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165-599: The collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media, ranging in date from antiquity to the present and originating in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The main building contains 204,000 square feet (19,000 m) of space for public exhibitions, classrooms, conservation and research labs, and other related functions. Approximately 43,000 square feet (4,000 m) of space are dedicated to exhibitions. In 2008,

330-450: A "magic lantern". The Parco della Musica is the complex of music venues located in the Rome neighborhood which hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics . The park has three theaters, the largest with 2800 seats; when completed it was the largest symphonic concert hall in Europe. Piano acknowledged that his inspiration for the interior plan was the vineyard style seating, placed around the orchestra, of

495-399: A 18-foot (5.5 m) wide by 150-foot (46 m) long "connector" or bridge to the second floor of the original Fogg Museum building located on the other side of Broadway, a major Cambridge thoroughfare. The massive addition was planned to house two galleries, a lounge, and a completely-enclosed connection between the buildings, accessible to visitors and museum staff. The suspended structure

660-566: A baked earth color. Other architects engaged in the enormous project included Rafael Moneo , Arata Isozaki , and his former partner, Richard Rogers . The centerpiece of Piano's part of the project was the Debis building, composed of four different buildings of different sizes but in the same style. Distinctive elements include an atrium 28 metres (92 ft) high, and a 21-story tower whose east, south and west facades are covered with double walls of glass separated by 28 cm (11 in), which reduced

825-487: A blue or light green palette. After he returned to London, he painted several more nocturnes over the next ten years, many of the River Thames and of Cremorne Gardens , a pleasure park famous for its frequent fireworks displays, which presented a novel challenge to paint. In his maritime nocturnes, Whistler used highly thinned paint as a ground with lightly flicked color to suggest ships, lights, and shore line. Some of

990-576: A bottled up attack on our low standards of design and the beetle-browed politics that have allowed so many poor tall buildings to have been rushed up around St Paul's. The Shard, whatever its flaws – and all its many floors – is a much better building than most of the flakes below it." The Central Saint Giles between St Giles High Street and New Oxford Street in London (2002–2010) is a complex composed of 56 luxury apartments, 53 social rented apartments, and 37,000 m (400,000 sq ft) of office around

1155-581: A certain form of conviviality." The new Potsdamer Platz was designed to capture the Berliner's "sense of gaiety, their sense of humor....Why should a city be demoralizing? The beautiful thing about a city is that it is a place of meetings and surprises." Aurora Place in Sydney, Australia (1996–2009) is composed of two towers, an eighteen-story residential building next to a forty-one story office building with different facades but similar metal and glass sunscreens on

1320-516: A challenge to academism, but also a parody of the imagery of technology of our time. To consider it as a high-tech object is a mistake." In 1977 Piano ended his collaboration with Rogers and began a new collaboration with engineer Peter Rice , who had assisted in the design of the Pompidou Center. They established their offices in Genoa. One of their first projects was a plan for the rehabilitation of

1485-502: A combination of traditional and modern material; local wood, along with glass and aluminum. The complex is located on a narrow peninsula in a lagoon with prevailing winds. Piano designed a series of curved wooden screens, from 9 to 28 metres (30 to 92 ft) high, to protect the exposition structures, then three "villages" of structures; one for welcome and exhibitions space; one for an auditorium and media center; and one for service functions. The curving wooden pavilions, inspired in form by

1650-404: A dash of color to the facade. The Auditorium Niccolò Paganini is a concert hall constructed inside a former sugar mill in the historic center of the city of Parma, Italy . The theater has 780 seats placed on a slope for maximum visibility of the stage. Piano retained the original exterior walls of the main building, but removed the transversal interior walls and replaced them with glass walls, so

1815-553: A facade composed of 13,000 pieces of glass each exactly 45 by 45 centimetres (18 by 18 in). The panels of glass were made in Florence, Italy, and placed in supports made in Switzerland, for assembly in Japan. Each piece of the facade is designed to be able to move four millimetres ( 3 ⁄ 16  in) to resist earthquakes. When illuminated a night, the building is intended to resemble

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1980-557: A few months he lived in Baltimore with a wealthy friend, Tom Winans, who even furnished Whistler with a studio and some spending cash. The young artist made some valuable contacts in the art community and also sold some early paintings to Winans. Whistler turned down his mother's suggestions for other more practical careers and informed her that with money from Winans, he was setting out to further his art training in Paris. Whistler never returned to

2145-466: A five-metre (16 ft) cube as a small exhibit space, an underground auditorium with 199 seats, and a glass-walled atrium which united all the parts, old and new. The architecture critic of the New York Times , Nicolai Ouroussoff, wrote, "the result is a space with the weight of history and the lightness of clouds...a sublime expression of the architect's preoccupation with light." Piano's design for

2310-410: A glass ceiling that filters the light define five long galleries, while outside a sunken sculpture garden is placed four to five metres (13 to 16 ft) below the street level, away sheltered from noise giving the appearance of an overgrown archeological excavation. The Zentrum Paul Klee near Bern , Switzerland (1999–2005), continued his series of art museums each very different from the others. It

2475-467: A gleaming white. A glass bridge with two levels connects the main pavilion with the original part of the museum. The careful management of external light is a particular feature of Piano's buildings; the High Museum Extension rows of curving fan-shaped panels on the facade and on the interior ceiling with filter the sunlight. From the parvis on the outside, the white facade gives the impression that

2640-458: A hotel, along with offices, shops, restaurants, and cultural centers. It has a wide base and a split pinnacle point which seems to disappear into the clouds, like, as Piano described it, "a bell tower of the 16th century, or the mast of great ship...Often buildings of great height are aggressive and arrogant symbols of power and egoism," but the Shard is designed "to express its sharp and light presence in

2805-415: A journey that has puzzled scholars, although Whistler stated that he did it for political reasons. Chile was at war with Spain and perhaps Whistler thought it a heroic struggle of a small nation against a larger one, but no evidence supports that theory. What the journey did produce was Whistler's first three nocturnal paintings (which he originally termed "moonlights"): night scenes of the harbor painted with

2970-420: A letter from his mother, so Whistler turned to his mother and suggested that he do her portrait. He had her stand at first, in his typically slow and experimental way, but that proved too tiring so the seated pose was adopted. It took dozens of sittings to complete. The austere portrait in his normally constrained palette is another Whistler exercise in tonal harmony and composition. The deceptively simple design

3135-549: A library, an aquarium and an auditorium, a botanical garden in glass dome and a giant multi-armed crane, modeled after the old cranes of the port, which hoists visitors high in the air for a view of the port. In addition, he designed the new headquarters of his firm, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (1989–1991), on a series of stepped terraces hanging over the Mediterranean to the west of the city. The building

3300-517: A lily in her left hand and stands upon a wolf skin rug (interpreted by some to represent masculinity and lust) with the wolf's head staring menacingly at the viewer. The portrait was refused for exhibition at the conservative Royal Academy, but was shown in a private gallery under the title The Woman in White . In 1863, it was shown at the Salon des Refusés in Paris, an event sponsored by Emperor Napoleon III for

3465-550: A literal portrayal of the natural world. Two years later, Whistler painted another portrait of Hiffernan in white, this time displaying his newfound interest in Asian motifs, which he entitled The Little White Girl . His Lady of the Land Lijsen and The Golden Screen , both completed in 1864, again portray his mistress, in even more emphatic Asian dress and surroundings. During this period Whistler became close to Gustave Courbet ,

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3630-602: A minimalist 620-foot (190 m) steel bridge connecting the sculpture terrace of the museum to Millennium Park. Nikolai Ouroussof, critic of the New York Times , noted that some aspects of the building recalled the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , who had made much of his career in Chicago. "The taut forms and refined details, the elevation of an industrial aesthetic to an art form all are hallmarks of Mies's work." But he noted particularly Piano's masterful control of light within

3795-797: A modest house at 243 Worthen Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. The house is now the Whistler House Museum of Art , a museum dedicated to him. He claimed St. Petersburg, Russia as his birthplace during the Ruskin trial: "I shall be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in Lowell." Whistler was a moody child, prone to fits of temper and insolence, and he often drifted into periods of laziness after bouts of illness. His parents discovered that drawing often settled him down and helped focus his attention. The family moved from Lowell to Stonington, Connecticut in 1837, where his father worked for

3960-608: A museum of Natural History, located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Piano's plan called for "a group of volumes under a single roof, a little like a village." The roof itself, 1.5 hectares in area, was covered with vegetation, and blends with the surrounding park. The facade of the building also harmonizes smoothly with the nearby turn-of-the-century greenhouse that is a landmark of the Park. Three cupolas resemble shallow hills across

4125-601: A new building, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA (BCAM) (2008), with 5,574 m (60,000 sq ft) of space, as well as the BP Grand Entrance, an entrance pavilion with 750 m (8,100 sq ft) of space, and the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion (2010). The BCAM facade is concrete covered with plaques of cream-colored Italian travertine, harmonizing with the older buildings of

4290-517: A new wing of the beaux-arts building Art Institute of Chicago . With its construction of glass, steel and white stone, the new wing is carefully harmonized with the old structure, and, like his other art museums, makes maximum use of natural light. A horizontal sunscreen on the roof, nicknamed the "flying carpet", is a graceful update of his rooftop art museum on the Lingotto factory in Turin. He also designed

4455-616: A pivotal role in shaping the legacy of the Harvard Art Museums, serving as a foundation for teaching, research, and professional training programs. It includes important 19th-century paintings, sculpture, and drawings by William Blake , Edward Burne-Jones , Jacques-Louis David , Honoré Daumier , Winslow Homer , Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres , Alfred Barye , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Auguste Rodin , John Singer Sargent , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , and James Abbott McNeill Whistler . The art museum has Late Medieval Italian paintings by

4620-566: A proposal to remove the Sackler name since October 2022. The museum collection holds important collections of Asian art, most notably, archaic Chinese jades (the widest collection outside of China) and Japanese surimono , as well as outstanding Chinese bronzes, ceremonial weapons, Buddhist cave-temple sculptures, ceramics from China and Korea, Japanese works on paper, and lacquer boxes. The ancient Mediterranean and Byzantine collections comprise significant works in all media from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and

4785-424: A public square with retail and food outlets, covering 7,000 m (75,000 sq ft). The site was previously occupied by a Ministry of Defence building and is partially on the site of a medieval leper colony , St Giles Hospital. A block 109 flats rises 11 floors and is set alongside offices rising to 11 floors to the east. A distinctive element is strident solid color which is designed not to mellow with time;

4950-456: A specific meaning almost immediately to almost every viewer. These few works have successfully made the transition from the elite realm of the museum visitor to the enormous venue of popular culture. Other important portraits by Whistler include those of Thomas Carlyle (historian, 1873), Maud Franklin (his mistress, 1876), Cicely Alexander (daughter of a London banker, 1873), Lady Meux (socialite, 1882), and Théodore Duret (critic, 1884). In

5115-475: A splendid power of composition and design, which evince a just appreciation of nature very rare amongst artists." The work is unsentimental and effectively contrasts the mother in black and the daughter in white, with other colors kept restrained in the manner advised by his teacher Gleyre . It was displayed at the Royal Academy the following year, and in many exhibits to come. In a second painting executed in

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5280-454: A tribute to Arthur M. Sackler, and essays by Slive, Coolidge, and Rosenfield. In spite of international critical acclaim upon its opening, there have been outspoken critics of the building; Martin Peretz even proposed its demolition (though his case was undermined by mis-attributing the building to another British architect, Norman Foster ). The Sackler building was originally intended to include

5445-621: A watercolour set with instruction. Whistler already was imagining an art career. He began to collect books on art and he studied other artists' techniques. When his portrait was painted by Sir William Boxall in 1848, the young Whistler exclaimed that the portrait was "very much like me and a very fine picture. Mr. Boxall is a beautiful colourist... It is a beautiful creamy surface, and looks so rich." In his blossoming enthusiasm for art, at fifteen, he informed his father by letter of his future direction, "I hope, dear father, you will not object to my choice." His father, however, died from cholera at

5610-507: A wooden frame, and could be transported in a truck. It was designed to integrate the scenery outside into displays in the interior. He designed two major reconstruction projects in northern Italy; the reanimation of the old port of his native city, Genoa , and the conversion and modernization of the gigantic and historic Fiat factory in Turin , Italy. For the Fiat Lingotto factory, he preserved

5775-458: Is a gas ." As he himself put it later: "If silicon were a gas, I would have been a general one day". However, a separate anecdote suggests misconduct in drawing class as the reason for Whistler's departure. After West Point, Whistler worked as draftsman mapping the entire U.S. coast for military and maritime purposes. He found the work boring and he was frequently late or absent. He spent much of his free time playing billiards and idling about,

5940-528: Is a historic triangle in the heart of Berlin Germany, which had been largely destroyed during World War II, and then divided by the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin. When a major reconstruction was commenced in 1990, Piano was selected to design the new buildings on five of the fifteen sites of the project, with the requirement that the buildings have roofs of copper, and facades of clear glass and materials of

6105-523: Is a notable group of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works that contains many famous masterpieces, including paintings and sculptures by Paul Cézanne , Edgar Degas , Édouard Manet , Henri Matisse , Pablo Picasso , and Vincent van Gogh . Central to the Fogg's holdings is the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, with more than 4,000 works of art. Bequeathed to Harvard in 1943, the collection continues to play

6270-631: Is accessed by an eight-passenger funicular railway car which shuttles up and down the hillside. "The Whale" Bercy 2 is a shopping mall with 70 stores and 36,000 m2 located in Paris Charenton , along the bankside of the river Seine and the "Périphérique" ring road. Inaugurated on 24 April 1990, the building is only the third work by the architect after the Centre Pompidou. The cyclopean wooden structure, covered with 27,000 satin stainless steel tiles and pierced with oculus to let an overhead light pass,

6435-759: Is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers , 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City (2015), İstanbul Modern in Istanbul (2022) and Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens (2016). He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. Piano has been a Senator for Life in

6600-548: Is completely innovative. Its curvature which follows the turn of a ramp on the ring road evokes a large airship, hence the nicknames "The Zeppelin" or "The Whale". In the mid-1980s Sitmar Cruises began a rigorous building schedule for the North American market. At the time one ship the Sitmar Fairmajesty was ordered for French shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique. The Italian government through Fincantieri would desire for

6765-582: Is in fact a balancing act of differing shapes, particularly the rectangles of curtain, picture on the wall, and floor which stabilize the curve of her face, dress, and chair. Whistler commented that the painting's narrative was of little importance, yet the painting was also paying homage to his pious mother. After the initial shock of her moving in with her son, she aided him considerably by stabilizing his behavior somewhat, tending to his domestic needs, and providing an aura of conservative respectability that helped win over patrons. The public reacted negatively to

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6930-481: Is marked by a subtle delicacy, while his public persona was combative. He found a parallel between painting and music, and entitled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes" , emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother , is a revered and often parodied portrait of motherhood. Whistler influenced

7095-455: Is much more modern, scientifically speaking, than the Beaubourg." The Menil Collection building, with its simple gray and white cubic forms, is the stylistic opposite of the Pompidou Center. The technological innovations were not expressed on the facade, but in the high-tech but discreet systems of shutters and screens and air conditioning which allowed maximum illumination while protecting against

7260-521: Is really so charming and does so poetically say all that I want to say and no more than I wish! At that point, Whistler painted another self-portrait and entitled it Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter (c. 1872), and he also began to re-title many of his earlier works using terms associated with music, such as a " nocturne ", " symphony ", " harmony ", " study " or " arrangement ", to emphasize

7425-622: The 2004 Summer Olympics , it combines the Greek National Library and a new opera house for the Greek National Opera along with the Stavros Niarchos Park, an urban park covering an area of 210,000 m (2,300,000 sq ft). An artificial hill was created to raise the building and give it a view of the nearby sea. The opera house has a 1400-seat main theater and a smaller "black box" theater of 400 seats. On top of

7590-600: The American South and its roots, and he presented himself as an impoverished Southern aristocrat , although it remains unclear to what extent he truly sympathized with the Southern cause during the American Civil War . He adopted his mother's maiden name after she died, using it as an additional middle name. His father was a railroad engineer, and Anna was his second wife. James lived the first three years of his life in

7755-473: The Berlin Philharmonic by Hans Sharon. The three brick concert halls covered with what New York Times critic Sam Lubell described as "weathered armadillo-like steel shells," which looked forbidding in photographs but in person were "lovely"; and noted that the theaters "inside are heavy with wood, fabrics, and typical Piano elegance." He called the whole complex "deceptively simple but smart.". In

7920-461: The Dallas Morning News , wrote: "With its almost impossibly smooth walls and squared columns of titanium-treated concrete, Piano's front facade evinces a clinical, stoic perfectionism.... Altogether, the assembly is a minor miracle of construction. Most impressive are the beams: 100-foot-long bars of laminated Douglas fir, trucked from Canada. But for all its technical mastery, it offers none of

8085-467: The Imperial Academy of Arts at age eleven. The young artist followed the traditional curriculum of drawing from plaster casts and occasional live models, revelled in the atmosphere of art talk with older peers, and pleased his parents with a first-class mark in anatomy. In 1844, he met the noted artist Sir William Allan , who came to Russia with a commission to paint a history of the life of Peter

8250-510: The Italian Senate since 2013. Piano was born and raised in Genoa , Italy, into a family of builders. His grandfather had created a masonry enterprise, which had been expanded by his father, Carlo Piano, and his father's three brothers, into the firm Fratelli Piano. The firm prospered after World War II, constructing houses and factories and selling construction materials. When his father retired,

8415-1253: The Master of Offida , Master of Camerino, Bernardo Daddi , Simone Martini , Luca di Tomme , Pietro Lorenzetti , Ambrogio Lorenzetti , Master of Orcanesque Misercordia, Master of Saints Cosmas and Damiançand Bartolomeo Bulgarini. Flemish Renaissance paintings — Master of Catholic Kings, Jan Provoost , Master of Holy Blood, Aelbert Bouts , and Master of Saint Ursula. Italian Renaissance period paintings — Fra Angelico , Sandro Botticelli , Domenico Ghirlandaio , Gherardo Starnina , Cosme Tura , Giovanni di Paolo , and Lorenzo Lotto . French Baroque period paintings — Nicolas Poussin , Jacques Stella , Nicolas Regnier , and Philippe de Champaigne . Dutch Master paintings — Rembrandt , Emanuel de Witte , Jan Steen , Willem Van de Velde , Jacob van Ruisdael , Salomon van Ruysdael , Jan van der Heyden , and Dirck Hals . American paintings — Gilbert Stuart , Charles Willson Peale , Robert Feke , Sanford Gifford , James McNeill Whistler , John Singer Sargent , Thomas Eakins , Man Ray , Ben Shahn , Jacob Lawrence , Lewis Rubenstein , Robert Sloan , Phillip Guston , Jackson Pollock , Kerry James Marshall , and Clyfford Still . In

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8580-560: The Musée d'Orsay in Paris. During the Great Depression in the United States, the picture was billed as a "million dollar" painting and was a big hit at the 1933–34 Chicago World's Fair . It was accepted as a universal icon of motherhood by the worldwide public, which was not particularly aware of or concerned with Whistler's aesthetic theories. In recognition of its status and popularity,

8745-487: The New York Times , called it "an outdoor perch to see and be seen... There's a generosity to the architecture, a sense of art connecting with the city and vice versa". Beginning in 2008, Piano rebuilt an existing structure to house the Harvard Art Museums , a consolidation of collections of the three art museums associated with Harvard University . The new museum preserved the picturesque brick Ivy-League facade of

8910-490: The New York Times Building was chosen after competition whose entrants included projects by Norman Foster , Frank Gehry and Cesar Pelli . The competition rules asked for a building that be as open and transparent as possible, to symbolize the connection between the newspaper and the city. The first six floors are occupied by an atrium with restaurants, shops and a conference center. The distinctive Piano feature of

9075-625: The Pritzker Prize , often considered the Nobel Prize of architecture. The jury citation compared Piano to Michelangelo and da Vinci and credited him with "redefining modern and postmodern architecture." In 2006, Piano was selected by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world . He was chosen as the tenth most influential person in the "Arts and Entertainment" category. On 18 March 2008, he became an honorary citizen of Sarajevo , Bosnia and Herzegovina. In August 2013, he

9240-706: The Stonington Railroad . Three of the couple's children died in infancy during this period. Their fortunes improved considerably in 1839 when his father became chief engineer for the Boston & Albany Railroad , and the family built a mansion in Springfield, Massachusetts , where the Wood Museum of History now stands. They lived in Springfield until they left the United States for Russia in late 1842. In 1842, his father

9405-567: The "machine" was meant to turn back into a public square and gathering place. The Parliament House (2011–2015) is a mixture of modern technique and technology with the massive stone look of the city's old walls. The Centro Botín in Santander, Spain is a private sponsored project by the Fundación Botín whose aim is to be a hub for the promotion of culture both as a museum and as study centre. It consists on two buildings standing on columns over

9570-439: The 1870s, Whistler painted full-length portraits of his benefactor Frederick Leyland and his wife Frances. Leyland subsequently commissioned the artist to decorate his dining room (see Peacock Room below). Whistler had been disappointed over the irregular acceptance of his works for the Royal Academy exhibitions and the poor hanging and placement of his paintings. In response, Whistler staged his first solo show in 1874. The show

9735-515: The 1925 Fogg Museum (1925), but added a new space in the courtyard, covered by a pyramidal glass roof, which increased the gallery space by 40 percent. The renovation adds six levels of galleries, classrooms, lecture halls, and new study areas providing access to parts of the 250,000-piece collection of the museums. The new building was opened in November 2014. The 'City Gate' project in Valletta , Malta

9900-406: The 250,000-piece collection of the museums. The new building was opened in November 2014. The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest and largest component of the Harvard Art Museums. The museum was originally housed in an Italian Renaissance -style building designed by Richard Morris Hunt . According to Donald Preziosi , the museum was not initially established as a gallery for

10065-647: The Busch–Reisinger was located in Adolphus Busch Hall at 29 Kirkland Street. The Hall continues to house the Busch–Reisinger's founding collection of medieval plaster casts and an exhibition on the history of the Busch–Reisinger Museum; it also hosts concerts on its Flentrop pipe organ. In 1991, the Busch–Reisinger moved to the new Werner Otto Hall, designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates , at 32 Quincy Street. In 2018, Busch–Reisinger featured

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10230-515: The City cluster and pays no heed to its surrounding context in scale, materials or ground presence. It seems to have lost its way from Dubai to Canary Wharf... The Shard has slashed the face of London for ever." However, Jonathan Glancy in the London Telegraph defended Piano's building: "The criticism – hurled against Piano like the spears of Ancient Britons fighting the civilised Romans – is, I think,

10395-515: The Fiat head Giovanni Agnelli in an elegant glass and steel box perched on the roof, as if it were about to take off; it was nicknamed the "Flying bank vault". Piano also carried out a large program for revitalization of the old port of Genoa to transform it from a rundown industrial area into a cultural center and tourist attraction. He prolonged streets to give access to the port, transformed old port buildings into cultural and commercial buildings, added

10560-606: The Fine Arts Library. The Sackler building continues to house the History of Art and Architecture Department and the Media Slide Library. Since at least 2018, critics and protestors have called for Harvard to remove the "Sackler" family name from the building and the museum, citing its connection to the aggressive marketing of the addictive drug OxyContin . Defenders have pointed out that Arthur M. Sackler died in 1987, before

10725-562: The Great . Whistler's mother noted in her diary, "the great artist remarked to me 'Your little boy has uncommon genius, but do not urge him beyond his inclination.'" In 1847–1848, his family spent some time in London with relatives, while his father stayed in Russia. Whistler's brother-in-law Francis Haden , a physician who was also an artist, spurred his interest in art and photography. Haden took Whistler to visit collectors and to lectures, and gave him

10890-428: The Harvard Art Museums' historic building at 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, was closed for a major renovation and expansion project. During the beginning phases of this project, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway, Cambridge, displayed selected works from the collections of the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Sackler museums from September 13, 2008, through June 1, 2013. The renovated building at 32 Quincy Street united

11055-454: The Impressionists in 1874, Whistler turned down the invitation, as did Manet , and some scholars attributed this in part to Fantin-Latour's influence on both men. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 fragmented the French art community. Many artists took refuge in England, joining Whistler, including Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet , while Manet and Degas stayed in France. Like Whistler, Monet and Pissarro both focused their efforts on views of

11220-442: The Italian rationalist style. The "theater machine" is particularly unusual; the original idea was that in summertime a steel portable theater with stage and wings and a thousand seats can be installed inside the ruins of the 19th century opera house, which had been destroyed in World War II . It has its own stage equipment and technology for reproducing the acoustics of a traditional opera house. When performances are not taking place,

11385-408: The Kahn building through its height, its scale and its general plan, but our building has a character that is more transparent and more open. Light, discreet (half of the surfaces are underground), it nonetheless has its own character and creates a dialogue between the old and the new." However, the museum also attracted critics, who said it was not ambitious enough. Mark Lamster, architecture critic of

11550-408: The Moose . Whistler did his part in promoting the picture and popularizing the image. He frequently exhibited it and authorized the early reproductions that made their way into thousands of homes. The painting narrowly escaped being burned in a fire aboard a train during shipping. It was ultimately purchased by the French government, the first Whistler work in a public collection, and is now housed in

11715-412: The Near East. Strengths include Greek vases, small bronzes, and coins from throughout the ancient Mediterranean world. The museum also holds works on paper from Islamic lands and India, including paintings, drawings, calligraphy, and manuscript illustrations, with particular strength in Rajput art, as well as important Islamic ceramics from the 8th through to the 19th century. The Sackler building, which

11880-501: The Piano in 1859 in London, which he adopted as his home, while also regularly visiting friends in France. At the Piano is a portrait composed of his niece and her mother in their London music room, an effort which clearly displayed his talent and promise. A critic wrote, "[despite] a recklessly bold manner and sketchiness of the wildest and roughest kind, [it has] a genuine feeling for colour and

12045-631: The Polytechnic University from 1965 until 1968, and expanded his horizons and technical skills by working in two large international firms, for the modernist architect Louis Kahn in Philadelphia and for the Polish engineer Zygmunt Stanisław Makowski in London. He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa, in 1968, with a roof of steel and reinforced polyester, and created a continuous membrane for

12210-505: The Sackler building was re-opened as an educational and research facility containing no significant public exhibition spaces. The building continues to house a sizable lecture hall at its basement level, which is primarily used for educational purposes. From its original opening in 1984, the building has encompassed the university's department of the History of Art and Architecture. Renzo Piano Renzo Piano OMRI ( Italian: [ˈrɛntso ˈpjaːno] ; born 14 September 1937)

12375-505: The Sydney Opera House on the harbor. The exterior glass curtain-wall extends beyond the main frame, creating an illusion that the wall is independent of the building. of its Glass shutters on the exterior can be opened for ventilation, and Piano designed an exterior skin combining glass and ceramics to regulate the intensity of the sunlight. The office building has interior winter gardens on each floor, and earth-colored ceramic tiles give

12540-541: The Thames paintings also show compositional and thematic similarities with the Japanese prints of Hiroshige . In 1872, Whistler credited his patron Frederick Leyland , an amateur musician devoted to Chopin , for his musically inspired titles. I say I can't thank you too much for the name 'Nocturne' as a title for my moonlights! You have no idea what an irritation it proves to the critics and consequent pleasure to me—besides it

12705-533: The United States issued a postage stamp in 1934 featuring an adaptation of the painting. In 2015, New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote that it "remains the most important American work residing outside the United States." Martha Tedeschi writes: Whistler's Mother , Wood 's American Gothic , Leonardo da Vinci 's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch 's The Scream have all achieved something that most paintings—regardless of their art historical importance, beauty, or monetary value—have not: they communicate

12870-554: The United States. Whistler arrived in Paris in 1855, rented a studio in the Latin Quarter , and quickly adopted the life of a bohemian artist. Soon he had a French girlfriend, a dressmaker named Héloise. He studied traditional art methods for a short time at the Ecole Impériale and at the atelier of Charles Gleyre . The latter was a great advocate of the work of Ingres , and impressed Whistler with two principles that he used for

13035-541: The age of 49, and the Whistler family moved back to his mother's home town of Pomfret, Connecticut . The family lived frugally and managed to get by on a limited income. His art plans remained vague and his future uncertain. His cousin reported that Whistler at that time was "slight, with a pensive, delicate face, shaded by soft brown curls... he had a somewhat foreign appearance and manner, which, aided by natural abilities, made him very charming, even at that age." Whistler

13200-494: The alabaster white walls within. The materials used in the new museum included light-colored concrete, to harmonize with the Kahn building, combined with beams and ceilings of Douglas fir, and floors of white oak and an abundance of double-paned and fritted glass. The museum also includes modern ecological features including a vegetal roof, photovoltaic cells on the roof, geothermal wells, and LED lighting. Piano wrote: "Our building echoes

13365-567: The architecture of the neighborhood. In addition to its interior galleries, it has 1,207 m (12,990 sq ft) of open-air exhibit space on a large terrace atop one section of the building. It was built of steel, concrete, and stone, but also with pine wood and other materials recycled from demolished factories. Jule Iovine, architecture critic of the Wall Street Journal , called it "a welcoming, creative machine" thanks to its "open, changeable spaces," and Michael Kimmelman, critic of

13530-400: The architecture world upside down". More literally it turned architecture inside-out, since in the new museum, the apparent structural frame of the building and the heating and air conditioning ducts were on the exterior, painted in bright colors. The escalator, in a transparent tube, crossed the facade of the building at a diagonal. The building was an astonishing success, entirely transforming

13695-484: The art world and the broader culture of his time with his aesthetic theories and his friendships with other leading artists and writers. James Abbott Whistler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on July 10, 1834, the first child of Anna McNeill Whistler and George Washington Whistler , and the elder brother of Confederate surgeon William McNeill Whistler . In later years, Whistler played up his mother's connection to

13860-482: The beginning of his career, completed in 1972. The building faces the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, designed by Tadao Ando (2002). The new gallery occupies 7,595 m (81,750 sq ft), compared with 11,148 m (120,000 sq ft) for the Kahn building, and cost 135 million dollars. Piano created a dramatic new entrance for the museum, with huge windows showing the bright red furniture against

14025-485: The brutality of life and nature and to portray it faithfully, avoiding the old themes of mythology and allegory. Théophile Gautier , one of the first to explore translation qualities among art and music, may have inspired Whistler to view art in musical terms. Reflecting his adopted circle's banner of the Realism art movement , Whistler painted his first exhibited work, La Mère Gérard in 1858. He followed it by painting At

14190-451: The building as sublime and striking due to the conjunction of light, views and design that the buildings propose. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens, Greece is one of Piano's most dramatic projects. Located next to Falirio Bay at Kalithea , an ancient Greek port, four kilometres (2.5 mi) south of central Athens, on a site which served as a parking lot for

14355-495: The building has no weight at all. The extension of the Morgan Library in New York City is next to the original library, a monument of Beaux-Arts architecture designed by McKim, Meade and White (1903), which had been expanded several times. Piano extensively renovated the existing structures and a built a new building the same height as the historic building, with a simple rectangular facade that complemented it. He also added

14520-406: The building: "...it is the light that most people will notice.... The glass roof of the top-floor galleries is supported on delicate steel trusses. Rows of white blades rest on top of the trusses to filter out strong southern light; thin fabric panels soften the view from below... On a clear afternoon you can catch faint glimpses through the structural frame of clouds drifting by overhead. But most of

14685-504: The buildings are covered with large kiln-fired ceramic panels glazed leaf green, orange, lime green, pale grey and yellow. "Cities should not be dull and repetitive", Piano declared. "One of the reason we find them so beautiful and interesting is that they are full of surprises; even the idea of color represents a joyful surprise." Commissioned to design a "transformation" of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , Piano designed

14850-538: The canal the two museum buildings. The construction materials include steel, glass and wooden beams, while the facades that are not made of glass are covered with finely-crafted weathered panels, in the tradition of Scandinavian architecture. The extension of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (2007–2013) is an addition to the museum designed by Louis Kahn the modernist architect for whom Piano worked at

15015-461: The character of a run-down commercial section near the Marais in Paris, and made Piano one of the best-known architects in the world. The media dubbed the style of the building as "high-tech", but this was later disputed by Piano. "Beaubourg," he said, "was a joyous urban machine, a creature which might have come out of a Jules Verne novel, a sort of bizarre boat in dry dock... It is a double provocation;

15180-559: The city, and it is likely that Whistler was exposed to the evolution of Impressionism founded by these artists and that they had seen his nocturnes. Whistler was drifting away from Courbet's "damned realism" and their friendship had wilted, as had his liaison with Joanna Hiffernan. By 1871, Whistler returned to portraits and soon produced his most famous painting, the nearly monochromatic full-length figure entitled Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1 , but usually referred to as Whistler's Mother . A model failed to appear one day, according to

15345-495: The conduits for heating and water on the exterior painted in bright colors (blue, red and yellow). These unusual features attracted considerable attention in the architectural world, and influenced the choice of the jurors who selected Piano and Rogers to design the Pompidou Center. In 1971 the thirty-four-year old Piano and Richard Rogers , thirty-eight, in collaboration with the Italian architect Gianfranco Franchini , competed with

15510-612: The covering of a pavilion at the Milan Triennale in the same year. In 1970, he received his first international commission, for the Pavilion of Italian Industry for Expo 70 in Osaka , Japan. He collaborated with his brother Ermanno and the family firm, which manufactured the structure. It was lightweight and original composed of steel and reinforced polyester, and it appeared to be simultaneously artistic and industrial. The 1970 Osaka structure

15675-576: The development of the opioid problems of the 21st century. This argument is rebutted by activists, who charge that Arthur Sackler promoted Valium and set up an unethical system of marketing drugs that continued after his death. On April 20, 2023, at least 50 protesters associated with the advocacy group P.A.I.N. staged a " die-in " in the atrium of the Harvard Art Museum, promoting continuing efforts to dename Sackler facilities at Harvard. A Harvard spokesman confirmed that Harvard has been "considering"

15840-518: The display of original works of art, but was founded as an institution for the teaching and study of visual arts , and the original building contained classrooms equipped with magic lanterns , a library, an archive of slides and photographs of art works, and exhibition space for reproductions of works of art. In 1925, the building was replaced by a Georgian Revival -style structure on Quincy Street, designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott . (The original Hunt Hall remained, underutilized until it

16005-927: The early leader of the French realist school, but when Hiffernan modeled in the nude for Courbet, Whistler became enraged and his relationship with Hiffernan began to fall apart. In January 1864, Whistler's very religious and very proper mother arrived in London, upsetting her son's bohemian existence and temporarily exacerbating family tensions. As he wrote to Henri Fantin-Latour , "General upheaval!! I had to empty my house and purify it from cellar to eaves." He also immediately moved Hiffernan to another location. From 1866, Whistler made his home in Chelsea, London , an area popular with artists, firstly in Cheyne Walk , then an ill-fated move to Tite Street , and finally Upper Church Street. In 1866, Whistler decided to visit Valparaíso, Chile ,

16170-407: The east and west, glass walls on the north and south, and a roof with vertical glass shutters that open to the sky. Describing this project, Piano wrote: "It's not enough that the light is perfect. You also have a need for calm, serenity, and even a quality of voluptuousness connected with the contemplation of a work of art." Nicolai Ouroussoff, the architecture critic of The New York Times , admired

16335-589: The elemental majesty of Kahn's building across the lawn. It is deferential to a fault." The Whitney Museum of American Art decided to move from its original building on Madison Avenue, constructed by Marcel Breuer in 1966, to a new location at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington in Manhattan, a neighborhood once occupied by meat packing houses, next to the High Line , a riverside highway and park. The museum, with nine levels, has an asymmetric industrial look to match

16500-400: The emerging Impressionist school, found Whistler's new works surprising and confounding. Fantin-Latour admitted, "I don't understand anything there; it's bizarre how one changes. I don't recognize him anymore." Their relationship was nearly at an end by then, but they continued to share opinions in occasional correspondence. When Edgar Degas invited Whistler to exhibit with the first show by

16665-400: The enormous main structure, including its famous oval test track for automobiles on the roof, but added new structures, including a concert hall beneath the building, a heliport, and a glass domed conference center on the roof. He continued his modifications and additions over two decades; without destroying the historic core of the building. The most recent was a museum for the art collection of

16830-491: The enterprise was led by Renzo's older brother, Ermanno, who studied engineering at the University of Genoa . Renzo studied architecture at the University of Florence and Polytechnic University of Milan . He graduated in 1964 with a dissertation about modular coordination ( coordinazione modulare ) supervised by Giuseppe Ciribini and began working with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters. Piano taught at

16995-510: The entire interior is visible from the outside, and those inside can see the park outside the theater. The Maison Hermès in the Ginza commercial district of Tokyo is the flagship store in Japan of the French luxury brand. The building is ten stories high, with three floors underground, and includes space for expositions and for a small museum on the history of the firm. The building is highly geometrical; precisely 44.55 metres (146.2 ft) high, with

17160-510: The event of greatest consequence that year was his friendship with Henri Fantin-Latour , whom he met at the Louvre. Through him, Whistler was introduced to the circle of Gustave Courbet , which included Carolus-Duran (later the teacher of John Singer Sargent ), Alphonse Legros , and Édouard Manet . Also in this group was Charles Baudelaire , whose ideas and theories of "modern" art influenced Whistler. Baudelaire challenged artists to scrutinize

17325-484: The exhibition Inventur–Art in Germany, 1943–55 , which was named after a 1945 poem by Günter Eich . In 2019, The Bauhaus and Harvard celebrated the centennial of the founding of the influential design school in Germany. Following its closure by the Nazis in 1933, a number of its former students and faculty made their way to Harvard, where they continued and expanded their work. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum opened in 1985, and

17490-436: The exhibition of works rejected from the Salon . Whistler's painting was widely noticed, although upstaged by Manet's more shocking painting Le déjeuner sur l'herbe . Countering criticism by traditionalists, Whistler's supporters insisted that the painting was "an apparition with a spiritual content" and that it epitomized his theory that art should be concerned essentially with the arrangement of colors in harmony, not with

17655-475: The fall of 2021, the Harvard Art Museums launched the "ReFrame" initiative, with the goal of promoting greater representation and presenting more perspectives within their exhibits. The initiative aims to bring unseen artwork out of storage and re-contextualize existing exhibits, to tell the stories of marginalized individuals in each curation. Founded in 1903 as the Germanic Museum, the Busch–Reisinger Museum

17820-582: The finish. After a year in London, he produced a set of etchings in 1860 called Thames Set, as counterpoint to his 1858 French set, as well as some early impressionistic work including The Thames in Ice . At this stage, he was beginning to establish his technique of tonal harmony based on a limited, predetermined palette. In 1861, after returning to Paris for a time, Whistler painted his first famous work, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl . The portrait of his mistress and business manager Joanna Hiffernan

17985-1021: The first and largest collections of artifacts related to the Bauhaus design school (1919–1933), which fostered many developments in modernist design. Other strengths include late medieval sculpture and 18th-century art. The museum also holds noteworthy postwar and contemporary art from German-speaking Europe, including works by Georg Baselitz , Anselm Kiefer , Gerhard Richter , and one of the world's most comprehensive collections of works by Joseph Beuys . The Busch–Reisinger Art Museum has oil paintings by artists Lovis Corinth , Max Liebermann , Gustav Klimt , Edvard Munch , Paula Modersohn-Becker , Max Ernst , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Franz Marc , Karl Schmidt-Rottluff , Emil Nolde , Erich Heckel , Heinrich Hoerle , Georg Baselitz , László Moholy-Nagy , and Max Beckmann . It has sculpture by Alfred Barye , Käthe Kollwitz , George Minne , and Ernst Barlach . From 1921 to 1991,

18150-503: The first decade of the 21st century, a wave of new art museums or museum wings were built to house the collections of wealthy art patrons. Piano, who had been building art museums since 1977, was one of the most active and creative designers of these new buildings; though the requirements and the collections were often similar, he usually succeeded in giving each museum a distinct look and personality. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas,

18315-523: The form of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City of Frank Lloyd Wright , opened in 1983. Piano's project added four new structures; a pavilion for exhibitions, a gallery for special collections, a building for offices, and a residence hall for the Atlanta College Of Art, creating 16,000 m (170,000 sq ft) of additional space. Both the new building and the original building are

18480-427: The intense Texas heat and sunlight. In the mid-1980s Piano and his firm took on a wide variety of projects, using the most advanced technology available, but, in contrast to the Pompidou Center, as discreetly as possible. His portable pavilion for IBM (1983–1986) was an example; designed with Peter Rice , of a lightweight portable tunnel for expositions. It composed of a series of pyramids of polycarbonate supported by

18645-661: The interior of the BCAM but was less impressed by the exteriors: "There is little of the formal freedom that is at the heart of the city's architectural legacy; nor is there much evidence of the structural refinement that we have come to expect in Mr. Piano's best work. The museum's monumental travertine form and lipstick-red exterior stairways are a curious mix of pomposity and pop-culture references. It's an architecture without conviction." The Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Norway (2006–2012)

18810-519: The local architecture, have a double wooden skin to protect against the weather, but also let in the sunlight. While it is devoted to the local culture, some of the buildings, particularly the towering reception center, with curving walls and wooden spires, are strikingly post-modern in form. His other projects begun in the 1990s included the New Metropolis Museum in Amsterdam, which later became

18975-475: The major architectural firms in the United States and Europe, and were awarded the commission for the most prestigious project in Paris, the new French national museum of 20th century art to be located in Beaubourg . The award came a surprise, to the architectural world, since the two were little-known, and had no experience with museums or other major structures. The New York Times declared that their design "turned

19140-399: The museum complex, but added distinctive Piano touches; finlike white sun shutters on the roof softening the sunlight, a red escalator on the outside of the main facade, and a stairway suspended by red cables on the other facade, reminiscent of the Centre Pompidou. The Resnik Pavilion, to the north of the BCAM, has 4,180 m (45,000 sq ft) of space, with travertine covered walls to

19305-547: The museum from the neighboring road constructed of porphyry stone from Patagonia . also used in different parts of the Museum. The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Nouméa, New Caledonia (1991–1998), is among the most unusual of Piano's works. A joint project between New Caledonia and the French government, it is designed to display the culture of the Kanak people. The project uses

19470-420: The museum with another area under development nearby, while the museum and walkway offer views of the fjord and center of Oslo. A sculpture park with works of Anish Kapoor , Louise Bourgeois and other notable sculptors is placed between the museum and the water. The museum building on one side of the canal holds permanent exhibits, while the building on the other side is used for temporary exhibits. A bridge over

19635-603: The need for air conditioning and heating. The complex also included an IMAX movie theater, restaurant and shops. The 36-metre (118 ft) dome of the IMAX theater was visible from a distance and also from the street, through the clear glass of the facade. Piano wrote in The Disobedience of the Architect (2004) that he tried to match his architecture to the personality of a city. "The Berliners are accustomed to living outdoors, and to

19800-556: The next Sitmar ships to be built in Italy. Piano was commissioned to design the ships. Piano designed the exterior of the ships to resemble a dolphin. The Crown Princess was delivered to Princess Cruises in 1990 and the Regal Princess followed a year later in 1991. In 1988 Piano and Rice won an international competition for a new airport to be constructed on an artificial island in the port of Osaka , Japan. The main terminal he designed

19965-541: The old port of Otranto from an industrial site into a commercial and tourist attraction (1977). Their first major building was the Menil Collection , an art museum for the art collector Dominique de Menil . The chief requirements of the owner for this building was to make the maximum use of natural light in the interiors. Piano wrote, "Paradoxically, the Menil Collection, with its serenity, its calm, its discretion,

20130-456: The opera house a square horizontal glass box is placed, called Pharos (Lighthouse), similar to the perch of the art museum atop the Lingotto factory in Turin . The entire structure is covered by a single flat roof, which provides shade, and which is covered with 10,000 m (110,000 sq ft) of photovoltaic cells, generating 1.5 megawatts of electricity, designed to the building self-sufficient in energy during working hours. The cost of

20295-542: The other famous expatriate American John Singer Sargent . Whistler's spare technique and his disinclination to flatter his sitters, as well as his notoriety, may account for this. He also worked very slowly and demanded extraordinarily long sittings. William Merritt Chase complained of his sitting for a portrait by Whistler, "He proved to be a veritable tyrant, painting every day into the twilight, while my limbs ached with weariness and my head swam dizzily. 'Don't move! Don't move!' he would scream whenever I started to rest." By

20460-452: The painting, mostly because of its anti-Victorian simplicity during a time in England when sentimentality and flamboyant decoration were in vogue. Critics thought the painting a failed "experiment" rather than a work of art. The Royal Academy rejected it, but then grudgingly accepted it after lobbying by Sir William Boxall —but they hung it in an unfavorable location at their exhibition. From

20625-496: The press. After its completion in 1984, the building received widespread press coverage, with general acknowledgment of its significance as a Stirling design and a Harvard undertaking. Stirling employed an inventive design in an effort to let the museum peacefully co-exist with neighboring buildings in an area that he termed "an architectural zoo". Harvard published a 50-page book on the Sackler, with extensive color photos by Timothy Hursley, an interview with Stirling by Michael Dennis,

20790-564: The project was 588 million dollars. The Krause Gateway Center in downtown Des Moines, Iowa adjacent to Western Gateway Park is the headquarters for the Krause Group, parent company of Kum & Go . The architecture features long overhangs and giant glass panels. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles is a conversion of the former May Company Department Store (1939), an Art Deco landmark opened in 2021. In 1998, Piano won

20955-544: The rest of his career: that line is more important than color and that black is the fundamental color of tonal harmony. Twenty years later, the Impressionists would largely overthrow this philosophy, banning black and brown as "forbidden colors" and emphasizing color over form. Whistler preferred self-study and enjoying the café life. While letters from home reported his mother's efforts at economy, Whistler spent freely, sold little or nothing in his first year in Paris, and

21120-491: The roof, pierced by round portholes to admit natural light; they contain the entry hall, a botanical garden, and a planetarium. Piano's design for the new building was described by the New York Times as a "comforting reminder of the civilizing function of great art in a barbaric age". In 2000 the City of Chicago launched a major program of cultural buildings in Millennium Park with a new concert hall by Frank Gehry and

21285-401: The roofs. The lower tower was an early example of the luxury high-rise residential buildings by star architects in the center large cities which became very popular in the early 21st century. The office tower has a discreetly peculiar form; the east façade bulges out slightly from its base, reaching its maximum width at the top floors. The curved and twisted shape of east the façade echoes that of

21450-450: The same room, Whistler demonstrated his natural inclination toward innovation and novelty by fashioning a genre scene with unusual composition and foreshortening. It later was re-titled Harmony in Green and Rose: The Music Room . This painting also demonstrated Whistler's ongoing work pattern, especially with portraits: a quick start, major adjustments, a period of neglect, then a final flurry to

21615-492: The science museum and technology NEMO (1992–1997), placed on the edge of the harbor, and resembling the hull of an enormous ship; the Parco della Musica , a complex of music performance halls in Rome (1994–2002), Each was entirely different from the others, and in this period it was difficult to discern a specific element that or style defined his architecture, other than careful craftsmanship and attention to detail. Potsdamer Platz

21780-524: The sea line at the Bay of Santander. The western building hosts the exhibition space of 5,000 m (54,000 sq ft) and the eastern is the one dedicated to study which hosts an auditorium, study rooms and other installations. Both are connected by a suspended square and set of stairs and platforms named "pachinko". This was Piano's first project in Spain and had some controversy over its location. Critics describe

21945-575: The sole gift of the Italian President, Renzo Piano set up a team of young architects called G124 whose mission is to work on the transformation of Italy's major cities' suburbs. Team members are paid with Renzo Piano senator's salary and change every year through a public selection. Projects have been developed in Turin, Milan, Padua, Venice and Rome. James Abbott McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler RBA ( / ˈ w ɪ s l ər / ; July 10, 1834 – July 17, 1903)

22110-451: The start, Whistler's Mother sparked varying reactions, including parody, ridicule, and reverence, which have continued to today. Some saw it as "the dignified feeling of old ladyhood", "a grave sentiment of mourning", or a "perfect symbol of motherhood"; others employed it as a fitting vehicle for mockery. It has been satirized in endless variations in greeting cards and magazines, and by cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and Bullwinkle

22275-472: The summer of 1858. Whistler recovered and traveled with fellow artist Ernest Delannoy through France and the Rhineland. He later produced a group of etchings known as "The French Set", with the help of French master printer Auguste Delâtre  [ fr ] . During that year, he painted his first self-portrait, Portrait of Whistler with Hat , a dark and thickly rendered work reminiscent of Rembrandt . But

22440-627: The sunlight, and is supported by arches 83 metres (272 ft) long, which give a feeling of openness. The Fondation Beyeler is a private art museum in Riehen , near Basel , Switzerland, built for the art collection of Ernst Beyeler. Although it opened in the same year as the Guggenheim Bilbao of Frank Gehry , in spirit it was exactly the opposite. It was designed, at the request of the founder, to inspire tranquility, with white walls, light-colored wooden floors, and natural light. The wall separating

22605-524: The three museums in a single facility designed by architect Renzo Piano , which increased gallery space by 40% and added a glass, truncated pyramidal roof. In a street-level view of the front facade, the glass roof and other expansions are mostly hidden, largely preserving the original appearance of the building. The renovation was supervised by LeMessurier Consultants and Silman Associates. The renovation added six levels of galleries, classrooms, lecture halls, and new study areas providing access to parts of

22770-432: The time he gained widespread acceptance in the 1890s, Whistler was past his prime as a portrait painter. Whistler's approach to portraiture in his late maturity was described by one of his sitters, Arthur J. Eddy, who posed for the artist in 1894: He worked with great rapidity and long hours, but he used his colours thin and covered the canvas with innumerable coats of paint. The colours increased in depth and intensity as

22935-427: The time the art takes center stage, everything else fading quietly into the background It is this obsessive refinement that raises Mr. Piano's best architecture to the level of art." The Shard , built over the underground station of London Bridge , is sixty-six stories and 305 metres (1,000 ft) high, which made it, when completed in 2012, the tallest skyscraper in Europe. Inside, it contains luxury residences and

23100-548: The tonal qualities and the composition and to de-emphasize the narrative content. Whistler's nocturnes were among his most innovative works. Furthermore, his submission of several nocturnes to art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel after the Franco-Prussian War gave Whistler the opportunity to explain his evolving "theory in art" to artists, buyers, and critics in France. His good friend Fantin-Latour , growing more reactionary in his opinions, especially in his negativity concerning

23265-591: The tower is the clear glass curtain wall outside the facade, and rising higher than the facade itself. The curtain is composed of clear glass and a frame of ceramic tubes suspended 61 cm (24 in) from the facade; it serves as a sunscreen, eliminating the need for tinted or sintered glass. In 1989, after their old museum buildings were damaged by an earthquake, the trustees of the California Academy of Sciences decided to rebuild their entire complex of twelve buildings, including an aquarium, planetarium, and

23430-477: The unbuilt connector proposal moot. In front of the entrance to the Sackler building, two monolithic reinforced concrete pillars still stand, which were originally intended to support the connector structure. In 2013, the future use of the Sackler building was uncertain, as its collection had been relocated to the Renzo Piano expansion of the Fogg building. In January 2019, after undergoing an 18-month renovation,

23595-602: The urban panorama of London." Like his other tall buildings, the glass sunscreen on the exterior extends slightly above the building itself, appearing to split apart at the top. The critical reaction to the tower was predictably mixed. Simon Jenkins of the Guardian of London saw it as a foreign attack on the traditional London skyline and monuments: "This tower is anarchy. It conforms to no planning policy. It marks no architectural focus or rond-point. It offers no civic forum or function, just luxury flats and hotels. It stands apart from

23760-471: The work progressed. At first the entire figure was painted in greyish-brown tones, with very little flesh colour, the whole blending perfectly with the greyish-brown of the prepared canvas; then the entire background would be intensified a little; then the figure made a little stronger; then the background, and so on from day to day and week to week, and often from month to month. ... And so the portrait would really grow, really develop as an entirety, very much as

23925-497: Was admitted to the highly selective institution in July 1851 on the strength of his family name, despite his extreme nearsightedness and poor health history. However, during his three years there, his grades were barely satisfactory, and he was a sorry sight at drill and dress, known as "Curly" for his hair length which exceeded regulations. Whistler bucked authority, spouted sarcastic comments, and racked up demerits . Colonel Robert E Lee

24090-524: Was always broke, and although a charmer, had little acquaintance with women. After it was discovered that he was drawing sea serpents, mermaids, and whales on the margins of the maps, he was transferred to the etching division of the United States Coast Survey . He lasted there only two months, but he learned the etching technique which later proved valuable to his career. At this point, Whistler firmly decided that art would be his future. For

24255-568: Was an American painter in oils and watercolor , and printmaker , active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading proponent of the credo " art for art's sake ". His signature for his paintings took the shape of a stylized butterfly with an added long stinger for a tail. The symbol combined both aspects of his personality: his art

24420-670: Was appointed Senator for Life in the Senate by Italian president Giorgio Napolitano . Piano founded the Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) in 1981. In 2017 it had 150 collaborators in offices in Paris, Genoa, and New York. In 2004, he became head of the Renzo Piano Foundation, dedicated to the promotion of the architectural profession. Since June 2008, the headquarters has been co-located with his architectural office at Punta Nave, near Genoa. After his nomination as Senator for Life in 2013, an honour limited to five office holders in

24585-470: Was created as a simple study in white; however, others saw it differently. The critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary thought the painting an allegory of a new bride's lost innocence. Others linked it to Wilkie Collins 's The Woman in White , a popular novel of the time, or various other literary sources. In England, some considered it a painting in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. In the painting, Hiffernan holds

24750-516: Was demolished in 1974 to make way for new freshman dormitories.) The Fogg Museum is renowned for its holdings of Western paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, photographs, prints, and drawings from the Middle Ages to the present. Particular strengths include Italian Renaissance , British Pre-Raphaelite , and French art of the 19th century , as well as 19th- and 20th-century American paintings and drawings. The museum's Maurice Wertheim Collection

24915-635: Was designed in large part to protect the fragile drawings of Paul Klee from sunlight. It housed in a series galleries resembling rolling hills in the Swiss countryside. Piano explained that the shape of the galleries was inspired by naval architecture and the hulls of ships, which were adapted to the form of waves as his building was adapted to the landscape. The original building of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta , Georgia, designed by Richard Meier , and inspired by

25080-448: Was designed to revive an old port and industrial area southwest of the center of Oslo with an art museum and offices, and to provide a destination and attraction on the edge of the picturesque fjord. The project has three buildings, two museum buildings and an office building, under a single glass roof, which covers 6,000 m (65,000 sq ft). The construction materials include both steel and wood beams. A canal and walkway connect

25245-425: Was extremely long (1.7 kilometres [1.1 mi]), with a very low profile, so that the controllers in the control tower could always see the aircraft on the runways. The frequent earthquakes in the Japanese islands required special building techniques; the structure is mounted on hydraulic joints which adjust to movements of the earth. The long, curving roof is covered with 82,000 panels of stainless steel, which reflect

25410-477: Was funded with 60 million dollars by Raymond Nasher, who had made a fortune in developing shopping centers, to display his collection of modern sculpture, which includes works by Auguste Rodin , Joan Miró , Henri Matisse and Alberto Giacometti . The building is very simple in form, like his early Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and does not distract from the sculptures within; six walls of travertine marble with

25575-503: Was greatly admired by the British architect Richard Rogers , and in 1971 the two men decided to open their own firm, Piano and Rogers, where they worked together from 1971 to 1977. The first project of the firm was the administrative building of B&B Italia , an Italian furniture company, in Novedrate, Como, Italy . This design featured suspended container and an open bearing structure, with

25740-525: Was in steady debt. To relieve the situation, he took to painting and selling copies from works at the Louvre and finally moved to cheaper quarters. As luck would have it, the arrival in Paris of George Lucas, another rich friend, helped stabilize Whistler's finances for a while. In spite of a financial respite, the winter of 1857 was a difficult one for Whistler. His poor health, made worse by excessive smoking and drinking, laid him low. Conditions improved during

25905-498: Was located at 485 Broadway, directly across the street from the original Fogg Museum building. The Sackler building, designed by British architect James Stirling , was named for its major donor Arthur M. Sackler , who was a psychiatrist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Upon its opening in 1984, the building also housed new offices for the History of Art and Architecture faculty, as well as the Digital Images and Slides Collection of

26070-418: Was notable and noticed, however, for Whistler's design and decoration of the hall, which harmonized well with the paintings, in keeping with his art theories. A reviewer wrote, "The visitor is struck, on entering the gallery, with a curious sense of harmony and fitness pervading it, and is more interested, perhaps, in the general effect than in any one work." Whistler was not so successful a portrait painter as

26235-482: Was originally designed as an extension to the Fogg Museum, elicited worldwide attention from the time of Harvard's commission of Stirling to design the building, following a selection process that evaluated more than 70 architects. The university mounted an exhibition of the architects' preliminary design drawings in 1981 ( James Stirling's Design to Expand the Fogg Museum ), and issued a portfolio of Stirling's drawings to

26400-637: Was recruited by Nicholas I of Russia to design a railroad in Russia. The Emperor learned of George Whistler's ingenuity in engineering the Canton Viaduct for the Boston & Albany Railroad, and he offered him a position engineering the Saint Petersburg-Moscow Railway . The rest of the family moved to St. Petersburg to join him in the winter of 1842/43. After moving to St. Petersburg, the young Whistler took private art lessons, then enrolled in

26565-840: Was renamed in 1920 when it was moved to Adolphus Busch Hall , named after the brewer and philanthropist Adolphus Busch , former president of the Anheuser-Busch company . The museum’s name also commemorates Busch’s son-in-law Hugo Reisinger, a German-born American art collector and merchant. The Busch-Reisinger is the only museum in North America dedicated to the study of art from the German-speaking countries of Central and Northern Europe in all media and in all periods. William James spoke at its dedication. Its holdings include significant works of Austrian Secession art, German expressionism , and 1920s abstraction. The museum holds one of

26730-409: Was sent to Christ Church Hall School with his mother's hopes that he would become a minister. Whistler was seldom without his sketchbook and was popular with his classmates for his caricatures . However, it became clear that a career in religion did not suit him, so he applied to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where his father had taught drawing and other relatives had attended. He

26895-424: Was the West Point Superintendent and, after considerable indulgence toward Whistler, he had no choice but to dismiss the young cadet. Whistler's major accomplishment at West Point was learning drawing and map making from American artist Robert W. Weir . His departure from West Point seems to have been precipitated by a failure in a chemistry exam where he was asked to describe silicon and began by saying, "Silicon

27060-399: Was the complete reorganization of the principal entrance to the Maltese capital of Valletta. It included a massive City Gate through the 16th-century city walls , an open-air theatre 'machine' within the ruins of the former Royal Opera House , and the construction of a new Parliament building. The gate project was controversial, though the old gate it replaced was only built in the 1960s, in

27225-415: Was to include a large oculus window high above the middle of the street, at the level of the large square opening still visible on the front of the Sackler building. The connector was postponed and never built, because of strong opposition from the Mid-Cambridge Neighborhood Association and local politicians. Eventually, an extensive renovation and expansion of the original Fogg Museum building would render

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