert Hall. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport. Like other national British museums, entrance to the museum
has been free since 2001.

The V&A covers 12.5 acres (5.1 ha)[4] and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art,
from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and
North Africa. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewellery,
furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs
are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world. The museum owns the world's
largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items
being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China,
Japan, Korea and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe,
with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst
the largest in the Western world. Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world.
Since 2001, the museum has embarked on a major 150m renovation programme, [5] which
has seen a major overhaul of the departments, including the introduction of newer galleries,
gardens, shops and visitor facilities.

New 17th- and 18th-century European galleries were opened on 9 December 2015. These
restored the original Aston Webb interiors and host the European collections 16001815

Architecture of the museum

The Ceramic Staircase, designed by Frank Moody

Victorian period

The Victorian parts of the building have a complex history, with piecemeal additions by
different architects. Founded in May 1852, it was not until 1857 that the museum moved to
the present site. This area of London was known as Brompton but had been renamed South
Kensington. The land was occupied by Brompton Park House, which was extended, most
notably by the "Brompton Boilers",[40] which were starkly utilitarian iron galleries with a
temporary look and were later dismantled and used to build the V&A Museum of Childhood.
The first building to be erected that still forms part of the museum was the Sheepshanks
Gallery in 1857 on the eastern side of the garden. [41] Its architect was civil engineer Captain
Francis Fowke, Royal Engineers, who was appointed by Cole.[42] The next major expansions
were designed by the same architect, the Turner and Vernon galleries built in 185859 [43] to
house the eponymous collections (later transferred to the Tate Gallery) and now used as the
picture galleries and tapestry gallery respectively. The North [44] and South Courts[45] were
then built, both of which opened by June 1862. They now form the galleries for temporary
exhibitions and are directly behind the Sheepshanks Gallery. On the very northern edge of
the site is situated the Secretariat Wing; [46] also built in 1862, this houses the offices and
board room etc. and is not open to the public.

The mosaic in the pediment of the North Faade, designed by Godfrey Sykes
An ambitious scheme of decoration was developed for these new areas: a series of mosaic
figures depicting famous European artists of the Medieval and Renaissance period. [47] These
have now been removed to other areas of the museum. Also started were a series of
frescoes by Lord Leighton: Industrial Arts as Applied to War 18781880 and Industrial Arts
Applied to Peace, which was started but never finished.[48] To the east of this were additional
galleries, the decoration of which was the work of another designer Owen Jones; these were
the Oriental Courts (covering India, China and Japan), completed in 1863. None of this
decoration survives.[49] Part of these galleries became the new galleries covering the 19th
century, opened in December 2006. The last work by Fowke was the design for the range of
buildings on the north and west sides of the garden. This includes the refreshment rooms,
reinstated as the Museum Caf in 2006, with the silver gallery above (at the time the
ceramics gallery); the top floor has a splendid lecture theatre, although this is seldom open
to the general public. The ceramic staircase in the northwest corner of this range of buildings
was designed by F. W. Moody[50] and has architectural details of moulded and coloured
pottery. All the work on the north range was designed and built in 186469. The style
adopted for this part of the museum was Italian Renaissance; much use was made of
terracotta, brick and mosaic. This north faade was intended as the main entrance to the
museum, with its bronze doors, designed by James Gamble and Reuben Townroe, having six
panels, depicting Humphry Davy (chemistry); Isaac Newton (astronomy); James Watt
(mechanics); Bramante (architecture); Michelangelo (sculpture); and Titian (painting); The
panels thus represent the range of the museum's collections. [51] Godfrey Sykes also designed
the terracotta embellishments and the mosaic in the pediment of the North Faade
commemorating the Great Exhibition, the profits from which helped to fund the museum.
This is flanked by terracotta statue groups by Percival Ball.[52] This building replaced
Brompton Park House, which could then be demolished to make way for the south range.

Dorchester House fireplace, by Alfred Stevens, the Centre Refreshment Room

The interiors of the three refreshment rooms were assigned to different designers. The
Green Dining Room (186668) was the work of Philip Webb and William Morris,[53] and
displays Elizabethan influences. The lower part of the walls are panelled in wood with a band
of paintings depicting fruit and the occasional figure, with moulded plaster foliage on the
main part of the wall and a plaster frieze around the decorated ceiling and stained-glass
windows by Edward Burne-Jones.[54] The Centre Refreshment Room (186577) was designed
in a Renaissance style by James Gamble. [55] The walls and even the Ionic columns in this
room are covered in decorative and moulded ceramic tile, the ceiling consists of elaborate
designs on enamelled metal sheets and matching stained-glass windows, and the marble
fireplace[56] was designed and sculpted by Alfred Stevens and was removed from Dorchester
House prior to that building's demolition in 1929. The Grill Room (187681) was designed by
Sir Edward Poynter;[57] the lower part of its walls consist of blue and white tiles with various
figures and foliage enclosed by wood panelling, while above there are large tiled scenes with
figures depicting the four seasons and the twelve months, painted by ladies from the Art
School then based in the museum. The windows are also stained glass; there is an elaborate
cast-iron grill still in place.

With the death of Captain Francis Fowke of the Royal Engineers, the next architect to work
at the museum was Colonel (later Major General) Henry Young Darracott Scott,[58] also of the
Royal Engineers. He designed to the north west of the garden the five-storey School for
Naval Architects (also known as the science schools), [59] now the Henry Cole Wing, in 1867
72. Scott's assistant J. W. Wild designed the impressive staircase[60] that rises the full height
of the building. Made from Cadeby stone, the steps are 7 feet (2.1 m) in length, while the
balustrades and columns are Portland stone. It is now used to jointly house the prints and
architectural drawings of the V&A (prints, drawings, paintings and photographs) and Royal
Institute of British Architects (RIBA Drawings and Archives Collections), and the Sackler
Centre for arts education, which opened in 2008.[61]

Details of the main entrance

Continuing the style of the earlier buildings, various designers were responsible for the
decoration. The terracotta embellishments were again the work of Godfrey Sykes, although
sgraffito was used to decorate the east side of the building designed by F. W. Moody. [62] A
final embellishment was the wrought iron gates made as late as 1885 designed by Starkie
Gardner.[63] These lead to a passage through the building. Scott also designed the two Cast
Courts (187073)[64] to the southeast of the garden (the site of the "Brompton Boilers");
these vast spaces have ceilings 70 feet (21 m) in height to accommodate the plaster casts of
parts of famous buildings, including Trajan's Column (in two separate pieces). The final part
of the museum designed by Scott was the Art Library and what is now the sculpture gallery
on the south side of the garden, built in 187783. [65] The exterior mosaic panels in the
parapet were designed by Reuben Townroe, who also designed the plaster work in the
library.[66] Sir John Taylor designed the book shelves and cases. [66] This was the first part of
the museum to have electric lighting. [67] This completed the northern half of the site,
creating a quadrangle with the garden at its centre, but left the museum without a proper
faade. In 1890 the government launched a competition to design new buildings for the
museum, with architect Alfred Waterhouse as one of the judges;[68] this would give the
museum a new imposing front entrance.
Edwardian period

The main faade, built from red brick and Portland stone, stretches 720 feet (220 m) along
Cromwell Gardens and was designed by Aston Webb after winning a competition in 1891 to
extend the museum. Construction took place between 1899 and 1909. [69] Stylistically it is a
strange hybrid: although much of the detail belongs to the Renaissance, there are medieval
influences at work. The main entrance, consisting of a series of shallow arches supported by
slender columns and niches with twin doors separated by pier, is Romanesque in form but
Classical in detail. Likewise the tower above the main entrance has an open work crown
surmounted by a statue of fame, [70] a feature of late Gothic architecture and a feature
common in Scotland, but the detail is Classical. The main windows to the galleries are also
mullioned and transomed, again a Gothic feature; the top row of windows are interspersed
with statues of many of the British artists whose work is displayed in the museum.

Prince Albert appears within the main arch above the twin entrances, and Queen Victoria
above the frame around the arches and entrance, sculpted by Alfred Drury. These faades
surround four levels of galleries. Other areas designed by Webb include the Entrance Hall
and Rotunda, the East and West Halls, the areas occupied by the shop and Asian Galleries,
and the Costume Gallery. The interior makes much use of marble in the entrance hall and
flanking staircases, although the galleries as originally designed were white with restrained
classical detail and mouldings, very much in contrast to the elaborate decoration of the
Victorian galleries, although much of this decoration was removed in the early 20th century.
[71]

North side of Garden, by Captain Francis Fowke, Royal Engineers 186469

Western Cast Court, by Henry Young Darracott Scott 187073

The Art Library, by Scott and other designers 187783

Main Entrance, by Aston Webb 18991909

Post-war period

Bomb damage on the exhibition road facade

The Museum survived the Second World War with only minor bomb damage. The worst loss
was the Victorian stained glass on the Ceramics Staircase, which was blown in when bombs
fell nearby; pockmarks still visible on the faade of the museum were caused by fragments
from the bombs.

In the immediate post-war years there was little money available for other than essential
repairs. The 1950s and early 1960s saw little in the way of building work; the first major
work was the creation of new storage space for books in the Art Library in 1966 and 1967.
This involved flooring over Aston Webb's main hall to form the book stacks, [72] with a new
medieval gallery on the ground floor (now the shop, opened in 2006). Then the lower
ground-floor galleries in the south-west part of the museum were redesigned, opening in
1978 to form the new galleries covering Continental art 16001800 (late Renaissance,
Baroque through Rococo and neo-Classical).[73] In 1974 the museum had acquired what is
now the Henry Cole wing from the Royal College of Science.[74] To adapt the building as
galleries, all the Victorian interiors except for the staircase were recast during the
remodelling. To link this to the rest of the museum, a new entrance building was constructed
on the site of the former boiler house, the intended site of the Spiral, between 1978 and
1982.[75] This building is of concrete and very functional, the only embellishment being the
iron gates by Christopher Hay and Douglas Coyne of the Royal College of Art. [75] These are set
in the columned screen wall designed by Aston Webb that forms the faade.

Recent years

A few galleries were redesigned in the 1990s including the Indian, Japanese, Chinese, iron
work, the main glass galleries, and the main silverware gallery, which was further enhanced
in 2002 when some of the Victorian decoration was recreated. This included two of the ten
columns having their ceramic decoration replaced and the elaborate painted designs
restored on the ceiling. As part of the 2006 renovation the mosaic floors in the sculpture
gallery were restoredmost of the Victorian floors were covered in linoleum after the
Second World War. After the success of the British Galleries, opened in 2001, it was decided
to embark on a major redesign of all the galleries in the museum; this is known as
"FuturePlan", and was created in consultation with the exhibition designers and
masterplanners Metaphor. The plan is expected to take about ten years and was started in
2002. To date several galleries have been redesigned, notably, in 2002: the main Silver
Gallery, Contemporary; in 2003: Photography, the main entrance, The Painting Galleries; in
2004: the tunnel to the subway leading to South Kensington tube station, new signage
throughout the museum, architecture, V&A and RIBA reading rooms and stores, metalware,
Members' Room, contemporary glass, and the Gilbert Bayes sculpture gallery; in 2005:
portrait miniatures, prints and drawings, displays in Room 117, the garden, sacred silver and
stained glass; in 2006: Central Hall Shop, Islamic Middle East, the new caf, and sculpture
galleries. Several designers and architects have been involved in this work. Eva Jiin
designed the enhancements to the main entrance and rotunda, the new shop, the tunnel
and the sculpture galleries. Gareth Hoskins was responsible for contemporary and
architecture, Softroom, Islamic Middle East and the Members' Room, McInnes Usher
McKnight Architects (MUMA) were responsible for the new Cafe and designed the new
Medieval and Renaissance galleries which opened in 2009.[76]

In September 2004, the museum's board of trustees voted to abandon a proposed

In 2011 the V&A announced that London-based practice AL A had won an international
competition to construct a gallery beneath a new entrance courtyard on Exhibition Road. [78]
Planning for the scheme was granted in 2012.[79]

Garden

The John Madejski Garden, opened in 2005

The central garden was redesigned by Kim Wilkie and opened as the John Madejski Garden
on 5 July 2005. The design is a subtle blend of the traditional and modern: the layout is
formal; there is an elliptical water feature lined in stone with steps around the edge which
may be drained to use the area for receptions, gatherings or exhibition purposes. This is in
front of the bronze doors leading to the refreshment rooms. A central path flanked by lawns
leads to the sculpture gallery. The north, east and west sides have herbaceous borders along
the museum walls with paths in front which continues along the south faade. In the two
corners by the north faade there is planted an American Sweetgum tree. The southern,
eastern and western edges of the lawns have glass planters which contain orange and lemon
trees in summer, which are replaced by bay trees in winter.

At night both the planters and water feature may be illuminated, and the surrounding
faades lit to reveal details normally in shadow. Especially noticeable are the mosaics in the
loggia of the north faade. In summer a caf is set up in the south west corner. The garden is
also used for temporary exhibits of sculpture; for example, a sculpture by Jeff Koons was
shown in 2006. It has also played host to the museum's annual contemporary design
showcase, the V&A Village Fete, since 2005.