Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A Museum of Living Architecture PDF
A Museum of Living Architecture PDF
THOMAS LESLIE
A Museum of Living
Iowa State University
Architecture
Continuity and Contradiction at the
Des Moines Art Center
This paper explores the design and construction of the Des Moines Art Center, revealing a set of
distinct approaches to both architectural design and the preservation and extension of existing
though not yet historic work. Three architects, Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and Richard Meier, designed
the center in three separate phases. Each of these projects had to take the existing fabric of land-
scape and building into account, and each adopted startlingly distinctive methods for both pre-
serving and extending the work of their predecessors. The resulting museum, seen as a place for
experiencing and making art, and as a record of architectural strategies, forms a unique opportu-
nity for investigation of and reflection upon attitudes toward renovation, preservation, extension,
and alteration of recently completed work.
Three distinct but interwoven buildings form the two invigorating departures from the rigorous logic projects demand an almost curatorial assessment
Des Moines Art Center, the most important visual of Saarinen’s original design, form a provocative before the work’s canonization or ultimate rejec-
arts institution in Iowa and one of the leading mid- pair of commentaries in how extensions to existing, tion; one runs the risk of either demolishing what
sized museums of the Midwest (Figure 1). The historic, even iconic, buildings can reinterpret, en- eventually may be seen as truly valuable or of
original structure, finished in 1947, is among the hance, extend, and/or diminish their experience and enshrining what comes to be seen as obsolete or
finer works of Eliel and Eero Saarinen; on its own constructed meaning. out of fashion.
this low, flat-roofed building of regional limestone, These built essays also touch on the inherent Working with this particularly recent past
steel, and glass is one of Iowa’s most important risks and rewards of projects involving renovations, could well demand an approach that is at once
buildings. Twenty years later, however, the original alterations, and extensions to such historic build- intimate and distant, one that makes a clear
wing was expanded by I.M. Pei, who designed ings, particularly those whose legacy, at the time of statement of temporal, technical, and stylistic dis-
a bold pavilion in which the siting, materials, and the new work, is either uncertain or at least not fully tinction with the original. This complex approach
composition intentionally departed from much of developed. The inherent responsibilities of working simultaneously acknowledges the tenets of the
the original building’s logic; yet, it is generally with an inarguably historic building are onerous original that have either proven themselves or that
acknowledged to have enriched and strengthened enough; working with a building whose historic the new designer suspects (or, perhaps, deeply
the original. Less than twenty years after Pei’s value is merely suggested but not yet defined by hopes) will come to be seen as timeless. Such
addition, Richard Meier designed a second major legislation or critical acclaim has additional pitfalls. a design method would suggest a full, curatorial
new wing; this extension again offered an entirely Designers surely have some responsibility in these understanding that might well come with a reno-
new set of formal, spatial, and material decisions, cases to attempt the daunting task of seeing their vation of a more certainly ‘‘historic’’ structure, but
but its relationship with the original has been seen field of operations as outside the context of stylistic it would likewise find itself immersed in the present,
as more problematic than Pei’s. Why this might be or intellectual fashion and to avoid simply rejecting coupling such respectful analysis with a visually,
so, why such subjective opinions are so widely the vagaries and perceived shortcomings of a pre- spatially, and technically clear break from the
shared, and the differences in approach of these vious, often parental generation. Instead, these methods and assumptions of the original. These
from pollution. The trustees of his will selected of Des Moines’ burgeoning cultural concerns. As
Greenwood Park, a hilly, wooded space two miles the design was publicized, much was made in the
west of Des Moines’ smoky downtown.1 Saarinen local press of its usefulness and its lack of preten-
was given the commission outright, though not sion. Iowa was, at the time, hardly known as a hot-
without controversy. Since emigrating to the United bed of either artistic or architectural innovation,
States from Finland in the early 1920s, Saarinen and the trustees clearly struggled with their charge
had completed a handful of important cultural and to bring art to the provincial and rural populations
educational institutions in the region, ranging from of the state. Print ad campaigns surrounding the
the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois, to the opening took great pains to distinguish the new
main buildings at Cranbrook. More daring, however, building—‘‘Here is a building to be made use of!’’
was his unsuccessful but provocative entry for trumpeted one, paid for by the center itself, while
the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art in 1939, a local department store pointed out that the new
which attracted attention for its asymmetrical, Inter- building was ‘‘. . . not a ’Sunday afternoon show
national Style massing and bold suggestion of place,’ but an integral part of the artistic life of Des
modernist forms.2 As with his 1922 Chicago Tribune Moines.’’5 Even the name of the building—‘‘Art
Tower entry, Saarinen achieved wider publicity for Center’’ rather than ‘‘Art Museum’’—demonstrated
his second place entry than the winner, John an intent to strip away the intimidation inherent in
Russell Pope, did for a far more conservative traditional museum design.6
scheme. Saarinen, then in his seventies, thus Within this angular, meandering shape, Saari-
presented a combination of clear capability with the nen laid out the museum’s program with a deft
promise of something new. concern for both sequence and experience. To the
Saarinen’s design for the Art Center lived up to east, the education wing deployed studios and
this promise; his scheme was unusual in the United offices around a sunken courtyard. The studios
States for its quiet, unassuming presence and sim- opened up toward this court, on the north side of
ple modernist lines. Pre-war museum design in the the building, providing ample diffused daylight for
Midwest had typically assumed the monumental drawing, painting, and sculpture classes, and this
tenets were followed, largely, by Pei and Meier presence of neoclassicism in the first half of the wing was given its own distinct entrance. Diago-
in their work at the Art Center. Their designs century. Neoclassical museums were built in both nally across from this, Saarinen placed the main
provide case studies in how such a balance can be Omaha and Kansas City in the 1920s, and it was entrance, a soft, curving funnel of limestone that
struck—or, indeed, missed—and how the resulting a bold choice for Des Moines to select a scheme literally offered a welcoming gesture to arriving
interventions can engage in a dialogue across that replaced the intimidating presence of these patrons. This entrance opened to a large, double-
generations between buildings of only slightly dis- buildings with something more abstract, gentler, height gallery, the first of three that took visitors
tinct eras. and more inviting.3 Rather than crowning the mild around a second courtyard, interspersing gallery
summit of Greenwood Park with a singular monu- walls with both visual and physical access to the
ment, Saarinen elected instead to wrap the Art rose garden that struck out across the hill’s summit.
‘‘The Term Museum is Avoided’’: Center around the park’s contours, producing an Between the galleries and the education wing,
The 1947 Saarinen Wing S-shaped building that gradually enveloped arriving Saarinen located a small auditorium and the
The Des Moines Art Center was the legacy of local visitors on the site’s eastern side and that engaged museum’s administrative functions.
banker J.D. Edmundson, who left substantial funds the end of a long, axial rose garden that ran down While this unpretentious, matter-of-fact lay-
for the enterprise after his death in 1946. Angered the southern slope of the hill to the flood plain of out was criticized for its lack of formality (it has
at the city’s lack of control over polluting factories, the Des Moines River.4 always drawn pointed comparisons to an elemen-
he specified that the museum be placed not down- This informal almost casual layout echoed the tary school, and after its opening was even com-
town but on any high, smoke-free ground away progressive nature—and perhaps the insecurities— pared by residents to a ‘‘penitentiary’’), it served