ME and Ophelia

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The fenceless and doorless world

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And those in China.
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AMERICAN SAMIZDAT
Blogging all over the world

Browse neat posts at American Samizdat that features more than one hundred bloggers from all over the world.
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NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN
Opens at the foot of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Great photo and post at American Samizdat about the Architect who helped create a place for American Indians to share their stories.

The post links to a news report that explains that Seattle architect Johnpaul Jones, one of maybe 100 American Indian architects in America, was the lead design consultant on the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened this week in Washington, D.C.

The 400,000-square-foot museum, on 4.25 acres at the foot of the U.S. Capitol, "doesn't have a straight line in it," Jones says of the place he calls "The Rock." It is meant to look as though wind and water carved its curves.

"It's not based on an architectural style or a Native heritage," Jones said. "It centers around something very organic, that which is common to Indian communities around the nation.

"It centers around the four worlds: the natural world, the animal world, the human world and the spirit world," he continued. "Within each one of those worlds is something that helped us in the design of this building, the site [and] the interiors."

The report went on to say Indian people were involved in every aspect of the museum's creation and will comprise 75 percent of the museum staff - and that on Tuesday, Jones and his family walked with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma in a procession of more than 400 Indian nations across the Mall to mark the opening. "For Indian people, the museum is a celebration of the Americas' diverse tribes, their cultures and traditions, and represents an acknowledgement of the vast contributions they've made to American history and society — contributions they say have long been overlooked."
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Note, a reader posted the following comment: "A nasty turn to this story. Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal claims the design was stolen from him and he threatens to sue. Have a look at a picture of the Canadian Museum of civilization that he designed. It makes clear the American Indian museum is copied from his idea."

How sad. Surely, it can't be true? Such a high profile building -- at the foot of Capitol Hill? See the architecture of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. There is a similarity in the organic-ness of the design, ie all curved and no straight lines, but (seems to me) that's all. How unfair of the Canadian architect to rain on the parade of the American Indian architect - the project took him 12 years! Maybe the Canadian was just stoking up publicity for himself, after all he did have 12 years in which to speak up.