The Meander as the Sign of a Contract
| ||
| The Meander as the Sign of a Contract | |
| Krista Kodres | |
|
||
|
||
|
Kumu*, the first art museum built by the Estonian state, is still too new to be talked about comprehensibly. The architecture and exhibition of the new building have mostly been praised, although inevitably opinions are veiled by a general feeling of happiness over the fulfilment of a dream of many years. One thing is clear: Kumu is also an architectural event, partly for the simple reason that such gigantic buildings are constructed in this country once in a blue moon. The architect's concept obviously derived from the Enlightenment-era idea of a museum as a temple of art. This is then a continuously romantic vision of the role of art and museums in culture, and the noble concept is evident in the monumentality and totality of Kumu architecture. Obviously the same vision encouraged the jury of the architectural competition to select Pekka Vapaavuori's** entry.
|
|
|
||
|
Against the background of local architectural tradition, Kumu architecture quite clearly stands out as Finnish. What makes it look 'Finnish', however, is not the form of the building or the tackling of space, which reflect late 20th century international trends, but the architect's attitude to detail. This contains the Alvar Aalto-style attitude to the whole and its parts, typical of our northern neighbours' modernist architecture. Aalto dealt with the problem in a Renaissance manner: the whole and the parts exist in harmonious relationship; we can talk about harmonious, ie good, architecture only in terms of the parts' inseparable mutual effect.This type of attitude naturally not only deals with form, but also with content. Approaching Kumu, our glance is captured by the temple of art that rises from the klint quite unexpectedly and which seems huge in comparison to the historical Kadriorg Park. Kumu is a stone and glass ode to art. Upon entering the temple the visitor grabs the door handle shaped like a meander. The latter refers to the same association, to an antique temple. |
|
|
||
|
Looking for the meaning of the meander, we can go even further back in history. The meander got its name from the River Maiandros in the Phrygia region of Asia Minor, about 200 km from the town of Troy. The river was winding, with numerous creeks. According to archaeological finds, the zigzag, an endlessly curving image, was already used by ancient European peoples seven thousand years ago. This probably symbolised the infinite, forever twisting existence of life and the world. In Greek architecture, the ancient sign, with its cosmological power borrowed from Mycenae, found a place among others of the same type on friezes and cornices of temples. Later it became common in temples, and thus its meaning gradually changed. In contemporary culture, rooted in the Renaissance era, the initial field of meaning has further narrowed and altered: the meander is now regarded as a mark of the 'classical', referring to the source of European culture - the antique - as well as to the subsequent eras that followed the antique and yearned for it. Incidentally, the meander is also called the 'Greek key', expressing its visual closeness to a real key on the one hand, but which could be interpreted in a wider sense as well - the meander in fact is the key to the architecture/culture of Greece and Europe in general. This in turn, as already mentioned, is the foundation of our Western cultural identity. Thus, upon entering Kumu we grasp the 'Greek key' and sign a kind of contract, as it were: going to an art temple, we accept the understanding of art as a mode of cultural (ie universal) existence. Our contract also stipulates the holiness associated with the temple, the expectation of something extraordinary. We will, of course, never know how many sign the contract knowingly, aware of the meander's touch and the chain of art historical interpretation. Enhanced by the architectural whole, the agreement will probably be signed, even when the eye does not notice the snaking meander on the door handle. * Kumu Art Museum, see also www.ekm.ee ** Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori won the architectural competition for the new art museum in 1994. Krista Kodres PhD in art history, Professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Has researched the Estonian art and architecture of early modern age, and architecture and design of the soviet era. Editor in chief of the 6-volume History of Estonian Art. |
|
|
||
|
||
|
| Estonian Art 1/06 (18) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2006 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 | |
|