Some comments on Soumaya from Arthur Fischel:
“There’s been all this news on the recent opening of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City. Stuff about fame and fortune and mind-boggling art collections from the richest man in the world. But more needs to be said about the positive impact of this investment in design, and the importance of the creative approach to the architecture itself.
With all these curves and grace in the world’s newest and most talked-about cathedral to art and culture, is there any doubt that while Western Contemporary Civilization morphs into Global Contemporary Civilization, and attempts its stagger-steps toward advancing, that we’ve demanded perpetual displays of temperamental and foolish masculinity, aggression and misdirected power, be replaced by our cultural avant-guardians in favor of symbols emotion and intelligence combined; the divine and feminine?
If nothing else, this new generation of architectural marvels, conceived by Gehry and pushed farther along here by Fernando Romero, are welcome relief from the ever-present sprawl of phallic picket-fence posts that for the better part of three-hundred years have monopolized our tender and persuadable eyes with their near-viral spread across our global landscapes.
One might argue that the power and prestige involved with seeing this scale of project brought forward to completion are examples of the very same obscene displays of skewed masculinity that any traditional urban high-rise presents for the world to see. But the corseted shape, and the flow of lines, in the structure of the museum itself undermine conventional monuments to man. Rather, Soumaya Museum, a structure named for and inspired by the memory of a woman, will be a reference point on city skyline to searchers in need of balance, integrity, and a new direction for their individual aspirations of personality and taste. Hopefully this example of a higher order of symbolic rendering represents a moment in advancing evolution toward a better standard for conceptual starting points in art, design, and global development.”
Pic above is from designboom.com and you can find more on the new museum’s architecture here:
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/11789/soumaya-museum-by-fernando-romero-architects.html
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