G is for...Geometry ... n ... Goosebumps

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

G is for Guggenheim

The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, aka the Guggenheim, is an art museum as famous for its collection of artworks as for its iconic building designed by the super renowned American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Many of his designs, among them the Guggenheim, designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.  They were included in July 2019, btw, just prior to my visit. 

The Guggenheim is certainly the most distinctively designed gallery space I've ever been to. Both art and architecture worthy of awe and celebration imho. Surveys over the years  however,  have shown that most visitors come to view the architecture rather than the artwork. 

View of the entry lobby, fountain from the top. This
museum is an iconic example of geometric
design for housing and viewing art.

Wright thought in terms of curvilinear spaces for the museum.

The cupola. The geometry of the spiral is the striking design
element used in this building, with the ramp being employed
as an exhibition space and also for access to other displays.

Lots of visitors on the day I was there..

And many of them there for the artworks, not just the building.

..so that survey finding surprised me!

The Guggenheim is definitely among the top 5 most visited museums in NYC and among the top 30 museums in the USA by visitor numbers. It drew about 1.2 million visitors the year I was there. That declined sharply during the pandemic but has recovered subsequently and the museum continues to draw around a million visitors annually.  

The permanent collection of 8000+ artworks includes big names like Modigliani, Mondrian, Monet, Picasso and Kandinsky and is shared between the Guggenheim Museums of NYC, Bilbao and Venice.

Read more about the Guggenheim on their website which has a fairly comprehensive section on its design and Frank Lloyd Wright.  

G is also for Giza

The Giza plateau has another iconic architectural marvel that uses sophisticated geometry - the three Pyramids of Khufu (Cheops), Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaure (Mykerinus) guarded over by the Great Sphinx. I've visited them countless times - the first time was in 1998, shortly after my husband and I relocated to the Middle East. In fact, I'd merrily agreed to leave Calcutta and completely upend our lives without a second thought, because going to the Gulf meant easy access to  the old civilisations of the world, including Egypt. And in some glorious universe-conspiring-to-give-you-whatever-you-truly-want type plot twist, some years down the line, his job took us to Cairo itself and we ended up living within a few kilometres of them.  

Sunset view of Pyramids from  our balcony. 2011.

For untold centuries the Giza Pyramids were the tallest structures ever built by humankind, one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World. The Great Pyramid is estimated to  have been built around 2550-2490 BCE, which makes it over 4500 years old.  The buildings that were to surpass it were constructed as recently as the 13th/14th century, the tall spires of the cathedrals in Europe. The Giza Pyramids are large enough, well, monumental enough to be actually visible in satellite images taken from the International Satellite Station. 

I first heard about them as a child, from a friend and colleague of my father's. Upon his return from a holiday in Cairo sometime in the late 70s, he described the Pyramids and the Son et Lumiere there in such vivid, effusive detail that the entire experience climbed into my wishlist instantly. It took 20 odd years for the trip to materialise, however. 

Non-digital snap of Khafre's Pyramid. 1998. 

The Great Sphinx. 1998. The Guardian of the Pyramids. Note
that the Sphinx is considered male in Egypt and is called
Abu-al-Hawl in Arabic, lit Father of Terror/Dread. 

There's a lot of negativity about Cairo, too touristy, too aggressive, too tacky, noisy,  a rip-off, unsafe for women and what have you. Enough horror stories to make one's head spin. But personally I must say I have not had any bad/scary experiences anywhere in Egypt either as a tourist or later as a resident in the nearly 7 years that I lived there.  Take the usual precautions that you'd take anywhere in a big city and everything should be fine.

Family at the Pyramids. 2009

Once the lights dim and the Son et Lumiere begins, the vast panorama of the Giza necropolis comes alive with the voice of the Sphinx narrating the mesmerising, millennia old story of Egypt, dramatised by music, light and laser projections - totally goosebump inducing.

It is estimated that the Giza Pyramids, a UNESCO site and the star attraction of Egypt, draw 9-10 million visitors annually. With the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum last year adjacent to the Pyramids, that figure is expected to rise. 

At the foot. 2013.

There are other pyramids in Egypt apart from Giza. That country has over a 100 pyramids. Other notable ones are at Sakkara and  Dahshour, not too far from Giza. 

Step Pyramid at Sakkara. 2011. The first one ever built, predates
Giza by a couple of centuries.

 

The Bent Pyramid, Dahshour. 2010.

And Egypt isn't the only country where pyramids are located either. Neighbouring Sudan has more than 200 pyramids, double that of Egypt. These are typically steeper/pointier than the Egyptian ones. Built by the Kushite kingdom, they came way after the Egyptians had stopped building pyramids altogether.

Read more about the Giza Pyramids here by clicking the link.

~~~

If the gallery design and its geometry grab greater visitor attention than the artworks, is the design successful? Should architecture be unobtrusive and ensure that art is the only focus? Or can art and architecture be complementary and be showcased in the same space, form a seamless whole without competing for individual glory? What do you think?

Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026