The museum was named after its founder, Solomon Robert Guggenheim, a gold miner and coal magnate who, at the age of 58, decided to retire and, with the support of Baroness Hille Ribay von Enrheinweisen, took up collecting.
In 1937, when the collection reached an impressive scale, the idea arose to open a new museum of modern art. Having established his own foundation, in 1943 the Guggenheim commissioned the development of a new project to renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. At first, Wright was skeptical about this order, because. believed that his masterpiece had no place among the densely built-up streets of New York. And yet, in 1959, on Fifth Avenue, construction was completed on the most striking example of 20th-century architecture, the Guggenheim Museum. Unfortunately, neither Solomon Guggenheim nor Frank Wright lived to see the opening of this grandiose project, met with rave reviews from both lovers of fine art and architecture.
To date, the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art offers the world's largest exhibition of works of the 19th - 20th centuries. The collection of famous paintings has a surrealistic look and is replete with such names as Chagall, Kandinsky, Arp, Nirendorf, Bourgeois, Cezanne, Rousseau, Van Gogh, Picasso, Gauguin, etc.
The facade of the building is designed as a spiral volume, vaguely resembling a "tornado". The same technique is applied inside - along the perimeter. Lattice sections, 3 m high, make up the frame of the building. The cladding of the structure consists of bent titanium plates and glass, which gives it a slightly ethereal look.
The layout of the museum deserves special attention, because. in the building you will not find a single room of the same structure. The sections of the halls are located so that visitors, having risen by the elevator, and then, having gone down the ramp, could more fully and from the right angle view the museum's exposition.
With his truly amazing project, the architect conveyed the very essence of the exhibition in the genre of surrealism and impressionism. I believe that the external appearance of the building, first of all, Wright wanted to express his attitude towards the densely built-up area. Indeed, the museum, like a “tornado”, bursting into Fifth Avenue Street, pushed the surrounding buildings aside and blew up all ideas about modern architecture, making a big splash because of the endless disputes of Frank Lloyd Wright’s contemporaries.
The titanium and glass structure has become a hallmark of the Basque Country. Every year it is visited by at least a million people - not only Spaniards, but also foreign tourists. The secret of success, of course, lies in both the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the museum, which showcase iconic works by contemporary artists.
- The Museum in Bilbao is the third foreign branch of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA). Two more are open in Venice and Abu Dhabi.
- The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is one of the most visited museums in Spain every year.
- The area of the museum is 24,000 sq. m, of which 10,540 sq. m is used as exhibition spaces, divided into 19 galleries.
- The museum was "filmed" in Bondiana - in the 1999 film "The World Is Not Enough". By the way, directors also love the New York Guggenheim Museum: for example, some episodes of Men in Black were made in it.
History reference
Negotiations to build a museum in Bilbao The Guggenheim Foundation began working with the city in 1991. Six years later, in October 1997, the new museum opened its doors to the public. The importance of the project for Spain as a whole is evidenced by the fact that the opening ceremony was attended by King Juan Carlos I and his wife Queen Sofia.
The new cultural center greatly improved the image of the city and brought significant profits to the treasury, and the museum itself was included in the list of places to visit in Spain.
Nevertheless, during the construction phase, the Guggenheim Museum was criticized. In particular, many condemned the too high cost of the project (which, however, already paid off 37 times in 2013). The famous Basque sculptor Jorge Oteisa even called the building a “cheese factory” and promised that he would never exhibit within its walls. True, he quickly changed his mind, and now his work is included in the permanent collection.
One of the most unusual and avant-garde museums offering visitors the works of the most famous masters of culture and art from around the world.
The Guggenheim Museum today is located within the Museum Mile of New York, on.
The Guggenheim Museum is relatively young, it was founded in 1937, but despite this, today it contains a colossal collection of modern art.
The museum was founded by the American gold miner and owner of a large number of coal mines - Solomon Robert Guggenheim, who at a respectable age decided to devote himself to collecting modern art.
However, since Guggenheim was by no means an expert in this field, he turned to his longtime friend, an art historian from Europe, Hilla Ribay, for help. This cooperation brought amazing results, such that after a few years, the work of modern matser could not accommodate the Guggenheim mansion and a building was required to organize a museum.
Suitable premises were purchased by an industrialist on 59th Street. However, just five years have passed since the purchase of the new building, and it turned out to be small to accommodate the growing collection of paintings, and in June 1943 the Guggenheim decided to build a new building, and placed an order with one of the most famous architects of that time - Fernk Wright , who designed the building, amazing even today, in the form of an inverted pyramid.
The architecture of the new building was so flashy that even some avant-garde artists of that time refused offers to organize exhibitions in it. The construction of the new museum building was completed in 1959, when neither the author of the collection, Mr. Guggenheim, nor the architect of the building, Mr. Wright, were already dead.
The visit to the Guggenheim Museum begins from the top floor of the building, where visitors take the elevator and continues down to the first floor along the entire snail, spiraling around the huge atrium. Two other buildings adjoin the snail, one of which was added later in 1992. These buildings also have separate exhibition halls inside. Today, the Guggenheim Museum, in addition to three branches, has four branches located in London, Berlin, Venice and Bilbao.
Today, the Guggenheim Museum is the world's largest collection of paintings by contemporary masters dating back to the late 19th century, including paintings by great masters such as Kandinsky, Chagall, Picasso, Warhol, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Léger - in total, the collection includes more than six thousand paintings by masters of the 19th century. 20 centuries.
The entire permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum is located in the annex buildings to the central snail. In the snail itself, changing exhibitions are exhibited, many of which annually make a splash in the field of art around the world.
So, the world-famous exhibitions "China: Five Millennia" - 1998, "Africa: The Art of the Continent" - 1996, "The Aztec Empire" -2004, as well as the unique, sensational exhibition "Russia!" - 2005, which presented 240 Russian masterpieces, which was opened by the President of Russia V. Putin. The Guggenheim Museum must be in yours.
Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday 10:030 - 17:45. Friday 10:00 – 20:00
Address: 1071 Fifth Avenue
(intersection with 89th Street)
Telephone: 212 423 35 00
Metro lines: 4, 5, 6
Metro station: 86 Street
One of the most unusual and invariably of interest to tourists objects of the largest city in the United States is the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exposition of this rich collection of art objects presents the best works of artists and sculptors from around the world.
History of creation
Despite its relative youth, the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art in New York has a colossal collection of art objects that were created by our contemporaries.
The founder of the museum is Solomon Guggenheim. At the dawn of his activity, this man was engaged in business, he owned a large number of mines for the extraction of coal, copper and gold. However, at a respectable age, having accumulated a solid capital, Guggenheim decided to retire from business and devote his free time to collecting art.
Since the businessman himself was not an art historian, he began to work with his acquaintance, the famous German art specialist Hilla Ribay. The cooperation between the two old friends was very fruitful, the collection of art objects grew rapidly and was regularly replenished with new priceless exhibits.
Since even the spacious Guggenheim mansion could not accommodate the entire collection over time, the businessman thought about organizing his own museum. A suitable building was purchased, located on 59th Street in New York. But rather quickly, this building became too small to accommodate the entire collection. Therefore, in 1943 Guggenheim decided to build a separate building for the exhibition of collected paintings.
Since the main direction of the collection was contemporary avant-garde art, it was decided to build the building according to an unusual project. The fashionable architect of the time, Frank L. Wright, undertook to bring the unusual idea to life. The flight of the architect's imagination surpassed all revivals, the project of a new museum building in the form of a cone placed on top made a big splash. From the outside, the main building of the museum resembles a whirlwind of a tornado swirling into a funnel, but inside it is perfectly suited for displaying art objects.
The architecture of the building is so unusual that even today it is considered one of the most amazing buildings in the world. Photos of the external appearance of this architectural masterpiece and the laconic interior are striking in the purity of the lines and the upward trend. The white color of the building, the glass ceiling of the atrium and the huge windows allow light to enter the building, creating the most favorable conditions for viewing art objects.
The avant-garde architectural style did not immediately find understanding among their contemporaries, some artists hesitated for a long time to hold their opening days in such an unusual building.
The construction of the building lasted more than 15 years, it was completed only in October 1959, by which time both the architect Wright and the founder of the museum had passed away.
exposition
To view the exposition, visitors to the museum are offered to go up to the top floor by elevator. Further, guests can descend along a spiral line that follows the contour of a huge atrium. Paintings and other works of art are arranged so that visitors, passing through the "snail", can view them from different angles.
Near the main hall there are two extensions (one of them was built quite recently - in 1992). These annexes house administrative offices and separate exhibition halls.
The exposition presents the works of artists, masters of sculpture and applied art of the 19th and 20th centuries, the most valuable exhibits, these are paintings by such famous masters of the brush as Léger, Chagall, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Picasso and others. The collection of museum exhibits includes more than 6 thousand masterpieces of modern art.
In the exhibition halls of the outbuildings, a permanent exhibition is presented, made up of the most valuable exhibits of the museum. And in the building "snails" changing expositions are updated annually. The following exhibitions had worldwide success:
- Art of the "black" continent (collection of works of art from Africa);
- Five millennia of Chinese art;
- Ancient art of the Aztecs;
- Art of Russia. The exhibition featured 240 works by Russian artists.
Opening hours and address
The Guggenheim Museum is located in a very picturesque place in the largest city in the United States. This is a lot located between 88th and 89th streets near Central Park, the exact address is 1071 5th Ave. You can get there by taxi or by metro, having reached the station "86 street".
The museum is open from 10 am to 5.45 pm, on Saturday the opening time is increased by two hours. The day off is Thursday, the museum is closed on official holidays.
At regular times, the ticket price is $18, but on Saturday, starting at 5:45 pm and until closing at 7:45 pm, visitors can enter the museum by paying any amount they see fit. However, at this time, you will have to stand in a long queue to get into the museum.
It is completely free to view the exposition presented at the Guggenheim Museum during the annual festival called the Museum Mile. This event is very popular with residents and visitors of New York, so at this time there are many visitors in all the museums of the city.
The Guggenheim Museum has several branches. Two branches of the museum are located in Las Vegas, in addition, there are branches in Venice, Berlin, London and Bilbao (Spain).
general information
The Guggenheim Museum in New York is valuable not only for the works of art exhibited here: the museum building itself invariably arouses the admiration of art connoisseurs and architects from all over the world. Externally, the museum looks like an inverted pyramidal tower. Tourists freeze in front of the Guggenheim Museum in awe. Wright sought to combine architecture with nature and created a building that organically floats to its base, like a clam shell.
Inside, along the walls, a spiral ramp leads, creating a feeling of space open on all sides. The exhibition space starts on the top floor and goes down. Thus, the visitor walking down the ramp has a constantly changing visual perspective, and literally at every step he has the opportunity to look at the exposition from a new point of view. Interior details make up a thoughtful symphony of triangles, ovals, circles and squares. Forms repeat and flow one into another, creating a fantastic environment.
The works of art exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York are known all over the world to this day - as well as the museum created for them by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Tel: 212-423-3500; www.guggenheim.org 1071 Fifth Avenue; adult/child $18/free; 10.00-17.45 Sat-Wed, 10.00-19.45 Fri.
History of creation
In 1943, the artist Hilla von Ribay was the personal consultant of Solomon R. Guggenheim, industrial magnate and art collector. It was she who advised the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright to commission the museum project for the huge Guggenheim collection, which was mainly interested in modern art. The former “Museum of Non-Objective Painting” no longer contained the entire collection by the opening day of the new museum in 1959. Politicians, art connoisseurs and ordinary guests invited to the celebration were amazed by the spectacle presented before them - and not everyone was pleased with it. However, no one could deny one thing: the Wright Museum definitely exceeded all expectations.
In 1943, in a letter to Wright, von Ribay outlined her idea of building a museum for the Guggenheim collection. She wrote: "I need a fighter for free space, a man of taste, a sage ... I need a temple of spirituality, a monument!" At first, Wright was not very interested in this project.
Finally, after much debate and negotiation, Hill von Ribay, Solomon R. Guggenheim and Frank Lloyd Wright came to an agreement: they chose a site on Fifth Avenue, near Central Park. The location next to the park was one of Wright's main conditions. His new museum was supposed to embody the symbiosis of architecture and nature, merge art, architecture and nature into a harmonious union with the bustling life of a big city.
Wright took the time to develop this project, which is why construction began so late, only in 1956 and was completed in 1959. By this time, Solomon Guggenheim and Frank Wright were no longer alive.
Chronology
- 1937: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation founded.
- 1939: The first Guggenheim Museum of Non-Objective Painting opens in the heart of New York.
- 1943: Frank Lloyd Wright begins designing the new museum.
- 1956-1959: The new Guggenheim Museum is built on Fifth Avenue.
- 1991-1992: The building is completely renovated and expanded.
