I'm with ya. Here's another one of their buildings:



Blech. If that's what we're getting, why even bother to knock down the YSC?

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The Barnes is a gallery, not, repeat NOT, a house.

Skirkanich Hall doesn't work half as well as Saffron says it does IMO, though I grant the photo may not do it justice. But I don't share the low opinion of the other two buildings expressed here. While both are definitely High Modernist in form, they are as different from each other in composition and details as they are from Skirkanich. The Neurosciences Institute IMO possesses a certain serenity about it and at least looks like it responds to its setting as well as Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater does its.

There is a certain rusticated quality to the materials used in the Folk Art Museum that IMO softens the mass of the box a bit. Look at what's behind the building and the geometry of the trees on its site to see how it fits into its environment (Skirkanich, OTOH, tramples on its environment). And the interior spaces of the Folk Art Museum, IMO, are anything but cold and unwelcoming, IMO -- there are all sorts of interesting complements and contrasts of form and void going on inside, and except for that claustrophobic stairway that leads to the fifth floor, those forms and voids are interesting to look at -- warm, even, though in a Modernist way.

Even Skirkanich, though, possesses none of the Look-At-Me! showiness of Frank Gehry's structures. Gehry would have been all wrong for the Barnes project; his building would have paid little heed to its natural environs -- garden? what garden? -- and it would have upstaged the artworks in it, something Cret's building most emphatically does not do.

What I find potentially exciting about the choice of the architects is that they seem to understand the most unusual requirements of their commission: Replicate a singular artistic philosophy, vision and structural organization within the shell of a newer, larger building designed to handle bigger crowds and ancillary activities. (Did you see where the article noted that the new Barnes will have classrooms where the present gallery has none?) I see that that charge to replicate the original gallery even extends to incorporating some sort of garden landscape into the new structure, at least if I read the architects' comments correctly.

I think there was a good reason for the architects not to present sketches of an actual building: It would have been too limiting. Of course, they will ultimately produce one. But what's more important is that they reproduce an idea first.

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I'd like to see what's around this building before trashing it. I at least see the architects quoting a desert color palette and and hinting at traditional Southwestern forms and building materials in this structure.

Edited to add: A chacun son gout, but apparently the trustees of the Phoenix Art Museum also don't share this low opinion of Williams and Tsien. Their new building is a repeat commission for the duo, who designed an addition to the old Phoenix Art Museum ten years ago.

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Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

Ugh, here's another masterpiece by Dull and Duller:



Drexel's campus must be the palace of Versailles to these people.

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I understand your reasoning but I would have loved Philadelphia to unveil an unbelievable Look-At-Me type of building. We have enough understated architecture in this city. We should have had Gehry build his jaw dropping Los Angeles Disney concert hall on Broad instead of the Kimmel. Then I would feel better about and understated Barnes.

I LOATH Skirkanich Hall. But it all fits with my view of Saffron who
loves it; I can't stand much of what she has to say either.

Hummm. So its not just me who thinks Saffron likes ugly buildings. Lets hope the people planning the new Barns ignore her. There is really no reason why it should not look like its current home.

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Lyndon Johnson in 1960 explained the appeal of racial demagogy: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

I don't disagree that Lower Merion/Latches Lane residents wanted to keep "outsiders" out; I just don't think that the potential race of those outsiders was the issue.

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Come on this is Phillyblog! We have race issues when we go to pick up a pizza at Papa John's.

Woah, Noodles! Context is the reason why! It can/should/WILL look like that INSIDE but not the exterior. Yikes...

Shouldn't this thread be moved to the Architecture section?