From
mausoleum
to museum
 |
For most of us, January was a very pleasant winter month, but at the Architecture Museum in Stockholm the climate felt more arctic. The number of visitors fell by 83 percent: in one month the figures went from 26,000 to 4,400, the largest fall of all the Swedish state museums that had to abandon their free entry at the beginning of the year.
At the Architecture Museum in Oslo talk is more positive. Following ten years of lobbying, Sverre Fehn’s extension, a feather-light complement to the bank palace of Christian H. Grosch, father of Norwegian architecture, will be inaugurated in September. A meeting of two great masters; even if the exhibitions may vary in quality, there will always be great architecture to experience.
Parallel to this, OMA is in full swing with designing a new architectural centre in Copenhagen. It is to be built on the plot next to the Black Diamond, Denmark’s royal library. When the centre is ready in 2011, Koolhaas and Kirkegaard will stand shoulder to shoulder – such is the status of architecture amongst the Danes.
Otherwise the Danish Architecture Center is holding its own even without a new building. DAC is already the Nordic area’s leading architecture museum, as shown by the survey we conducted for this issue (starting on page 104). In discussions with a panel of 34 people, we have graded the Nordic area’s five state architectural museums and only DAC receives a more than average mark: 3.8 (5.0 is the maximum). Iceland receives 2.2, Norway (preFehn) receives the same and Sweden, in spite of its resources, barely 2.0. Finland is the worst with a miserable 1.8.
Had Forum AID been a high school, only DAC would have been certain of continuing next term. And had Forum AID been a high school I would have been tough with the head of the museum and said what my class teacher once said to me: “If you don’t try harder, you might just as well give up.”
Now perhaps “give up” is not an alternative for a state-owned museum, but certainly we visitors should demand more. Four of the Nordic area’s five architecture museums fail – shouldn’t this be motivation for a programme for action? Here is one suggestion, I call it “From mausoleum to museum”:
Imagine if the heads of our museums…
…would dare to place non-established freethinkers against established models, projects at the planning stage against important works from history, local against international, house against town plan, opera against World of Warcraft
...could create international networks and ensure their architecture museums are a haunt for world-class pundits
…could ensure that the exhibition architecture is as innovative as the exhibitions themselves
...could initiate and participate in the debates about both domestic and international architecture and design
…could communicate architecture and design with an equal amount of respect for the architect/designer as for the user. It is not until these parties meet on similar grounds that a constructive debate can start.
As one of the panel members expressed it: “With a museum that dares to conduct its distinct policy, the architectural climate in the whole country can change.”