Kreeger Museum

The Kreeger Museum is a modern and contemporary non-profit art museum located in Washington, D.C., United States. It is located on Foxhall Road, one of the residential neighborhoods of the city, in the former home of Carmen and David Lloyd Kreeger, pillars of the Washington D.C. arts and cultural community, and it contains the art collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings and sculpture they acquired from 1952 to 1988.^[1]

The building, among Washington's premier modern mansions, was designed in 1963 by Pritzker Prize winning architect Philip Johnson (known for building in the "International Style" at that time), together with Richard Foster, and sits on five and a half wooded acres in Northwest DC.

The design brief was for a private residence that, one day, would become a museum harbouring the extensive art collection acquired by the Kreegers. The building served as the Kreeger home from 1967 to 1990. On June 1, 1994, the Kreeger Museum opened to the public.

My thoughts about the house today have not changed since it was first conceived. I believe it answered perfectly the program set forth by the Kreegers. Its monumentality is as correct and current today as it was when built. To the mantle of public leadership that he assumed so willingly. To the long-range vision that his home would eventually be a museum, constructed for the delight of generations that would follow his rich and rewarding life.

Johnson proposed a modern interpretation of a Roman villa, complete with sculpture terraces and reflecting pools, set in a décor of sprawling indoor and outdoor gardens. This may have resulted in his choice to build with travertine, a kind of young limestone, often used in Ancient Roman architecture and in neoclassical buildings, long the favorite style for government buildings in Washington, but mostly eschewed by other proponents of modernist architecture.

The house is protected from the main road by a 435 ft (132,5 m) long wall in rough-hewn travertine. For the Kreeger residence, Johnson envisaged a composition of asymmetrically arranged, groin-vaulted cubes with travertine walls facing the street and glass walls that open up vistas onto the wooded site surrounding the house. The building with a gross surface area of 24,000 ft² (2230 m²) was designed on the basis of a modular system of cubes measuring 22 x 22 x 22 ft (6,7 x 6,7 x 6,7 m). The modular concept allowed the cubes to be adapted for different functions : living space, gallery space, and often, both. The largest open space in the building, The Great Hall, a two-story space that rises up to 25 feet (7,6 m), is topped by 3 vaulted domes that create a natural amplification system and provide for the excellent acoustics especially suited to chamber and piano music.

The architect's special consideration for the use of natural light and the articulation of structure, expressed by the travertine-covered reinforced concrete frame, the slim vaults covering each 22-foot module, or the baluster-like posts of the steel trusses that separate each vault, is paramount and complements the clarity of the plan. Without knowing the architect's intention, visitors experience an unusual calm in moving from one space to another. The particular dimensional units of similar size and the attention of the architect to progression through them is the "secret" to the pleasure of experiencing this particular building.^[2]

In the original design, the art galleries on all three levels did not invade the private areas but were adjacent to them, free-flowing spaces as opposed to the contained cubes of family rooms. Walls in the gallery spaces are covered with cream-colored carpet to blend with the natural stone which facilitates the changing of paintings. Most rooms in the house have oiled brown chevron wood floors, which adds warmth to the beige interior.

Johnson's melding of historicism and modernism results in a somewhat romantic yet functional house in the grand manner, where the same module, same clerestory lighting, and same tent-like vaults shelter intimate and public spaces alike.

El edificio se construyó entre 1966 y 1969, basándose en un diseño estructural que utilizaba acero, bloques de hormigón y ladrillos. Diecisiete cúpulas de hormigón conforman el singular techo, recubiertas con un material impermeabilizante de caucho sintético. El exterior moderno, inspirado en parte por la admiración de Philip Johnson y su previa colaboración con Ludwig Mies van der Rohe en el edificio Seagram de Nueva York , está revestido con 900 toneladas de losas de travertino italiano seleccionadas a mano. Richard Foster, socio de Johnson, supervisó la construcción del edificio y viajó dos veces a las canteras en Italia para supervisar la selección y el etiquetado de las losas. ^{[ 2 ]}

La colección Kreeger comprende principalmente obras desde la década de 1850 hasta la actualidad.

El Jardín de Esculturas, una extensión del Museo, amplía el espacio de exhibición al aire libre y ofrece a los visitantes oportunidades adicionales para disfrutar del arte en un entorno natural. El Jardín de Esculturas presenta obras de Rainer Lagemann , George Rickey , Lucien Wercollier y destacados artistas del área de Washington, D.C., como Kendall Buster , Carol Brown Goldberg , Dalya Luttwak y Foon Sham .

La Terraza de Esculturas presenta obras de Jean Arp , Aristide Maillol , Jacques Lipchitz , Henry Moore , Isamu Noguchi y Francesco Somaini .

La terraza del estanque reflectante presenta Inventions, una serie de seis esculturas de gran tamaño de John L. Dreyfuss .

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  El carro de Arras (1853), Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
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  Flores en un cuenco de cobre (1875), Adolphe Monticelli
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  Venecia - Niebla (1881), Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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  Gavroche (1882), Medardo Rosso
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  Barcos en la playa de Pourville, marea baja (1882), Claude Monet
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  Acantilados de Les Petites-Dalles (1884), Claude Monet
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  Cuenco con zinnias (1886), Vincent van Gogh
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  El hombre en la veranda (1886), Edvard Munch
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  La Aguja de Roca y la Puerta de Aval vistas desde el oeste (1886), Claude Monet
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  Primavera en Giverny (1886), Claude Monet
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  Pradera en Giverny (1888), Claude Monet
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  El Sena en Port-Villez, efecto rosa (1894), Claude Monet
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  Brazo del Sena cerca de Giverny entre la niebla (1897), Claude Monet
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  La Pointe du Petit Ailly en tiempo gris (1897), Claude Monet
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  El atleta (1903), Auguste Rodin
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  Pomona (1910), Aristide Maillol

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