Jewish Museum – Berlin, Germany

The Jewish Museum Berlin is one of the most spectacular museum buildings in Germany. Located in Western Krenzberg, architect Daniel Libeskind's new building is a deconstructivist masterpiece. If you are in Berlin, you have to see and experience this building. The museum has a lovely restaurant with international Jewish specialties. It is also the place for a quick snack or a coffee break with homemade cake and cookies after a museum visit. During the summer the beautiful vast garden is an oasis of peace.

Outside: Daniel Libeskind’s building makes the visit a physical experience. Zig-zag best describes the form of the museum. The first line is a winding one with several kinks while the second line cuts through the whole building. At the intersections of these lines are empty spaces – “Voids” – which rise vertically from the ground floor of the building up to the roof. It is like an exploded tri-dimensional Star of David, coated in zinc, with sharp angles and narrow slits as windows. It is impossible to guess the building’s interior from the outside. It opened in fall 2001.

Inside: As you come in, you have to go downstairs, in a metaphoric immersion in the Jewish history. In the underground three white corridors intersect. The first and longest of these axes is the “Axis of Continuity.” The architect describes the “Axis of Continuity” as the continuation of Berlin's history, the connecting path from which the other axes branch off. The “Axis of Emigration” leads outside to the Garden of Exile (49 concrete stelae rise on a square plot, which is on a 12° gradient giving a sense of instability). The “Axis of the Holocaust” is a dead end. It becomes narrower and darker and leads through a heavy, black steel door into the Holocaust Tower, a bare concrete empty tower 24 meters high, neither heated nor insulated. It is lit by a single narrow slit high above the ground. The distress and emptiness of the Tower commemorates the victims of the Holocaust. It is a physical experience with intense emotional impact.From the basement a long staircase, which ends against a bare white wall, leads to the permanent exhibition, an excursus of Jewish-German history since the Diaspora, through Middle Age, until our days. The exhibit is very creative, interactive, and informative. For those interested in Jewish history, it is a unique museum. For everybody else, you will learn a lot and have a profound physical experience, thanks to the architectural masterpiece. (Last visited 11/2008)

Museum of Art - Santa Barbara, United States

If you are in Santa Barbara, you are probably not there for the art. But, once you have enjoyed the beach, the sun, the good food, and the relaxing downtown, you should spend a couple of hours in the lovely Santa Barbara Museum of Art, one of the finest West Coast art museums in the United States. Located in a stylish building in downtown Santa Barbara, the museum has artifacts from classical art, Asian art (Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Tibetan), 19th and 20th century art from France, Britain and United States, as well as contemporary art.

Inside: The internal décor has a warm Southern Californian touch, with a wood floor (small tiles in the classical section) and Tuscan orange and brown colors on the walls. The feel is intimate and classy. The permanent collection includes fine classical works (Egyptian, Greek, and Roman), pre-Columbian sculptures, Latin art (the entrance presents “Portrait of Mexico Today,” the only intact mural in the U.S. by David Alfaro Seiqueiros), African sculptures, and American and European paintings. The Asian art collection is one of the finest on the West Coast, with art from China, Japan, Tibet, India, and Southeast Asia.
Among the American landscapes, I particularly liked Albert Bierstadt’s “Mirror Lake” (1864). The Europeans are also well represented with some Impressionists (my favorite here is Monet’s “Villas in Bordighera”), Matisse, Braque, Picasso, Degas, Derain, Dalí, Miró, and Chagall, among others. Particularly notable is the sculpture collection, which represents major artists beginning with 19th century masters Carpeaux, Carrier-Belleuse, Gèrôme, and continuing with major works by Rodin, Maillol, and Lipchitz. (Last visited 12/2008)

Moderna Musset – Stockholm, Sweden

I have to say this museum never really impressed me. Compared with other European modern arts museums (not to mention the US), the Moderna Musset is not in the top league. However, if you are interested in modern Swedish art, this is the place to visit. And, the building has a cool and spacey look and hosts a lovely restaurant and café with one of the best views of Stockholm.

Outside: The Moderna Museet building was designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo and was inaugurated in 1998. Due to problems with the indoor climate, the building was closed in January 2002. The renovation was conducted by Marge Architects, a young Swedish architectural practice. The building reopened in 2004. While you are still outside, you can admire some interesting modern sculptures. In the Museum garden, you should not miss Picasso’s “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” (1962), the sculptural version of Picasso’s painting inspired by the original Manet painting “Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” (1865).

Inside: The art collection spans from 1900 to the present day, including works by Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as new acquisitions by contemporary artists. The contemporary section changes frequently. If you are interested in Swedish and Nordic art, the Museum holds some 3,700 sculptures, paintings, and installations by artists such as Vera Nilsson and Siri Derkert. This collection provides a picture of developments in Swedish art from 1900 to today. There is also a photographic collection comprisings works from the 1840s onwards, as well as contemporary films and videos, in the Video Corridor. (Last visited 06/2007)

Neue Galerie – New York, United States

Neue Galerie hosts the cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder’s collection of early 20th century German and Austrian art and design. It is hosted in the magnificent former mansion of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbuilt and includes a superb Viennese café where you can have real Austrian/German lunches and brunches.

Outside: The museum is hosted in the former Vanderbuilt mansion, one step away from Central Park on Fifth Avenue and 86th Street, in the area known as Museum Mile. The building was completed in 1914 by Carrère & Hastings, also architects of the New York Public Library. It is a New York Landmark and is one of the most distinguished buildings on Fifth Avenue. Architect Annabelle Selldorf restored the house to its original state, while adapting it to museum standards.

Inside: The collection is on two floors. The second-floor galleries are dedicated to art from Vienna circa 1900, including arts of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl, and Alfred Kubin, and decorative arts and furniture created at the Wiener Werkstätte and by celebrated architects Adolf Loos, Joseph Urban, and Otto Wagner.
The third-floor galleries feature German art representing various movements of the early 20th century: the Blaue Reiter and its circle (Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Gabriele Münter); the Brücke; the Bauhaus; the Neue Sachlichkeit.
The highlight of the collection is Klimt’s portrait “Adele Bloch-Bauer I”. Commissioned by a wealthy Jewish industrialist, it was seized by the Nazis in 1938 and only restituted to the industrialist’s niece in 2006 after a battle with the Austrian government. Within months of its return, Lauder snapped the picture up for the then-record sum of $135m. Now the shimmering gold portrait is framed by two George Minne sculptures, as it once was in the Bloch-Bauer household. The wall on which it hangs, protected by a glass case, is covered with plaster made to the same formula used in Vienna at the time. In the same room, you can also admire one of my favorite Klimt “The Dancer.”

Art is not the only attraction at the Neue Galerie. The Café Sabarsky is the reproduction of a Viennese café from the décor to the menu. With its period objects, including lighting fixtures by Josef Hoffmann, chairs by Adolf Loos (see the originals upstairs), German-language newspapers hanging from the wood-paneled walls, and banquettes that are upholstered with a 1912 Otto Wagner fabric, this is a piece of Vienna in New York. A grand piano graces one corner of the Café. For a real lunch à la Viennese, you should have the Palatschinken (smoked trout crêpes) and a Weisswurst, the Bavarian sausage with potato salad. And of course your dessert should be a slice of Sacher Torte, an Apfelstrudel, or the Milchrahmstrudel, the white cheese and raisin strudel.
Given the erotic subject matter on display, children are not allowed to visit the Neue Gallerie. After all, this is still America! (Last visited 05/2007)

Musée d'Orsay - Paris, France

The Musée d'Orsay holds one of the most impressive collections of Impressionists in the world. This is a demanding museum. It is beautiful, but it is hard to find your way through it. Many stairs and long corridors will test your physical resistance and orientation. Take your time, wear comfortable shoes, and bring your camera: you can take photos (no flash!). Five hours would be a fair time, including a pause at the awesome restaurant on the first floor (or if you are visiting in the summer, at the terrace bar on the last floor with a unique view on Paris, Montmartre, and the Sacre Coeur.

Outside: The museum is hosted in a former belle époque train station, renovated and transformed by ACT architecture group, made up of Bardon, Colboc, and Philippon. The President of the Republic, François Mitterrand, inaugurated the new museum in December 1986.Originally the station, and hotel within it, were inaugurated for the World's Fair on July 14th, 1900. The architect Laloux chose to mask the modern metallic structures with the façade of the hotel, which, built in the academic style using finely cut stone, successfully blended in with its noble neighbors. Inside, all the modern techniques were used: ramps and lifts for luggage, elevators for passengers, sixteen underground railtracks, reception services on the ground floor, and electric traction. But, by 1939, the station was to serve only the suburbs, as its platforms had become too short for the modern, longer trains that appeared with the progressive electrification of the railroads.
Since then, the building has served various purposes. It was even used as a set for several films, including Kafka's The Trial, adapted by Orson Welles. The hotel closed its doors in 1973, but not before General de Gaulle held a press conference announcing his return to power in its Salle des Fêtes (now the posh restaurant of the museum). In 1979 the decision was made to transform the old train station into a museum.
Inside: The interior design of the museum was conceived by a team of scenographers and architects directed by the Italian architect and interior designer Gae Aulenti. With Italo Rota, Piero Castiglioni (lighting consultant) and Richard Peduzzi (architectural consultant), Gae Aulenti created a grandiose choreographic effect, that can be immediately perceived as you come in. It is understandable if you want to go straight to the Impressionists. They are somewhere on the second floor and you will get there after many escalators. The Van Gogh room almost made me cry. Everything is there! Among the others, the famous self-portrait with the dashing greenish-turquoise background (1889), “l'Eglise d'Auvers” (1890), “Chaumes a Cordeville” (1890), “Siesta” (1890), and the unforgettable “Van Gogh’s bedroom” (1889). Beside Van Gogh, my favorite paintings are Pissarro’s “Femme dans un clos” (1887), Gauguin’s “Vairumati” (1897) and “Paysage de Bretagne Le Moulin David” (1894), Signac’s “Les Andelys, la berge” (1886), Cezanne’s “Nature morte au panier” (1889), Monet’s “Le Jardin de Monet a Giverny” (1900), “Femmes a l'ombrelle” (1886), and “Regates a Argenteuil” (1872), Renoir’s “Bal du Moulin de la Galette” (1876) and “Torse effet de soleil” (1875), and Caillebotte’s “Raboteurs de parquets” (1875) with its sublime sense of perspective. I also loved a winter landscape by the Swiss Cuno Amiet (“Paysage de niege,” 1904) for its sense of calm and solitude. Of course, you should not skip the first floor with its collections of symbolists and traditionalists. As I said, you will need a good five-hour visit to get a good sense of the phenomenally extensive collection. It is a must for everyone who has a passion for modern art. (Last visited 10/2008)

Musée de l’Orangerie - Paris, France

Closed for renovation work since January 2000, completely reviewed and restructured, the Musée de l’Orangerie was reopened to the public in May 2006. Located in the Place de la Concorde, it is a little jewel in the Parisian museum landscape. If you love Impressionism and Monet (and you can’t love the former without the latter), you have to experience this museum, chosen and arranged by Claude Monet himself to showcase his eight “signature" masterpieces, the Nymphéas.

Inside: Two new rooms, oval shaped, host eight large Monet waterlillies. The rooms are aseptic, white walls, white veils covering the ceiling, it feels like a spaceship. But what is really extra-terrestrial is on the walls. Slightly curving following the oval shape of the rooms, in the first space four beautiful water reflections of lilies, trees, and leaves are the most impressive statement of the impressionist Master. Monet played with the color, each painting stressing a different reflection dominated at time by blue, green, or yellow. In the second room, you can admire the reflection of tree trunks on the water. This is amazing stuff. Just sit on one of the benches in the middle of the room and relax. The museum is a “haven of peaceful meditation,” which reminds one of the futuristic room at the end of time and space in 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you are short of time, a half an hour is enough. But one should not miss the remaining collection downstairs. On concrete walls, one can admire a fabulous concentration of masterpieces from the collection of art merchant Paul Guillaume, a highly original insight into modern art featuring Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Van Gogh, Rousseau, Matisse, Derain, Modigliani, Soutine, Utrillo and Laurencin. My favorites are: “Fraises” by Renoir (1905), “Portrait de M.elle Chanel” by Laurencin (1923), and “Odalisque a la culotte grise” by Matisse (1927). This museum is a gem. Don’t miss it. (Last visit 10/2008)

Musee Marmottan - Paris, France

Musee Marmottan is one of my favorites, not in Paris, but in the world. In the former hunting lodge of the Duke of Valmy (today located close to the Bois de Boulogne, in an elegant residential neighborhood), you can enjoy more than 60 paintings by Claude Monet, the world's largest collection of the famous impressionist. Monet wanted to paint something different, not what you see with your eyes, but what you feel. And he succeeded. He is the Master among the Masters.

In the Marmottan there is never too many people, especially when you compare with the huge crowd visiting Paris museums. Even if you are in Paris for a short weekend, you can still visit the Marmottan. It won't take you more than an hour or so. Of course, one can spend hours just sitting in front of the Waterlilies. No photos are allowed and every sign is strictly in French.

Inside: My suggestion is to go straight downstairs, where you can admire most of the collection in the same room. I got lost in front of the two London, The Parliament works (especially the sunset one) and I always get chills facing the famous Impression, Soleil Levant (the painting that gave the name to the movement Impressionism). Strawstuck is such an exercise in light and shadow through colors, while two of the numerous facades of the Cathedral de Rouen are real masterpieces. There is a lovely early Monet painting of a house reflected in a traditional way on water, when the Master was still drawing the line of the horizon. And then the series of Japanese bridges and Waterlilies from his garden in Giverny. Go close and you will see just layers of colors. The step back and squeeze your eyes, you will see the bridge surrounded by weeping willows. Magnifique!

On the upper level there some more Waterlilies. Here you can also admire the excellent work of Berthe Morisot. Undervalued for over a century, possibly because she was a woman, she should be considered among the top Impressionist painters. Her work focuses on domestic life, is fluid, 'legere', and colorful. Then, you should spend few more minutes strolling around the main rooms of the house which containts the original furniture. When you leave the museum, try to imagine this house in the wood with stags and deers running around, and the Duke’s party on horses ready for the hunting day. Not that hard, is it? (Last visited 10/2008)