Experience Music Project
A sculptural masterpiece by Frank Gehry
Ever since the gritty Spanish port city of Bilbao unveiled Frank Gehry’s amazing, curvy titanium-clad Guggenheim in 1997 the museum virtually overnight became an icon for international architecture and everybody wondered if the architect would be able to reach or surpass the artistic quality of that building.
In fact he was by sculpturing the EMP – Experience Music Project – only 3 years later on the northern edge of downtown Seattle. This area is still dominated by the Needle, the gothic structures of Yamasaki and a monorail dating back to the World Exhibition held in 1962. Besides these landmarks Fun Forest, a planetarium and I-max cinemas dominates this entertainment quarter of the city where the youth might also be ready for a creative intermezzo with American popular music exemplified by Rock ‘n Roll.
Experienced from the outside The EMP complex consists of 6 volumes of different colours while being knit so closely together that symbiosis might describe the reality perfectly. The façade panels that sheath EMP were milled in Germany, coloured in England , shaped, cut and assembled in Kansas City and brought to Seattle to be attached. The total number of aluminium and stainless steel shingles is over 21.000 composed in uniquely shaped and composed in an average of seven shingles into more than 3.000 panels; there are no repeating panels.
Functionally EMP has 6 parts: the music stage ‘Sky Church’, a permanent exhibition hall of fame named ‘Cross Road’, sound studios named ‘Sound Lab’ where visitors are supposed to compose music of their own, the multimedia show ‘Artist’s Journey’ on experiencing music styles, the music database ‘Electric Library’ plus ‘Ed House’ for editing music while sound is recorded professionally.
Creating the frames for so different purposes plus providing a fine restaurant, bar, shop and deposits might be one effort, another is making a convincing whole out of this mess on three floors. Inside the EMP visitors will have a strong sense of being protected in a vast cave with rather spare openings in the facades or ceiling.
The concert hall being the darkest of all interiors while the main lobby is experienced as a glaring transition between darkness and daylight. From the lobby steps are leading down to the restaurant and souvenir or book shop the latter being dominated by plywood plates in dimensions up to 15 centimetres like a cubic interior of boxes randomly piled on each other.
At second floor the museum exhibits costumes and instruments originally used in concerts by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other artists. While the first floor show ‘artist’s Journey’ could be compared with a multimedia cinema supported with theatrical devices like 40 seats mounted on a moveable plate able to follow the rhythm of funk music pictures shown on a screen to secure the audience never forget this specific music. The ‘Sound Lab’ is located on the upper floor receiving some daylight from skylights in the roof.
The form giving of the steel beams, ‘skin’ and interior walls are all created with aid of a three-dimensional computer modelling system called CATIA, originally developed for the aerospace industry. Frank Gehry was the first architect to make use of CATIA which proved useful since the total number of individual curved steel ribs is 280 while 2400 pipe stanchions are bolted to hold on outer skin. Quite contrary to the platinum skin of his Bilbao museum Gehry has obtained extremely more precision in the attached façade elements of the EMP. Still the ‘computer is only a tool, not a partner – an instrument for catching the curve, not for inventing it’, Gehry claims. And for understanding the architectural forms of EMP it should be noticed that Gehry was very dedicated to sculpture from the Middle Age while he designed his Seattle building.
Another inspiration for the EMP building might be the concept of Rock’n Roll and not least the electric guitar Hendrix crushed during a concert at the Saville Theatre in London on June 4th 1967. It is evident that the main parts of the music building fit together like parts belonging to a former in common. On the eastern side of the EMP bluish and greenish scales are added to the overall complexity of the exterior looking like a switchback. Even the monorail separating the upper part of the EMP in two is welcomed by Gehry for creating a sort of canyon leading to other improvisation for the interiors.
Most convincing by the EMP is the smoothing out of the traditional difference between roof and facades while giving way to protecting the entrance parts by hangouts. The bright colours and soft surfaces are reflecting the daylight in a most inviting way while providing the young visitors opportunity to mirror themselves. While all the time discovering motives in the expressive forms like the helmet of Darth Vader over the main entrance. All together the EMP shows potentials for an architectural crossover in providing climatic protection while housing all sorts of functions and spaces inside.
Flemming Skude
FACTS: Built 1997-2000. Client: Paul Allen.
Price: 100 millions US $. Size: 12.000 square metres.
Source: ‘the building’, Experience Music Project (2000)
