Drutt Report.

So far "online museum" have been pretty hohum affairs, consisting mostly of links to artists' Web projects or digitized versions of works from an institution's collection. The Guggenheim's forthcoming cyberspace "branch" (slated to open by year's end) aims to change all that.

Of course, we've been hearing promises of the Guggenheim Virtual Museum's imminent debut for years, but at least now if you visit www.guggenheim.org, you'll find a listing for the cyberspace outpost. Click on the "Virtual Guggenheim" link and you'll see 3-D computer renderings that look like set designs for a sci-fi movie. Only this is real-or soon to be, Drutt, who is spearheading the project. "Visitors to the Virtual Guggenheim will find it antithetical to existing Web design," Drutt says. "After all the Guggenheim has developed the accidental tradition of creating vanguard settings in which to view art."

The goal to present online architecture as groundbreaking as the offline sites created by Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry. Drutt enlisted New York's Asymptote Architects--who recently finished updating the New York Stock Exchange's Virtual Trading Floor--to design a faux--3-D digital "structure" that will make visitors feel like they're moving physically rather than just clicking, through the website. Shows will feature work produced specially for the Guggenheim, along the lines of Shu Lea Cheang's Web narrative Brandon, which the museum commissioned in 1997.

Asymptote's prototype looks like a soupedup version of the starship Enterprise and promises the experience of flying through virtual hallways and multifaceted digital "room"--as well as the opportunity to participate in interactive online events. Beam us up Scotty.