The Museum That Wax Built: An Appreciation of the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University

Affectionately called “The Piano Building” and compared to a giant sewing machine, the Johnson Museum of Art is known all over the world for its distinctive concrete facade and other arresting Brutalist features. It is one of I.M. Pei’s most innovative uses of cantilevers.

Constructed in 1973, the building was featured on the cover of Scientific American as an early example of computer graphics. The Museum was awarded the American Institute of Architects Honor Award in 1975.

All photography by George Cassidy Payne

 

 

From the Johnson Museum’s website:

An homage to the late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan, Cosmos is a site-specific installation by New York–based artist Leo Villareal (born 1967), a pioneer in the use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and computer-driven imagery. His signature pieces explore complex movement and dazzling patterns created by points of light using his own computer software.

 

 

The Museum that Wax Built

 The museum is named after its most substantial benefactor, Herbert Fisk Johnson, who was a graduate of 1922 and head of S.C. Johnson & Sons.

 

 

 

I.M. Pei and his firm researched local materials in order to produce a unique mix of architectural concrete ideal for this specific building and location. This was mixed with sand and small course stone aggregate, then poured into a framework of boards and panels which created the surface pattern.

The concrete walls tower to 107 feet.

 

 

 

A Narrow tower and a brick.

 

 

With a desire to make a dramatic statement while maintaining an optimal amount of scenic views, transparent open spaces and windows beautifully contrast the heaviness and boldness of the rectangular forms of concrete

I.M. Pei

 

 

 

Ithaca was carved out by glaciers that formed gorges millions of years ago. Fall Creek Gorge sits behind the Johnson, providing a dramatic natural landscape.

 

 

 

An outdoor Japanese garden was created outside the exterior of the 1st floor. The Johnson has over 35,000 works including a world class Asian collection. Other works of art include pieces by Goya, Degas, Warhol, Matisse, Manet, windows by Frank L. Wright, and signature paintings by members of the Hudson River School.

 

 

 

It was designed not to block the view of Cayuga Lake and the handsome Arts Quad.

 

From the museum’s website:

At the opening in 1973, I. M. Pei focused his remarks on the significant role the site played in the design solution, noting he was not certain at the outset whether it was viable to place a building on this site which could balance deference with presence, relating to the dramatic landscape and to the historic buildings on the Arts Quad. He said that he no longer had any doubt as to the appropriateness of the solution. It had engaged the site with its interplay of solid and void, and maintained an architectural relationship with the buildings of the Quad through its basically rectangular form.

 

 

Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Cornell University

114 Central Avenue

Ithaca, NY 14853

 

Open
Tues–Sun, 10AM–5PM
Closed Mondays and
December 25–January 1

Admission is free. 

For more information, call 607-255-6464

or send an e-mail to museum@cornell.edu.

There is a Hush

There is a hush

from the beginning

of time, where you

can hear yourself

blink. It’s called

immortality. The

rumbling timbers.

Those extinct tracks.

 

There is a hush,

it is the sound of

the desert parsley

withering and the

whimpers of hawks

and eagles careening

towards the earthrise.

 

There is a hush,

sunk into the chasms,

bringing a curse that

can never be lifted.

 

The Space Between the Stars

Along the prongs of a fork,

 and full of solar eruptions,

heaven is another name

for when the sun is quiet.

Ill-defined, it lays on a tray

lined with a clear film-that

space between the stars

 where our most

ordinary tastes arise.

Sirius or Capella

Fresh mint is nothing

but clusters of stars,

and a screwed top jar

measures the limit of

man’s penetrations.

Just slice the goat’s

cheese and a single

galaxy has divided.

Decorate the region

of the sky with berries,

blend all the confusion

which still exists.

Gently fold into the

sweetcorn all the

emissions generated,

the mango mixture

of brilliant vindication.

When I Found Poetry

When I found

poetry I was

looking for

salvation.

I soon found

that poetry is

the only thing

I can do in

earnest with

out giving up

my bad habits.

The Way Galileo Saw It

When I look up
I see the quiet survival

of the solar system.

I see the outbursts of

constellations and

the disturbing meaning

of the Milky Way.

When I look up

I see the penetration of the

corona, a universe of stars,

the way Galileo saw it,

all ionized and catastrophic.

 

Douglass Statue Vandalism Highlights Need for Reform at St. John Fisher College

 

In 2002, when I was a sophomore at St. John Fisher College, I came home one Friday night from the bar heavily intoxicated. Showing off to my friends and new girlfriend, I set off a fire extinguisher in the dorm hallway. There was major damage. That moment of epic stupidity cost me not only my residency privileges at Fisher, but over 200 hours of community service-time spent mainly washing dishes and making waffles in the dining hall.

I will always regret the way my actions caused so much harm to a college that I admire and benefited from. In retrospect I am eternally grateful that SJFC exercised mercy by not expelling me. As a result of their leniency, I went on to graduate with a B.A. in 2004, attain two master’s degrees, and work within several colleges and universities as an adjunct and community organizer. Who knows where my life would be today if I was simply kicked out under a heavy cloud of shame. Given a second chance, I not only salvaged an opportunity to earn a degree, I also learned several important lessons about making amends, the perils of heavy drinking, and the power of restorative justice.

Nevertheless, there is something about my experience that has always made me ask a very hard question: What if I was black? And what if I did not belong to the school’s heralded First Generation Scholarship program? What if I was not friends with the daughter of Fisher’s Chief of Security? Would I have been treated any differently if I was a student of color without favored status? It’s been 16 years since I made that mistake, but I still look back and wonder what role my white privilege played in keeping me from going to jail, paying a heavy fine, or getting expelled.

So when I heard about the two SJFC students accused of vandalizing a Frederick Douglass statue in downtown Rochester, these questions came rushing back.

A lot has been said about the racial overtones of this incident. Without getting into the weeds too much, I do think the fact that these two students are white matters, especially when viewed in the context of Fisher’s ongoing problem with racial diversity. According to College Factual, an organization that obtains their data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the National Center for Education Statistics, St. John Fisher’s faculty is 85.5% white. Just 5% of the faculty is African- American. 84% of the undergraduate student population is white. Only 3.8% of the students are African- American. Not surprisingly, the college is ranked 1,964 in ethnic diversity nationwide with a student body composition that is below the national average.

Even more disconcerting, there are 30 people on the SJFC Board of Trustees. Only one is African American. 23 are white men.

Let me be clear. I do not want to see the two students have their heads taken off. Nor am I one to cast stones. But I am interested in asking some difficult questions about SJFC. To state that the school has no responsibility in this matter is not only unfair to the community that was targeted by this act of vandalism, it also forfeits a unique opportunity to challenge Fisher to be better at diversity training, hiring faculty of color, diversifying the curriculum, and being more transparent about race relations on campus. To my knowledge, no outside group has ever completed a full investigation into how many racial incidents occur on and off campus that involve Fisher students. Who is reporting these racial incidents and how are they being handled?

Predictably, I have received pushback for expressing these views in other forums. One commentator called my viewpoint illogical and motivated by a personal and political agenda. Another pundit wrote: “Why is it that this incident can’t be as simple as it appears to be? Namely nothing more than a couple of cretins getting liquored up (as college students have been doing in this country since colonial days) and then going out and doing something REALLY stupid (as college students have also been doing in America since colonial days). Why must we make either a literal federal case out of it by trying to label the actions of these drunks a hate crime, or else blaming St. John Fisher because one dark night two of their students were too bombed to recognize the subject of their vandalism as a statue of Frederick Douglass”?

Fair enough. But I still believe SJFC has much more responsibility than these comments suggest. As Frederick Douglass once said, “those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.”

It’s time to start plowing up the ground.

If someone truly believes that there is no institutional racism at Fisher, I want them to answer the following question: What if the students were not white football players? Imagine instead that they were two black students. Imagine that they had corn-rolls and tattoos. Imagine that they were coming from a club in the 19th Ward rather than a bar on East Ave. Imagine that the two black students destroyed a statue of Susan B. Anthony instead of Frederick Douglass. Imagine that the two black students were using misogynistic language while they were doing it. Imagine that they were from Philadelphia or the Bronx rather than Upstate New York. If this were the case, would the students be expelled or suspended?

I want to leave the last word with an anonymous reader who posted the following comment on one of my articles in the news magazine Talker of the Town:

“For a college to not try to at least address the inherent white privilege and racism that is systemic disease of every incoming, white student, is to fail to attempt to develop the whole student, not just their knowledge bank and employability. Young white Americans that clear 21 or 22 years old without ONE institution or individual attempting to guide them on their biases and racist beliefs is how we still cannot kill this zombie of racism in America. They grow up to be mature and older adults who carry around with them this under-developed piece as it concerns any race outside of whiteness. In too many white Americans, that under-developed piece stays raw and sensitive, causing knee-jerk and fragile reactions when conversations of race arise. In an increasingly brown and black country, this cannot stand, and has been the norm for too long.”

 George Cassidy Payne is an independent writer and adjunct professor of philosophy at SUNY. 

Imagine if the St. John Fisher College Vandals were Black

 

In 2002, when I was a sophomore at St. John Fisher College, I came home one Friday night from the bar heavily intoxicated. Showing off to my friends and new girlfriend, I set off a fire extinguisher in my dorm hallway. There was major damage. That moment of epic stupidity cost me not only my residency privileges at Fisher but over 200 hours of community service (time spent mainly washing dishes and making waffles in the dining hall).

I will always regret the way my actions caused so much harm to a college that I admire and benefited from. In retrospect I am eternally grateful that SJFC exercised mercy by not expelling me. As a result of their leniency, I went on to graduate with a B.A. in 2004, attain two master’s degrees, and work within several colleges and universities as an adjunct and community organizer. Who knows where my life would be today if I was simply kicked out under a heavy cloud of shame. Given a second chance, I not only salvaged an opportunity to earn a degree, I also learned several important lessons about making amends, the perils of heavy drinking, and the power of restorative justice.

Yet there is something about my experience that has always made me ask a very hard question: What if I was black? And what if I did not belong to the school’s heralded First Generation Scholarship program? What if I was not friends with the daughter of Fisher’s Chief of Security? Would I have been treated any differently if I was a student of color without favored status? It’s been 16 years since I made that mistake, but I still look back and wonder what role my white privilege played in keeping me from going to jail, paying a heavy fine, or getting expelled.

So when I heard about the two SJFC students accused of vandalizing a Frederick Douglass statue in downtown Rochester, these questions came rushing back. One witness claims that the students used racial slurs as they dismantled the statue and carried it down the street, a charge the young men adamantly deny.

Both students have been suspended while the case is being reviewed, and the SJFC president condemned their actions in the strongest terms. Even Mayor Lovely Warren weighed in, stating, “The vandalism and theft of the Frederick Douglass statue on Tracy Street is a sad event that demonstrates remarkable disrespect for the citizens of Rochester, especially those who have worked so hard to celebrate the legacy of Douglass during the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Although condemnations and punitive measures are important-that was definitely true in my situation, the fact that these two students are white does matter, especially when viewed in the context of Fisher’s ongoing problem with racial diversity. According to College Factual, an organization that obtains their data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the National Center for Education Statistics, St. John Fisher’s faculty is 85.5% white. Just 5% of the faculty is African- American. 84% of the undergraduate student population is white. Only 3.8% of the students are African- American. Not surprisingly, the college is ranked 1,964 in ethnic diversity nationwide with a student body composition that is below the national average.

Let me be clear. I do not want to see the two students have their heads taken off. Nor am I one to cast stones. But I am interested in asking some difficult questions about SJFC. To state that the school has no responsibility in this matter is not only unfair to the community that was targeted by this act of vandalism, it also forfeits a unique occasion to challenge Fisher to be better at diversity training, hiring faculty of color, diversifying the curriculum, and being more transparent about race relations on campus. To my knowledge, no outside group has ever completed a full investigation into how many racial incidents occur on and off campus that involve Fisher students. Who is reporting these racial incidents and how are they being handled?

Predictably, I have received blowback for expressing these views in other forums. One commentator called my viewpoint illogical and motivated by a personal and political agenda. Another pundit went further, calling me “laughably self-righteous and a sanctimonious windbag.” That same person wrote: “Why is it that this incident can’t be as simple as it appears to be? Namely nothing more than a couple of cretins getting liquored up (as college students have been doing in this country since colonial days) and then going out and doing something REALLY stupid (as college students have also been doing in America since colonial days). Why must we make either a literal federal case out of it by trying to label the actions of these drunks a hate crime, or else blaming St. John Fisher because one dark night two of their students were too bombed to recognize the subject of their vandalism as a statue of Frederick Douglass”?

Fair enough. But I still believe SJFC has much more responsibility than these comments suggest. As Frederick Douglass once said, “those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.”

It’s time to start plowing up the ground. If someone truly believes that there is no institutional racism at Fisher, I want them to answer the following question: What if the students were not white football players? Imagine instead that they were two black students. Imagine that they had corn-rolls and tattoos. Imagine that they were coming from a club in the 19th Ward rather than a bar on East Ave. Imagine that the two black students destroyed a statue of Susan B. Anthony instead of Frederick Douglass. Imagine that the two black students were using misogynistic language while they were doing it. Imagine that they were from Philadelphia or the Bronx rather than Upstate New York. If this were the case, would the students be expelled or suspended?

 

 

 

Four Stemmed Glasses

 

Almost helicoptered

out, God is just another

staged Christmas dinner

on a bombed hilltop in Laos.

Cooked gently by the

luminescence and blended

in the blackberry liqueur of

elder flowers and arrowroot.

In war,

the sun is sometimes

 a flash at the bottom

of four stemmed glasses.

St. John Fisher College Shares Responsibility for Vandalized Douglass Statue

 

In 2002, when I was a sophomore at St. John Fisher College, I came home one Friday night from the bar heavily intoxicated. Showing off to my friends and new girlfriend, I set off a fire extinguisher in my dorm hallway. There was major damage. That moment of epic stupidity cost me not only my residency privileges at Fisher but over 200 hours of community service (time spent mainly washing dishes and making waffles in the dining hall).

I will always regret the way my actions caused so much harm to a college that I admire and benefited from. In retrospect I am eternally grateful that SJFC exercised mercy by not expelling me. As a result of their leniency, I went on to graduate with a B.A. in 2004, attain two master’s degrees, and work within several colleges and universities as an adjunct and community organizer. Who knows where my life would be today if I was simply kicked out under a heavy cloud of shame. Given a second chance, I not only salvaged an opportunity to earn a degree, I also learned several important lessons about making amends, the perils of heavy drinking, and the power of restorative justice.

Yet there is something about my experience that has always made me ask a very hard question: What if I was black? And what if I did not belong to the school’s heralded First Generation Scholarship program? What if I was not friends with the daughter of Fisher’s Chief of Security? Would I have been treated any differently if I was a student of color without favored status? It’s been 16 years since I made that mistake, but I still look back and wonder what role my white privilege played in keeping me from going to jail, paying a heavy fine, or getting expelled.

Needless to say, these questions were still fresh when I first heard about the two SJFC students accused of vandalizing a Frederick Douglass statue in downtown Rochester. One witness claims that the students were using racial slurs as they dismantled the statue and carried it down the street, a charge the young men adamantly deny.

In my estimation, the College’s response was both swift and severe. Both students have been suspended while the case is being reviewed, and the SJFC president condemned their actions in the strongest terms. Even Mayor Lovely Warren weighed in, stating: “The vandalism and theft of the Frederick Douglass statue on Tracy Street is a sad event that demonstrates remarkable disrespect for the citizens of Rochester, especially those who have worked so hard to celebrate the legacy of Douglass during the 200th anniversary of his birth.”

As with my own case, the fact that these two students are white matters, especially when viewed in the context of Fisher’s ongoing problem with diversity. According to College Factual, an organization that obtains their data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the National Center for Education Statistics, St. John Fisher’s faculty is 85.5% white. Just 5% of the faculty is African- American. 84% of the undergraduate student population is white. Only 3.8% of the students are African- American. Not surprisingly, the college is ranked 1,964 in ethnic diversity nationwide with a student body composition that is below the national average.

To claim that the school has no responsibility in this matter is not only unfair to the community that was targeted by this act of vandalism, it also forfeits an opportunity to challenge Fisher to be better at diversity training, hiring faculty of color, diversifying the curriculum, and being more transparent about race relations on campus. To my knowledge, no outside group has ever completed a full investigation into how many racial incidents occur on and off campus that involve Fisher students. Who is reporting these racial incidents and how are they being handled? Although I do not want to see their heads taken off- and I am certainly not one to cast stones- asking these difficult questions about SJFC is necessary.

Not surprisingly I have received push back for expressing these views in other forums. One commentator called my viewpoint illogical and motivated by a personal and political agenda. Another pundit went further, calling me “laughably self-righteous and a sanctimonious windbag.” That same person wrote: “Why is it that this incident can’t be as simple as it appears to be? Namely nothing more than a couple of cretins getting liquored up (as college students have been doing in this country since colonial days) and then going out and doing something REALLY stupid (as college students have also been doing in America since colonial days). Why must we make either a literal federal case out of it by trying to label the actions of these drunks a hate crime, or else blaming St. John Fisher because one dark night two of their students were too bombed to recognize the subject of their vandalism as a statue of Frederick Douglass”?

Fair enough. But I still believe SJFC has much more responsibility than these comments suggest. As Frederick Douglass once said, “those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.”

It’s time to start plowing up the ground. If someone truly believes that there is no institutional racism at Fisher, I want them to answer the following question: What if the students were not white football players? Imagine instead that they were two black students with corn-rolls and tattoos. Imagine that they were coming from a club in the 19th Ward rather than a bar on East Ave. Imagine that the two black students destroyed a statue of Susan B. Anthony instead of Frederick Douglass. Imagine that the two black students were using misogynistic language while they were doing it. Imagine that they were from Philadelphia or the Bronx rather than Upstate New York. If this were the case, would the students be expelled or suspended?