Patrizia della Porta. Mu-seum. 4 musei, 4 elementi-4 museums, 4 elements

The project Museum: 4 Museums 4 Elementsexamines and portrays four contemporary art museums and symbolically unites them with the four primary elements. The concept of the investigation concerns the philosophical theme of emptiness (from mu, the Japanese ideogram), analyzed through the shapes of contemporary architecture. The viewing point is not documentary, but contemplative, zen. The four museums that are explored are: the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York by Marcel Breuer (earth); the Guggenheim Museum in New York by Frank Lloyd Wright (air); the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao by Frank O. Gehry (water); and the East Building
of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., by I. M. Pei (fire). Patrizia della Porta lives and works in Milan and New York. Her
research focuses on the photographic representation and transfiguration of contemporary architecture. Her work has explored the creative poetics of such master architects as: Frank Lloyd Wright, Ieoh Ming Pei, Frank Gehry, Cesar Pelli, Carlo Scarpa, Kenzo Tange, Renzo Piano and Daniel Libeskind.