A personal view

The new Barnes Foundation Art Education Center on the Parkway has some beautiful features. The architectural firm of Todd White/Billie Tsein (TWBT) of New York chose Roman Gold/Grey Gold stone for the exterior walls. The stone was quarried in the Negev Desert in southern Israel, and its rough texture and creamy color makes it beautiful to look at. Referred to as a mosaic of stone artwork, this translucent fortress wall blends into the Parkway scenery so discreetly it’s easy to imagine missing the museum from a moving vehicle.

And that’s the problem with the new Barnes. There are too many walls, in effect giving the impression of a fortress. The Convent of Divine Love on Green Street (The Pink Sisters) is less fortified than this monastery of 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, and 59 Matisse’s, etc. The low-level unobtrusive design reminds me of the son of royal parents being told to dress down for his first day at a city charter school. An exterior design like this would excel in the Southwest desert or in red clay New Mexico, but along the Parkway the building is barely noticeable. Inside the fortress, the Ellsworth Kelly totem is the only concession to urban verticality, but (given the walls) suggests the feeling of an Old West American outpost.

Viewed another way, perhaps the walls are the inevitable result of the new security state, a protection against the unknown in the post 9/11 era.

When the press was invited to view the new Barnes close up (May 19th), I headed to the museum from 24th and the Parkway. The sight of the walls had me guessing where the entrance was, and it was only because I overheard one of the parking attendants mention that one could enter through the lot that I proceeded by instinct around yet another wall which did in fact open up to a beautiful arboretum-like space.

The flaunting of peacock feathers occurs inside the fortress where the museum becomes a mega space complete with café, meditation or transition rooms where visitors can sit while going from exhibit to exhibit, a glassed-in-court and a reading room. The idea, of course, as The New York Times so eloquently put it, is to "draw out the experience," a design plan with superfluous space that has visitors walking and walking, so that by the time they arrive, "they’ll need a drink." The Times also asks: "Can a design convey an institution’s feelings of guilt?" referring, of course, to the breaking of the will of Dr. Albert C. Barnes concerning the Merion estate.

As museums go, the walk referenced by The Times is nonetheless a beautiful stroll that might get you thinking along Japanese lines. The Zen-invoking TWBT window design near the monumental entrance archway manages to keep things on a modest human scale, but once on the inside an explosion of space ends all understatement and the "architecture of guilt" becomes strains of music by Vivaldi.

I last visited the Barnes Foundation in Merion as a Great Valley High School senior. Our art teacher arranged for a special tour with Dr. Barnes’ assistant, Violette de Mazia, who walked us through the exhibit and provided commentary. Before the class trip we were briefed rather extensively on proper Barnes etiquette, namely not to step beyond the electrical tape on the floor of the exhibit rooms in an attempt to get a closer view of the paintings. Since one could hardly miss the floor tape in the old Barnes, there were no law breakers, however in the new building--- where the perfect duplication of the Merion exhibition rooms had me thinking that nothing had changed---there’s no electrical tape on the floor but rather a discreet line that could easily double as a design flourish rather than a barrier. Many on press day, this writer included, were asked by wandering guards to "please step back behind the line," causing many looks of puzzlement until the guard pointed out that the design was the border.

On press event day, journalists arrived by buses from New York and then headed inside to join their Philadelphia peers at a breakfast buffet. Two DJs near the Light Court podium played a sad compendium of French songs reminiscent of Edith Piaf, although I was later informed that the music was a soundtrack from Cirque du Soleil. The bittersweet melodies invoked something vaguely existential and possibly troubling—images of the controversy surrounding the move of the Barnes from Merion to its present location came to mind--- although this was obviously not the intention of the music makers.