Rich

I can clearly remember the “Old Walker” with Lipschitz’s “Prometheus” out front and the grand staircase splitting half way up to the north and the south galleries of the second floor. It was there that I saw my first Kline, my first Albright!

Then there was the “New Walker!” The Larrabee Barnes structure was, to me a marvel–simple, elegant and eminently suited for the display of man’s creative expression! If you felt fatigued, you could take the elevator to the eighth floor and leisurely walk down from one gallery to another until the lobby was reached. If on the other hand you were full of vim, vigor and vitality, you could climb from one marvel to the other until you reached the top. It was reminiscent of F.L. Wright’s “Guggenheim,” but angular, moving at right angles.

Now we have the Herzog & de Meuron “New-New Walker!” The brochure describes them as “award winning Swiss architects” . . . almost as though it was a necessary bit of information in order to make the “New-New Walker” acceptable! Well, to my mind, the “New-New Walker” ain’t the marvelous “Allianz Stadium,” Munich nor the exciting new “Olympic Stadium,” Beijing, both designed by Herzog & de Meuron. These two stadia both appear from their exterior to be singular works. Indeed the Munich structure apparently functions quite well for the purpose for which it was designed. One assumes that the “Olympic Stadium,” Beijing, will also be similar. However, the “New-New Walker” is something else. From the exterior the “South Tower” and the “North Tower” neither compliment each other, nor do they clash! They appear to coexist in some sort of aesthetic limbo! The crumpled metal covering of the “South Tower” seem to mimick Gehry’s “Bilbao Guggenheim’s” titanium skin, but without the panache of Gehry! Frankly, it appears as a malignant growth!

Progressing from the “New Walker” to the “New-New Walker” was somewhat disquieting, nearly vertiginous, certainly mildly hallucinatory! I had entered the “New-New Walker” from the “New Walker.” That may have been a mistake! I was suddenly thrust into a space in which there were no parallel, or perpendicular walls, or level floors. Doorways were tetrahedrons, walls leaned out, or in as though the structure had been realigned by some capricious earthquake. Here I was in some sort of a high tech fun house–ala the state fair! It simply doesn’t work in this situation.

Please, don’t get me wrong! I find many pieces of modern architecture exciting. Prague’s “Dancing House” by Vlado Milunc and Frank Gehry is to me a marvel! Gaudi’s “Casa Mila” is also a spectacular example of architecture which negates the perpendicular.

Herzog & de Meuron are certainly world class architects–but they are not within that rarified realm where everything they touch is without equal in its perfection. The spaces from the top to the bottom flow or exist in a logical sequence. However, the small octagonal windows on the north side of the “South Tower” are without reason and appear as pimples from the outside, signifying nothing. Again they seem as a poorly conceived mimick of the angled windows of the “North Tower” exploding outward with their broad vistas. Aesthetic egoism is a phrase that comes to mind after staggering through the “New-New Walker.” Spatially, the Herzog & de Meuron edition is quite pleasing, but interior treatment can only be described as “decoration gone mad!” As an architectural statement the “New-New Walker” is garbled and disturbingly incoherent.

Fredrick W. Bunce, M.F.A., Ph.D.

Professoor Emeritus

Indiana State University

2 Jalan 8/144A

Taman Bukit Cheras

Kuala Lumpur, 56000

MALAYSIA;