Architecture Review
Get Me Rewrite: A New Monument to Press Freedom
One
of the last important Modernist landmarks in Washington, the East
Wing was completed in 1978. Since then the style of the city's new
landmarks has ranged from merely mundane (the masonry exterior of
the National Museum of the American Indian) to knee-jerk historicism
(the National World War II Memorial)
By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Story from The New York Times
(Published: April 11, 2008)
How many mediocre buildings can one city absorb? And what if these
buildings are meant to affirm our highest values?
Those questions come to mind as I ponder the Newseum, the latest reason
to lament the state of contemporary architecture in this city. Rising
on a prominent site along Pennsylvania Avenue, it joins a spate of
new memorials and museums that have been reshaping the historic center
of Washington during the current Bush administration.
Of these the Newseum, which houses exhibitions on the news media and
the history of American journalism, is one of the few that does not
pander to the past. Its glass-and-steel container, which opens to
the public on Friday, is a rarity in a city that has never wholly
embraced contemporary architecture.
Of course being au courant with contemporary fashion is not the same
as having strong convictions, aesthetic or otherwise. Despite its
lofty tone, the design reeks of parochialism, not bold ideas. Its
galleries, stuffed with mostly superficial exhibitions, seem engineered
to accelerate the flow of crowds rather than for patient contemplation.
If the building reveals anything about the state of journalism today,
it conveys the industry's anxieties over the shrinking attention span
of the average American.
The setting for such a failure couldn't be more unfortunate. Designed
by Polshek Partnership Architects, the museum sits between the Capitol
and the White House, not far from I. M. Pei's East Wing of the National
Gallery of Art.
One of the last important Modernist landmarks in Washington, the East
Wing was completed in 1978. Since then the style of the city's new
landmarks has ranged from merely mundane (the masonry exterior of
the National Museum of the American Indian) to knee-jerk historicism
(the National World War II Memorial).
To his credit Mr. Polshek did not conform to this standard. Flanked
by the Canadian Embassy to the east and a banal office block to the
west, his museum is a sleek box whose upper floors cantilever over
the sidewalk. A terrace on the museum's sixth floor takes advantage
of the views along the avenue. Setbacks are designed to break down
the building's scale as well as to conform to strict zoning codes.
But if Mr. Polshek's approach is valid, it is also a reminder of why
the most earnest intentions do not necessarily lead to a robust and
well-considered design. A literal-minded approach to history, it confuses
easy metaphors with resonant symbols. Images pile up without adding
real meaning.
A marble slab etched with the words of the First Amendment is suspended
on one facade like an ancient Roman tablet. An expansive window setback
in the center of this facade frames a gigantic video screen in the
lobby, evoking a TV screen. (An early sketch even envisioned the building
as a row of newspaper sections.)
The intent, one suspects, is to conjure the rapid pace at which information
is gathered and transmitted in the Internet age. But there's nothing
new or spectacular about this kind of high-tech billboard. And the
heaviness of these forms is light years away from the multihued, fluid
world of the Internet. Instead, the effect is as cringe-inducing as
watching a neophyte nervously trying to navigate a computer screen.
In another convoluted move, the museum exhibits the front pages of
scores of daily newspapers along the street each day. At first it
seems to be a salute to the newspaper's traditional function in a
democratic society, and pedestrians seem to love it. But the row of
newspapers is oddly punctuated by a pedantic display explaining its
meaning.
This doctrinaire approach to history continues throughout the interior.
The lobby, named for the family that publishes The New York Times
(The New York Times Company is a donor to the museum), is a multistory
glass atrium flanked by suspended walkways. A heavy staircase tumbles
down one side; a glass elevator is set behind the ticket desk on the
other. Visitors are meant to ride the elevator up to the top and spiral
down through the galleries, as they do in Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. But here the journey is freighted
with artifice. Working with the exhibition designer Ralph Appelbaum
Associates, Mr. Polshek creates a sequence of rooms and walkways that
pull you along through the sweep of journalism history. Visitors step
past a fragment of the Berlin Wall and then ride a glass elevator
alongside a menacing guard tower. On the top floor they are confronted
with part of a rusted, mangled broadcast antenna from the World Trade
Center, part of the exhibition "Attack on America."
The juxtaposition is startling, but also borders precariously on jingoism.
The suggestion is that the values of a free press and a free market
are one and the same. This sentiment is made explicit in an exhibit
of a map of the world in which countries are color-coded according
to their level of press freedom. America is green; Russia and China,
red.
Mr. Polshek can't be blamed for those exhibits. And there are moments
when the architecture breaks through the kitsch and you see the glimmerings
of a more thoughtful narrative trying to assert itself. At each floor,
for instance, you exit the darkness of the exhibition galleries to
walkways that run along the glass wall at the front of the building.
From there you can step into a slot of space suspended above Pennsylvania
Avenue and look down at the Capitol. This locks the building into
its surroundings, forging a visual link between a free press and a
democratic government.
But gestures like these tend to get lost in the general muddle. The
slot of space that overlooks the Capitol, for instance, is separated
from the walkways, needlessly complicating what could have been a
more direct, powerful connection between inside and out.
Other areas feel like leftover space. A food hall tucked away in the
basement has all the glamour of a high school cafeteria. Rooftop terraces
are equally uninspired, despite spectacular views.
Typical of this slapdash approach is a small room commemorating journalists
who were killed while on assignment. Backed by a curved translucent
glass panel etched with the journalists' names, it is joined to two
bigger exhibition spaces so that it feels more like a corridor than
a place of sorrowful contemplation.
The epiphany arrives when you step out onto the terrace above Pennsylvania
Avenue. The low dome of John Russell Pope's magnificent 1941 National
Gallery of Art is directly across the way. Just to its left are the
chiseled geometric forms of Mr. Pei's East Wing. More than a quarter-century
after its completion, Mr. Pei's bold design manages to stand up to
its neo-Classical neighbor without in any way eclipsing it. He accomplished
this feat without compromising his Modernist values.
Observing this serene pair from the cluttered precincts of the Newseum,
you are apt to wonder where our civilization is heading next.
(Published: 10.04.2008.)
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