BC and I headed over to the park today to check out the new deYoung Museum, the outside, that is–we’re going to preview the inside on Thursday afternoon. I’ve been hesitant to embrace it because the previous grouping of the old deYoung, the Academy of Sciences, and the bandshell created one of the most harmonious public spaces in the city. Now the Academy is just a big pile of dirt, but the Renzo Piano design looks like it will relate quite splendidly to the new deYoung, although the bandshell is going to look kind of silly all by itself and with completely no more relation to the other buildings. My other apprehension was about the tower. I felt like the only reason Herzog and de Meuron created a tower was because the old structure had a tower. The tower was smack dab in the middle of the previous building, and echoed, emphasized, and grounded the formal qualities of the site. The new tower is off to the back and side, and twists, seemingly with no reason or relation to anything. Well, I let myself be seduced by the building. It has a skin of copper panels that have been perforated here and there, and with convex and concave circles creating a relief of patina and shadow. There is no repeating pattern, and the whole building reads as if it were sculpted to interact with light and the weather. The flat front of the building gives way to a landscape in the rear of berms and wooded hillocks, and the twisted helix of the tower. The top of the tower twists away from the base so that the upper part is aligned parallel to the surrounding street grid, thus bringing the city into relation with the building. The whole site reads like a Mayan temple, if the Maya had settled down in Silicon Valley and invented the microchip instead of us. I’ve let go of my desire for harmony and completely embrace the dynamic interaction with the elements and stimulation of the eye and mind. Yippee that we’ve finally attracted some major architecture to our little town.
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One enters the museum by following a meandering crack made by Andy Goldsworthy in the stone walkway in the front of the building that leads to an open inner courtyard and is interrupted here and there by large flat stones that are also cracked, and that continue the line. BC felt compelled to interact more personally with Goldsworthy’s sculpture, and created an impromptu performance piece with the working titled Untitled/Crack.