Building Blocks

Blaffer blows out its brown box: Airy expansion plans revealed

The new Blaffer façade.
The revised Fine Arts Building courtyard.
A café will spill from the Blaffer into the Fine Arts Building courtyard.

The blueprints are in for the renovation of the 38-year-old Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. Opening up the museum from its 1970s cloistered structure, the redesign makes the Blaffer more conspicuous on campus — and in the local art scene.

"For years, the museum has suffered from a lack of visibility and accessibility from the campus side, but particularly from the city side," Blaffer director Claudia Schmuckli tells CultureMap. "There was just no indication of the museum on the side of the building. One of the main issues we wanted to resolve was precisely that."

Blaffer's makeover has been conceived by the New York-based WORK Architecture Company (WORKac), working in partnership with Gensler. WORKac has successfully tinkered with other museum layouts, including a renovation and expansion of the Clark Institute at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., the Children's Museum of the Arts in New York and a master plan of the BAM Cultural District in Brooklyn.

Museum visitors may soon enter through a north-facing portico crowned by a diagonal truss that articulates the new second-level staircase. Bands of clear and textured channel glass will make up the Blaffer's new northern façade. Entrance is still available through the interior courtyard, but the reception desk will be centralized and replaced by a café and lounge area.

WORKac's plan provides for an additional 500 square feet to the 11,000 square foot museum while enhancing circulation between the galleries. The primary change in the museum's interior is the relocation of the central staircase (which had previously intervened in the upper level's layout) to the building's northern exterior. A double height central gallery — the museum's centerpiece — will remain largely unchanged. New lighting, furniture and finishes are also on the way.

Apropos for a museum and art school atrium, social interaction and the exchange of ideas are key themes in the new design. The open space of the interior courtyard has been reconceptualized by SCAPE landscape architecture firm to include triangles of grass upon which spectators can enjoy performances and film screenings. Gone are the tangles of tropical plants, replaced by articulated geometric gathering platforms.

"We thought it was necessary to approach the site holistically, taking the courtyard into consideration as a very underused space in its current design and guise," explains Schmuckli. "It's one of the most beautiful courtyards on campus, but until now it didn't allow the opportunity for lingering. Now, with the café spilling out into the courtyard, we can establish the building as a social hub on campus. As the university is gearing up for achieving Tier 1 status, we want to be a part of enhancing the quality of student life."

The museum will break ground this summer, with completion expected in January 2012. Before any walls are rearranged, the galleries will host an exhibition in conjunction with the Museum of Broken Relationships. Starting Tuesday, the museum will accept donations of objects from failed relationships to be displayed at an exhibition that opens on May 21. Learn more about the project here.

Contemporary art aficionados suffering from Blaffer withdrawal can access the museum's Window Into Houston display at 110 Milam St. Come June 3, the Blaffer will present the exhibition At the Back of the North Wind with Flo Art Fund during the 54th Venice Biennale at the Palazzo Bollani.

"It's an amazing opportunity for us to be present in Venice," says Schmuckli. "It's just one more opportunity of widening the reach of our programs and creating additional awareness for what we do beyond the city limits."

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Movie Review

Safe cracking takes center stage in new heist movie Tuner

Photo courtesy of Black Bear

Leo Woodall in Tuner.

Of all the ways that movies depict people trying to steal money and other valuables, safe cracking is among the least exciting. By design, it’s a laborious process that only those with a very certain set of skills can do. While clever editing and the right music can enhance scenes of safes being cracked, there’s a reason that the method is among the least used in heist films.

In the new film Tuner, Niki (Leo Woodall) has a job and a condition that just happens to lend itself well to committing that specific crime. He works as an apprentice piano tuner for Harry (Dustin Hoffman), usually doing the hard work while Harry schmoozes the client. Niki is well-suited for the job because he has a rare condition called hyperacusis, which makes him both sensitive to loud noises and able to hear subtle things that others cannot.

When he runs across a trio of criminals trying to break open a safe at a house where he’s tuning a piano, he helps them more out of frustration than avarice. But when Harry goes into the hospital and racks up huge bills, Niki decides to join the group to make some quick money. They soon want more than he’s willing to give, and he must find a way to extricate himself from them without losing himself completely.

Written and directed by documentary filmmaker Daniel Roher (making his narrative feature debut) and co-written by Robert Ramsey, the film has a nice pace to it despite there being relatively little action. Roher and Ramsey spend the first third or so establishing Niki, Harry, and Harry’s wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) as characters, letting the audience understand their relationships and how they interact with each other.

The time they devote to the personal storytelling pays dividends when Niki starts to descend into crime, as his divided loyalties — not to mention the danger of the thefts — insert tension into the plot. That stress is heightened even more when Niki starts a relationship with piano student Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), as getting closer to her necessitates a series of lies.

There comes a point, though, where the plot stagnates to a degree. Niki’s end goal, if he has one, is never clear, and it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before things start to fall apart. After starting strong in their character development, Roher and Ramsey take shortcuts as the film rushes toward its conclusion. This is most notable in a weird argument scene between Niki and Ruthie that comes out of nowhere and seems to serve no purpose in the story.

Woodall, who had a memorable turn in season 2 of The White Lotus, is on the cusp of breaking out, and this understated-but-compelling lead role should help him become an even bigger name in Hollywood. Hoffman has a small role, but he remains as interesting as ever despite the lack of screentime. Liu (Bottoms) is also an up-and-coming actor who should become a star with more roles like this one.

Tuner is a low-key thriller that succeeds because of the way the filmmakers approach the under-used method of robbery. Even if it doesn’t quite reach its potential, the film maintains a high quality throughout thanks to its storytelling and acting.

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Tuner is now playing in theaters.

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