George Lindemann Journal by George Lindemann - "Striving for Grand-Scale Intimacy" @wsj by Lee Rosenbaum
The Clark Center and reflecting pool. Tucker Bair
Williamstown, Mass.
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, with verdant outdoor vistas complementing the lush Impressionist landscapes in its galleries, has always had nature and culture on its side. Now it's aiming for stature—not just in the rural Northern Berkshires, but internationally, while keeping its special allure as a rustic retreat. In this it has largely succeeded, thanks to a discreet addition and sensitive delicate restorations of its existing buildings and grounds that make them seem familiar yet greatly enhanced.
"We're the Berkshire Bilbao," the Clark's director, Michael Conforti, repeatedly proclaimed during opening events for his museum's thorough renovation and 42,600-square-foot expansion. While the new glass, concrete and stone Clark Center bears no resemblance to Frank Gehry's flashy titanium tourist magnet, the elegant new pavilion designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando does boast an outdoor "wow" feature—a three-tiered, one-acre reflecting pool, jointly designed by Mr. Ando and landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand.
The pool is flanked by an expansive patio where anyone—not just admission-paying art lovers—can picnic at the Clark's tables while contemplating the glistening water flowing over a bed of smooth stones (accompanied, during a recent visit, by the loud mating calls of tree frogs). The outdoor amenities are part of Mr. Conforti's plan "to embrace the specialness of the landscape," enticing out-of-town visitors, not just locals, to use the Clark's 140 acres as a public park for hiking, cross-country skiing and just relaxing peacefully in an idyllic setting.
The most pressing drivers for the 15-year (and still unfinished) capital project were the need to upgrade the museum's antiquated infrastructure and the desire to expand its special exhibition program. Following the collecting interests of founders Sterling and Francine Clark, the temporary shows rarely ventured in scope beyond the U.S. and Europe, or into the modern era. "We needed larger-scale spaces to show 20th-century art," Mr. Conforti said.
The new galleries are suitable for ambitious traveling exhibitions, organized not only by the Clark (as in the past), but also by major U.S. and foreign institutions. First up is a loan by the Shanghai Museum of some 33 masterworks, now on view, from its incomparable collection of ancient Chinese ritual bronzes. They are installed in a 3,000-square-foot, flexibly configured glass-walled space, which in the future will sometimes be used for conferences or events.
But the overriding question raised by the $145-million project is: Why risk compromising the sense of intimacy and historic resonance that give treasure troves like the Clark (and several other recently expanded mansionlike museums) their unique allure? The original Daniel Perry-designed neoclassical evocation of an ancient white-marble Greek temple seemed architecturally fusty when it opened in 1955, yet visitors have always been charmed by its homelike interior.
That sense of intimacy was disrupted in 1973 by the forbidding, Brutalist architecture of Pietro Belluschi's addition—an incompatible bedfellow to the original building's well-mannered domesticity. The visitors' entrance migrated from the Perry to the Belluschi and now to a distant cousin who speaks a completely different architectural language: Japanese minimalism.
Largely sheathed in glass, Mr. Ando's self-effacing, two-story addition (65% of which is hidden underground), not only defers to the stronger personalities of its two neighbors, but also helps unify the campus via the water feature. Uniting the disparate elements more problematically is Mr. Ando's monumental "7 Wall," named for its angled shape. It traverses much of the campus, including the long walkway from the Clark Center to Mr. Ando's 2,000-square-foot glass museum pavilion, opening into the Perry building's new front entrance (which had originally been the rear). This new orientation allows views spanning the entire campus.
But the wall frequently interposes itself between visitors and the expansive landscape, not only from within the new Clark Center, but also from its outdoor patio. Alternately withholding and partially revealing views (a traditional Japanese design strategy), it is intended to heighten visual perception. Here, it feels like oppressive manipulation.
Thanks to Mr. Conforti's strong suggestion that the architect use red granite for the "7 Wall" instead of Mr. Ando's signature material—silky smooth concrete—the barrier helps to visually harmonize the site's architectural cacophony. The rough, deeply hued, richly veined stone came from the same quarry as the exterior of the Belluschi building.
"I was thinking hard about whether to use stone or not for that wall," Mr. Ando said through an interpreter. "I had a blackout: It was a very difficult question. Finally, I felt the past has to be respected. Now I'm very happy that I chose the stone." Mr. Ando's Clark-commissioned 2008 conservation and exhibition outpost, a short hike up nearby Stone Hill, consists of concrete and wood, and also features a "7 Wall."
The new building's three interconnected special-exhibition galleries are generously proportioned (totaling 8,000 square feet, with 14-foot-high ceilings) but underground and oddly shaped—two are tapered at one end. In an attempt to dispel the gloom, Mr. Ando has inserted two windows in the far wall, adjacent to a cavity that admits shafts of sunlight from above. The first test of these galleries will occur on Aug. 2, with the opening of an exhibition of American and European abstract paintings from 1950-1975, loaned by Washington's National Gallery of Art. Its headliner is Jackson Pollock's 1950 "Lavender Mist."
Lavender also figures in the one jarring misstep of New York architect Annabelle Selldorf's otherwise subtle, satisfying renovation and reconfiguration of the Clark's original building: She used that unconventional wall color (described by her as "mauve") for the museum's central, most popular space—the large gallery where its Renoirs and Monets are arrayed. Intended by Ms. Selldorf to complement those paintings' predominant blues and greens, the purple haze irritatingly clashes and upstages.
Also sabotaging the room's appeal was senior curator Richard Rand's decision to banish its familiar centerpiece—Edgar Degas's "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen"—to a much smaller, less prominent gallery. Arguably the Clark's signature object, it has been supplanted by five Rodin sculptures, intended by Mr. Rand to "toughen up" the Impressionist gallery's display. But they also block sightlines to the surrounding paintings, much more than the ballerina. This was one place where dramatic intervention was uncalled for.
Under Ms. Selldorf's auspices, the nearly 60-year-old walls of the original building were stripped to the studs. New lighting and environmental controls were installed; long corridors were subdivided; room sizes were adjusted. A 2,200-square-foot space for American art was created in former back-of-house areas. This is now the first gallery encountered by visitors to the permanent collection and features the Clark's celebrated Winslow Homer seascapes and recently donated George Inness landscapes.
As part of the sweeping makeover, Mr. Hilderbrand substantially redesigned, protected and enhanced the Clark's "natural assets"—plantings, trails, wetlands. Together with Gensler's executive architect Maddy Burke-Vigeland he has emphasized sustainability and green design, aiming for LEED Silver certification.
More changes are yet to come: The Clark's 1973 building (renamed the Manton Research Center, home to the Clark's extensive art-history library) is still undergoing extensive renovation. Originally intended to open with the rest of the project, the Manton's makeover will include a spacious public reading room in its entrance courtyard, a study center for works on paper and galleries for British and American art. The grounds may soon be enlivened by contemporary artists' interventions: Janet Cardiff, Jenny Holzer, Thomas Schütte and James Turrell have been consulted as possible participants.
Still up in the air, though, is the question of ice hockey. Recreational skaters will be encouraged to glide across the reflecting pool this winter. But while Mr. Conforti said his plans do not include sticks and pucks, Mr. Hilderbrand let slip that he had, in fact, designed "batter boards for hockey."
It may be, then, that the Clark will not always live up to its reputation as a quiet retreat.
Ms. Rosenbaum writes on art and museums for the Journal and blogs as CultureGrrl at www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl.