Test composer

Approach

Hear actor Marilee Talkington describe the museum’s urban setting and how the building looks from the street.

Transcript

Marilee Talkington: Walking north along Fifth Avenue, we pass rectangular New York buildings with towers ten stories high and taller. Traffic rushes by [car horns and traffic sounds]. Central Park is on our left [bird calls and people talking]. We may hear pedestrians talking or birds calling above us in the foliage.

Crossing 87th Street, we glimpse a bright, ivory-gray, curving form ahead, protruding from the rectilinear shapes around it [footsteps on sidewalk]. The trees and buildings partially obscure the view, but as we near 88th Street, the circular, concrete building reveals itself in full magnificence. It’s the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum [light music with xylophone begins].

The Guggenheim occupies the whole stretch of Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street. We sense that the building belongs to this place. It’s dug in, emerging from beneath the ground plane.

It’s an asymmetrical building: On the south side of the block is a large, circular form, like an inverted four-layer tiered cake, each ring wider than the one below it. The base of each layer cuts in at a sharp angle, so the tiers seem to float, with space between them.

On the north side of the block is a smaller circular form, half the other’s height. The structure gives the overall impression of an air-traffic-control center—distinguished by half-moon shaped windows with dark mullions that span one level, a rectangular form sandwiched between that level and the building’s top floor, circled with windows in the round [music stops].

There’s a sense that both circular forms are sitting on a deep, hovering shelf, as a second-floor concrete wall wraps around them. We also see some vertical elements skewering the building together. The entire building is painted a light gray, though on a sunlit day it can appear bright white. The only exception is a frieze circling the top of the smaller building, which is a greenish tone, made of copper.

Moving closer, our sense of scale changes [light music with piano begins]. The structure feels intimate and contained. It’s set far back from the street and looks deceptively small tucked between the tall buildings around us. Yet the curves of the building reach out toward us, gently muscling the city grid to the side.

Looking up, the bright facade bulges out toward Fifth Avenue. The round layers aren’t entirely smooth. The skin of the paint reveals a diagonal grid in the concrete form underneath. Soft shadows emerge when the sun hits at certain angles [music stops].

As we step toward the building, the sidewalk widens. Street vendors are parked along the way, and the aromas of hot dogs and falafel drift toward you [people chatting and walking]. The sidewalk ends at knee-high walls [birds chirping], creating a buffer zone between the building and the street where deep planters, embedded in the urban block, make a landscaped garden and reveal a ramp to a side entrance below street level. Year-round, people perch along these walls, taking in the sun, enjoying a snack from a street vendor, or watching the passing parade of New Yorkers and visitors [distant city sounds].

Approaching the museum’s main entrance, the walls funnel us into the shadow of the overhan

silnce is golden

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