The museum replaced the Libby Building (at right in this c.1900 view). The Free Street Baptist Church was demolished to make way for the Chamber of Commerce. The Children's Museum of Maine later occupied that building.
Cobb’s largest challenge was to create a building that provided an enjoyable and powerful location to view art while relating to the diverse conditions of its awkwardly shaped urban site. The tall brick buildings enclosing the other sides of Congress Square required the Payson building to contain a unified, strong, large-scale presence. Conversely, the smaller, historic PMA buildings on the Spring Street side of the building site required the Payson Building to have a smaller building form that would accommodate these historic neighbors.[2] Cobb’s solution was to design a wide façade made of red brick and gray granite lintels with semicircle openings,[4] reflecting the design of the five-story Libby Building, which formerly occupied the location.[5] This façade has the street presence of a Renaissance palazzo, enclosing the public square.[2] Behind the façade, Cobb gradually reduced both the height and length of the building until the building terminated in the back left corner, one-fourth as wide and tall as the main façade. By stepping the building back and down in this way, Cobb was successfully able to grant primacy to the neighboring historic buildings.[3]
Cobb chose to comprise the structure of the Payson Building of a concrete frame with a concrete block infill, rendering the façade essentially a “curtain wall.”[1] This led to criticism from other architects that Cobb gave the building a false, billboard-like front.[6] Cobb claims, however, that the façade symbolically represents the interior. The circular insets and cutouts are metaphors that recall the square interior galleries and the rectangular brick insets signify the rectangular interior circulation spaces.[7]
Interior design details
Behind the controversial façade lies many galleries with clean white walls and pine floors with granite stripping set into the floor.[6] This granite marks off twenty-foot by twenty-foot spaces, thought by Cobb to be the smallest desirable gallery space. Around these square spaces, granite strips also delineate rectangular circulation spaces around each square. Over certain granite strips, Cobb placed walls with wide cutout doors to shape various-sized gallery spaces.[2]
To reflect and accommodate the diversity of the Homer paintings, Cobb not only strategically placed walls to create different-sized gallery spaces but also varied the ceiling height from 12.5 to 25 to 37.5 feet (3.8–11.4 m) high. These diverse gallery spaces were intentionally designed to provide no clear path through the museum. Cobb claimed that this layout reflected the lack of grand boulevards and grids in the modest cities of New England.[1] Further, Cobb’s layout of the galleries allows a visitor standing in one gallery to see glimpses of several other galleries, often on multiple levels, through the wide gallery doors. This gives the visitor a sense of adventure and anticipation as he or she travels through the galleries.[6]
Perhaps the most compelling feature of the galleries is the lighting, rivaling that of Louis Kahn’s Kimball Gallery.[6] The galleries are lit with cascading domed ceilings, which are filled with daylight from superimposed octagonal clerestory lanterns based on the Dulwich College Art Gallery by John Soane.[2] Clerestories permit maximum sunlight to enter the gallery while avoiding direct rays hitting the gallery walls. This natural light is accompanied by incandescent track lighting,[7] although this artificial lighting is often left off during the day.[6] The shifting light entering the museum animates, diffuses, and shapes the galleries below, celebrating the museum's collections with “Portland Light.”[3]
Beyond these more famous influences, Cobb also had a strong desire to link the Payson building to Maine. He remarked, “The Portland Museum is a regional museum in a region that is itself a museum, so I believe I had an obligation to connect the new building to the city and the region.”[7] To express the museum’s connection to Maine, Cobb used locally made materials common to Maine (water-struck brick, pine, and granite) as his chief design materials.[7] These materials refer to the vernacular architecture of Portland,[3] defined by the brick commercial buildings and warehouses of the Old Port and the Federal-style brick buildings near the museum.[4] Furthermore, from the ground looking up at the Payson building, one is struck with how the façade’s semicircular openings encase the air and light of Maine, making it part of the building.[2] A similar effect is achieved with the building’s many octagonal clerestories.[3] These clerestories also recall the viewing decks of the region’s lighthouses as well as the octagonal Portland Observatory, a major city icon. Additionally, porthole-like windows reveal views of the Fore River, recalling Maine’s rich nautical history.[4]
1 2 3 Brenson, Michael. "New Portland Museum Pursues a Human Scale." The New York Times. 9Aug. 1983, Late City Final Edition, sec.C:13.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Cobb, Henry Nichols. Where I stand: Lecture. Cambridge: Graduate School Of Design, Harvard University, 1981.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Thorn, Megan. Charles Shipman Payson Building. Portland: The Portland Museum Of Art, 1983.
1 2 3 4 Conforti, Joseph A. Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England (Revisiting New Eng. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2005.
↑ Ledman, Paul J. (2016). Walking Through History: Portland, Maine on Foot. Next Steps Publishing. p.45. ISBN978-0-9728587-1-7.
1 2 3 4 5 Campbell, Robert. “Modules Stacked Behind a ‘Billboard’.” American Architecture of the 1980s. Washington, D.C.: The American Institute of Architects Press, 1990.
1 2 3 4 5 Schmertz, Mildred F. "Form and figure; The Portland Museum of Art, Charles Shipman Payson Building, Portland, Maine." Architectural Record 171.13 (1983): 108–199.
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe that was predominant in the 11th and 12th centuries. The style eventually developed into the Gothic style with the shape of the arches providing a simple distinction: the Romanesque is characterized by semicircular arches, while the Gothic is marked by the pointed arches. The Romanesque emerged nearly simultaneously in multiple countries ; its examples can be found across the continent, making it the first pan-European architectural style since Imperial Roman architecture. Similarly to Gothic, the name of the style was transferred onto the contemporary Romanesque art.
The National Gallery of Canada, located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up 46,621 square metres (501,820 sq ft), with 12,400 square metres (133,000 sq ft) of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the largest art museums in North America by exhibition space.
A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole community often met there daily for readings and to hear the abbot or senior monks talk. When attached to a collegiate church, the dean, prebendaries and canons of the college meet there. The rooms may also be used for other meetings of various sorts; in medieval times monarchs on tour in their territory would often take them over for their meetings and audiences. Synods, ecclesiastical courts and similar meetings often took place in chapter houses.
The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, hosts an art collection as well as traveling art exhibitions, educational programs and an extensive research library. Its initial artwork came from the private collection of Kay and Velma Kimbell, who also provided funds for a new building to house it.
The Fuller Building is a skyscraper at 57th Street and Madison Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Walker & Gillette, it was erected between 1928 and 1929. The building is named for its original main occupant, the Fuller Construction Company, which moved from the Flatiron Building.
Joan Whitney Payson was an American heiress, businesswoman, philanthropist, patron of the arts and art collector, and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She co-founded, and was the majority owner of, Major League Baseball's New York Mets baseball franchise, making her the first woman to own a major league team in North America without inheriting it.
Henry Nichols Cobb was an American architect and founding partner with I.M. Pei and Eason H. Leonard of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, an international architectural firm based in New York City.
The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the gallery emphasizes early Italian Renaissance painting, African sculpture, and modern art. It is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere.
The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine.
The L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries are a series of art galleries that are part of the Portland Museum of Art, which is located in the Arts District of Portland, Maine.
The McLellan-Sweat Mansion is a historic house museum on High Street in Portland, Maine. It forms the rear component of the Portland Museum of Art complex. Built in 1800–01, the house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970 as a well-preserved Federal style brick townhouse.
The United States Custom House is a historic custom house at 312 Fore Street in downtown Portland, Maine. It was built from 1867–1872 to house offices of the United States Customs Service, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The 1929 Barcelona International Exposition (also 1929 Barcelona Universal Exposition, or Expo 1929, officially in Spanish: Exposición Internacional de Barcelona 1929 was the second World Fair to be held in Barcelona, the first one being in 1888. It took place from 20 May 1929 to 15 January 1930 in Barcelona, Spain. It was held on Montjuïc, the hill overlooking the harbor, southwest of the city center, and covered an area of 118 hectares at an estimated cost of 130 million pesetas. Twenty European nations participated in the fair, including Germany, Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania and Switzerland. In addition, private organizations from the United States and Japan participated. Hispanic American countries as well as Brazil, Portugal and the United States were represented in the Ibero-American section in Sevilla.
The Old Union Meetinghouse, now the Union Baptist Church, is a historic church at 107 Mason Road in the Farmington Falls area of Farmington, Maine. Built in 1826–27, it is a high-quality and well-preserved example of a traditional late-colonial meetinghouse with Federal-style details. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The John Calvin Stevens House is an historic house at 52 Bowdoin Street in the West End neighborhood of Portland, Maine. Built in 1884, it was the home of architect John Calvin Stevens, and was one of Portland's earliest examples of Shingle style architecture. The house was prominently used by Stevens in promotion of the style, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
The Charles Q. Clapp House is a historic house at 97 Spring Street in central Portland, Maine. Built in 1832, it is one of Maine's important early examples of high style Greek Revival architecture. Probably designed by its first owner, Charles Q. Clapp, it served for much of the 20th century as the home of the Portland School of Fine and Applied Art, now the Maine College of Art. It is now owned by the adjacent Portland Museum of Art. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
The Madison Public Library is located at 12 Old Point Avenue in Madison, Maine. Built with funding support from Andrew Carnegie, it is one of the architecturally most unusual libraries in the state, with a distinctive octagonal tower and non-rectangular angled elements. It was designed by the local firm of Snow and Humphreys and completed in 1906. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The University of Michigan Central Campus Historic District is a historic district consisting of a group of major buildings on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The Oklahoma Judicial Center is the headquarters of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Judiciary of Oklahoma. Situated near the Oklahoma State Capitol, the original structure, designed by the architectural firm Layton, Hicks & Forsyth, was built between 1929-1930 as the home of the Oklahoma Historical Society and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Oklahoma Historical Society Building in 1990. The society moved to the nearby Oklahoma History Center when it opened in 2005. An annex was completed in 2011.
Rüstem Pasha Medrese is a former medrese, located in Fatih district of Istanbul, Turkey. It was commissioned by Ottoman statesman and grand vizier Rüstem Pasha, and built by court architect Mimar Sinan in 1551.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
