When the large awkward sheets start showing up…
Concept: Art Gallery House
It is popular among the scientists and engineering crowd who I hang around with to consider the mind as nothing more than an information processing machine made of meat. This is part of the larger story of the push-back against supernatural explanations that has defined the enlightenment. A particular popular variant of this view of the mind gets particularly hung up on approaches to the problem of the mind that follow the pattern “we do not understand the mind”, “we do not understand X”, therefore “X must be important for the mind”. Typically X is quantum theory. And typically this is followed by rants about decohence (never mind that perhaps the greatest discovery of the last decade of the twentieth century was that decoherence can be overcome by the methods of quantum error correction).
While I am sympathetic to these criticisms, I also find that these arguments lead to a certain narrowing which inhibits discovering ways to address the fundamental problem. By this I mean that I worry that by making these arguments one does not set oneself up for further discovery, but instead finds oneself trapped within the confines of current argument (see note about quantum error correction above. You dear reader who read this, are you sure you are not you due to naturally occurring quantum error correcting processes? If I remind you that the ratio of the size of the earth to the size of the galaxy is about the ratio of the distance between atoms to the size of a cell, does that change your mind?)
I think a lot about framing these days. It makes sense that the spaces that we spend our time in leak their information into our brain, commingling among our bits, and shape us. But what then of my diagnosis above, that sometimes this can be counter to moving outside of the frame? Certainly architecture and buildings change drastically over long time scales (if you haven’t done so, I recommend How Building Learn by Stewart Brand). Over shorter time scales, we rearrange our furniture, paint our walls, buy a new rug. Thinking about this got me thinking about spaces that have higher churn and are spaces I want to spend my time in. Which led me to think about art galleries.
This is a shot of the living room of the Tesseract house and a painting that the original owner had hung there, and which we subsequently purchased. When you drive up the Magnolia Bridge at night, if the lights are on, you can see this painting through the many windows of Tesseract home. And when you sit in the living room and look at it, you find yourself discovering an infinite world of different colors and shapes.
Imagine this room, then, but now instead of thinking about it as a living room, image it as an art gallery.
The thing about art galleries is that they focus nearly all of your attention on the art. A great art gallery stops you in your tracks, pulls you in, and spits you out a new person. And yet, an art gallery also changes, constantly morphing as new exhibits start and end. New styles emerge, entire methodologies are learned, re-learned, and lost again.
So off I went to Google “art gallery house”. A top search hit was the Chestnuts House by Marchi Architects. This house features large prominent art works on white walls, but also I have to say I absolutely love the overall styling of this home. In modern minimalist homes I think one has to be aware of going too far in the direction of Columbian-drug-lord-all-white. And too, art galleries can push in that direction. But here I think the art pulls it back to a less flashy and human style
Another thing I appreciate about this house is how it shows a way to work with the stark white walls and a set of materials that really work well in this setting. Here we see two elements, wood and stark black metal and art,
Digging further another amazing house arising in modern art gallery home searches is this one by Domenic Alvaro in Sydney, Australia:
One thing that really struck me was the use of very low furniture in the spaces that housed the art
I’m not sure the Tesseract home’s living space has enough breadth to support this but I think it would help reveal the entirety of the art that currently exists in this space, and maybe give the area a feeling of separateness from the adjoining dining room.
The idea of an art gallery for a house is, of course, not just that it provides a connection to the art, but also that, like an art gallery one can change ones perspective by changing the art. For example the Seattle Art Museum has a program that allows you to rent and try out a piece of art before fully buying it.
In thinking about this for the Tesseract house, I’ve started thinking about the space that could handle the type of art that the above styles depict. Certainly we have a start in the living room. There is another opportunity in the entry way, perhaps replacing a built in wood vase stand. The master bedroom will have a prominent wall. Downstairs is interesting. Because one of the problems with the basement is that it is a long unbroken space.
Part of this space is the media area with TV, comfy sofa, etc. The plans for the second part were mostly to update the kitchen to a more minimal wet bar and work this space into a social gaming or making area. But here I wonder if a wall that does not reach full ceiling height (or does) but is designed to showing art might split this space nicely.
Another benefit of this is that the strong lighting for highlighting the art can help this room, which while it has natural light, needs the warm feeling of a strong inside light, especially during grey Seattle winters.
In thinking about remodeling this 1962 home, there is much that I want to keep. The flow of the home, and its relationship to the outside is wonderful. But, it must change, and thinking about art galleries makes me think that even with this change, we can continue the update and process of keeping the home new. And don’t get me started on the type of art that I might use. Immersive electronic art gallery home anyone?
More ideas for art gallery inspiration homes can be found on this pinterest board.