Marina Täube, 20-939-153 Life without buildings December 2021

The inside-out link

In our course « life without buildings » has been mentioned the nowadays Tendency to build
impressive museums, according the whole focus on the outside image and the e ects on the
spectator. Is the aim here to create a certain attitude in the viewer that makes him or her bow
down? To impose a view on what is waiting for us inside? Or is it also to express an idea of power
and control? The e ect observed behind this tendency towards the disappearance of the inside-
outside link, as well as the link between the museum and what is exhibited there, could even
come to the point where the artist's statement is neglected. A question can therefore be raised
behind the purpose of the building: should it induce the right attitude in viewers? Should it meet
certain characteristics associated with its category? Or present a link with what is exhibited
inside?

This is where Modern Art comes in, denouncing this idea of a building for the image, sacri cing
the link with its interior, and thus the art and the artist’s statement. Shouldn't the premises be fully
dedicated to the artists and represent the ideology of what they contain?
A feeling of frustration can be understood in an artist who has no power over the building in which
his or her art is exhibited, which can go against the ideas conveyed inside and thus lose all
credibility, both for the building and for the artist and his or her work.
The reason behind this lack of coordination could be that not enough importance is given to the
artist, thus giving this importance to the image, the will to indicate development, opulence and
maybe even power.

One example is the Countryside house, built in 1968 by the architects Oskar and Zo a Hansen, in
Szumin, now part of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. It was originally a holiday house,
intended as a retreat from the complicated political situation in Poland at that time. It is a wooden
house with an "open form" plan. This is based on the idea of being able to carry out all the most
banal daily activities in it, leaving room for a certain modesty. This modesty can also be seen in
the so-called "medium size" dimensions. Another guiding idea in the construction of this facility
was that it should not have to comply with the limitations imposed by the socialist construction
industry. Built in such a way as to actively involve the visitors (e.g. by means of manipulable slats),
the boundary between object and subject is quickly blurred. In this way, all sorts of hierarchies are
deconstructed, the viewer from the outside becomes an actor, reducing this barrier between
private and public, inside and outside. A strong link can therefore be interpreted in the case of the
holiday home between the architecture, the building and its interior, linking the author of this
interactive interior to the exterior. The possibility given to the external viewer to act on this modest
construction thus represents this relationship. This link could even be deeper than we think, by
calling this construction a "spatio-temporal living environment", the architect denounces the
interdependence of the actor and the habitat, adapting. It was later that the Museum of Modern
Art in Warsaw decided to make it one of its possessions.

This is how the response of modern art to the proud facade could be observed, made to share a
certain image losing the link with its interior. Di erent priorities could be noted, depending on the
importance given to art. Other projects participating in the debate can be mentioned here; the
Stazione dell'arte in Sardinia, presenting a xed exhibition in a former railway station, the Avant
Garde Institute in the studios of Stazewski and Krasinki, and many others...
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