The Guggenheim

The Sydney Opera House. I have never been to Australia let alone any other country outside of the Americas, but every time I see a picture of the strange and iconic curved roof of the large windowed white structure overlooking Sydney Harbor, it makes me want to go there. This wide winged hall where concerts play represents the diversity of the world and like arms embracing new things. When I see this building, its strangeness stands in contrast to my small boring home town and seems to invite me to visit the world beyond zip code. The Sydney Opera House makes me want to drop everything and travel the world just so that I could experience its wall.

Oak Alley, just outside New Orleans stands with two rows of grand oaks leading up to it. A picture of the plantation hung above my parent’s bed, and as a child I would gawk at it wondering where it was, and who lived there. About two years ago, I had the pleasure to visit Oak Alley. I paraded along the grounds in excitement taking in the history, and beauty. We previously went to Laura plantation which is a few miles down the road. Laura is a Louisiana Creole plantation and is defined by its mix of colors and architecture. While Oak Alley stood polished, and symmetrical. There differences fascinated me, and I even used Laura Plantation as a setting in a short story for school. The building and all it represents is inspiring. Everything can be obtained by looking at the outside of a building. The stains, and cracks represent it’s age while the colors and architecture mark its culture. That’s what makes buildings interesting. The wonder behind history. Who lived there, who touched this, what happened here. We don’t know for sure and to be in that environment is thrilling.

The building that causes the largest reaction within myself would be by house. Everytime I pull into the driveway and get out of my car, I am overcome with an inundated feeling of relief. After every day of school, I am completely exhausted and cannot do anything else than just plop down onto the couch and become one with the potatoes. Home is where I feel the most comfortable and the happiest because I can express myself in anyway I want without worrying about social pressures. No other building creates such a strong feeling; the only other building that can cause a reaction is my school. School always has a cloud of despair hanging near the earth. School and home are like yin and yang, one exhausts me of my mental energy and the other restores it. One makes me feel overwhelmed, while the other relaxes my mind.

My whole life I’ve moved a lot and was introduced to a new home every couple of years, so houses never affected me as much as you’d think they would since I’ve seen over a billion when my parents are getting a new one. The first time after I moved from Denver, Colorado and came back to visit. I saw this tall building with the window like walls that looked like any other skyscraper in downtown Denver, yet it brought up a huge sense of deja vu and made me feel very glum with an even more intense need for tears. I then looked around and saw the big blue bear attempting to push the tall building. Memories from my youth starting hitting me, bringing tears to my eyes and almost letting them down without my consent. Seeing the tall building with the foolish blue bear pushing a building ten times it size and weight reminded me how long its been since I’ve been to this beautiful city and how much I’ve changed from the last time I was near the blue bear and its building. Everything changed about me but that bear stayed pushing that motionless building, never changing.

My mom is an architect, my dad is a construction manager, and my brother is in his third year working towards an architecture degree, so constantly talking about buildings is a normal thing in my house. When we pick places to go on vacation, the deciding factor is usually if there is cool architecture in the area, along with an enormous art museum. I think it is fair to say that I have seen plenty of beautiful and creative architecture. Though I have never been to the Guggenheim, I have been to another Frank Lloyd Wright house It was the Frank Lloyd Wright Bachman-Wilson House in Bentonville, Arkansas. Although I have seen all this beautiful architecture, the building that sparked the most emotion for me was my old house. Seeing the place I grew up in without any furniture in it was probably one of the weirdest things ever. It was so weird that walking through a circular concrete building when many people thought that that wasn’t even possible could not compare.

I have a very specific taste in architecture and designs of buildings, so it’s fairly rare for a building to connect with me. I would describe my favorite buildings and houses as small, cozy, and comfortable with a lot of natural light. I usually only see this type of design in rural areas, so I rarely see them since I live in a beach town. One day I was doing a project for my math class and I had to find a building that had some sort of triangles in it’s architecture. I had looked at many different beach houses, modern office buildings, sharp-edged brutalist apartments, and pointy-roofed castles, but none of them really spoke to me. Then, I came across this itsy-bitsy a-frame tiny house and I fell in love. Ever since that moment, I’ve had this dream of living in a house just like that one, and I hope that I can make that dream happen one day.

From an early age, my school's have been teaching me about 911. It was a really traumatic experience, and I feel super bad for all the families that lost a family member because of the bombing. A lot of innocent were killed, and even though the buildings don't stand anymore, whenever I link strong emotion and buildings, I think of those fatal attacks and of the people that died from it. To me, this shows that the world is a dangerous place, and it is sometimes better to blend in, rather than stand out.

From the time I was in the first grade, til the time I was in fifth grade I lived in New York. Every morning on my way to school I would pass the Guggenheim. To me it has always been such an inspiration me. Showing that no matter how crazy your dreams, are that you can achieve them. I saw this through all of the "normal" buildings on that street, and then this monstrous abstract piece of architecture. It taught me at a very young age that no dream is too big to achieve. Even the architect who was over seeing this project Frank Loyd Wright spent the last year of his life working on finishing one of his dreams to design this museum. So, no matter how old or young you are, you are always able to achieve your dreams.

I have family in India, so I visit there a lot, but I haven’t been to many places there. A couple years ago, when I was in India, we went and visited the Taj Mahal. And I was just so surprised by the size of it. I was just dumbfounded by this sensation. It was so surprising to know the backstory as well. How that abnormally large building was used as a tomb for a king and his wife. It was just amazing how people put in that much effort just for the tomb of a king.

The only building (other than my childhood home) that has ever inspired any sort of strong emotion in me was a church I went into on a mission trip for my church back home. It was a large, boxy structure, kind of nondescript-looking from the front, a concrete grey (probably because it was made partly out of concrete [duh]) with a few windows and a large set of double doors. As I went inside, it opened up a little, with a little gathering area with some bathrooms and a few offices to the side. As I left the gathering area, it opened up a whole lot more. It was large, with a vaulted ceiling and wood paneled everything. There was a large pipe organ constructed INSIDE THE BACK WALL, and there were stained-glass windows to the sides of the organ. This building filled me with an overwhelming sense of confusion, specifically as to how they fit something so grandiose into such an ugly gray box.

In the 50’s the middle of the century a new style of architecture was born. “Mid Century Modern”. Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the fathers of mid century modern design. I believe that this shrine of modern artwork speaks out to people and evokes emotions that we didn’t even know the human heart was capable of because of how meticulous and different it is. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the bustling New York City, a city of stark bland skyscrapers, average rectangular apartment complexes, and gleaming avenues. It is a spiraling city square that is home to famous works of art. I believe that the reason that this museum strikes feeling into the onlookers is because it is different. Now a days, everything is the same, we live our boring lives working 9-5 jobs and coming home to our cookie cutter homes and family with two kids and a golden retriever. Our hearts long for a distraction, something different to break the mold of our dreary lives where money is the driving force to everything. The Guggenheim is different and that's why we feel such strong feelings when we see it. It sets off this waterfall of emotions that spiral us into longing for change and a distraction. I believe that the building itself matches if not surpasses the art that it holds. “Such lofty art naturally demanded a home befitting its spiritual potential” The New York Times article says. And I agree, this museum has served justice the the beauty of the work inside and carried it throughout