Tuesday, August 19, 2008

At Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum, It's "If it's not broke - break it."

Mary Louise Schumacher, the Milwaukee Journal arts writer who took over the architecture beat from the inestimable Whitney Gould, has a dispiriting piece on how one of the first acts of the Milwaukee Arts Museum's new director Daniel Keegan is to move admission desks into the stunning, cathedral-like entry hall that architect Santiago Calatrava designed for the Milwaukee Art Museum. Calatrava's building made the museum a global destination, so what better way to repay him than to start cheapening it up? Can coffee and souvenir kiosks be far behind? A conscious decision was made when the museum opened to let people come in the grand hall and look around. Now you have to know you can request an "amenity button" to do it without paying an admission charge. Read it all here.

*amenity button: a diversionary device designed to allow management to feel good about a bad policy

2 comments:

Brendan Crain said...

Oh, what the hell? Very disappointing news from the hometown. :-/

Anonymous said...

Did the museum's Board of Directors agree to it, or did she do it on her own? I can't believe that the Board would have agreed to it.