Feature

After Bilbao, the Deluge

How well do the newest “destination museums” work?

By Rachel Wolff
Published Nov 29, 2007

The Milwaukee Art Museum

(Photo: Timothy Hursley/Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum)

SANTIAGO CALATRAVA
Milwaukee Art Museum, 2001
The Building: “Winged Victory,” said one critic of the avian edifice with a 217-foot wingspan.
The Art: The Georgia O’Keeffe inaugural show was well attended, but as Paul Goldberger wrote, “[Calatrava] has designed a spectacular building that has nothing to do with the display of art and everything to do with getting crowds to come to the museum.”

(Photo: Roland Halbe/Courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center)

ZAHA HADID
Contemporary Arts Center, 2003 (Cincinnati)
The Building: “The most important American building to be completed since the end of the Cold War,” raved the Times.
The Art: “Somewhere Better Than This Place,” the largely audio-visual inaugural show, was praised for the ease with which it complemented the circulatory interiors, save for a few acoustic concerns.

(Photo: Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

JACQUES HERZOG AND PIERRE DE MEURON
M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 2005 (San Francisco)
The Building: Earned praise for its copper-“skinned” futuristic shell (“DeLovely,” per one critic). But some locals have called it “Star Destroyer.”
The Art: Business as usual: a Jasper Johns survey from the permanent collection and an American photography show kept all eyes on the building.

(Photo: Ed Reeve/Courtesy of the MCA Denver)

DAVID ADJAYE
Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, October 2007
The Building: Hailed for its cool use of cheap materials, it may become the first American museum with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification.
The Art: “Star Power: Museum As Body Electric” confirmed fears that Adjaye’s divvying up of the exhibition space by medium could prove curatorially tricky.

(Photo: Courtesy of Museo Nacional del Prado)

RAFAEL MONEO
Museo del Prado expansion, October 2007 (Madrid)
The Building: Much like Renzo Piano’s addition to the Morgan, Moneo’s $219 million extension has been praised for enhancing the original structure and freeing up space for art.
The Art: Well, it is the Prado—the more room for its holdings (like those in “The Nineteenth Century in the Prado,” the inaugural show), the better.