Museum Maven

ARCHITECTURE

ART FAIR

Architecture is a profession not overly fond ofwomen.

—CHARLES K. GANDEE

Architecture has many heroes, but few heroines. It is a profession not overly fond of women. When Gae Aulenti noticed that fact, she "decided it would be better if I just did my work and did not draw attention to myself.'' For most of her career she has kept a low profile, taking her place in the wings of architecture as a set designer, editor, and teacher. But since 1980 the Milanese architect has completed a trio of commissions that have pulled her out of the shadows and thrust her onto center stage. At last.

In Paris, Aulenti won the coveted competition to transform the tum-of-the-century Gare d'Orsay into the Musee d'Orsay. "They really wanted someone French, but my scheme was better," matter-of-factly reports the designer, who is not given to false modesty. Opening next month, France's new museum for nineteenth-century art is Aulenti's most exhaustive work to date. Her aesthetic control was total—from remodeling the 1900 interior to designing the smallest light fixture. Across the Seine at the Centre Pompidou, France's National Museum of Modem Art has just reopened. Aulenti's task, bluntly stated, was to tame the high-tech beast with a plan that visitors could follow. And back in Italy, on Venice's Grand Canal, the third panel in Aulenti's museum triptych—the renovated Palazzo Grassi—opened last May with the show "Futurism and Futurisms.'' For Aulenti, who spent a long time waiting, the irony was not lost.

CHARLES K. GANDEE