Form vs. Function
Today we visited the Brooklyn Museum, a museum I’ve visited a few times in the past and have always admired for it’s external as well as internal beauty. Today, the building built in stages starting in the last 1890s, has a facade of both modern and original elements with green-edged glass jutting out from a lower level to create a unique enclosed outdoor/indoor visitor space. Here, the modern does not compete with the historic, but inside, it might have. What I want to talk about today is something I don’t remember seeing during prior visits — a large square modern cube/gallery sitting in the center of the first floor main gallery space. Monica Morino, the museum’s School Programs Manager, generously took the time to discuss a current exhibition, Infinite Blue, with the class. This stunningly blue exhibit is currently displayed around the modern cube with external and temporarily internal blank walls (other than a film unrelated to Infinite Blue that played inside on a screen). I couldn’t help but think, as I was walking around admiring not only the artifacts, but also the columns, moulding, and curves of the original architecture, that this room that used to be so large and open was now interupted in a way that seemed to detract from it’s previous beauty and historic value. I found out that there was a need for another permanent exhibition space that was temperature and humidity controlled on the first floor and that this is where it was placed. The museum is working to make the first floor more active and to increase space where the collections can be displayed. I completely understand the need for more space and love the push to show more of the museum’s holdings. The situation just really made me think about form vs. function in a museum like this one.
I knew what this space looked like before, and I could still see hints of the square glass ceiling panels with some light coming in from the floors above. Looking up reminded me that the architecture, like that in this room, could also be found on the 4th floor. There it was, the wide open atrium-like space, filled with light, a patterned blue and white glass floor, arches cut out along the edges through which hung paintings can be seen, and a chandelier hanging from the geometric glass ceiling. And it came to me that because this space was still intact, that perhaps it was okay to detract from the space below in the name of the much-needed gallery space. Perhaps if the room on the first floor had been the only example of this architecture I’ve always admired, I would have had more of an issue with it. Function took priority over form in this case. Fortunately, the museum as a whole protects the form and enhances whenever possible in creative and beautiful ways. Even if it means just leaving it as-is. As it was created in the late nineteenth century.
