February 10, 2005
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at MoMA
When the Museum of Modern Art reopened in November after a four-year expansion and renovation, museum visitors encountered an entirely new museum, airy and ethereal, wrapped around the reassuringly familiar rectangular grid of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. Paradoxically, the garden looks both the same--and better.
But make no mistake, this is the new sculpture garden. It was completely demolished during the renovation and the site was the staging area for the construction, still littered with pallets of stone, girders and construction debris as late as September. If it looks somehow fresher than before, that’s because it is: everything is new. The pavers, white Vermont marble, veined with grey, are a slightly brighter color than the originals, the better to echo the glowing fritted glass which encases the
building. The plant material is also new, and the dimensions of the trees (weeping beech, white birch and London plane trees) exactly match the original scale of the plantings.
The few changes are for the better. The north wall, originally dull dun colored brick, is now made from polished concrete panels whose color matches the brushed aluminum panels of the museum’s deep porticos. The architect Yoshio Tanaguchi’s Japanese aesthetic is evident in the way that the city has been brought into the design as “borrowed landscape”. The row of plane trees on the exterior of the north wall has been replaced with much smaller trees, and this allows the lively 54rth streetscape to be part of the north vista. There is a cutout on the south eastern end of the building which affords a nicely framed view of the gothic windows of St. Thomas Church. These urban elements add complexity, but not confusion to the garden.
The most notable change is the garden’s integration into the museum. The entire Western façade of the new building is glass, this transparency makes the garden more accessible to visitors as they circulate though the building. The geometric nature of Philip Johnson’s 1953 design is wonderfully clear when seen from above. The upper gallery floors are excellent vantage points to understand the Miesian pattern of the interlocking rectangles,- and the integral part the softening effect of the plants plays in the design. Two deep porticos, one on the east and one on the west side of the garden lengthen the space by a total of about 40 feet, and serve as transition points between the interior and exterior spaces.
When Tanaguchi was asked 6 months before its completion what he thought of his building, he replied that he would only be able to judge its success when the garden was installed, because the building was created around it. When he toured the site on the eve of the museum’s November reopening, he admitted that he was happy. The centering presence of the garden completes the complex, and the garden takes its rightful place, as one of the seminal works in the museum’s collection.
Posted by gardenguidenyc at February 10, 2005 07:22 PM