Webpage Building Review

Quadracci Pavilion, Milwaukee Art Museum

By: Santiago Calatrava, 2001

Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the Quadracci Pavilion was an edition to the Milwaukee Art Museum, that was originally designed by Eero Saarinen in 1957 and also the Milwaukee firm of Kahler, Slater, and Fitzhugh Scott.

As in this design his works are often curvilinear and the designs follow a natural form.  Perhaps the most unique part of this design is that it is also mobile as well.  The "wings", otherwise known as the brise soleil, can either be in an open position or can retract to a closed position that can cover the atrium of the museum, creating a moving sculpture.  The glass atrium rises to 90 feet in height that gives light over the reception hall in the interior.  The museum is constructed of white concrete, glass, white Carrera, Italian marble and maple wood floors.  The entrance to the museum is accessed by a suspended pedestrian bridge, with a 200 foot angled mast, which links the museum and the lakefront to the city's main street.  Walking towards the building, you can get the feeling of the lake by the design of the building.  When the brise soleil is open it forms a figure that looks like the tail fin of a whale.  Calatrava also wanted to enhance the lakefront view with the edition of his design.

Calatrava's design has a futuristic feel to it with his rising atrium, movable fins, and curvilinear forms.  I think his work most coincides with Curtis' chapter 35 that deals with technology, abstraction and ideas of nature.  The Quadracci Pavilion embraces technology with its curvilinear, futuristic look.  Abstraction comes from the different forms that he uses, and also the abstract way that it looks so different from the rest of the museum that was built at an earlier date.  It uses the ideas of nature by using the idea of a tail fin found on a whale.

I found this building interesting not only on the outside, but also in the interior because of the unique space and forms that are created.  The interior incorporates the exterior, by making the walls almost look like the side of a ship, and also drawing on the curvilinear form found on the exterior.

Webpage By: Jimmy Russell      pearljim1@hotmail.com

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