Book Description
The book presents four of the most important contemporary museums of the world. Easch essay details the unique design concepts of each museum, illustrated with interior and exterior details.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

To commemorate the bicentenary of Antonio Canova's birth, the Venetian authorities decided to have an extension added to the overcrowded original museum, and they commissioned the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa for this delicate task. Scarpa composed a small, but highly articulated building that is in a strong contrast to the neo-Classical, monumental basilica. The subtly designed sequence of spaces is unique even among Scarpa's so many extraordinary museum interiors as the architect was here in the rare position to compose the spaces as well as the placings of the exhibits. The placing of the sources of natural light which infuses the plaster surfaces with the softness of real life is in itself a rare achievement and it took an equally rare photographer to record such symphonies in white in all their magic.

There is no doubt at all that Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is one of the most spectacular buildings of recent years. The building raised high expectations from the outset, as the central element in Bilbao's comprehensive urban renewal programme. Its site between river, railway, bridge and new town makes it a symbol of the Basque metropolis that can be seen from a considerable distance. It is both the heart of the city and a testbed for the arts, representing both public presence and artistic change. The process by which it was created demonstrates the most recent advances in computer-aided design, and in material manufacture. For a long time design and building were broken down into a large number of individual components. Gehry's museum unifies this process, and is thus able to create fluent links between architectural detail and urban impact.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a unique collection of architectural works -- the Caroline Wiess Law Building, comprising the original William Ward Watkin Building of 1924 and the 1958 and 1974 additions designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden created by Isamu Noguchi in 1986; the Central Administration and Glassell Junior School Building designed by Carlos Jimenez in 1994; and now the Audrey Jones Beck Building by Rafael Moneo. Moneo, winner of the 1996 Pritzker Architecture Prize, has proposed a four-story facility directly facing the Law Building and connected to it via an underground walkway. The limestone building occupies the whole site, there-by reinforcing its urban character. On the inside, visitors can assemble in the dramatic atrium before proceeding to the upper level galleries to begin their itinerary.