Plagued by a bad layout and shoddy construction, Ohio State University seeks a retrofit of its Peter Eisenman building.

By Mark Lamster
July 2001

Architecture critic Herbert Muschamp caught more than a few people off guard this past March when he announced in the New York Times that the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University, in Columbus, had "never looked better." In fact Peter Eisenman's "supreme monument to a moment that has passed into architectural history"--namely, Deconstruction--has been deconstructing for quite some time. Just one month before the publication of Muschamp's article, the university posted a request for proposals on its Web site for a major "renovation/retrofit" of the 1989 center.

THE METROPOLIS OBSERVED:
Nigeria's design for democracy; bringing the Rural Studio to Manhattan; farewell Detritus Institute; don't fence Droog in; L.A. needs parks-- Portland doesn't; remembering Sarah Tomerlin Lee; disposable cell phones; the Wexner Center deconstructs; private parks in public places.
The posting provided architects competing for the job with a virtual catalog of ills. "In recent years," it stated, "the Wexner Center has experienced problems including building leaks, environmental-control difficulties, and operational inefficiencies involving space planning and patterns of use." An annotated list of flaws followed, advising that the renovation, which has a budget allocation of up to $10 million, "should be considered a preservation project for a landmark building."

Offsite:
Read the Wexner Center's request for proposal at www.fpd.ohio-state.edu/wexner_rfp.htm and then take a tour of the center at www.wexarts.org/ctr/gen/arch.shtml.
Originally intended as a metaphor for perpetual construction, the exterior gridwork of white steel scaffolding, the Wexner's signature statement, now needs repair. The array of artfully deployed materials--glass, steel, granite, wood, plaster paneling--on the interior of the center, which was Eisenman's first public commission, makes renovation a tricky process. "It's a very, very complicated building, there's no question about that," says Bob Loversidge, the partner in charge for Schooley Caldwell Associates, the firm chosen to do the renovation. "There's lots of places for things to go wrong."

There are those who would argue that it was Eisenman's own attitude toward the exigencies of building that explains the Wexner's troubles. "Peter Eisenman has never been concerned about the way things are put together," architect and critic Alexander Gorlin says. "It's one-dimensional architecture concerned only with form and not function, and the best architecture has always been concerned with both." Indeed the Wexner is not the first Eisenman project to suffer from age. The dilapidation of his experimental 1971 House III, in Lakeville, Connecticut, was documented in a recent issue of Talk magazine, and his more recent Aronoff Center for Design and Art, completed in 1996 in Cincinnati, is already showing signs of wear.

The Wexner's busy interior spaces, with their floating beams and mix of materials, have long been a challenge to curators. "Once you get past the exterior you get more exterior," says Andrew McClellan, an art historian at Tufts University and an expert in museum design. "There's no balance between architecture and display. I can't imagine a single curator in this country would endorse the Wexner as an ideal space to exhibit art." Gallery lighting has long been a sore spot. Overexposure of artworks to sunlight has forced museum administrators to block out much of the center's natural lighting. Loversidge is considering using adjustable louvers to address this problem.

In some sense the center has been a victim of the expanding diversity of its programming. "When the building was first designed there probably wasn't sufficient attention to traditional aspects of presenting works of art," says Sherri Geldin, the Wexner's director. "The systems that were specified and available then did not allow the flexibility that institutions like this require now."

For his part, Eisenman is satisfied with the building and sanguine about the work to be done. "I have a belief that when you give buildings to clients, they belong to the clients and they can do with them what they please," he says. "My sense is that these people admire and respect the building. I have every confidence that they will do what they need to do."


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