Architecture

What I do consistently look for, and I think I said this earlier, is what each member of the company brings to the stage, and that goes for designers, actors, directors, musicians, choreographers and anyone else credited with anything for the production. I want to see the best in them and from them always. When I don't, I say so.

It is where the Boston Pops play on July 4th each year. The 101 year old beautiful 2.5 mile linear waterside park hugging the Charles River has been in part loved, if not to death, then to decrepitude. It needs to be enhanced-- refreshed, refurbished and restored. With this in mind, a number of like-minded designers led by The Esplanade Association decided to do something about it. After 25 months and countless hours of research, design and meetings, the Esplanade 20/20 vision is finally unveiled.

The gleaming new wing at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum demonstrates how great design can preserve a historic structure. Through great vision, hard work and patient persistence, Executive Director Anne Hawley, her staff and board worked over seven years to complete a brilliant reconfiguration of a venerable art institution. Starchitect Renzo Piano masterfully created a gem.

Set near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline, Chicago's Millennium Park covers a 24.5-acre section of northwestern historic Grant Park, a vestige of the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Massive public art and architectural statements make this open space wonderfully original and exhilarating. Millennium Park was opened on July 16, 2004, four full years behind schedule. Far exceeding its original budget of $150 million, it cost around $500 million to complete. Beyond the cost overruns, controversy and criticisms, it is a civic design that is a joy to behold by all visitors.

Examining the Russian avant-garde architecture made during the brief but intense period of design and construction from 1922 to 1935, Building the Revolution is a rare exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London. The designs were directly inspired by the Constructivist art that emerged in Russia starting around 1915. Architects transformed this radical artistic language into three dimensions, creating structures whose innovative style embodied the energy and optimism of the new Soviet Socialist state. Alas, it did not last very long.

Transforming a user-unfriendly I.M. Pei designed (1981) West Wing into a permanent location for its contemporary collection of art, decorative objects and design, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts has unveiled a new comfortable setting for visitors. With care and sensitivity, seven new gallery spaces have opened up the possibilities of contemporary art and craft never before presented in such depth and variety by the MFA. Kudos to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

After many years and much delay, the 9/11 Memorial was unveiled to the public at the 10th Anniversary of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. The ceremony was dignified and sadly beautiful; the memorial is a legacy to those who perished. The rest of the structures to be completed on the site may be anticlimactic.

Founded in 1961 and opened in 1963, the American Folk Art Museum is considered the premier institution in the US devoted to the appreciation of traditional folk art and self-taught "outsider" artists. Unfortunately, about a decade ago, its reach exceeded its grasp. The museum commissioned and built a building that it could not pay for. After having sold its building to the adjacent MoMA to pay off its construction debt and recently moving to much reduced quarters, it now faces closure. Here is a case where more became much less.

Continuing to spread its wings around the world, in collaboration with BMW, the Guggenheim Foundation and Museum has embarked upon a six year urban dialogue project that appears to be more about the institutional brand than any ultimate urban product. Opened August 3, the NYC BMW Guggenheim Lab aims at developing new ideas for urban living. The space will host events and programs directed at making the city more livable. The City more livable? With reduced global financial resources and economic pessimism dripping from buildings and streets, there is one major question: Does the Lab really matter?