Towards a New Museum

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: This book is ok if you want a coffee-table type, once-over- lightly look at some new museums. If you want the kind of serious consideration or analysis that seems promised by the contents/chapter titles, look elsewhere. A waste of $ for my purposes.

Rating:
Summary: An articulate overview of recent museum design
Review: Victoria Newhouse's book on recent museum design is fascinating--I have been to many of the projects she includes (there are lots and lots of them), and her descriptions and analyses of them never fail to strike me as remarkably insightful. I don't always agree with her comments or her selection of projects (Frank Stella should stick to painting), but as a whole the book is both a wide-ranging compendium of current designs for the visual arts, and an informed treatise with a strong point of view. Far from being an advocate of universal space, Newhouse keeps returning to her central theme: how well does a particular design serve its particular contents? In answering that question, she displays an unusual comprehension of sophisticated issues in both the architectural and artistic arenas. Newhouse has visited much and looked hard; she has also apparently done a lot of research, talked to many of the clients, architects, and curators, and gives one not only the obvious facts but often the inside story. Then she calls it as she sees it, cogently summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of each project's suitability as a container for art. This is required reading for anyone seriously interested in or involved with problems of museum and gallery design.