Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: Lobby Revitalization
Washington, D.C.
2018
2018
Notional Lines and Natural Lines
My idea was to place in the museum lobby an artwork that symbolized what is unique about both the building and the collection. Ideally, it should be sculpture, furniture and conceptual art, all at the same time.
Construction of the Hirshhorn Museum began in 1974 based on the designs of Gordon Bunshaft and the basic form of the building is the cylinder. The circle is the most basic, omnipresent shape in our universe. The stars and planets are round and follow circular orbits. The circle is found, too, reflected in the shapes of living things. Fascinated by the roots of an enormous tree which fan out to form a large circle, I decided that this was the circle I would install in the Hirshhorn Museum lobby as a symbol of life.
What delights me when I contemplate the spread of the roots of this ancient Japanese nutmeg tree is the random quality of the lines that nature draws. The tree trunk itself may be a big circle, but its intricate roots consist of lines that follow no law. Nature doesn’t deal in perfectly round circles or perfectly straight lines. The circle of the museum building is a perfect notional and mathematical circle created by the human brain. Placing a circle that nature made inside this man-made one gives us the opportunity to compare and contrast natural circles with notional ones.
I placed a precisely formed glass circle on top of the natural circle of the roots and then divided it in two. I incorporated curves from mathematical models derived from the cubic function helicoid: minimal surface into the chairs around the circle. The helicoid is a spiral, and the spiral is the shape of DNA which is the primordium of life. All art takes its inspiration from the power inherent in nature. Mathematics itself advanced through the process of exploring the laws and dispensations of the natural world. Notional shapes and natural shapes—our consciousness finds its proper place balanced somewhere between the two.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
My idea was to place in the museum lobby an artwork that symbolized what is unique about both the building and the collection. Ideally, it should be sculpture, furniture and conceptual art, all at the same time.
Construction of the Hirshhorn Museum began in 1974 based on the designs of Gordon Bunshaft and the basic form of the building is the cylinder. The circle is the most basic, omnipresent shape in our universe. The stars and planets are round and follow circular orbits. The circle is found, too, reflected in the shapes of living things. Fascinated by the roots of an enormous tree which fan out to form a large circle, I decided that this was the circle I would install in the Hirshhorn Museum lobby as a symbol of life.
What delights me when I contemplate the spread of the roots of this ancient Japanese nutmeg tree is the random quality of the lines that nature draws. The tree trunk itself may be a big circle, but its intricate roots consist of lines that follow no law. Nature doesn’t deal in perfectly round circles or perfectly straight lines. The circle of the museum building is a perfect notional and mathematical circle created by the human brain. Placing a circle that nature made inside this man-made one gives us the opportunity to compare and contrast natural circles with notional ones.
I placed a precisely formed glass circle on top of the natural circle of the roots and then divided it in two. I incorporated curves from mathematical models derived from the cubic function helicoid: minimal surface into the chairs around the circle. The helicoid is a spiral, and the spiral is the shape of DNA which is the primordium of life. All art takes its inspiration from the power inherent in nature. Mathematics itself advanced through the process of exploring the laws and dispensations of the natural world. Notional shapes and natural shapes—our consciousness finds its proper place balanced somewhere between the two.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
