Event 3 Hammer Museum

Event 3 Hammer Museum

I visited the Hammer Museum for the third event,  and visited the Provocations: The Architecture and Design of Heatherwick Studio and Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio.

British Designer Thomas Heatherwick's studio designs and produces small to monumental sized projects in the forms ranging from public sculpture to architecture. The work of Heatherwick and the studio is an example of combining function and art for the public's use. For example, one of the studio's designs is Zeitz MOCCA. It is a museum celebrating contemporary African Art and is being built on the site where a grain silo stood in Cape Town, South Africa. To also celebrate the grain silo's historical significance, the studio designed the building to have 42 enormous concrete tubes along with much glass paneling to celebrate both historical and contemporary culture. Other works that have been realized is the rolling bridge that people use to cross the Grand Union Canal. A scaled model for a similar type of bridge for the larger Thames River is proposed in this exhibit too. Most recognizable to me was the 2012 Summer Olympics Cauldron. The 204 "petals" close together as a flower, but also functioned as the torch for the Olympic Games in London. Thus the petals form the artwork, but the cauldron also had to be designed to pipe fuel to sustain the fire and withstand the heat. 

Zeitz MOCCA model

Thames River Rolling Bridge Model

Petal from the 2012 Summer Olympics Cauldron

2012 Summer Olympics Cauldron Model

The other exhibit was Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio. This exhibit is a sculptural model for a catchment of the Los Angeles River water via a waterwheel that will be built this year in Downtown Los Angeles. It is called The Catch and has the sounds that the waterwheel will make as it functions to reroute some of the water back to the city. The water lens creates a reflection that is similar to reflections of water as the wheel will carry. Given the current talk of water conservation in California, the Catch is meant to make viewers think of the new methods to bring freshwater back into cities. 

The Catch

The Device that Creates the Waves of the Catch

Thus what I learned from these exhibits was the impact of contemporary styles of art and architecture on society.  Even though they are already prevalent and part of culture, we might not notice right away the science and art that was involved in designing them. I would recommend the Hammer Museum to classmates.

Me with a Hammer Museum Employee