Gund gift to MOCA will help museum move to Triangle

Friday, December 16, 2005

Steven Litt

 

The Triangle in University Circle is getting a hip new anchor.

 

The George Gund Foundation Thursday awarded $2.1 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland in a pivotal grant that triggered the museum's decision to move to the highly visible intersection of Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road...

 

 

This is great news!  Another anchor for this high profile intersection.  In 5 years, this will be a neighborhood with so much more to offer.  I can't wait!

I love the idea of making the museum architectually significant, they similar to what Cincy did with it's contemporary art museum.  We are going with understated with the Art Museum expansion, maybe MOCA is the place to do something bold at a highly visible location.

I love the idea of making the museum architectually significant, they similar to what Cincy did with it's contemporary art museum.  We are going with understated with the Art Museum expansion, maybe MOCA is the place to do something bold at a highly visible location.

 

That's the idea. But, it can be a gamble sometimes with modern architecture.  The space will not be that big, so I am curious as to how large the footprint will be and how it addresses this major intersection.  Additionally, it will have to fit in with the Triangle's redevelopment.  I heard that the RFPs have already gone out to developers.  We might hear more in the first two months of next year. While it hasn't been framed this way, the Triangle redevelopment would be a great TOD possibility. It borders a redline station and the new Silverline. 

 

 

I like how it is a good snowballs throw away from the Museum of Art.  I think it will give MOCA more stature

I think it's safe to say that at 35,000 sq. feet, we aren't talking about a massive structure. But you're right, wimwar - it'll be interesting to see how they make it mesh (or purposely clash) with its surroundings.

I love the idea of making the museum architectually significant, they similar to what Cincy did with it's contemporary art museum.

 

When I read this I was thinking...get Zaha Hadid that did Cincinnati's!  She did a great job, and put Cincy in the limelight as her first commission in the US.  She's done some excellent work in Europe.

Hadid's Cincinnati CAC is amazing... and talk about shoe-horning a significant building into a small footprint!  What I love about it is its transparency.  The building is art in and of itself, but it doesn't hide its prized posessions, but rather flaunts them and the activity they inspire to all passers-by.

 

Aside from the obvious benefit of being closely tied to CMA, this is great for the large number of artists and art students in the neighborhood.  The outcry from this group over the disruption in access to CMA resources was pretty loud.  It made me realize how dependent they are on existing institutions (outside of their own) for their research and inspiration. 

 

Consider, as well, the proposed relocation of the majority of CIA's campus over to this location and you've got a cozy, but substantial cluster of modern art institutions in a couple blocks.  Pretty awesome, if you ask me!

I'm curious to see who they pick as the architect!

Now, I don't know about referring to the Triangle as "a moribund part of the city," as the PD does above. On the contrary, despite the drab buildings, this is one of the city's densest and most bustling areas, especially when the universities are in session.

Blinker,

 

I agree with you about Litt's portrayal of the Triangle. Its not the best architecture, but its not a dead area. UCI has about a 97% occupancy rate in those apartments (mainly grad students and medical residents).  If we gave people some nicer options, I think that area could take on even more density.

Maybe the new building doesn't have to be a single use.  Maybe they could design the space around MOCA, but include additional space for arts organizations and design businesses that would benefit from proximity to MOCA, CIA, and CMA.

How has Pete Lewis viewed MOCA over the years?  Is this an attempt to woo his wallet open?

I always thought that this area has the potential to be huge in particular if they worked with RTA to put a Rapid stop right at the begining of Little Italy...probably by replacing the ugly and underused existing one at 115th.

This is super news and Im thrilled to see the 'signature building' element a part of this.  That sculpture that now sits on the tip really has to go.  Hopefully this so called international search will get us something amazing.  We can only hope, does anyone know how many square feet the Peter B. Lewis building is??  Just want to compare for potential massing.

PBL is 152,000 sq ft.  This is why I just don't understand how this will be a stand-alone signature building.  I heard the original thinking was that there would be a large condo tower about MoCA at the corner.  The support beams that would disect the museum space would severely limit the flexibility of exhibition possibilities.  So, they scrapped that idea. I am curious to see how they envision the museum mixing with its context. I am sure that the developer would want to take full advantage of that corner's visibility, so I am sure that the space will be utilized wisely.

 

The PD had an interesting graphic on Friday.  It showed the beach property as belonging to Case.  While that sale will happen, Case and UCI are still negotiating a price. 

University Circle's MOCA flavor

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Thanks to a $2.1 million grant from the George Gund Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland is making plans to move to University Circle. That's great news for the museum, which now occupies space on the second floor of the Cleveland Playhouse and has been eager to find a higher-profile location. Having its own site at the busy intersection of Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road - possibly as early as 2008 - should more than satisfy that desire.

 

But MOCA's planned move is also enormously good news for Case Western Reserve University and neighboring cultural institutions, for Little Italy and for who everyone who wants to see Cleveland develop more dynamic neighborhoods of the kind that will appeal to creative professionals and others who crave cosmopolitan urban life.

 

Even before Case President Edward Hundert arrived in 2002 with grandiose talk of creating "the world's most powerful learning environment," officials at the university and at University Circle Inc., the development arm of the city's cultural hub, had been talking about how to transform the area into a true neighborhood with residential options and a lively street life. Once Hundert and his team came aboard, they committed to a "college-town" development they call the University Arts and Retail District. In pursuit of that vision, Case purchased the Triangle, an uninspiring mixed-use complex on the southeast corner of Euclid and Mayfield.

 

 

That is to be MOCA's new home. The one-story retail portion of the Triangle will be torn down and replaced by a new building where MOCA can exhibit modern masters and the art world's emerging stars. MOCA Director Jill Snyder envisions a sharply designed new home that will dramatically boost the museum's visibility, stature and attendance.

 

But a signature home for contemporary art should also have ripple effects on the entire area - as an anchor to Case's college-town, as a magnet to lure younger, hipper art lovers to University Circle and as a bridge between the circle's established institutions, the Cleveland Institute of Art's brilliant students and the thriving galleries and studios of Little Italy.

 

This project is still in its early stages. Snyder and her board, even with $5 million on hand, thanks to Gund and earlier fund-raising, still must mount a major capital campaign at a time when institutions with deeper roots in the community also are asking for dollars. Case needs to select a developer to renew the rest of the Triangle complex and to move ahead with other elements of the Arts and Retail District. University Circle Inc. has to balance the individual needs of its member institutions with the collective need to create a livelier, more complete neighborhood that will help secure the future of those organizations.

 

But Gund's generosity can be the catalyst to make those things happen. It's a hopeful note on which to begin the new year.

 

Where would Cleveland be without the Gund Foundation and the Cleveland Foundation?

 

Thank God we don't have to know

 

 

That is to be MOCA's new home. The one-story retail portion of the Triangle will be torn down and replaced by a new building where MOCA can exhibit modern masters and the art world's emerging stars. MOCA Director Jill Snyder envisions a sharply designed new home that will dramatically boost the museum's visibility, stature and attendance.

 

 

 

do i win a prize for calling this months ago?

MOCA picks finalists in architect search

Friday, March 17, 2006

Steven Litt

 

The Museum of Contemporary Art has named six finalists in a global search for an architect to design an iconic new home for the institution in University Circle.

 

The finalists, winnowed from a field of 32, hail from New York, London, Los Angeles and Boston. They run the stylistic gamut from cutting-edge geometries to curvaceous organic forms. None has the name recognition of star architects such as Frank Gehry or Daniel Libeskind, but that's the point: MOCA wants to find a star on the way up...

 

 

FYI...

 

 

OFF-SITE EXHIBITION OPENING

Friday, March 31 / 5 - 7:30pm

The Future MOCA: Selected Portfolios

Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative

820 Prospect Avenue, Downtown Cleveland

 

FREE and open to the public

 

Introducing Greater Clevelanders and the world to our vision for a new building, we have partnered with the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) to present an exhibition of work by the six architectural firms recently chosen as finalists.

 

The exhibition, titled “The Future MOCA: Selected Portfolios,” will focus on selected past projects and conceptual work by the six international firms chosen from among thirty submissions. Opening in the galleries of the CUDC, these projects will be reproduced onto large, graphic panels and be included in a “virtual exhibition” accessible through onsite computer kiosks at both the CUDC and MOCA. The Future MOCA: Selected Portfolios will be on view at MOCA and the CUDC through May 15.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

OFF-SITE PUBLIC TALK

Sunday, April 2 / 2pm*

Peter B. Lewis Building, Room 04

Case Western Reserve University

 

FREE and open to the public

 

At a public presentation, MOCA Executive Director Jill Snyder, along with consultant Casey Jones, Principal of jones|kroloff designs, will discuss MOCA ’s architect search process. Their presentation will discuss the six internationally emerging architectural firms under consideration and MOCA’s selection and visioning criteria for our new building which will anchor the newly proposed University Arts and Retail District. With constant dedication to pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation, MOCA Cleveland invites you to this informative and exciting presentation on form and process.

 

*Don't forget to "Spring Ahead" and adjust your clocks for daylight savings!

 

 

© MOCA Cleveland 2006 8501 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106

Tel: 216 421 8671 Email: [email protected] Web: www.mocacleveland.org

General hours of operation: Tuesday - Sunday 11am - 6pm

Closed Mondays and all major holidays

 

 

 

what will all this development to do the already insanely busy Mayfield Rd through Little Italy?  I LOVE little italy, but would really like to see it expand a bit so that it's not so confined along that little strip of road. 

 

Is there any talk about what CIA can bring to MOCA?

How would you expand Mayfield?  There is no where to expand to.

what will all this development to do the already insanely busy Mayfield Rd through Little Italy?  I LOVE little italy, but would really like to see it expand a bit so that it's not so confined along that little strip of road. 

 

Is there any talk about what CIA can bring to MOCA?

 

By expand, do you mean that the commercial corridor would reach back into the neighbhorhood?  The best thing that could happen to Little Italy is if more market rate housing was built and many of the older homes could be renovated and modernized.  There are some dumpy homes that have been carved up into various apartments. 

Here's a better thread to discuss Mayfield Road traffic issues in Little Italy....

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3443.0

MOCA faces crucial choice

Six architectural firms compete for high-visibility assignment

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Steven Litt

 

It's only April, but if Cleveland had an award for architectural client of the year, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland already would be a very strong contender.

 

The museum announced in December that it plans to move from a low-visibility location in Midtown to a spectacular site a mile east in University Circle at the intersection of Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road.

 

The new MOCA will anchor a larger effort by Case Western Reserve University to transform a dead zone of parking lots and drab storefronts into what it is calling an Arts and Retail District...

 

more at: http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/1144139562213060.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

 

 

 

Also:

http://lifewithoutbuildings.net/  gives a bit of a blurb about MOCA

 

MoCA's hot list

Six finalists have been named in the search for an architect to design the new Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art. Although the judges say that they're not looking for a starchitect, but rather a young firm on its way up, the list is quite still quite impressive: Office dA, Reiser + Umemoto, SHoP, Studio MDA, Michael Maltzan, and Foreign Office Architects.

 

The winning firm will be announced in June.

this is such a great opportunity for moca and university circle. very exciting. anybody familiar with the architecture firms and what they have done? i recognized rur right away so i took another look at their stuff. below are their concepts for museums:

 

concept for eyebeam gallery in chelsea

 

concept for the new museum on broadway in soho

fine you sissies

i think moca now needs its own thread. anyhoo, these choices are outstanding. very exciting.

 

here's my own shot of the awesome porter house conversion in the meatpacking district shown above -- from shop architects. btw on a related tangent an "snl alumni" clevelander lives there-- molly shannon. so as you can see she is gettin the most out of her five minutes of fame - i see here around just about every day avec stroller and nanny. it's all we can do to not say "superstaaar!" at her - heeha:

 

 

 

yea i think eventually MOCA is going to need its own thread, actually i think The Art and Retail District is going to need its own thread soon. 

 

<img src="http://www.reiser-umemoto.com/projects/eyebeam/a-chelsea.jpg">

anyway i also liked the eyebeam proposal.  thats definately an upgrade from their space they have now, which is a former S&M club...hah

i think moca now needs its own thread. anyhoo, these choices are outstanding. very exciting.

 

here's my own shot of the awesome porter house conversion in the meatpacking district shown above -- from shop architects. btw on a related tangent an "snl alumni" clevelander lives there-- molly shannon. so as you can see she is gettin the most out of her five minutes of fame - i see here around just about every day avec stroller and nanny. it's all we can do to not say "superstaaar!" at her - heeha:

 

 

The thin vertical windows seem to be making an unfortunate comeback.

Pope,

 

I also agree that this one needs a new thread. Or, it should at least become part of a University Arts and Retail district thread.  The UC thread is too large and contains too many different projects.

Wimwar, do you know off-hand who designed Dively's future neighbor?

 

Tough to know how predictive the examples of the MOCA finalist's past work are for a new design, but I really really really hope the new building has tons of window area so that when lit up at night it lights up the street in front and shows off its insides.  Bring on the glass-clad swoopyness!

 

wow isnt it nice to have the problem of too much stuff going on around university circle?

Funny thing is, there already was a MOCA thread.

easy...Ryan's new!  this was his first post! welcome!

^ That was addressed to the other MOCA thread that I merged into this one earlier.

 

hmm any word on this project yet?  i think they were supposed to choose this week who the architects would be

I heard from a birdie that the news might break at their next opening, which is Sept. 29. I don't know who they picked, though.

 

 

New MOCA design to be woman's work, a first in Cleveland

By Steven Litt

 

 

Breaking silence after three months, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland announced Thursday that it has chosen Foreign Office Architects of London, one of the hottest young architecture firms in the world, to design its new building in University Circle.

 

The firm designs buildings using forms and materials that are unexpectedly

diverse. Its work includes a shipping pier in Yokohama, Japan, with undulating

wooden surfaces that blur the differences between floors, walls and ceilings.

 

"Every day since we came to the decision to hire FOA, I've been thrilled and

excited," Jill Snyder, MOCA's director, said Thursday...

oooo quite exciting

Foreign Office Architects site http://www.f-o-a.net/

 

I'm not a fan of their proposals for the WTC, but I love a lot of their smaller-scale works.

wow that website is awful, they need to change that

^architect websites all seem to try to out-do each other. In doing so, they just get less and less user-friendly.

seriously, I had no idea what was going on. Nor was I successful in trying to look at any previous project of theirs.

MOCA made the Times!

 

 

London Architects Chosen For Cleveland Museum http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/arts/27arts.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

A new, larger home for MOCA Cleveland (the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland) will be designed by the London-based firm Foreign Office Architects, the museum is to announce today. The building will be in the University Circle, the city’s cultural center, anchoring a planned arts and retail corridor adjacent to Case Western Reserve University. Since 1991, MOCA Cleveland has occupied galleries on the second floor of the Cleveland Playhouse complex on Carnegie Avenue. After founding Foreign Office Architects in 1992, Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo, designed the Yokohama International Port Terminal in Japan in 2002, which led to their selection for the British Pavilion for the 2002 Venice Architectural Biennale. They have also designed a seaside park in Barcelona (2004); the Municipal Auditorium in Torrevieja, Spain (2006); and a publishing headquarters in Paju, South Korea (2005). The firm was shortlisted in the 2002 competition to design a memorial at ground zero. MOCA Cleveland will be its first major American project, and its first museum. ROBIN POGREBIN

 

cool

i cant wait to see some proposals, i wonder if any have been made yet since the announcement was to happen in june

until we can get renderings can we put some pics of their other projects on here for reference? i fnd looking at past work helpful in defining style.

 

here are our moca architects:

 

yokohama port terminal

 

 

rendering for bbc theater in london

 

london 2012 olympic stadium rendering

 

rendering for theater in spain

 

spanish pavilion expo 2005

 

foa info link:

http://www.designmuseum.org/design/foreign-office-architects

 

they seem very promising. anyone got more goods on'm?

 

 

 

 

This is great news!  What's going on with the CIA?  I thought I've read/heard somewhere that some starchitects may be involved with their expansion?...Students at Case are truely some of the most fortunate students in America--coexisting with the wide array of institutions in and around their campus.  Should be interesting to see FOA's proposal(s).

MVRDV was mentioned a few months ago about CIA's addition at the Ford Building on Euclid Avenue.