calendario eventi  :: 

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27/4/2003

Vision and Utopia

Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

Architectural drawings from the Museum of Modern Art, New York


Press preview: Monday, 28 April 2003

The exhibition ”Visions and Utopias” outlines the art of architectural drawing in the 20th century by presenting a number of outstanding works from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The impressive quality and artistic variety of these works bear evidence of the individual hand of great architects and extraordinary draftsmen – from the early modern masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, or Mies van der Rohe to contemporary protagonists in the field like Frank O. Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, or Daniel Libeskind. The exhibits range from cursory sketches and Utopian visions to detailed designs – which offers an unusually comprehensive and fascinating survey and provides a complex insight into one hundred years of architectural history. Comprising about 200 works, the presentation reveals the architectural drawing as an independent art genre which has been subject to a radical change since the onset of the digital revolution and its impact on the practice of architecture. This traveling exhibition was organized at The Museum of Modern Art by Matilda McQuaid with Bevin Cline in cooperation with the Schirn Kunsthalle. The collection presented here was assembled uniquely for Frankfurt.

Max Hollein, Director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: ”The sketches by visionary architects are not only superbly executed but constitute landmarks within the development of 20th century art. The exhibition is aimed at presenting these works to a wider public both in an architectonic context and as autonomous works of art, as masterpieces of drawing.”

The history of architectural drawing is significantly shorter than the history of architecture itself. In pre-Renaissance times, just very important constructions were developed with the help of models and sketches. Only the discovery of perspectival drawing by Filippo Brunelleschi in the early 15th century and the better availability of paper towards its close focused many great artists’ and architects’ attention on drawing. As a visible expression of the first ideas about a work, drawings increasingly gained an aesthetical and historical dimension the importance of which almost equaled that of the final result. Architects were the first to collect architectural drawings, accumulating intellectual and artistic capital for their workshops.

As for the role of architectural drawings in the 20th century, the Architecture and Design Department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York is of crucial importance; founded in 1932, the collection comprises more than 1,000 drawings, 179 models, and the Mies van der Rohe Archives with more than 18.000 sheets. Philip Johnson, its first director, and curators like Henry-Russell Hitchcock already paid tribute to the artistic achievements of contemporary architects such as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, a.o. with their first exhibitions and contributed essentially to a better understanding of modern architecture.
The exhibition ”Visions and Utopias” at the Schirn presents about 200 samples in a variety of media – from carefully drafted ground plans and sections to abstract form and space studies, from realistic constructions to imaginary projects never meant for building, and from theoretic approaches transcending the boundaries of architectonic thinking to sensitive watercolors exploring the harmony of space. Thematically, the emphasis is on various solutions for residential buildings on the one hand and on urban approaches and strategies on the other.

In the early 1920s, several architects were looking into cheap ways of building. Frank Lloyd Wright worked on developing a flexible system aimed at combining the advantages of machine-made standard elements with his creative visions, capturing his ideas in subtle drawings. R. Buckminster Fuller arrived at radical solutions with his unconventional plans for his aluminum ”Dymaxion House,” which was to weigh only three tons and cost not more than a car. In the 1950s, Frederick Kiesler started to develop one of the most unusual buildings and living forms with his biomorphic, uterus-like ”Endless House,” which reflects his vision of an extendable living space beyond fixed forms. Compared with this project, Philip Johnson’s study for the Glass House dating from about that time strikes us as a sterile cube with rectangular rooms standing for the then current International Style. Postmodern designs by Robert Venturi and John Rauch with Dorian columns from the 1970s and contemporary projects by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio merging architecture and multimedia technology evidence the remarkable range of architectural solutions.

Besides suggestions for modern living, high-rises, public buildings, and urban visions and projects constitute another focus of the MoMA collection and of the presentation at the Schirn. The famous designs of glass high-rises by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from the early 1920s number among the incunabula of architectural history. A group of drawings by Le Corbusier visualizes the architect’s great vision of the future city with enormous shopping centers situated underneath its highways and intersections above the roofs of its apartment houses. Arata Isozaki’s urbanist vision of a many-level ”Space City,” Kisho Kurokawas organically laid-out ”Helix City,” the mobile cities of the British group of architects ”Archigram” reminiscent of imaginary communication networks, Hans Hollein’s and Rem Koolhaas and Zoe Zenghelis’s projects for New York, all dating from the sixties and seventies, provide material for fascinating comparisons.

These and other works leave no doubt about the role of drawings as a medium for new and visionary ideas. The exhibition also elucidates its immense range in the past century: while the presentation starts with Otto Wagner’s sophisticated ink drawing of the Ferdinandbrücke in Vienna from 1896, computer printouts using the latest architectural software by Arata Isozaki or Zaha Hadid mark the end of the century.

Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos and their Amsterdam ”UN Studio” have developed a spectacular solution for the presentation based on a suspended wall system. Thus, the exhibition architecture constitutes an architectonic contribution of its own that provides an adequate ambience for highlighting the exhibits of ”Visions and Utopias.”

"Visions and Utopias – Architectural Drawings from the Museum of Modern Art, New York" was organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York and is traveling under the auspices of "The International Council."


LIST OF ARTISTS: Raimund Abraham, Emilio Ambasz, Tadao Ando, Erik Gunnar Asplund, Herbert Bayer, Ricardo Bofill, Mario Botta, Andrea Branzi, Roberto Burle Marx, Santiago Calatrava, Iakov Chernikov, Peter Cook (Archigram), Coop Himmelb(l)au, Neil M. Denari, Elizabeth Diller, Theo van Doesburg, Peter Eisenman, Hugh Ferris, Sir Norman Foster, Yona Friedman, R. Buckminster Fuller, Frank O. Gehry, Michael Graves, Zaha M. Hadid, John Hejduk, Ron Herron, Albrecht Heubner, Chuck Hoberman, Steven Holl, Hans Hollein, Emil Hoppe, Arata Isozaki, Philip Johnson, Louis I. Kahn, Marcel Kammerer, Friedrich Kiesler, Rem Koolhaas, Leon Krier, Kisho Kurokawa, Ernesto Bruno Lapadula, Le Corbusier, Daniel Libeskind, Morphosis, Richard Meier, Erich Mendelsohn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Paul Nelson, Richard Neutra, Oscar Niemeyer, Oscar Nitzchke, OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), Gaetano Pesce, Walter Pichler, Hans Poelzig, Cedric Price, Aldo Rossi, Paul Rudolph, Eero Saarinen, Otto Schönthal, Massimo Scolari, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Ettore Sottsass, Friedrich St. Florian, Sir James Frazer Stirling, Superstudio, Bernard Tschumi, Venturi and Rauch, Lauretta Vinciarelli, Rafael Vinoly, Otto Wagner, Michael Webb (Archigram), SITE, Frank Lloyd Wright, Elia Zenghelis.


CATALOGUE: ”Visionen und Utopien – Architekturzeichnungen aus dem Museum of Modern Art, New York.” Edited by Matilda McQuaid. With a preface by Glenn D. Lowry and Max Hollein and essays by Terence Riley and Matilda McQuaid. Contributions by Paola Antonelli, Bevin Cline, Tina di Carlo, Melanie Domino, Luisa Lorch, Matilda McQuaid, Peter Reed, and Terence Riley. German, 256 pages, ISBN 3-7913-2814-x (hardcover trade edition), ISBN 3-3913-2923-5 (catalog edition), Prestel Verlag, Munich, Berlin, London, New York;
English, 256 pages, ISBN 0-87070-011-1, MoMA, Thames & Hudson.

VENUE: SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt. EXHIBITION DATES: 29 April – 3 August 2003. OPENING HOURS: Tue, Fri – Sun 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Wed and Thur 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. INFORMATION: www.SCHIRN.de, e-mail: welcome@schirn.de, phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-0, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240. ADMISSION: 6 €, reduced 4 €; CURATORS: Matilda McQuaid, Exhibitions Curator and Head of the Textile Department, Smithsonian Institution, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum with Bevin Cline, Assistant Curator, Research and Collections, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. EXHIBITION ARCHITECTURE: UN Studio (Ben van Berkel/Caroline Bos), Amsterdam. MAIN SPONSORS: Techem AG, DB Real Estate (Deutsche Bank Group). ADDITIONAL SUPPORT BY: Zumtobel Staff, Novotel Frankfurt City West, Hotel Mercure & Residenz Frankfurt. MEDIA PARTNER: Architectural Digest.


PRESS OFFICE: Dorothea Apovnik, Jürgen Budis

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt
phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-118, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240

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