Tag Archives: museum

Google Art Project brings galleries from around the world to your computer screen

Design, News, Technology, , , , , , , , , ,

Today Google dipped its paws into the art industry.  Art Project is “a unique collaboration with some of the world’s most acclaimed art museums to enable people to discover and view more than a thousand artworks online in extraordinary detail.”  In short, over the past 18 months Google’s traveled to 17 art museums around the world and captured super high resolution images of famous artworks.  Now online users can take 360 degree tours of individual galleries using the same Street View click, zoom, and pan techniques most are used to using when navigating Google Maps.  Google hit up many world renowned museums including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, State Tretyakov Gallery, and Van Gogh Museum.  And check this: each of the 17 museums hand-picked one piece of artwork to be photographed using gigapixel technology; these super super high definition selections contain around 7 billion pixels allowing users to explore them in extreme detail.  For example, the people hidden behind the tree in Ivanov’s ‘The Apparition of Christ to the People’ suddenly become visible thanks to the gigapixel capture.  In addition to browsing the beautiful works of art, Google is enabling users to create their own collections, share them with others, and make them sociable with commenting support.

Head over to http://www.googleartproject.com/ to check it out!  Look after the break for official PR and some videos detailing the project.

Food for thought: Libraries are dead because of the digitization of books; with instant access to high definition galleries are museums on their way out now as well?

[Via GoogleBlog] Continue reading Google Art Project brings galleries from around the world to your computer screen →

New Salvador Dalí mueseum is being constructed; he would have loved it

Architecture, Design, Images, , ,

Architect companies HOK and Beck Group are currently designing a museum in St. Petersburg, Florida that will house the wonderfully surreal artwork of the great Salvador Dalí.  The mueseum’s director shares that it will “combines elements of the classical and the fantastical”, just as Dalí would have wanted it.  The spiral staircase you see above is described as a “structural tour-de-force, with the reinforced concrete spiral functioning as a tensioned spring held at ground level and at the third floor, with the stair treads cantilevered from the central spiral.”  Its design is influenced by Dalí’s fascination with DNA, the golden rectangle, and the Fibonacci series.  The organic, triangulated glass that houses a part of the museum represents a “contrast between the rational world of the conscious and the more intuitive, surprising natural world”, another one of Dalí’s infatuations.  The entire structure is enclosed in reinforced 18” thick concrete walls designed to protect everything valuable inside from destructive hurricanes.  The walls are so strong that they can resist a 165mph Category 5 hurricane, if one were to fly by.  Here’s quick rundown of archetectual specs: the museum covers 66,000 square feet, contains three floors, and its build budget is $30 million.  It’s expected to open to the public January 2011.

[Via ArchDaily; Gizmodo]

‘Experience the void’ at the Guggenheim: come happy, leave injured

Architecture, Design, Images, , ,

JDS Architects have come up with a wild n’ wacky idea to fill up the void at the Guggenheim Museum, that is, the wide open space inside the building.  JDS invites you to “experience the void” by bouncing your way from the top to the bottom of the museum via a trampoline net.  Design Boom points out that “this idea plays on Frank Lloyd Wright’s original scenography for the Guggenheim in which he envisioned patrons visiting the exhibition from the top, downwards.”  Problem is, this method of transportation in the building would likely result in one too many tragic body traumas.  Take a deep breath, it’s only a concept; and due to such safety concerns, it will likely remain just that.  But it’s a fun idea, is it not?

[Via DesignBoom; Gizmodo]