I sketched a diagonal line across the trapezoid and produced two triangles. That was the beginning.
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I sketched a diagonal line across the trapezoid and produced two triangles. That was the beginning. |
| --I.M. Pei | |
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When Andrew Mellon gave the original West Building of the National Gallery of Art to the nation, he had already
anticipated the museum's eventual expansion. In a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, Mellon
specified the "Mall building space on the north between Third and Fourth Streets, NW shall be reserved for
future extensions." This stipulation in Mellon's gift was later included in the legislation establishing the
National Gallery of Art.
For many years, Mellon's claim of the adjacent "Mall building space" for the museum seemed premature. The West building opened with many of its galleries incomplete or vacant. By the mid-1960s, however, circumstances had radically changed. The museum's galleries were filled and new space was needed for large-scale, modern artworks. Mellon had chosen architect John Russell Pope, one of the leading architects of the first half of the twentieth century to design the West Building. Not surprisingly, Mellon's son Paul, looked to a forward-thinking architect of the second half of the twentieth century, I.M. Pei, to design the East Building. On June 1, 1978, the East Building was dedicated to the people of the United States. About the Artist Ieoh Ming Pei (pronounced: eeyo ming pay), the son of a banker, was born in Canton, China, and grew up in Shanghai. Pei came to America in 1935 to study architecture, first at the University of Pennsylvania, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Pei's reputation and architectural contributions are renowned worldwide. He has designed hotels, hospitals, airports, and corporate centers; some of his best known works are libraries and museums. Major museum commissions include: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, the new entrance to the Louvre in Paris, France, and most recently, the Miho Museum in the Shigaraki mountains of Japan. Stylistically, Pei is considered by many to be a modernist because of his strict adherence to geometry and the use of elementary forms, yet his architecture defies simple categorization. Working Within Limits The task facing Pei was daunting. He would have to resolve several problems concerning the building's form and function. The small trapezoidal plot reserved for the building was a difficult site for a grand museum structure. Its north side was limited by the angle created by Pennsylvania Avenue, and its south end abutted the National Mall. Building lines on both sides were restricted because the land was adjacent to the President's inaugural route. Still, the new building on its small site would need to match the monumental scale of the Mall and harmonize with the neoclassical West Building. Located at the base of Capitol Hill, the building site was a swampy patch of land where early members of Congress once paused to shoot ducks en route to the White House. By the 1960s the land was used for tennis courts and was the last undeveloped plot on the north side of the National Mall. Pei's plan for the East Building employed forms that worked with the shape of the land. Shortly after a meeting with Gallery trustees, Pei jotted down ideas about how best to fit a building into such an irregular plot. He explained, "I sketched a diagonal line across the trapezoid and produced two triangles. That was the beginning." His sketch showed an isosceles triangle that would contain the exhibition space, and a right triangle that would accommodate administrative offices, a library, and a study center for art research. The isosceles triangle ingeniously becomes the unifying motif of the building, repeated in the marble floors, steel frame and glass skylights. Even the building's hexagonal elevators, and trapezoid-shaped office desks reflect the acute and obtuse angles of the isosceles triangle. East Meets West A major function of the East Building is to display modern art to its best advantage while at the same time blending with the West Building. The West Building is in the neoclassical style characterized by balance and symmetry, having details related to ancient Greek and Roman architecture. To visually unite the buildings, Pei used the same pink Tennessee marble from the original quarry of the West Building for the East Building exterior. Marble dust was mixed with concrete to create the beautifully colored interior walls. Another unifying factor is the alignment of the East Building's main entryway along the West Building's east-west axis. The East Building is the only museum bordering the Mall that does not have an entrance directly facing the Mall. In addition to the invisible, but powerful axial link, the plaza space between the two buildings establishes a visual transition through elements such as marble paving stones and glass pyramids that reference the East Building's space frame ceiling. Pei's glass pyramids have become his signature design feature and can be found at several museums he has designed in recent years. The Interior Once inside, Pei wanted visitors to feel a sense of excitement yet not feel overwhelmed. Beyond the entryway into the East Building the space fans out into a large atrium. The openness of the space invites visitors to look up and let their eyes travel around the building. Throughout the building, Pei creates patterns with marble floor tiles and panes of glass or "skylights" in the space frame ceiling, principally using the triangle shape. The skylights above the atrium echo the glass pyramids on the plaza. Pei realized that as vital and exciting as the interior seemed, some of the hard-edged lines should be softened if the space was to feel warm and inviting. To accomplish this, he designed large round planters which would contain ficus trees. This would provide a sense of scale to the large, open atrium. He also felt that abstract sculpture would provide scale and invigorate the large modern building. Commissioned Works Several abstract works were commissioned by major artists of the late twentieth century. The huge, biomorphic forms of Henry Moore's Knife Edge Mirror Two Piece located on the outdoor porch of the East Building, provide a striking contrast to the building's soaring acute angles. On the interior, Alexander Calder's Untitled (Mobile) and Joan Miro and Josef Royo's massive tapestry Woman enliven the atrium space with their large biomorphic shapes and bold primary colors. From above, Calder's gracefully rotating mobile creates a sense of dynamism; the tapestry's textures similarly animate the wall with a rich, wooly surface. The large, black and white calligraphic forms of Robert Motherwell's painting Reconciliation Elegy provide a powerful, but sober counterpoint to the building's soft pink marble interior. Interpreting Architecture When looking at architecture ask the following questions: What is a building's function? How does its architecture serve that function? With what kind of land did the architect have to build upon? What materials are used? What shapes are most prevalent? Which colors, textures, and decorative motifs are present? Architecture is our oldest and most accessible art form. It is ever present in our lives and has been throughout history. But for these very reasons we sometimes take it for granted. Therefore, using fresh eyes, reconsider the buildings around you. |
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