In this episode of our series about the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art International Design Competition, As Built co-hosts Patience Jones and Brian Jones speak with competition finalist Annabelle Selldorf, FAIA* of the firm Selldorf Architects.
BJ: Hello and welcome to As Built, the podcast from Graphicmachine about architecture firms, buildings, and how both get built. I'm your host, Brian Jones. With me is your co-host, Patience Jones. Today's episode is the next in our series about the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art International Design Competition. Our guest today is Annabelle Seldorf of the firm Selldorf Architects. Welcome to the podcast. We'll start off by asking you to tell us about your firm.
AS: Seldorf Architects is located on Union Square in New York City. I'm the principal but we are a firm of somewhere between 65 and 70 people. There are four partners in the firm in addition to me. And it's an amazing place. Physically it's a great place, but I think more than anything, after 40 years of practice, the thing I'm proudest of is the culture in the office. We have a group of people who are kind, smart, apply themselves, bring ideas, are great listeners, are great collaborators. And really the reason why I keep working as much as I do.
Oh, I should probably add that Union Square is a wonderful square in New York City. It really is at the intersection of where downtowners say uptown begins. We are exactly on 17th Street on the north end of the square, and it's a very lively, really urban, marvelous place that has the particular privilege of hosting a farmer's market four times a week.
And it's really great.
PJ: What type of work is your firm known for?
AS: I think a lot of people associate the work that we do with art and culture and that is mostly true. But sometimes when people ask me, “What do you do in architecture?” I say, “Anything anyone is willing to pay me for.” But what is really the truth is that we do a wide spectrum of work that brings us interest. And you know, architecture is a tough profession, so the professional part of it is very important to us. And I am not kidding -we do have to pay the rent. So there is kind of the professional aspect to how you choose work. For us in particular, I would say people come to us because we are very - everybody would say that of themselves - we're very thoughtful. What that means is our work is not characterized by wild gesture and by form as much as I would say by content and that includes new buildings. Oftentimes also we have done renovations and restorations. Some people think that's a particular specialty. I would say, it's a kind of disposition to think about not just repurposing, but appreciating context and history or legacy, if you will. And increasingly we can say that we don't want to dispose of buildings if we can revitalize them. And to me that's a very interesting way of thinking about life, really. I try to revitalize all the time.
BJ: What is one of your favorite projects to have worked on and why?
AS: In truth, one is in love with every project for a particular reason, and having a long life of practice, my friends would make fun of me because I always have to fall in love with the clients, the site, the task. And that never quite goes away because it keeps you focused, it keeps you energized, and it keeps you dedicated to something.
But I thought about your question a little bit in terms of how of the impact the project had on me and on our practice, and the Sims Municipal Recycling Project in Brooklyn. Brooklyn's working waterfront was particularly important because it represented something that wasn't about refined design in the first place, where somebody would praise your use of material or the intricacy of certain custom-made details, all of which to some extent projects a kind of privilege. Instead, this project was really about giving something back to New York, having a better understanding of the infrastructure that is around waste disposal. And really also the opportunity of making recycled materials meaningful in the world.
This project was super-interesting because I knew nothing about recycling. I had never done an industrial project like this. Many of the sort of regulatory and practical aspects of the project were unfamiliar to us, and it was wonderful to realize that the kind of disposition that we bring to all of our projects would not fail us in this kind of project either.
We made a project for people. It's now over 10 years since we completed that project, and every time I go there, I think, wow, it's really great. It has grown in, it's a gritty sort of industrial project, but the colors of aluminum against the color of the sky, I can wax on poetic about why this project is good or interesting or remains something that is very important to me.
But the bottom line is that it was sort of a moment in time where I realized that being an architect is meaningful because you can participate in a process of making things better for people.
PJ: Why did your firm decide to enter the Nelson-Atkins competition?
AS: Now that is a stupid question. [laughs] How would you not want to participate in this competition? It's maybe a little more than a year ago that I came to Kansas City to give an invited lecture, and it was one of my favorite days in that particular season because I loved the museum. I had wanted to come and see the museum for a very long time.
I also went to see the Kemper and I plain and simple love that museum and there's a lot to love, many different aspects of it. It's not that I like it because of the beautiful lenses and the way, you know, the Bloch building sort of radiates across the city. No, I like so many different things. I like the landscape, of course. I mean, what's not to love is really more to the point. And yeah, there you have it.
BJ: What have your impressions of Kansas City been so far?
AS: I think everybody probably answers that by saying, “Damn good barbecue.” But Kansas City strikes me as a great American city and what I really enjoyed was, what I know of it is that people are so welcoming and so open and interested. I mean, seeing how successful the Nelson-Atkins is in drawing people from all kinds of walks of life into the museum to look at art, to build community and to, I think, look toward a better way of living together. I know that sounds maybe a little bit corny, and it isn't something that I can substantiate with facts or figures. But it is noticeable. It is noticeable where you know that people sort of are pleased to see you. They want to welcome you. They want to show you their town, they want to be hospitable. And that's really inspiring. It's inspiring for the kind of work that we do because we feel like it's reciprocal. We're going to hear from the stakeholders and the dialogue is going to be authentic. And to me that's very meaningful.
PJ: What have you found to be a highlight of the museum from your visit? That could be a collection, a particular piece of art.
AS: I was surprised about how much innovation there is in the old building. There are so many details and so many beautiful rooms and so many fine pieces of the collection that, if anything, I regretted not having enough time really getting to the bottom of every last space. But it's a little bit of what I said about my impression of Kansas City. I thought that the manner in which people are brought to art is particularly generous, and that's of course evident in the Bloch Building. But it is there in the original building and there's like, I think it's a cork floor that is in the main galleries it, but it's so fine, the detail of the stairs, the way they sort of curve and go up. You know, we think a lot about how Beaux-Arts buildings may be exclusive and produce threshold anxiety, and that's something that one has to be mindful and thoughtful about. On the other hand, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater because it is such a fine place.
There was one - because you asked about pieces in the collection - there's a small lamp that is a Victor Horta Art Nouveau brass chandelier that's installed in a really beautiful way. It has this sort of curved stand and I took pictures of it and it sort of stuck in my mind as an object of just absolutely exceptional beauty that I kind of returned to it because I thought it was something that is both materially exceptional, but also represents a kind of freedom that I enjoyed very much. And perhaps in that context, I can say that people often think of me, of the work we do in the office, as sort of “classic modern.” And if ever a curve occurs in any one of our projects, people sort of go, “Did you hire somebody to do that?”
But that's not true. It's a mode of thinking and a mode of process in which I think the notion of keeping a balance of that which is rational and traceable to that which is intuitive and free has to be in balance or has to sort of come together.
BJ: What have you found most compelling and challenging about the competition brief?
AS: Do you want the truth?
PJ: [laughing] Yes.
AS: Is it the competition brief or is it the project task? The competition brief is very tough. It requires an enormous amount of not just insightful design work but in an inordinate amount of understanding of aspects of the project that will undoubtedly have to be examined and reexamined again, and so good, bad, or indifferent, it's just an incredible amount of what I call “work.” And by that I mean it's got to get done. You’ve got to think about it, but it wasn't work that necessarily filled out the inspiration, so to speak. On the other hand, it also suits us and our process because we like to think methodically and systematically and to sort of have a sense of reason that backs up the overall idea. It is actually really very interesting and fun, I will say. It's like, our team was up until 10 o'clock in the evening, everybody was in a very good mood.
PJ: What has inspired your approach to the competition brief to the project?
AS: Well, I think it's the premise of these multiple things that come together. There is the old building, there is the really sort of majestic approach on really four sides and then the intersection with the Bloch building, which is not just the building, but it is the premise of bringing people in below ground. And while the Walter De Maria piece of course is extraordinary, it kind of sits there unattended a little bit.
I will say that before I even entered the competition, I've always wanted to sort of make the forecourt to the building the main attraction. Offering a partner to the Bloch building on the other side seemed not only obvious, but absolutely necessary. Then, how to make it work, how to make it be a real player in all of the ways in which the museum seeks activity, engagement, transparency, all those good things. It was a lot more complicated than what meets the eye for the simple reason that you have to deal with the entrance into the garage and the “attractive” mechanical plant right adjacent to it. That's like a high stakes game of chess to solve that in such a way that all of the bits fall into place.
And I have to say, I'm incredibly proud that I feel like we got there, we figured it out and, and in so doing, I think that the north court and the south landscape have a much more interesting relationship to the museum as a whole. We're working with our wonderful colleagues from Reed Hilderbrand as partners in the project, and they were every bit as engaged with the entire design process, really.
From the get-go, it was about, how do we connect the museum, the institution, to nature, and in some ways our other partner in the project is Two Row Architect, the indigenous architects who we already work with in Toronto, to kind of bring an elevated dialogue to how we connect to the land and the values of what we're doing here. These conversations are very important for us, the team, but I think they are really vital for the museum and its future.
BJ: Speaking of the future, what trends do you foresee emerging in museum and/or cultural architecture over the next decade?
AS: Well, that is the question that every institution has to ask itself, and that I think about a great deal, but increasingly I have come to the conclusion that certain trends are global, but they can only be answered locally. Right? We can only connect to communities if we truly are curious about that community and, you know, making a museum for all in Kansas City is different than making a museum for all in Toronto or in London.
Of course, there is commonality and I think to begin with, I've used the word “curiosity,” and I think it's instrumental that we are curious about who the audience, who the visitors are. And we're not always going to get the same answer. We do a great deal of writing and talking for the purposes of projects like this, and everybody talks a good game. The words become more and more ubiquitous and they're by and large not critical. But all the visualizations, all of the vocabulary we use has to always be agreeable to everybody. Now, it's not that easy. And I think that the challenge is really that across museums the authenticity of the need, the desire to connect with all people is foregrounded and I think every museum has a DNA of its own.
Therefore, the answers to the questions, it's a little bit like homeopathy. The answers are going to be different, right? Do you know what I mean by when I talk about homeopathy? I think it's a sort of fantastic concept, right? That the solutions are different and elsewhere, and they're not always evident. You find them together.
The problem and the opportunity with a competition such as this one is that it suggests that you have already found all of the solutions. And in my mind, the solutions are found as a result of learning more and more. It's not just about whether the mechanical system has three or four pipes, but really about who the people are and how you can foreground the collection in different ways. It's remarkable what the Nelson-Atkins does in terms of public programming already and how incredibly porous, open, generous, and welcoming it is. But they too want to know more, and therefore I think that all of the really incredibly intense thinking and working that we have done on this project can by necessity only be the beginning.
And I don't want to miss out on the fun part of the dialogue, of learning things that you didn't know, didn't understand hadn't heard, et cetera.
*Fellow of the American Institute of Architects
Transcript has been edited for clarity.
Photo of Annabelle Selldorf © Stephen Kent Johnson courtesy of Selldorf Architects
