archBOSTON ARCHIVE

Lurker · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 112

The diagram of the new ICA is based around the idea of a folding ribbon. If you look at the elevation facing downtown and trace the structure of the building, you'll see it. The idea was hatched over a snacking from a box of milano cookies and messing around with some foil wrappers. /not kidding

chumbolly · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 120

Beton Brut · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 59

To clarify my thoughts on Diller + Scofido's upcoming work in NYC, I was suggesting that Tully is a "development" of the grammar (to use Wright's term) that they used in the ICA, with a few new tricks...

The ribbon element is an approach favored by OMA/Rem Koolhaas (and his protege Zaha Hadid).

Consider Koolhaas's recent Library in Seattle, where the open stacks are on a continuous ribbon-like ramp, the central layer of the building.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2004/0425/cover.html

Koolhaas also makes an intriguing use of a collection of ramps and stairs (some expressed on the facade) in his design for the new Dutch embassy in Berlin.

The spaces are a combination of dramatic and creepy, like something out of a David Fincher movie...

Or check out Zaha Hadid's design for another ICA project from a few years ago, this one in Cincinnati.

Notice how the sidewalk in the lower right of the photo curves up to become the party wall.

Hadid's recent work in Wolfsburg, Germany (the Phaneo Science Centre, another museum), where rigidly geometric and organic shapes collide (and coalesce) to form dramatic, engaging (and sometimes disquieting) spaces.

And Koolhaas has designed what is, perhaps, the ribbon-building to end all ribbon-buildings, the Television Cultural Centre in Beijing.

Only time will tell if any of these buildings will be admired by the public like Gehry's Bilbao, or reviled like Rudolph's Hurley Building...

LeTaureau · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 118

^That last building would look really cool on the greenway!

xec · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 62

BlinkieOB · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 103

There was a picture in today's Metro of a group of media people being given a tour of the inside of the new ICA. They were looking out the front of the cantilevered section. The floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall glass over the water looked great (although the quality of the picture obviously could have been better). Anyone know of any other pictures that came of this media tour?

statler · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

No pictures but I found this on Boston.com:

New works, programs mark new era at ICA

By Geoff Edgers, Globe Staff | April 4, 2006

With the September opening of its new building approaching, the Institute of Contemporary Art today will announce art acquisitions, programming decisions, and the hiring of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck to oversee its cafe. The ICA will also announce that developer Steve Samuels has closed on his purchase of its current home on Boylston Street. The building is selling for $9.5 million.

Today's announcements -- which will include word that the ICA will increase its annual Artist Prize to $25,000, five times the previous total -- signal a new era at the museum, which will move to its new home on the waterfront Sept. 17. It will be the first new art museum in Boston since the Museum of Fine Arts moved to its current home in 1909.

''We're focused so much on this from a construction standpoint, but I think we also want to show that it's not only a building," said Paul Bessire, the ICA's deputy director for external relations. ''This really is about the programs, about how everything we do is increasing significantly."

In March, ICA officials disclosed the first 11 pieces acquired for the new collection, including three Nan Goldin photographs, a Marlene Dumas watercolor, and a pair of Cornelia Parker sculptures. The new acquisitions -- to be announced today as part of a press tour of the building by its architects, Elizabeth Diller, Ric Scofidio, and Charles Renfro -- are a video installation by Christian Jankowski, a painting and drawing by Lucy McKenzie, and a painting by Kai Althoff.

All three artists, like those whose works were acquired earlier, already have a relationship with the ICA, having been featured in past shows. That's been a key to acquiring the works, even though they were purchased for the institution by collectors, according to Nicholas Baume, the ICA's chief curator.

''It's a good time to draw on the good will of the artist," said Baume. ''In [Althoff's] case, there's a mile-long waiting list. He doesn't produce much work and it's sought after by collectors around the world. The artist himself reserved a piece for the ICA, and at the same time, he's agreed to give us long-term loans of a couple of wonderful early pieces."

With expanded galleries and a higher profile, the institute has decided to make changes to the ICA Artist Prize it established for local artists in 1999. Instead of announcing a winner, the ICA will name four finalists and have each produce works for a show opening in September at the new building. A jury will vote for the eventual winner, who will be announced in early November.

This year's finalists are Sheila Gallagher, Jane D. Marsching, Kelly Sherman, and Rachel Perry Welty. The new prize, $25,000, matches the amount awarded by the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park for its Rappaport Prize. Winners of the MFA's Maud Morgan Prize receive $5,000.

''I think we want to raise the stakes, and also signal our commitment to Boston artists," said Carole Anne Meehan, the ICA curator who oversees the artist prize. ''While we can't reinvent our mission and who we truly are in terms of being a leading presenter of international and national art, an important component of what we do is to keep a good eye on our immediate neighborhood."

With a new 325-seat theater, the ICA is also looking to expand its cultural programs, including concerts, dance performances, and lectures. Today, the ICA will announce that it has commissioned a piece by choreographer Mark Morris to be performed by his company in May of 2007.

In addition, the ICA is launching programs designed to draw newcomers to the Fan Pier. A family program, set for one Saturday each month, will offer free admission to children under 12 accompanied by an adult. The ICA's Teen Council will help put together four nights featuring events for teens. The ICA has already announced that Boston's CRASHarts, a division of World Music Inc., will program 10 weeks of performances in the theater's first eight months.

Morris will also take part in the ICA's ''What New Is" lecture series. Other speakers haven't been announced, though David Henry, the ICA's director of programs, hopes to draw from the music and film worlds.

''Having a name performer like that will really draw attention to the fact that we're a performing arts institution," said Henry. ''I would hope to be able to do at least one or two things like that every year."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.

Link

BlinkieOB · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 103

This is so fantastic for the area. I've never been much of a museum-goer, but I will absolutely be there in September. Wolfgang Puck being tied to the cafe is even an incredible step towards making the Seaport something of a culinary destination!

Vanshnookenraggen · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 364

So is the T planning on changing the name of "Hynes/ICA"?

I hope they change it back to Massachusettes, since they already have the tile mosaics in the walls saying that.

BlinkieOB · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 103

duplicate post- sorry

justin · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 418

kz1000ps · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 112

^ Well then, what should we name it? This is of personal significance to me since I live one block away and my room looks out towards 360 Newbury. The Hynes monikor is misleading ever since they closed the old entrance/exit (travelers are almost better off taking the E line to Prudential), and now ICA is obsolete, so what does that leave us with?

Berklee.......Newbury (confusing for tourists since the street is a mile long)........Virgin (Records) (that'd never fly lol)........Highway Divide......

?

briv · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 118

Id change it to Top of Newbury.

Lurker · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 112

"The ribbon in its current form wasn't part of the original design."

The concept was there but not well represented. The early renderings were notoriously bad...hence the missing railings on everything and the rather odd entourage. D&S original concept model tells a lot about the building, but unfortunately I don't have access to pictures of it anymore.

There is a significant amount of structure packed into the building in order to make the central glass elevator (which is designed to lift an entire elementary school class at once and can lift/fit anything up to a main battle tank for display) to the upper floors along with the cantilever and open galleries on the top floor. Think of the plan as an H on the interior with the fire stairs (watch your head in these as they are at the bare minimums to fit around the structure) being at the front, hallways/elevators in the middle and the cut for the AV room protruding out. All of the floorspace in the galleries is double height, a nice little light slit in the roof, and no fixed partitions on a polished concrete floor. The voids have meant that the core of the building has some pretty beefy reinforcement along with a nightmarish system of utilities. The end wall facing Anthony's has the administrator's office along with the other offices. The downtown facade has the second floor theater space, a double height gallery above, and at ground level the entrance/ gift shop. There is a proposed extension towards Seaport Ave of a covered walkway to better connect the museum to the area, but it has been shelved due to a lack of funds.

xec · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 62

Thanks for the info.

user_45 · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 48

New video virtual tour of the completed ICA facility from the new arts blog at Boston.com:

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist/2006/04/the_new_ica.html

ALEEJAC · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 31

Wow, that's some seriously compressed video. Virtually unwatchable.
-ALJ

ablarc · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 825

Well...OK!!

Finally sold on this building.

At last Boston gets something world-class. Let's see...last time was Hancock Building, more than a third of a century ago.

xec · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 62

Taken today.

justin · Joined: 10 Mar 2005 Posts: 418

Pretty! I hope the cross-beams are visible through the glass walls as they are in the rendering. The front glass wall on the top floor seems perfectly transparent; I thought it was supposed to be 'lenticular' so as to allow views only from a limited range of angles.

What's the brown cladding on the curved backside? Wood?

justin