Michael Abrahamson
MEDITATIONS ON A VIRTUAL TOUR: MOCA CLEVELAND AND MATERIALITY At least since Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria, the primacy of the built artifact in architecture has been under debate. Some contend that one must experience a building to fully comprehend it, while others argue that the product of the architect – namely, representation – should be sufficient for judgment and critique. The rising disciplinary interest in affect and atmosphere, not to mention increased capacity for simulation, makes it likely this debate will intensify in coming years. But as photorealism and animated fly-throughs become expected forms of representation, will taste change in response? As patrons grow accustomed to viewing architecture onscreen, will sensitivity to the subtleties of architectural experience build or recede? In a culture with an ever-shorter attention span, the answers are murky at best. Farshid Moussavi’s design for the new Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Cleveland, Ohio has provided an early rehearsal of these new expectations. A founding principal of the recently fractured Foreign Office Architects, Moussavi was selected in 2007 to design MoCA’s new home, now under construction at Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road in the University Circle neighborhood. Part of a major redevelopment project instigated by Case Western Reserve University, the museum is scheduled for completion in 2013. MoCA’s new home is to be a comparatively simple gem-like object, its sleek carapace concealing an intricately woven series of spaces with a large rectangular gallery at the apex. Central to the design are reflections and refractions caused by its black stainless steel skin, along with the mood engendered by this skin’s rich blue-violet interior surfaces. Also notable is its innovative nested fire egress system, which saves floor area and enabled Moussavi’s canted walls – cause of the aforementioned reflections – to remain in place through design development. Debate surrounding Moussavi’s design has been fierce from the start. When it was initially revealed in July 2010, a public expecting formal pyrotechnics were underwhelmed. The city’s cultured patrons seemed flabbergasted by the design’s lack of ostentation, along with its somewhat curious orientation on site. Certainly, it was nothing to rival the much-ballyhooed Yokohama Port Terminal, FOA’s best-known project, completed in 2003. Rumors began circulating of unreasonable expectations placed on the architects by curator Jill Snyder, and of an inadequate construction budget. It was the old familiar story: one more disappointing building by a well-known architect in Cleveland. In a rush to judgment, Cleveland had missed the point. Granted, Moussavi’s stainless steel jewel was sure to be confounding when
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