The Once and Future Museum

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00:04
Laura Tedesco

And I was at one of scores of tea drinking sessions in Mr. Massoudi's office and saying, you know, Mr. Massoudi, I think that the U.S. Embassy is going to have substantial support to offer the National Museum. Let's talk about what you would really prioritize as the needs for the museum. I should preface that I was also talking with other culture experts in Afghanistan about this at the same time, to get a collective of views and opinions and everybody had an opinion. But it was Mr. Massoudi's opinion that was the most important. His first request was, he said, we really need a new museum. 

00:45
George Gavrilis
A whole new museum?

00:46
Laura Tedesco
A whole new museum. Let's just start from scratch. 

00:54
George Gavrilis
After 9/11, the U.S. overthrew the Taliban. A new government was formed in Afghanistan and the National Museum was patched up. Artifacts returned to the galleries. But the feeling that the museum was vulnerable never quite went away. And every so often, bombings nearby would rattle the building and blow out windows.

01:16
George Gavrilis
When Laura Tedesco visited the museum for the first time in 2010, she saw for herself how the small, war-damaged building was struggling to contain the treasures of thousands of years of history. She met the elegant museum director, Omara Khan Massoudi, who had risked his life over the years to protect the museum. She wanted to know what the U.S. could do to help. 

01:40
George Gavrilis
This is Monuments Woman with Laura Tedesco. I'm your host George Gavrilis. If you are new to this podcast, we recommend going back to start with Episode 1. For everyone else, welcome back. Let's jump back in.

02:03

Laura Tedesco
"December 5, 2010. Spent several hours in the museum today with Mr. Massoudi and Susanne, discussing his vision for a new museum. It could work. Deserving. Deserves to work. Reading Wallace Stevens tonight. It's oddly fitting."

02:30

Laura Tedesco

The idea was not that the United States was going to build a new museum, it was, we were going to support the Afghan government's desire to create their own national museum.

02:44

Laura Tedesco
The United States never had the idea we would dictate the design, what went on display, what was written on museum labels for artifacts, that was absolutely not part of even any conception. It was, what support can be offered to help the Afghan government's request that they would like a new national museum, which by the way, was a very reasonable request.

03:14

Laura Tedesco
The building that it was in was nearly 100 years old. They were bursting at the seams, they couldn't keep up with the artifacts that they already had. It was packed to the gills. There's no fire system. It's like a repurposed office building. It's not really a museum. So the request was entirely reasonable.

03:35

Laura Tedesco
And you have to put it in the historical context, George. This was 2010, the height of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. Over 100,000 troops, thousands of diplomats, pallets of money being flown in weekly. I mean, they could have asked for the Louvre. And at that time, somebody might have said, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

04:00

Laura Tedesco
Fortunately, that was not what was asked for. So then one starts the really hard work where you have a great idea. And then the hard work begins of how do you actually realize that idea. You can't do it in isolation. Everything is collaborative. Every step was made with Mr. Massoudi.

04:19

Laura Tedesco
How do you organize an architectural competition, opening it up to architects of the world? When you put out an international architectural competition, and the ultimate goal is to build a building as a result of that, then the specifications that you put into that architectural competition's call for proposals, it has to reflect the realities of Kabul.

04:46

Laura Tedesco
What seismic zone is it in? What is the climate gradation from season to season? What's the air quality, for example? Where's the groundwater? What is the soil like? You know, what kind of land are you looking at? Is it prone to flooding or not? For example, so.

05:06

Laura Tedesco
And then not just the sort of engineering and environmental details, but then what will that building house? That has to all be included in the planning for this architectural competition so that architects could actually contribute designs that were not a fantasy, but realizable for the realities of Kabul.

05:31

George Gavrilis

Did you still get fantasy entries, things that were just too spectacular or not viable for Afghanistan?

05:39

Laura Tedesco

Yeah, there were hundreds of submissions. Definitely among those were some what I refer to as trophy museums, that might have been more appropriate in sort of a rich Emirate country or Doha, but not quite right for the geography of Kabul and the realities of Kabul.

06:00

George Gavrilis

And by reality, you mean something like a heavy snowfall weighing down the roof? 

06:04

Laura Tedesco
Yeah.

06:06

George Gavrilis
… or really bad dust and pollution putting a layer on the windows, if there's too much glass like that?

06:15

Laura Tedesco

Yeah, exactly, the dust is a great thing. So a number of designs came in with sort of glass-topped roofs. And while that's lovely and it may work if you have a team of groundskeepers who can go up weekly to sweep off the dust. But if you don't have that, then within about seven days, you won't be seeing anything out of those glass roofs, because they'll be covered in dust and grime and pollution and— or snow.

06:44

Laura Tedesco
So that's just one tiny detail of where designs that were submitted didn't quite reflect what was an operating reality in Afghanistan and in Kabul, specifically. But there were many designs submitted that were just sublime. The competition was entirely anonymous, so that when it came time for these designs to be evaluated, that was a whole process.

07:17

Laura Tedesco
I mean, we assembled a jury of international experts, including Afghans, and engineers from Europe and seismic structural engineers and museum specialists, that was chaired by the Minister of Information and Culture and co-chaired by Vartan Gregorian before he passed away, and a very gracious participant in this process. He's a topic for another time.

07:41

Laura Tedesco
It was a very well-considered assembled jury, who could help evaluate the winning designs. The jury had no idea which architects had submitted designs, and some internationally renowned architects were participating in this competition. I didn't know who any of the architects were until after a winner was chosen. And in the end, there was a first, second and third choice selected, and the first choice winner was and is an architect based in Barcelona.

08:28

George Gavrilis

Are we mentioning the names of the architectural firms— they are public, right?

08:32

Laura Tedesco

They are public. Yeah, yeah. So the winning architectural firm is named AV62, the letter A, the letter V, six, two. They were a relatively small firm, based in Barcelona, and they were awarded first prize for what is a sublime design. The second place winner was another Spanish firm, this one based in Madrid called Mansilla + Tuñón. It was a bit more bold of a design than the winning one, but also exquisite. And third place, I believe, was an Italian architect whose name I can't recall. 

09:16
Laura Tedesco
But there's a whole story. I mean, we had the first place winner, it was validated by the then Minister of Information and Culture who we flew from Kabul to New York City, to sort of participate in this evaluation of designs. He was grumpy the entire time because he wanted to be flown in business class. He really insisted on it. And when the U.S. government pays for a ticket, generally business class ticket is not purchased. And then he's Afghan— this is worth telling, because it really soured so much of the final decision-making of this architectural competition.

09:55
Laura Tedesco
When an Afghan government official travels, or any government, like federal government official travels overseas, the Consulate or the Embassy is responsible for taking care of that individual's arrival details. When this minister arrived in New York City, the Afghan Consulate in New York, no one had arranged for him to be picked up at Kennedy Airport. So he called me, furious, demanding that I pick him up at Kennedy Airport and holding me responsible for the Afghan government not having picked him up. And I don't think I've told anybody this story except my husband, that he made me cry because of that. And I was so angry that I almost was like, fuck it.

10:49
George Gavrilis

But he was being a little bitch.

10:51
Laura Tedesco

I have to say, yeah, I mean, it was almost shocking. 

11:03

George Gavrilis

But something happened with the ultimate selection, and there was a political intervention.

11:09

Laura Tedesco

There was a political intervention.

11:13

George Gavrilis

I think it's important to mention that this is still the time of Hamid Karzai, President Karzai.

11:18

Laura Tedesco

Hamid Karzai, yes, was president at the time. And these first, second and third place winners were presented to President Karzai who was at the time the President of Afghanistan. Karzai decided he didn't like what the jury had selected, and what his Minister had endorsed as a selection. Karzai preferred second place, and the more monumental grandiose design. And so well, he had the final word, he did a— you know, too bad, so sad, for first place.

11:54

Laura Tedesco
Karzai made a proclamation that he in fact, wanted the design that did not win. He wanted second place, he wanted the Mansilla + Tuñón design, which was a bit more bold and sort of a statement museum. It slowed down the process by years, because then the Afghan government, after announcements were made and award money was issued and checks were sent—

12:17

Laura Tedesco
The Afghan government said, you know what, actually, Mansilla + Tuñón, we would like you to build a new national museum for Afghanistan. And they said, Oh, no, thank you. We don't want to do that. We'd prefer not to do that. Really, we want you to do this. We'll facilitate it. We want your design to be the new National Museum.

12:41

Laura Tedesco
And one might think that that would have been the end of the story, but it wasn't. The Afghan government sent a third letter, and the answer was a little different in response to the third letter. It said, No, we'll only do it if we do it in collaboration with the first place design, which was also by a Spanish firm.

13:03

Laura Tedesco
By then Karzai was out of office. The project went dormant. President Ghani who's president of Afghanistan reinvigorated this entire idea. We're nearly 10 years into this project. More than 10 years from when Mr. Massoudi first uttered the words: we need a new museum. And where it is now, is the winning Spanish architect, AV62, is working on blueprint designs for a new National Museum.

13:34

George Gavrilis

So is it going to happen?

13:36

Laura Tedesco

I don't know. There's no money to build it. We could start a GoFundMe.

13:43

George Gavrilis

I suppose we'll find some Gulf Arab country to fund it, but then they'll want the monumental design.

13:48

Laura Tedesco
Maybe.

13:50

George Gavrilis
Or one that looks more like what's in Qatar or Dubai. 

13:56

Laura Tedesco

Yeah. Or Abu Dhabi.

13:57

George Gavrilis

Yeah.

14:06

George Gavrilis
One of the key features of the AV62 designs are these beautiful barrel vaults...

14:13

Laura Tedesco
Yeah. 

14:14

George Gavrilis
...that are meant to be built with masonry and local material, which is brilliant. At the same time, when I back up, and I look at the silhouette, it looks a little bit like army barracks to me, you know. So tell me some of the things that you love or don't love about the AV62 design, what's close to your heart on it.

14:32

Laura Tedesco
I really appreciated the scale of the design, and the barrel vaults that you mentioned. That shape evokes a quotidian, architectural style for Afghanistan. The scale of the building that AV62 envisioned, was in, in my opinion— I wasn't on the jury, I was an observer to it, and not an architectural specialist by any stretch. So I just look at what appeals to the eye.

15:08
George Gavrilis
Sure, but you know what you like.

15:10
Laura Tedesco
Yeah, I know what I like. I liked the use of courtyards, and natural light. And all of that seemed, and seems so fitting. There was a real elegance to the design. There was something intimate about the AV62 design that appealed to me.

15:31
George Gavrilis
I love the design. And my heart really wants it to happen.

15:34
Laura Tedesco
Me too.

15:44
George Gavrilis
You know that I love Afghanistan, and its history and its people. And it's like such a misunderstood, under-loved country. But, I'm worried, I'm worried about building a beautiful, wonderful new National Museum for the country. And then politically, to have the Taliban take power a couple years down the road.

16:10
George Gavrilis
And if not to despoil the museum, or to harm the artifacts— to take anything that is not Islamic, and to hide it in some warehouse or some underground depot where no one will ever see it again. Right? And then the question becomes, what did we even do all this for? So how do you think about that? How do you wrestle with that?

16:33
Laura Tedesco
I have the same questions and the same concerns. These are even questions that were posed to me by naysayers 10 years ago. Why on earth would we build a museum? Aren't we just building a target for extremists? At that time, the Taliban was less considered as the extremists who would come in, but it was extremists in general terms. Aren't we just building a target?

17:03
Laura Tedesco
And maybe my response was naive. And I would prefer to be naive in life than a cynic. But my response was, if we don't build it, aren't we kind of throwing in the towel, already? So, I don't have a direct answer, George, it's a question for the ages. And I don't know that the new Museum of Afghan— National Museum of Afghanistan is going to be built in the next two years. Maybe we'll have to wait another 10 years.

17:36
George Gavrilis
And that answer's certainly good enough for me.

17:56
George Gavrilis
One more thing, Laurie, are you any more comfortable with the title of this podcast, The Monuments Woman? Have you made any peace with it?

18:03
Laura Tedesco
No. No, it still feels like a pair of like snow boots that are too small that your mom makes you wear from last winter. And you don't want to, but there they are. You need to put on your snow boots. Would you please come up with a better title?

18:20
George Gavrilis
Fair enough. Fair enough.

18:28
George Gavrilis
You've been listening to Monuments Woman with Laura Tedesco. I'm your host George Gavrilis. Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. To stay in touch, also follow us on Instagram at the_monuments_woman. Join us next week when we dive deeper.

18:51
George Gavrilis
This show is produced by Christian D. Bruun and May Eleven Projects. It is recorded by Audivita Studios, and edited by Shaun Hettinger and Greg Williams. The theme song is This Love by Ariana Delawari, featuring Salar Nader.

Ep 5: The Once and Future Museum? — National Museum, Part 2 of 2 

Topics Covered in this Episode 

International architectural design competition

The winners from Barcelona, and Minister of Information and Culture

Hamid Karzai preferred 2nd place winner

AV62 design attributes

What's at stake in building a national museum?

More on the podcast title

Recorded on May 21, 2021