Tuesday 26 January 2016

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spanyol

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art, designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on October 18, 1997, by former King Juan Carlos I of Spain. Built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Cantabrian Sea, it is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists.

One of the most admired works of contemporary architecture, the building has been hailed as a "signal moment in the architectural culture", because it represents "one of those rare moments when critics, academics, and the general public were all completely united about something." The museum was the building most frequently named as one of the most important works completed since 1980 in the 2010 World Architecture Survey among architecture experts.
 
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation selected Frank Gehry as the architect, and its director, Thomas Krens, encouraged him to design something daring and innovative. The curves on the exterior of the building were intended to appear random; the architect said that "the randomness of the curves are designed to catch the light". The interior "is designed around a large, light-filled atrium with views of Bilbao's estuary and the surrounding hills of the Basque country". The atrium, which Gehry nicknamed The Flower because of its shape, serves as the organizing center of the museum.

When the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened to the public in 1997, it was immediately hailed as one of the world's most spectacular buildings in the style of Deconstructivism (although Gehry does not associate himself with that architectural movement), a masterpiece of the 20th century. Architect Philip Johnson described it as "the greatest building of our time", while critic Calvin Tomkins, in The New Yorker, characterized it as "a fantastic dream ship of undulating form in a cloak of titanium," its brilliantly reflective panels also reminiscent of fish scales. Herbert Muschamp praised its "mercurial brilliance" in The New York Times Magazine. The Independent calls the museum "an astonishing architectural feat". The building inspired other structures of similar design across the globe, such as the Cerritos Millennium Library in Cerritos, California.

 

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The museum is seamlessly integrated into the urban context, unfolding its interconnecting shapes of stone, glass and titanium on a 32,500-square-meter (350,000 sq ft) site along the Nervión River in the old industrial heart of the city; while modest from street level, it is most impressive when viewed from the river. With a total 24,000 m2 (260,000 sq ft), of which 11,000 m2 (120,000 sq ft) are dedicated to exhibition space, it had more exhibition space than the three Guggenheim collections in New York and Venice combined at that time. The 11,000 m2 of exhibition space are distributed over nineteen galleries, ten of which follow a classic orthogonal plan that can be identified from the exterior by their stone finishes. The remaining nine galleries are irregularly shaped and can be identified from the outside by their swirling organic forms and titanium cladding. The largest gallery measures 30 meters wide and 130 meters long (98 ft × 427 ft). In 2005, it housed Richard Serra's monumental installation The Matter of Time, which Robert Hughes dubbed "courageous and sublime". KLM Royal Dutch Airlines donated $1,000,000 towards its construction.
 
 
Image result for museum guggenheimThe museum notably houses "large-scale, site-specific works and installations by contemporary artists", such as Richard Serra's 100-meter-long (340 ft) Snake, and displays the work of Basque artists, "as well as housing a selection of works" from the Foundation's modern art collection. In 1997, the museum opened with "The Guggenheim Museums and the Art of This Century", a 300-piece overview of 20th-century art from Cubism to new media art. Most pieces came from the Guggenheim's permanent collection, but the museum also acquired paintings by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still and commissioned new works by Francesco Clemente, Anselm Kiefer, Jenny Holzer and Richard Serra.









The exhibitions change often; the museum generally hosts thematic exhibitions, centered for example on Chinese or Russian art. Traditional paintings and sculptures are a minority compared to installations and electronic forms. The highlight of the collection, and its only permanent exhibit, is The Matter of Time (incorporating an earlier work, Snake), a series of weathering steel sculptures designed by Serra, which is housed in the 130-meter Arcelor Gallery (formerly known as the Fish Gallery but renamed in 2005 for the steel manufacturer that sponsored the project). The collections usually highlight Avant-garde art, 20th century abstraction, and non-objective art. When the museum announced the 2011 exhibition "The Luminous Interval", a show of artwork belonging to Greek businessman Dimitris Daskalopoulos, who is also a museum trustee, this met with criticism of, among other things, too much curatorial power for a serious benefactor. In 2012 David Hockney's exhibition drew over 290,000 visitors to the museum.


 

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Holiday




 My Holiday
Audrey Iona (04)



I just had 24 hour-holiday with my family.

On Sunday, 3th of January 2016, my family and I woke up really early and had a breakfast really fast. We were already in the car at 7 am to be on a 7-hour trip. We had put all our backpacks, snacks, and pillows in the car the night before. My dad was the one who drove the car because he was so good and fast at driving. So… where were we going? Well, we were going to Pangandaran!

                We stopped in the middle of the trip to eat before we continue our trip. I was listening to the music on all the way to Pangandaran. Sometimes, I found my two sisters were sleeping or eating the snacks. I thought they were always hungry in every second of the trip! It was a long trip but I really enjoyed being in the car. Unlike my youngest sister, Edna couldn’t stop moving in the car and she always shouted “I’m hungry!” or “Is it still that far?” or “IT’s SO HOT!”. Edna made everyone in the car frustrated!

Well I tell you now; the next 24 hours were the time we had our holiday called “holiday”. 

Finally, after 7 hours, the car stopped in front of a hotel. We were so happy because we could take a rest in the hotel. At 3 pm, my family and I went swimming in the hotel’s water park. We wasted our time doing a swimming competition--the fastest who won. We were having a great time!

                Before the night came, we took a bath and then talked about what food we would eat. We agreed to eat seafood. The restaurant was exactly the same place where we had eaten on the last holiday when we had gone to Pangandaran. Not gonna lie, the foods were so delicious!! We were so full after we ate so we went for a walk before going back to the hotel. It wasn’t so crowd since it was the day when the holiday was going to end so people might’ve gone to their hometowns. We enjoyed the view of Pangandaran and the waves that made a great music in our ears.

                The next day, we took a breakfast together at 8 am in the hotel. We ate so fast and went to the beach. My sisters, my dad, and I went swimming while my mom was drinking coconut water. We were having fun so much. We chased the salt water and ran away when the waves came. It was like forgood since the last time we had gone to this place. We smiled and laughed a lot every time one of us fell when the waves hit us. But because it was really hot, we decided to go back to the hotel. We took a shower for the last time before we went out from the hotel. 

                It was one hour away before our holiday ended. We ate at the same restaurant as the night before. The foods were still as delicious as they had been. I ate too much that I felt like I wanted to throw up, but lucky I didn’t. Then… the 24-hour holiday in Pangandaran with my family ended. We brought everything back to the car and got ready for 7 hour-trip to go back to Bandung. 

                We were exhausted but at the same time, so, so, so, soo happy!! 24-hour holiday worked nicely when I was with my family :)