Downside of the "Edifice Complex" in the arts

[Larry Kart]

In the Arts, Bigger Buildings May Not Be Better

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: December 11, 2009

Within months of its opening in 1997, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao had given the language a new term and the world a new way of looking at culture. The “Bilbao effect,” many came to believe, was the answer to what ailed cities everywhere — it was a way to lure tourists and economic development — and a potential boon to cultural institutions.

Municipal governments and arts groups were soon pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into larger, flashier exhibition spaces and performance halls. Now the economic downturn has reined in a lot of these big dreams and has also led to questions about whether ambitious building projects from Buffalo to Berkeley ever made sense to begin with....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/arts/design/12build.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bibao%20gehry&st=cse

[Chalupa]

Thanks for posting that link. Interesting for me because here in Philly the Barnes Foundation has just broke ground on a new building located in downtown. The argument for the move(more people will be able to access the collection at the new site providing much needed revenue)is similar to the argument all of those other municipalities used for as a justification for their building these "field of dreams" museums/performance halls. Then again Philadelphia built a new performance space(the Kimmel Center)for the Philadelphia Orchestra 8 years ago and while it did have the positive effect of spurring a lot of economic development in the immediate area they(city/state/orchestra) are now creating a $50 million endowment fund just to cover operating costs for the building. But sometimes the effectiveness of these projects can't just be measured in dollars alone. I think the idea of building the Kimmel came along at a time when this city was really going down the tubes and it helped to reverse that tide not just in the economic sense but also in the image of what people thought about Philly. Perception and image are not easily defined in terms of dollars but their contribution is extremely important to city's livelihood, as you know. The commitment to build the Kimmel changed the perception of Philadelphia's downtown for a lot of people. Now the city has something that it can market ("The Avenue of the Arts") to tourists/empty nesters/urban homesteaders/developers and while it may be a stretch to say it is solely responsible for the downtown turnaround of the past decade the Kimmel definitely played a large part.

Edited December 17, 2009 by J.H. Deeley