Just as Botta rejects the classical orders in favor of a more conceptual interpretation of historicism, it has become more and more common for architects to reject the notion of traditional or conventional types and models. Many 21st century architects challenge us to discover new meanings of beauty and to value the way in which new technology creates non-traditional or non-established form. Architects now are beginning to ask why new technology should be inserted into an historic architectural container. Why recall historic form? Every new technical idea offers the opportunity to question our perception of aesthetics and to rethink the fundamentals of architectural theory. It is with this sagacity that Salvatore Calatrava fully explores the potentials of new technology in the $122 million Quadracci Pavilion addition at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The addition was named the number one design of 2001 by Time Magazine. To the Spanish-born Calatrava, the 20th century cliché “think outside of the box” is passé….he forces us to ask if the box even still exists. (Go to Photo Gallery at http://www.mam.org/site/buildingfuture.asp for images.)

In buildings, mechanical systems constantly respond to climatic changes, number of people in the building, heat and fumes, etc. The cost of mechanical systems far exceeds the cost of architectural features. For example, in the interior alteration of a building, the electrical contractors’ bills often will be ten times higher than the suppliers of wall partitions or hung ceilings. Yet, we usually hide the expensive systems on rooftops, within partitions, or in mechanical closets. Rather than hiding mechanical systems, Calatrava explores and exposes engineering technology and building mechanics to create a building exterior and interior that is a piece of sculpture, a thing of beauty. Here, beauty, proportion, and intrinsic ornamentation are found in the repetition of steel cables, bolts, rotating spines, and welded plates.

This concept is similar to that of the anti-architectural images conceived by Renzo Piano and Richard Roger’s Pompidou Centre de Paris built in 1974. Here, the ornamentation of exposed mechanical tubes, ducts, and elevators placed the Pompidou Center in a new tradition and typology: that of the 1960s Futurist revival advocated by Archigram, a group of English architects. (Go to http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Centre_Pompidou.html) Perhaps the Pompidou Centre would not have been conceivable without the legacy of Archigram. The vision of Piano and Rogers seems to have influenced Calatrava as well-- the vision to imagine the building as a dynamic machine that celebrates and symbolizes the reality of current technology. Yet Calatrava takes the vision one step further. Rather than designing a box to display mechanics as ornament; the mechanics merge with the interior and exterior to develop a unified form that also symbolizes the surrounding environment.

The 217-foot wide brise-soleil, set atop of the museum’s glass enclosed reception area, opens like the wings of a swan. Visitors can even see the building mechanics as they respond to the climate. The fins of the structure control the temperature and light in the reception hall. The brise-soleil takes about 4 minutes to open and close; it will close automatically when sensors detect excessive wind speed. This is a powerfully visual event that celebrates material technology, a kinetic fusion of sculpture, architecture, and engineering that makes the art museum a symbolic icon of the city of Milwaukee.

. Notably, Calatrava’s academic background includes degrees in fine art and architecture and his building designs are inspired by his figurative gesture drawings. Additionally, Calatrava earned a doctoral degree in engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1981. His thesis was entitled the “Foldability of Spaceframes.” Calatrava is the preeminent bridge designer of our times. He emphasizes the importance of a primary structure, such as the brise-soleil, that defines the building’s exterior and interior form. A formal language of skeletal organic images perhaps is influenced by his Spanish predecessor, the early 20th century Art Nouveau architect and designer Antonio Gaudi. Calatrava’s work seems to recall Gaudi,'s organic building typology that employs open structures and avoids established forms. A similarity of skeletal form is evidenced when comparing the structural piers of the museum’s parking lot with the neo-gothic structure of Gaudi’s Casa Batllo. Even the splayed supports of Calatrava’s display cabinets in the museum gallery recall the bone-like supports of Gaudi’s furniture. (Go to http://www.netreach.net/~trishy/travels/battlo_in.html for images.)

Naturally, Calatrava is now a household name in Milwaukee. On the other hand, Calatrava’s museum addition is not without controversy. To the eyes of many community members, the building is not beautiful nor is it symbolic of the community. To them, the building seems too unworldly, an audacious contrivance in white steel and concrete modernism that doesn’t relate to the vernacular technology of Milwaukee. To some the brise-soliel is perceived as frivolous and too expensive to maintain; yet, the higher cost of upkeep has been outweighed by the increases in museum attendance and membership.

Most complaints are that the addition has very little art in it and very little gallery space for art. For example, only 12,000 square feet of its 142,000 square feet is devoted to gallery space, with the rest going to public spaces like the reception hall and gallery shop. One should counter this complaint by realizing that the public spaces could easily be implemented into temporary galleries for performance or conceptual works. This idea is reflected in the words of architect Zaha Hadid. Hadid has currently completed the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati (2003). Unlike many art museums, the new Cincinnati Center will not house a permanent collection. Rather, the center will present temporary exhibits ranging from urban scale objects to the intimate experience of video. In an interview with the curator of the museum, Hadid admits that she loves painting, but claims that the idea of art has changed from painting to conceptual pieces, temporary and performance exhibits, video, light, etc., and that gallery spaces will not be defined by the need for walls on which to hang pictures. Hadid states that “Given a program for an institution that exhibits contemporary art, we can and should get away from the box, from ninety degree angles. Put it another way: Recent art practice has invented various shifts in perception, identity, and social behavior. How can an architect use those shifts to engender a new space for art practice…?” Perhaps Calatrava’s newly created interior spaces also will confront this new practice of art production in an attempt to conceive of a new museum or gallery? (Go to http://www.spiral.org/oldsite/zahainterview.html for complete Zaha Hadid interview.)

In the same vain, critics argue that Calatrava’s form seems aloof and that the multiplicities of functions that will take place in the space are not reflections of the form and technology of the building. They wonder if the museum addition concept is so strong that it creates a problem of symbiosis with the works of art that are to be exhibited. It however might be suggested in reply that the new space and technology creates a means of emotional complicity that frees the visitor allowing her to face the diverse and intellectual experiences that art proposes.

But, Calatrava’s assigned goal was not to give the museum more gallery space; it was to give the museum a new symbolic identity in the community by unifying and updating the existing buildings of the museum that included a concrete modernist war memorial and art gallery built by Eero Saarinen. Calatrava turned the public spaces in the older building into new gallery spaces. Then, in his new addition, he kept to the program and created a grand civic space that provides the new image for the museum—and what an image it is! Here, art, architecture, and technology are combined to evocate the meaning, emotion, and sense of place perhaps felt when entering a cathedral.

From within, window views of the lake remind visitors that they are in Milwaukee. Calatrava keeps the building low so as not to block the view of Lake Michigan. The building is epic in seafaring imagery—masts, sails, planks, birds, flowing interior walls—that further connect the building and human response to the lake. The pedestrian walk is the swan’s neck that graciously reaches across Lincoln Memorial Drive into the city. Just as the colonnade that forms the piazza at St. Peters in Rome reaches out from the cathedral in a symbolic community embrace, the walkway connects to the community extending an open invitation to all. The walk is supported and suspended by a 200 foot tall angled mast and cables that further articulate the building detail. Without a doubt, Calatrava successfully combines the design concept with technology. The addition is a dramatic symbol that now is part of a carefully conceived whole.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Center for Contemporary Art in Vassiviere, and Quadracci Pavilion addition at the Milwaukee Art Museum demonstrate how communities use museums to provide a socio-economic and aesthetic symbol. One development that seems certain is that one of the greatest creative promises for architecture and interior architecture in the near future is in the field of museum design. It seems to be that in some examples the building’s architecture and technology is a strong community symbol and that perhaps the symbolic value of the container is becoming more important than the collections held within

We now should ask how these public spaces provide the principle that material technology will reflect more than a footnote in architectural history or more than an award from Time Magazine. What are these building telling us about ourselves and our worldview? How should we interpret Calatrava’s use of technology in the Milwaukee Art Museum as symbolic of the collective thought and imagination of our time? An extremely important new millennium trend is the merging of boundaries and the challenge to find innovative ways to combine disciplines to make a whole. The Milwaukee Art Museum exemplifies this cultural meaning and the merging of borders between function, art, architecture, and technology. Will Calatrava’s addition instigate and further merge boundaries by inspiring more and more collaborative work between artists, musicians, poets, filmmakers, and other professions. Will the Milwaukee Museum of Art become the Brooklyn Bridge of the new millennium? Bibliography

Adjmi, M. (Ed.). (1991). Aldo Rossi: Architecture 1981 – 1991. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
Desmarais, C. (2003). New Building: an interview with Zaha Hadid. (On-Line). The Contemporary Arts Center Website.
Kamin, B. (2002). Sanitago Calatrava marries sculpture and structure, and molds a new identity for the Milwaukee Art Museum, his first building in the United States. Architectural Record, 03.2002., 93-105
Schlereth, T.J. (Ed.). (1982). Material Culture Studies in America. Nashville: AASLH Press.