Content area
Full Text
A great many Modern-art spaces are contained in highly expressive Modern architecture. So why, Brad Cloepfil, AIA, asked himself, "was the romantic notion that contemporary art can only be inspired by--and presented in--found space so resilient?" His own dissatisfaction, which parallels that of many artists, is that too much museum architecture "intends to be the subject" of the experience, "and keeps reiterating its own ideas at every level and at every moment." For the young, scrappy Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, he chose what could be a more daring course by designing less a building than a "vessel"--one that "prepares the ground" for the experience of art.
Cloepfil, the principal of Allied Works, of Portland, Oregon, does not know precisely what he is preparing the visitor for. The St. Louis Contemporary, like a number of such institutions, doesn't have a collection and doesn't intend to obtain one. Similarly, its director, Paul Ha, has a good idea of the kinds of artists and trends he wants to showcase, but much of what he most wants to exhibit "has not even been made yet."
Such a strategy does not make the architect's job easy. "We didn't want a precious-object place," explained Betsy Millard, Ha's predecessor, who was director during design and much of construction of the new building. "We talked a lot about warehouse space with Sheetrock. We know that works. But will the art of today look good in another kind of space?"
Actually, the 27,000-square-foot project's $6.5 million construction budget did not permit much that was precious at all. But it's a big step up from the leftover spaces that the Contemporary has occupied since its founding in 1981. As long as seven years ago, the institution began planning for a permanent home. It had forged ties with the Pulitzer Foundation, whose leader, Emily Pulitzer, had enlisted Tadao Ando to erect a combination of think-tank place and exhibition space for the foundation in the Grand Center cultural district....