165: Guggenheim Oasis

This competition requested a reinvention of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

The text from the entry reads:

This is not a singular commentary on Wright’s iconic museum, nor the mere exploitation of a revolutionary idea, but is an Architecture that necessarily makes comment as it reinterprets Wright’s strategies.

This is The Guggenheim Oasis.

The continuous ramp is a device that offers an unparalleled means by which to explore artwork without interruption.

The nature of the ramp is also a deliberate turn inward, a shielding from the distractions of the City, and providing a focus towards something other.

Both these strategies are quietly reimagined. One accesses the Museum by passing beneath a lifted corner of the mass at the intersection of 88th Street and 5th Avenue. The ramp, made evident on crossing the threshold of its perimeter, is established in a rectangular plan on a 36” grid. Rising a height of 18’-4” within a revolution, significant vertical space is provided in the galleries.

Terminating in a rooftop Sculpture Garden, and looking downward into the Oasis, the ramp is wrapped in a nearly solid brick façade on its exterior, contrasting with the Ipe and glass interior, which opens generously to the courtyard. Here, an oasis of space, light and plantings is home to pavilions housing other functions of the Museum.

Wright’s Architecture was inherently anchored in the metaphorical weight of building; the brick, block, concrete, and even wood siding of his buildings was always given a gravitas. Similarly, the Guggenheim Oasis posits a masonry mass on this block of Manhattan, but one that obscures the hanging gardens of its interior.