The design of cultural institutions—long a sort of Holy Grail for architects due to the prestige and attention, if not necessarily great remuneration, they bring—also have the power to make enormous additions to the cultural landscape, and often to the skylines and streetscapes of the extremely visible locations they grace.
The best of them are multi-dimensional contributions to the world of art and ideas—both as improvements to the institutions themselves and as enrichments of the built environment. Not surprisingly, then, this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial is infused with participants with pedigrees as arts-edifice designers, starting at the very top with the artistic directors themselves.
John Ronan understands the implications of cultural design better than many others. When he got the commission for a poetry center, there wasn’t much precedent in the building typology. But he knew the headquarters for the Poetry Foundation would have to reflect poetry itself:
“We wanted it to be like a poem that unfolds, line by line,” he says. “It shouldn’t give itself away all at once. You read the first line of a poem and it intrigues you and you want to read more. Architecture should be like that—seducing you, drawing you in slowly.”
Similarly, he says the choice of materials for the building was deliberate in how it reflected poetry’s mechanics. “We knew they shouldn’t be precious,” he says, “but made special by the way they’re treated—like the way poets use words—how they’re selected and arranged in ways that transform them from ordinary to thoughtful.”
As a whole, the building is an excellent example of an arts institution that dignifies the streetscape as much as it enhances the cultural environment. Embraced by the public for its serene, imposing presence on Superior Street and for the way it slowly reveals itself to the visitor, it’s also raised the general profile of poetry as an art form.
Ronan thinks its success is in large part because of the client. “They gave me time to design it. They understood this wasn’t an all-out sprint. They’re artists themselves—and know that you don’t order a poem to be ready by 10am tomorrow.”
Unlike poetry centers, museums have lots of examples for their designers to use as reference. Still, there’s no rigid archetype. When Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art announced plans to remodel the building it’s occupied on Seneca Place since 1996, some observers probably expected it to award the commission to one of the big-name museum architects who have come to dominate the field, like Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron or Diller Scofidio + Renfro, or to some exciting local talent. Instead, the institution chose several designers to collaborate on different elements of the project—none big names, and all based elsewhere but Chicago.
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