The Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art
"The public hall, which anyone can enter, is located in the very center of the city, so people just passing by can come in for coffee, just hang around, or go up the stairs and quickly take a look at some of the exhibitions. The building is very accessible. It is not so compact. There is a certain degree of transparency on the ground floor and upper levels. It is not just about how to properly use the building, but also about how to pass through it. Every time you start comparing the internal spaces, you will have a completely different experience."
The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati is Zaha Hadid's first project in the United States. It stands in a small city somewhere in the middle of America, where few would expect Zaha Hadid to realize any of her bold projects. The new museum was not meant to be a tourist attraction like the "Bilbao effect," drawing visitors to yet another boring city. CAC is the latest realization in a series of quality projects that have emerged here in recent years. Experienced American architects have mostly built for the local university campus: Michael Graves built the Engineering Research Center (1995), Peter Eisenman the Aronoff Center for Design and Art (1996), Frank Gehry the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies (1999), and Thom Mayne the Student Recreation Center (2005).
About the museum
The original name of the Contemporary Arts Center was the Modern Art Society and it was established in 1939. It is one of the oldest institutions in the United States focused on contemporary visual art. In its early years, the museum struggled in the basement of the Cincinnati Art Museum. In the 1960s, it moved to the center, where it had space above a Walgreen's Drugstore. In 1995, Charles Desmarais took the helm of the museum, under whose guidance the institution grew cheerfully, until they began to outgrow the space above the drugstore. The committee, led by Richard Rosenthal (who donated a significant amount of his own money for the realization of the museum), therefore decided to build its own building after 64 long years, which would provide a place for temporary exhibitions, installations, and various performances. No permanent collection was planned. The shortlist included projects by Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, and Zaha Hadid. Charles Desmarais said of Hadid: "She has a true understanding of the world of contemporary art and also of what we are trying to achieve." (to get the center on the map of world architecture). Her competition project was very difficult to comprehend. It was a sort of series of floating masses in space. However, the client showed a great deal of insight and enlightenment in the selection process. Zaha Hadid demonstrated a great degree of flexibility and sensitivity during the realization. As a result, it is a magnificent building that enlivens the entire city center.
Urban Carpet
To attract foot traffic from the surroundings into the building and create a sense of a dynamic public space, the entrance, lobby, and circulation area of the museum were designed as an "urban carpet." It starts at the corner of Walnut and Sixth, where the curves gradually rise from the ground and enter the building, transforming into the rear wall. As this "urban carpet" flips and grows, it guides visitors up a suspended ramp across the entire length of the entrance hall. The ramp from the mezzanine continues until it penetrates the rear concrete wall and ends on the other side at the entrance to the gallery.
Puzzle
Unlike the "urban carpet," which is made up of a series of polished undulating surfaces, the galleries are expressed as if they were carved from individual pieces of concrete, floating freely above the entrance hall. The exhibition spaces differ in their shapes and dimensions to accommodate a wide range of scales and materials used in contemporary art. Thanks to the ramp stairway winding through a narrow slit at the back of the building, the entrances to the galleries are unpredictable. The gallery rooms fit together like a spatial puzzle made up of solid volumes and empty spaces.
Skin/Sculpture
The positioning of the building on the corner led to the creation of two distinct, yet complementary, facades. The southern facade, along Sixth Street, creates a wavy transparent skin through which passersby can see life inside the center. Offices with pleasant daylight and interesting views of the city are located along this side. The hustle and bustle in the offices brings the facade to life. The eastern facade along Walnut Street resonates as a giant sculptural relief, which is an imprint of the internal spaces of the gallery.
Zaha Hadid
The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati is Zaha Hadid's first project in the United States. It stands in a small city somewhere in the middle of America, where few would expect Zaha Hadid to realize any of her bold projects. The new museum was not meant to be a tourist attraction like the "Bilbao effect," drawing visitors to yet another boring city. CAC is the latest realization in a series of quality projects that have emerged here in recent years. Experienced American architects have mostly built for the local university campus: Michael Graves built the Engineering Research Center (1995), Peter Eisenman the Aronoff Center for Design and Art (1996), Frank Gehry the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies (1999), and Thom Mayne the Student Recreation Center (2005).
About the museum
The original name of the Contemporary Arts Center was the Modern Art Society and it was established in 1939. It is one of the oldest institutions in the United States focused on contemporary visual art. In its early years, the museum struggled in the basement of the Cincinnati Art Museum. In the 1960s, it moved to the center, where it had space above a Walgreen's Drugstore. In 1995, Charles Desmarais took the helm of the museum, under whose guidance the institution grew cheerfully, until they began to outgrow the space above the drugstore. The committee, led by Richard Rosenthal (who donated a significant amount of his own money for the realization of the museum), therefore decided to build its own building after 64 long years, which would provide a place for temporary exhibitions, installations, and various performances. No permanent collection was planned. The shortlist included projects by Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, and Zaha Hadid. Charles Desmarais said of Hadid: "She has a true understanding of the world of contemporary art and also of what we are trying to achieve." (to get the center on the map of world architecture). Her competition project was very difficult to comprehend. It was a sort of series of floating masses in space. However, the client showed a great deal of insight and enlightenment in the selection process. Zaha Hadid demonstrated a great degree of flexibility and sensitivity during the realization. As a result, it is a magnificent building that enlivens the entire city center.
Urban Carpet
To attract foot traffic from the surroundings into the building and create a sense of a dynamic public space, the entrance, lobby, and circulation area of the museum were designed as an "urban carpet." It starts at the corner of Walnut and Sixth, where the curves gradually rise from the ground and enter the building, transforming into the rear wall. As this "urban carpet" flips and grows, it guides visitors up a suspended ramp across the entire length of the entrance hall. The ramp from the mezzanine continues until it penetrates the rear concrete wall and ends on the other side at the entrance to the gallery.
Puzzle
Unlike the "urban carpet," which is made up of a series of polished undulating surfaces, the galleries are expressed as if they were carved from individual pieces of concrete, floating freely above the entrance hall. The exhibition spaces differ in their shapes and dimensions to accommodate a wide range of scales and materials used in contemporary art. Thanks to the ramp stairway winding through a narrow slit at the back of the building, the entrances to the galleries are unpredictable. The gallery rooms fit together like a spatial puzzle made up of solid volumes and empty spaces.
Skin/Sculpture
The positioning of the building on the corner led to the creation of two distinct, yet complementary, facades. The southern facade, along Sixth Street, creates a wavy transparent skin through which passersby can see life inside the center. Offices with pleasant daylight and interesting views of the city are located along this side. The hustle and bustle in the offices brings the facade to life. The eastern facade along Walnut Street resonates as a giant sculptural relief, which is an imprint of the internal spaces of the gallery.
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