Architecture has, of course, always been a stage set for urban life and commerce, but in their previous work Diller and Scofidio aimed to reveal the social and physical scaffolding behind it. Here the scaffolding remains mostly hidden. Invisible behind the glowing walls of the galleries are massive trusses straining to resist gravity. Lost beneath the swooping curves that appear to structure the museum is a more conventional construction system, the signature elements a representation rather than the reality of how the ICA was built and will be used. The boardwalk may appear to penetrate the glass enclosure to weave harbor and museum together, but you still have to walk back and buy your ticket if you want to see the show. The messy realities disappear behind a squeaky-clean façade. Perhaps the distillation has gone too far, creating a perfect image of what a museum should be for a less-than-perfect world.
That world will soon surround the ICA as Fan Pier goes into construction. And the museum’s didactic clarity and elemental power, self-conscious as they are, may turn out to be exactly what’s needed to generate a compelling public waterfront at the feet of the behemoths that will follow. DSR’s unfolding layers of glass and wood create a memorable museum, the kind from which a new urbanity can grow. Let’s hope it does.
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Our town, The roar of the greasepaint, Beauty and the East, More 
- Our town
After living through decades of Big Dig construction and disruption, the average Bostonian has developed a keener design knowledge and sensitivity.
- The roar of the greasepaint
“Theatricality” used to have negative connotations when used to describe fine art: glitzy surface rather than nourishing substance, suspiciously melodramatic gesture, the faked as opposed to the Real.
- Beauty and the East
Gallery-goers with an affinity for art from Asia will have plenty of reason for excitement with a handful of enticing shows this winter.
- Inside the box
"Young people, and artists especially, respond to authenticity. And whether he's just very good at seeming authentic or whether he's really authentic, I think he has a lot of us convinced."
- Smoke and mirrors (and elephants) at the ICA
Not into wheatpasting and framed posters? The ICA is about to serve up two shows by artists who promise not to pop up on street walls all over the city.
- Photos: Prefuse 73 at ICA
Photos of Prefuse 73 playing at the Institute of Contemporary Art
- Cube root
"I've been told it's the largest single piece of glass in the world," Helen Molesworth, the Institute of Contemporary Art's new chief curator, said at a press preview last week.
- Tall stories
The Institute of Contemporary Art gets down and dirty this spring with Mexican artist Jerónimo López Ramírez, who's better known as DR. LAKRA — or, as they might say in his home of Oaxaca, "Dr. Delinquent."
- All sewn up
Patchwork quilts, crazy quilts, quilts that tell stories, quilts that point the way to freedom, and quilts that just keep us warm are all part of the rich history of this art form.
- Let it snow?
The delayed, highly anctipated grand opening of the new Institute of Contemporary Art has been rescheduled for December 10.
- Looming dark
In "Twilight," now showing at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, four artists pull some roots from the Gothic Romantic tradition and rearrange them to fit their needs.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Institute of Contemporary Art, Cultural Institutions and Parks, Museums, More
, Institute of Contemporary Art, Cultural Institutions and Parks, Museums, Barbara Lee, Jill Medvedow, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Less
