The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, will reopen on October 31st following a reimagining of the landscape by Japanese artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto. The project marks the most significant rethinking of the garden since American modernist architect Gordon Bunshaft conceived the Hirshhorn's distinctive cylindrical museum and sunken sculpture garden more than half a century ago. The garden first opened to the public in 1974. In 1981, landscape architect Lester Collins added additional lawns, trees, ramps, and shaded outdoor spaces. Sugimoto's intervention preserves the essential character of Bunshaft's modernist campus while creating a more open, varied, and flexible setting for the museum's collection of modern and contemporary sculpture.
Central to the design is a series of monumental, stacked stone walls that divide the landscape into a sequence of distinct but interconnected spaces, including the East and Central Gardens and West Lawn. The stone offers an elemental counterpoint to Bunshaft's concrete architecture and a restrained backdrop for sculpture spanning more than a century.
The redesigned garden will allow the Hirshhorn to display 50 percent more artworks outdoors. Some 24 major sculptures from Joseph H. Hirshhorn's Foundational Gift will return to view, including works by Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, and Barbara Hepworth, presented in dialogue with living artists and new commissions rather than organized as a chronological survey.
A wider “front door” will create at-grade sightlines into the garden from the National Mall, while five points of entry, new east and west overlooks, twice as many accessible entrances, and expanded shade and seating will make the previously secluded space more porous. An underground passageway will reconnect the garden directly to the museum, establishing a physical route between the indoor galleries, Sugimoto's landscape, and the Mall.
According to the Washington Post, the overhaul also includes a revamped reflecting pool. and A rotating exhibition program will also launch with a spotlight on large aluminum figures by Yoshitomo Nara.
Sugimoto's design extends his longstanding relationship with the Hirshhorn, which was the first museum to present a major retrospective of his work and, in 2018, invited him to reimagine its lobby.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/zjsy8vZ
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