Museums For A New Millennium: Concepts, Projects, Buildings

Architectural Review, The, May, 2000 by Michael Brawne

By Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani & Angeli Sachs. Munich: Prestel. 999. [pounds]39.95

That there should be a coupling of museums and the millennium is hardly surprising; after all, a great many museums have dealt with previous millennia for at least three hundred years. The implication of the title, however, suggests that museums in the third millennium will have new and different qualities.

The book consists of an introduction by Lampugnani and an essay by von Moos, followed by statements from three artists which are in some ways the most revealing part of the discussion. This text is intended to set the scene for the pictorial section of the book consisting of 25 museums of art illustrated through photographs, architectural drawings, and accompanied by a description and occasionally an analytical text, each by a different author. The museums ate arranged in chronological order of the inception of the design, from Norman Foster's Carre d'Art in Nimes of 1984 to Zaha Hadid's project for a Contemporary Art Centre in Cincinnati, Ohio, of 1998. The selection Implies that these are the architecturally most significant museums of the last decade.

As neither the introduction nor the individual descriptions suggest an observable trend, it Is difficult to decide whether this set of buildings is indicative of the future or merely a record of the most recent designs. It might be argued that as long as art is consciously made to be displayed and viewed, there may not be any dramatic changes in the spaces that house it. The same could not be said about museums showing dinosaurs or space capsules.

To look into the future would require speculation or extrapolation. It might also need consultation with museum directors, and a wider range of artists than the three whose short contributions appear in this volume, So it is not surprising that the most discernible theme is the argument as to how subdued architecture should be in relation to the art on display. This seems certain to be as inconclusive as the debate whether words or music should have supremacy in opera. Perhaps the wisest words in the book are by Ulrich Maximilian Schumann in his piece on Ungers's Gallery of Contemporary Art in Hamburg: 'Briefly put, a museum is always a museum of architecture as well'.