Every day I find myself smiling when I look at the screensaver on my iPhone. It’s an image of Santiago Calatrava’s Milwaukee Art Museum. The main space, which serves as a lobby and an event center, is a cathedral to art. It is pure space, uninterrupted by superfluous furnishings or ornamentation. The photograph (taken by the late Rob Munger) captures the building with people to give it scale. Light shimmers on the highly polished floor surface. The structure soars to great height and seems to hover above lake Michigan, seen through the arc of windows. Of all the iconic museums designed by famous architects in recent years (Gehry’s in Bilbao, Liebskind’s in Denver, Renzo Piano’s in Chicago, etc.) the Milwaukee museum is, in my opinion, the best. I could (and sometime probably will) spend some words on analyzing why this is so. For now, please allow me to share my current screensaver.
The lobby of Santiago Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum.
