THE MODEL Like Tatlin’s Tower.
  • THE MODEL Like Tatlin’s Tower.
The cafe in the Frye Art Museum is one of Olson Kundig Architects' local masterpieces. The glass, the tranquil interaction between inside and outside, the natural light, the pond, the sunny (or rainy) courtyard, the cold concrete walls, the solid ramp, the rhythm of the pillars, the sky-reflecting towers in the distance, the green bushes here, the brown reeds there, the formal arrangement of the brown and silver furniture—what all of this adds up to is a cafe that feels not so much like an actual place in the world of things and animals, but an idea frozen in the lucid mind of an architect. Indeed, this is one of the best places in town for a modernist like myself to drink white wine. Red wine does not work with this architecture because it blocks out, rather than contributes to, the ambience of natural light. What you want to feel and see is the light of the city, the light of the cafe's spaces, and the light in the orb of the wine. (The cafe sells three white wines: a sauvignon blanc, Nobilo, from New Zealand; an organic chardonnay, Bonterra, from California; and another chardonnay, Georges Duboeuf Macon-Villages, from Burgundy, France.)

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