Getting to the Guggenheim Museum was not confusing, however what I arrived to was far from what I expected. Just imagine. You’re walking down 86th street on the East side, headed to 5th Ave where you know to expect the park. East side has its charm, brown brick town houses and similar apartment buildings. Little cafes and restaurants are hidden in the first floors of the buildings and the feeling is very… New York. 86th Street ends in the massive wall that surrounds Central Park and you turn right up 5th Ave toward 88th Street. Just as you get there, a huge round building appears behind a typical apartment building, made up of huge spiral balconies on its gray façade. Every person who comes across this stops at the corner and immediately takes a picture like the one below, since explaining the architecture of the building could be an essay in itself. The impression it leaves is just as massive as the building itself. Born and raised in New York City, I can respectfully say that I haven’t come across a building even slightly similar to this one.
Entering the Guggenheim Museum is like walking in to a room full of sunshine, and by full, I mean like filled to the top in every corner, with beautiful sunlight. Naturally, you look up and see a geometric sunlight (built in the roof) that allows the sun to work its magic inside. The building has spiral hallways along the sides that you walk up and get to the top floor before you know it. The slope of the hallways is perfect enough so that you don’t feel like you’re walking up a mountain. Everything about the architecture is simply natural.
Our wonderful tour guide explained that architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, loved nature and everything about the building had some connection to it. Besides the sunlight, the spiral set up of the building connects to nature because it could represent growth and how it goes up essentially, but you don’t ever feel it happening. Additionally, the location of the museum was purposely chosen to be right by Central Park. The balconies that are observed from outside served for sunlight to illustrate the paintings, however research showed this actually ruined them. The museum decided to keep the idea however use artificial light to preserve the art work. Personally, I am a huge nature lover and the architecture was very pleasant for me.
Our tour was lovely. The tour guide explained the stories of a couple paintings and it really allowed insight on what kind of person Guggenheim was and what his values were. It was a very visual way to understand some art history. There was a certain story line between the setup of each painting and its precise place. I really enjoyed seeing how art transformed through history in the spiral timeline. It was fantastic to see how two art forms, architecture and paintings, could work together to tell an amazing story.
Guggenheim and Frank Lloyd Wright had a very difficult task. Creating a museum that tells a narrative, and with that so successfully, is not an easy job. If I created a museum, I would want it to tell an inspiring narrative. It would certainly be connected to nature. I would want people to leave my museum feeling connected to the world around them and inspired to think! My museum narrative would be focused on people being human and kind to each other, our planet, and the animals on it. People shouldn’t forget that our earth is a gift.
Ellen Stoyanov
Keywords: nature, inspiration, think, appreciate, explore, preserve, humane
