The making and unmaking of two Japanese-designed extensions to European museums
Postdoc Jens Sejrup recently contributed to the 'International Journal of Cultural Studies' with the publication 'Unrealizations: The making and unmaking of two Japanese-designed extensions to European Museums'
The article analyzes motifs of locality and globality in long-lasting controversies surrounding two unrealized Japanese-designed extension projects to European museum buildings: the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern in Valencia. The analysis demonstrates that despite their spectacular confrontations, supporters and opponents in both cases shared similar notions of the affected neighborhoods and museums as meaningful social and cultural spaces. The controversies revolved around whether or not the Japanese-designed expansions would violate or reawaken perceived local energies and qualities. Engaging a little-studied dimension of cultural globalization, the article asks: what sort of locality emerges from unmaking globality-inflected monumental architecture?