29
LITTLE CAESAR'S PALACE
THE C H I L D R E N ' S M U S E U M OF H O U S T O N
DREXEL T U R N E R
I REALLY D O N ' T SEE W H Y, in; street c o m e r Ihjrocchetto of the AS A MATTER OF COMMON Children's M u s e u m of H o u s t o n (Venturi, Scott B r o w n &: PRIVILEGE, A MAN T Associates in collaboration w i t h Jackson SHOULDN'T MAKE AN IMITA- & R y a n , Architects, 1 9 8 9 - 9 2 ) brightens TION ROMAN T E M P L E IF HE up the far northeast corner of the city's characteristically diffuse M u s e u m WISHES TO DO SO. I S N ' T District w i t h a signlike intensity that its IT, AFTER ALL IS S A I D art lull but door-shy neighbors on the AND DONE, A QUESTION OF mure lashionahle, m o w n up side ol M a i n Street might secretly envy. 1 Hive blocks TEMPERAMENTAL S E L E C T I O N , west, Mies van dcr Rohe's bowed second OF SCHOLARSHIP, OF I N D I - front for the M u s e u m of I'ine Arts still VIDUAL T A S T E ? awaits the entrance canopy designed for it more than 2D years ago (although for special occasions an ad hoe garden tent is I D O N ' T E I T H E R , IF planted as a tallying point for valet HE W I L L MAKE IT IN H I S parking, anchored by water-filled ex- chemical drums). Diagonally across the OWN BACK Y A R D . . . . B U T , street, the leading edge of G u i i n a r WHEN HE PUTS IT ON Hirkcrts's parallelogram-shaped, w i n d o w - THE P E O P L E ' S HIGHWAY, less a l u m i n u m container tor the l untemporary Arts M u s e u m shies away AND LABELS IT MODERN from the providential intersection it AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE, shares w i t h the M u s e u m of f i n e A r t s , THERE ARE THOSE WHO WILL obliging patrons to slip through a sale- street reveal in an obtuse (and so angled) CRY HUMBUG . . . . corner. In well-marked contrast, V e n t u r i , Scott B r o w n et al.'s gregariously dis- Louis Sullivan, Kindergarten ('.huts posed, pictographically succinct, temple- cornered box populi manages to show i isiiurs the d o o r and project itself almost . . . CAPABLE ALIKE OF ALL all the way to M a i n Street. LOWLINESS AND ALL D I G N I - TY... S I M P L E , AND PLAY- Conspicuous as it is, the " s i g n " qua nun o f the Children's M u s e u m of I Ibuston is FUL, SO THAT CHILDHOOD an only fragmentary advertence, c o m p n MAY READ IT , YET . . .AN sitionally discrete and strategically disposed at the point of entry, like the ARCHITECTURE THAT KINDLES Venturi, Scott Brown £ Associates and Jackson & Ryan, architects, Children's Museum al Houston, 1992, view baking temple porch annexed as a " f r o n t " to the north toward rear ol "portico" from taryakid arcade. EVERY FACULTY . . . circular cella of the R o m a n Pantheon or set i n t o the M e d i ci villa of Lorenzo il John R u s k i n , The Stones of Venue Magnifico at Poggio a C a i a no ( G i u l i a n o They make the f o r w a r d part more The temple front is a lime honored fixture da Sangallo, I4M5 f.|. I'alladio routinely eminent." ' In the case of the Children's ot the American scene whose versatility is affixed such porches to domestic projec ts, Museum, this f o r w a r d eminence is made demonstrated in b o r r o w i n g s both sacred a procedure in w h i c h , as Ackerman greater not only by detaching, c u r v i n g , and profane, studied and freewheeling, notes, " o f t e n the porch is the only and corner positionin g the "pediment on from T h o m a s Jefferson's reduction ol the antique reference in the design; all the columns" but by oversea ling it t o o , in the Pantheon (in M / C and materials) as a rest of the detail is simple geometry." - manner ot the aH-but-consuming portico library for the University of Virginia Pall.idio explains this practice in the o f Peter Harrison's R e d w o o d Library (IN2.5-27) to the hail-chariorwell-me i n Qitdttro i ihrr. "I have made in all the (Newport, Rhode Island, ]74X-5l),o f 40-miles-an-hour hyper-detached and \ ilia buildings anil also some of the city which Vincent Scully writes, " I n t e n t i o n is realigned "portico"-sig n heralding ones .1 pediment on columns for the f r o nt so heroic, in a b u i l d i n g so small, that a t .11 sar's Palace along the Las Vegas strip Facade in w h i c h there are the principal new and primitive force is felt . . . o f (1964). Even in the o u r l a n d s o l late-2i)th- portals. T h e reason is that these porches freshness, even of welcome ineptitude, " century 1 lo u s t o n, this emblematic utility announce the entrance o) houses and lend forsaking the delicacy ot the then current still surfaces in the bottom-lin e vernacular much to their grandeur and magnificence. strain ol Luglish I'alladiamsm."' o f The W o o d l a n d s Water Resources 30
Gunnor Birkerts, architect, Contemporary Ludwig Mies Von der Rohe, architect. Arts Museum, Houston, entrance. Museum ol Fine Arts, Houston, north entrance with demountable canopy. Building (Taft Architects, I98.SJ and the gridironed heart of Sullivan's Chicago, case study of 1972 along w i t h the grand- templistic tin-type ot Prank Xeni's but .is a close-set enfilade of building- mas of the Palace's freestanding colonnade
GOLDEN INUGGET ' H l l l H l MM I 'J
Sir John Saone, architect. Bank ol England, Louis Sullivan, architect, Golden Nugget Casino, las Vegas. A & P store, Los Angeles, c. 1930 Bernard Maybeck, architect. Palace of "Tivoli corner." Carson, Pirie & Scott, Fine Arts, San Francisco (now the Chicago. Explaratorium science museum). 31
m i U~l:Jtt]
Children's Museum of Houston, perspective view of north IBim Avenue) elevation, "portico," and west (parking lot side) elevation. rcwrappcd by James W i l l i a m W i l d and Venturi as "kind of a Palazzo del Te of Alley, its internal organization is the soul the Royal Engineers in a pilaster- jazz," the club was sited to face of rationality, surprisingly close in plan segmented, red-brick neoclassical mufti, Westhcimer Road, I louston's faint and section to Renzo Piano's museum for / i embellished on its two longitudinal faces approximation of the l.as Vegas Strip, the Menil Collection (198 1-87), an by friezes ot colorful mosaic panels.1'' which has since become home to such elaborately roofed but otherwise subdued m\ classically burnished attractions as the post Miesian pavilion stationed half a Wild's ministrations are acknowledged in adults-only Caligula X X I and the mile outside I louston's Museum ii Pevsner's inventory of British buildings coincidentally musico-museologieally District.'1' Like the Menil, the Children's as "restrained" and "well detailed . . . attuned, adolescents-only Hard Rock Museum is arranged about a spinelike {still, one feels, in a Schinkel tradition)," l! Cafe, slightly off menu one block south mam hall that parallels the lull, long Palace ol Fine Arts, San Francisco, transverse section. while Edward Jones and Christopher on Kirby Drive (Tigcrman lugman front of the building. Deep, high- Woodward's guide to London architec- McCurry, I986). 1 " bor the edification of ceilinged galleries open off one side of the ture remarks the "quiet dignity" of the drivers-by, "The Jazz Museum" was to ball and comparatively shallow, ancillary museum's long civic elevation when he spelled out in a frieze <>f large Roman spaces off the other, above which is V viewed from across Beth rial Greet! but letters, hyphenated by an entablature- lodged a second level of shallow spaces J' l I" "~^OEj: finds the entrance, relegated to a three framed pediment. Simplified Corinthian tor offices and other nonpublic uses. bay end elevation, inauspicious and If: i I J as capitals were to sprout from pilasters There the connection ends, for the 15 "curiously understated." Although the below that combined with the pediment galleries of the Children's Museum are Children's Museum of Houston, transverse section. Bethnal Green Museum was inaugurated to produce a temple-front centerpiece and black-box, artificially illuminated affairs as a socially beneficent general-purpose otherwise separated niches stocked with - a cross between a movie studio (as the repository of V & A surplus, its spirit statues ot jazz worthies."* The "portico" architects put it) and Toys R Lis - in began to be kindercd in 192! through the of the Children's Museum is earlier contrast to the Mend's technologically patronage of Queen Mary, whose anticipated in the Basic Tuscan Doric facilitated luminism, which employs an loudness tor puhlu. displays ol ihildhood canopy of the project for the Philadelphia expressive glass roof and ferroconcrete was also requited as client-of-rceord for College of Art (I 97.1) and the Eclectic baffles to deliver natural light to most of Lutyens's Queen's Dolls' House, a Vacation House project of 1977, Corner- its galleries. (Bethnal Green is also standing-room-only attraction at the tending, if nor particularly ostentatious, organized about a longitudinally aligned, British Empire F.xhibition of 1924. The entries are also seeded in the firm's work. though galleried and symmetrically Queen's nurturing induced not only the beginning with the project for a town hall positioned, "great hall.") "The Children's museum's present accumulation of rare fur North Canton, Ohio (|9f>5), and the Museum's 15,000 square feet of gallery dolls, doll houses, toys, children's books, Dixwell Fire Station, New Haven (1967), space to 28,000 square feet devoted to and clothes but its change of name in and, a decade later, the Institute tor "other" uses mirrors the ratio of 1:2 that 1974 and the concentration of the V&A's Scientific Information, Philadelphia Venturi infers as the norm for the 16 other children's activities there. Bethnal (1977-78), and the unbuilt project for modem "popular art museum" - ",\n Children's Museum ol Houston, lirsl-lloor plan. (jam's necessarily hands-of! approach to the Discovery Place science museum in explicitly didactic institution, involving most of its collections is the exception, downtown Charlotte, North Carolina educational components,. . .places for not the rule, in contemporary pedomuse- (I 977-78). The competition project for instruction via lectures, cinema, televi- E^l:=::l£ ology, |iist as its classical casing might the I'rankfurt International lair I lafl sion, computers,. . .a big staff beyond seem, by prevailing standards, a hopeless < 198(1) made use of a more demonstra- that of traditional curators, |and| a shop" ly fusty model for a modern major tive, concave billboard/entry marquee and which also tends to serve "as a place children's museum. that played to less-than-full effect against • •I entertainment.""" an I.-shaped comer-fold where the new *T^rh ^h-.-rc Venturi and Scott Brown's experiment hall came alongside an elevated con- The use of a relatively thin, civically with the idea of a classically vivified course and a lower, preexisting exhibi constituted block as a preface for a \ . museum may actually have begun with tion building. larger, hosier, matter-of-fact "works" Houston in mind, in the improvisational behind appears, mediated by a cross- non scquitur of their second "jazz If the Children's Museum learns out- cutting /one for public circulation, in the museum" project ot I 978 lor the unbuilt wardly from l.as Vegas by way ol San firm's earlier, unbuilt design for the Nichol's Alley night club. Described by Venturi and Rauch, architects, North Canton, Francisco, Bethnal (irecti, and Nichol's North Canton town hall, whose outback Ohio, town hall, project, first-floor plan. 32
,•-* *•«. i .
" LM
Children's Museum of Houston, computer-generated drawing of north [Bini Avenue) elevation.
comprised an extensive land extendable) pilaster is " f r a m e d " on either side by a in his Berlin laundry.-" 1 rT . 5., IF* ; S i ^ warren ot bureaucratic offices. 1 Ins same partial, recessive repetition of itself n fl "blockinn," ' w h i c h a fancy-fronted emulating the " g r o u p e d " pilasters The c h r o m a t i c variety of the Children's 11 n n initial mass precedes a larger, no-frills Michelangelo devised lor the third-story jn Museum also emulates the technically II pl.mi-shed, also obtains in the plane- court face of the l-'arnese Palace (Rome, abetted color easting of the Panama- m • jsr-iw "~~ F spoken dualism of " A l b e r t k a h n ' s 1546). In the case of the Children's Pacific Exposition of 1915, where a f W | Michelangelo, architect, Farnese Palace, Rome. Detail lactones in tlu* M i d w e s t , " appreciated in Museum, the layered-back partial plaster equivalent of "travertine " af court lacade, third story, with grouped pilasters. 1 .L\irnnif> From Las Vegas lor the pilasters merge w i r h the p r i m a r y w a l l [ncphclinc), invented for the faux-vaulted consensual non-agreement ol their \asi plane and abut the w i n d o w apertures so telling ol Pennsylvania Station, furnished sheds, rendered in "his miniina l vocabn that the c u m u l a t e d , interstitial capitals an affordable, superficial means ol h J U Hi "i IBGfHlllB lary of steel [-sections f r a m i n g industrial act like " g a r l a n d s " banding the w i n d o w s "Romanizing" the Palace of Fine Arts and sash," and their fronts, which " a l m o s t loosely together at their tops. T h e other cardinal monuments (in contrast to always contained administrative offices googlv eyed capitals ol the pilasters are the all-purpose w h i t e ot Chicago), while James William Wild, architect, Belhnol Green Museum, and, being early twentieth century ,urtuled h\ slightly levitated, embossed lesser buildings were tinted "pastel shades Landau, longitudinal elevation. creations, were graciously An Deco, . . . alphabet-block R o m a n letters spelling o l green, blue, p i n k , l e m o n , and o c h r e . " - ' grandly eontradier|ing| the skeletal C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N, the initial C teetering I lie neo-Plasticine armature afforded by behind."-1 In the same vein, the mating iwiiiw.;, ;.:-i:i:»ai:ta»^:rtt:«i parenthetically em just t w o - t h i r d s of a the Styrofoam-bascd reliefwork (laser cut ol splendiferous, often classically Capital aud-pilaster sliced off by a olfsite to achieve precision at critical contrived, head houses w i t h m i n i m a l l y , recision in the northeast corner of the junctures) updates as well the fiscally sometimes elegantly, w r o u g h t sheds was building, not unlike that w h i c h occurs on induced impasto of late Baroque Koine a conjugally depictive specialty of 19th- (and d e o r g i a n L o u d o n ) - ' ' by w a y of Bruno Tout, architect, Reibedam laundry, Berlin. the children's entrance elevation of A l v a r and early-ZOth-eentury train stations, Miami Beach, where the happiest face ol Aalto's library at V i i p u r i , ('inland which Learning From i-.is Vegas chooses stripped classical Moderne-ity is charac- (1930-35). At the N-point of the u i construe as " a r t f u l c o n t r a s t " in terized not only by its gaily muted colors alphabet frieze, the facade dispenses w i t h contradistinction to Sigfried Giedion's but, as Denise Scolt B r o w n observes, a fenestration altogether and enters into a characterisation as "gross contradiction " remarkable "sense ot thinness, ol the skin 2 blind, bellowslike transitional zone, or "split in f e e l i n g . " - In I l o u s t o n , a being stretched, . . . [its] architectural thinly and reccssively layered, that covers similar measure of artful dispararton sculpture . . . only shallowly carved, vet an expanse equal to three .uldiinni.il bays j r m applies not only to the Children's . . . suggcstjingl surfaces behind surfaces." before a r r i v i n g at the c o m e r " p o r t i c o . " Museum but also, as V e n t u r i has pointed In addition to the "cheery humaneness" it This Sainshury ligature is punctuated by out, to the M u s e u m of bine Arts, w h i c h grafts o n t o Ciod's W a i l i n g R o o m in South a a disorderly "screen" ol ganged pilasters combines W i l l i a m W a r d W a r k i n ' s Beach, Scott B r o w n also esteems A r t Deco ,\)K\ tractions thereof, while the apostro- lapidary, colonnaded Beaux-Arts Iront tor being the w o r k ol " p r o b a b l y the last phe and S llo.ii above bare surfaces with a Mies-matched hcavy-metal-and- architects w h o were . . . trained in where pilasters w o u l d otherwise have Venluri and Rauch, architects, Philadelphia College of Art, glass pavilion shed behind. traditional s k i l l s , " by w h i c h she accounts materialized, had their spacing m a i n - project, entrance canopy. for the "suavity in the way they handled tained a three-bay regularity. The l o n g, t w o - s t o r y " c i v i c " front ol the both design and construction " - a finesse Children's M u s e u m faces o n t o Bin/. I'uik paneled plaques are inserted that permitted I rank l.loyd W r i g h t to Avenue, an east-west thoroughfar e it hctwi i i i pilasters to separate the first "like 'deflowered ' classic much better than . . . the o l d ornate classic,"-" (The ^** shares w i t h Mies's fan-shaped a d d i t i o n to and second-story w i n d o w s and .ire also the M u s e u m of l-'inc Arts. Its treatment interposed, double height, as spacers n mitants ol I iouston's o w n fragmentary Art Deco " d i s t r i c t " are scattered, in combines aspects of IV tlui.il (ireen's between the letters I l u N , w h i c h spring JD B K various states ol r u i n , not very far east ol equivalent elevation and the " e x t e n d e d " just above the pilasters f r a m i n g the the Children's M u s e u m , along the once- portico of Brunelleschi's Foundling window bays. As a matter of emphasis, I lospital, Florence (1419-57), where these large green letters are posed against thriving Almeda strip.I della Kobbi.i baby blue t o n d i bounce square w h i t e "background " plaques that above C o r i n t h i a n capitals and even are slightly undersized to reinforce the The carefully m o d u l a t e d , c o l o r e d , and Venluri and Rauch, architects, Eclectic Vacation House, merge into higher-rising pilasters at either effect of spotting and lighting, while the labeled civic elevation o| the museum that project, portico. end. li subscribes as well to the classically apostrophe and the S make do w i t h o u t plies B i n / Avenue is chiefly a means to the affianced, shallow, but crisply modeled highlights as they segue into the bellows. end ot the block, where the street corner is it * % modernity of Bruno Taut's deliberately The capitals are Corinthian , as at I he staked out at a 45-degree angle w i t h an . -K LI/.. Ht M l f ~ » T i l ~g p^^^g lettered and colored streetlront for the Foundling I lospital, but geometrically embrasively curved, gap-toothed arrange Reibodanz Laundry, Berlin (1914). (Adolf abstracted and Americanized in red, ment of four posts and a pediment. A white, a n d blue. T h e field against w h i c h I.oos's heraldically cornered Allgemeine spread-center arrangement ot tour the greens, pinks, reds, whites, and blues Verkehrsbank project, Vienna 11904], columns u p h o l d i n g a pediment occurs in play is an intense but relatively light also made use of large, individually the gate to the R o m a n market in Alliens Venluri and Rauch, architects, Nldwl'i Alley night yellowish ochre, rising f r o m a duller, affixed letters for signage above its first- of the late first century B.C. to a c c o m m o - club, Houston, project, scheme "B," Weslheimer slightly darker cast-stone base made w i t h date carriage traffic, as descended f r o m Road elevation. ,ind second-story windows.) The facade yellow aggregate. The hopscotch of o f the Children's M u s e u m is rendered as the also processionally m o t i v a t e d , six- colors activates the facade in a m i l d l y a m u r a l in spot relief, w i t h synthetic columned spread center porches ol the Mondrianic w a y , corresponding also to stucco-covered, shallow S t y r o l o a m Propylaea ol the Acropolis (Mnesicles, Taut's interest in colori/aium , exercised pilasters intervening to frame seven 4.17-432 B.C.).-* I he motif was reinvent- to effect " m o v e m e n t and playfulness" essentially u n i f o r m w i n d o w b . n s . ' ; Each ed in the Renaissance tor ecclesiastical 33
R
i i . i — 1 1 . 1 . i .
Children's Museum of Houston, compulcr-generoled drowing of wesl (La Bronch Street) elevation.
purposes by Alberti in w h a t W t t t k o w e r entertained the idea of placing a sculpture The w i n d o w b o x , w i t h its face turned in takes to be .1 fusion of " t w o systems in front ot the entrance, but once more abruptly at 45 degrees, cantilevers incompatible in antiquity" : the Creek completion neared, the "pressed ' d u c k ' " out to present a much ampler glazed temple front and the R o m a n t r i u m p h a l ol the " p o r t i c o " ' was deemed itself edge, setting in m o t i o n a fanning that, 9 1 .•*-•VJ arch.* Together again, they subsequently sufficient.!M with t w o zigs and t w o zags. leaves the passed into Palladio's Venetian churc h corner half turned and fully engaged. The fronts and the porticoes of the theatrical- A giant, gridded w i n d o w box composed entrance face of the w i n d o w box joins in ly twinned churches of the Piazza del ol large, alumtiuim-muntine d panes another fanning sequence w i t h the outer Pupolo, and were offered for secular use projects out over the entrance vestibule to and inner doors ot the vestibule, all three in a design published by Serlio for a backstop the " p o r t i c o " at a 45-degree radiating f r o m an e x t r a m u r a l point that monumental " g a t e " (which eventually angle to the corner (and doubles as a intercepts the axis of the " g r e a t " hall and Ronton market, Athens, Design for a gale from found its w a y o n t o the M a u i Si reels of canopy), echoing a similarly ordered and helps arc patrons back t o w a r d the center west propylon. Sebasliono Serlio, Julie I'Opete d'Anbilelluta America in the late 1920s and early disposed element behind the flattened line of the a u d i t o r i u m at the head of the (IS84). 19.10s as a means of aggrandizing Basic I use.in Doric p o r t i c o of the Flint hall. These efficient, Aaltocsque maneu- narrow-fronted movie palaces}. l " A 1 [ouse ( N e w Castle t o u n t y , Delaware, vers activate the entry zone in a concen- subtle spread-center arrangement appears |978-N0|, and a like-minded declension trated MK\ seemingly offhanded manner, in the temple-front of the | a / / M u s e u m , in profile in the t o w n hall pro)cct for as riffs calculated to play ag.imst the but viewed head o n , the center aperture North C a n t o n . On the side nearer the , lassically adumbrated stiffness of the ol the " p o r t i c o " of the Children's museum's front elevation, the w i n d o w building box and its portion moximus. Museum is more emphatic. 111 \ cleft, box is buttressed by a n a r r o w , two-story The c o l u m ns of the portico are held parted somewhere between its Greek "pylon" wall that begins the chamfering outside the sightliues ol the b u i l d i n g preceptors and Serlio's gate. The exedra- o f the entrance corner. (The rendered envelope, one pair lo either side, in an like curve that the c o l u m ns and pediment "base" of the p y l o n wall is raised to extra-mural sweep that recalls the ol the Children's M u s e u m f o l l o w can be slightly more than door-plus-transo m outboard compass ol Soane's " T i v o l i found in the similarly modeled, frecstand height and "recast" .is an up-scaled corner" colonnade (or, tor that matter, nig and pedimented archway- cornerstone stele.) No corresponding the i II ii -ol-body swelling of Sullivan's Alessandro Vittorio, orchilect, nymphaeum nymph.ieum devised In Alessandro pylon materializes on the other (west) iron-frothed roundabout at Carson, Pirie at Villa Barbara. Maser. Vittoria behind Palladio's Villa Barbara side of the w i n d o w box; it and the & Scott, or the bulging if not very (Maser, 1 5 5 7 - 5 8 ) and in the also vestibule below (penetrated by a pair of imaginative entrance-corner totems ol concave and pedimented upper tier of side doors as a shortcut to the parking two recent additions to I loitston's I-10 Carlo Foil tana's facade for San M a r c e l l o loll are left exposed in profile, as t h o u g h corridor, Ikea and Fiesta M a r t ) . This 3 a] Corso, Rome (1682-83). I the b u i l d i n g had been sheared away and winging out enables the " b a c k s " of the patched over w i t h a gridded w i n d o w - columns (and the convex verso of the uall. The window-wal l angles back into By virtue of iis placement, the signally pediment overhead) to w o r k inflectively the straightaway of the west elevation ornamental entrance accedes to the too, as a means ot folding or slipping and continues on to fenestrate the west wisdom of both Fremont Street and visitors into the gap between the vestibule Carlo Fontona, orch'ttecf, end ot the " g r e a t " hall in a treatment Vitruvius, w h o counseled that temples and the p o r t i c o - particularly f r o m San Marcello al Corso, that recalls the similarly gridded and Rome, detail of upper lier. "on the sides of public roads should be In hind and 10 the west, where the glazed side of the entrance stairhall of arranged so that passers-by can have a greatest supply ol p a r k i n g lies. The verso Aalto's library at V i i p u r i . Beyond the view of t h e m . " ' - The " p o r t i c o " wings of the pediment is studded w i t h a raised "great" hall, the window-wal l gives way out beyond the chamfered entrance face dot pattern as a further indication of ro the vertically channeled metal siding ot ol the museum on both sides, and stands reverse propriety. the gallery shed, though a n a r r o w hand just free of it on un-Corinthianl y c h u b b y , ot glazing continues into the b u i l d i n g pist hollow legs, in the " l o o k ma, no hands" "The side elevation, " as also learned above the apparent roof of the gallery manner of M a y b e c k 's Palace of l i n e Arts from l a s Vegas, " i s i m p o r t a n t , because it shed as a clerestory to light the " g r e a t " and Lgnazio Gardella's Corinthian is seen by approaching traffic f r o m a hall along the full length ot its hack \\\\\>Kx» oiitrigging for the T e r m c Regina Isabella, greater distance and for a longer time Isotith) side, besides tracing the muse- Lschia (1950). The near p a l i n d r o m e than the | f r o n t | facade" and stands all um's primary circulation sequence, the legend M-U-S-K-U- M fills the architrave the more exposed because " t h e hulk of transparent g r i d w o r k serves to " p r o c l a i m Children's Museum of Houston, perspective view of and frieze w i t h blocky red letters; the the p a r k i n g |lies| along the side" to the d u a l i t y " of the t w o walls converging "portico" and west (parking lot side) elevation. tympanum is crusted w i t h a swirled on the entrance corner - stucco and "allow direct access. . . yet stay visible latticc-lazuli; and the pediment is capped 1 1 metal, fancy and plain - as a strerched- from the highway."' (In H o u s t o n before wuh a t n - c o r n , featherlike headdress of out, Viipuri-lik e equivalent of Sullivan's the arrival of the Children's M u s e u m , clipped-on, pin wheel w h o r l c d these rites-of-way were most arrestingly anthemions. The staunch, Froebel-form disjunctive exposition at the t u r n i n g point of Carson, I'irie & S c o t t . " immured in the little F.gypt of the COUp de thvjtrc of the " p o r t i c o " is the Magic Island night club | Michael von most conspicuously juvenaring aspect of I'ursteiiburg, l'*8.1-S4|. The long, the museum - a "recovery of c h i l d h o o d I he py Inn tli,ii "buttresses" the u indow parking-lot side elevation ol this redeco- P*3 at will,"' in Baudelaire's formulation , box and initiates the chamfering of the rated shed greets o n c o m i n g traffic w i t h a such as Jordy also discerned in the building does so w i t h its face set at a 10- parade ot gold-embossed dynastic deities. classical divagations of Maybeck's Palace degree angle to the corner and its and the club's freeway trout elevation is of Fine A r t s . i ! (As the design proceeded "thickness" expressed as a slender, built up as a pylon whose t w i n towers Venluri and Rauch, architects, Flint House, New Castle .IMLI even d u r i n g construction , the client edgelike h u m p i HI the main ele\ ation. step d o w n in windshield-friendly County, Delaware, front elevation with "window box." 34
nil
Michael van Furstenburg, architect. Magic Island nighl Doqon toguna, Dynakabu, Mali, detail of club, Houston, detail of west elevation. anlhropomorphit pillars.
Venluri and Rauch, architects, North Canton town hall, project, side elevation.
Children's Museum ol Houston, detail of wesl elevation. Alvar Aolto, architect. Library, Viipuri, detail of entrance staircase window-wall. exaggerated perspective while d o u b l i n g the caryakids execute handstands to building is neatly revealed in the subdued as bookcnds lor a colossal T u t - u l a r make a less regimented s h o w i n g was but sectionally explicit east elevation, figurehead.)3 7 The prospect of the prime rejected as open to sociopsyehologieal which accommodates a V i i p u r i csquc (west) side elevation of the Children's misinterpretation, no matter w h o t o o k window-wall to terminate the " g r e a t " Museum is held open as well by the the fall.) hall in the mannci intended lot the N o r t h opportune placement of its p a r k i n g lot, Canton t o w n hall. The w i n d o w spreads a which intercepts the principal f l o w of The Children's Museum's mostly l o w - "pleasant land of counterpane " across traffic proceeding east f r o m M a i n Street tech, sheet-metal-shed strategy of the alcove just inside, w h i c h is also along B i n / Avenue. It plays across the containment, as pioneered in the original appointed w i t h a gently articulated liipis gris w i t h a sparkle of its o w n , Brompton Boilers, was first introduced to triclinium and side walls of discreet spread out in the f o r m of 1.1 "caryakids " I louston I I I I t o w a r d Barnstonc and donorific tiles."11 The interior public- that function n o m i n a l ly as slightly hands- f'ugene A u b r y ' s air-conditioniug-duct- spaces " h u e " mostly to a client-pre- off supports for a long metal a w n i n g - buttressed bur otherwise undecorated scribed white-and-gray-washed neutrali- arcade and as lrcsh-.ur " n a m i n g corrugated-metal-clad, green-gray - ty, w i t h the notable exception of the opportunities" in the calculus of painted " a r t b a m " of 1969, built as a ceiling and upper half of the " g r e a t " hall, fundraising. Essentially the same connec- temporary means ot accommodatin g the which exchanges the arched tie-bar truss tive strategy is employed by I'alladio in exhibition program of the Institute for spareness ot Bethnal Creen for a serial the extensive arcades and loggias that the A r t s at Rice University. 1 '* T h e rainbow of brightly c o l o r e d , cut-out, customarily link the m a i n bouses of his "working" parts of both the Children's unmistakably pendant " a r c h e s " that villas w i t h peripheral "storerooms , Museum's main building and its backlot shape and " r i b " the space in the manner granaries, stables and . . . other areas" so annex are sheathed in off-the-shelf metal o f the cross-valances employed overhead that " o n e can go everywhere under siding like that intended for the similarly tor perspecliv.il emphasis in the sallae cover" (i {Jtmltro l.ibri, I I , xiv). T h e "preengineered" shed of V e n t u r i and ri'xiti? ol V e n t u r i , Scott b r o w n cv awning-arcade extends f r o m the p o r t i c o Ranch's unbuilt Batco Warehouse project Associates' Seattle Art M u s e u m past the window-wal l of the " g r e a t " hall; tor Greenwich , Connecticut (1970): 11 9H4-92) and Sainsbury W i n g for the past ihe green, sheet-metal walled gallery "enameled a l u m i n u m w i t h big-scale National Gallery, L o n d o n ( 1 9 8 6 - 9 1 ) . (In Venluri and Rauch with W. 6. Clarke, shed I which the architects had hoped to corrugations and other elegant standard- the commercial vernacular of I l o u s t o n , a architects, Batco Warehouse, Greenwich, penetrate w i t h a storefront premises for ized details."•"' l-'or the Children's not-dissimilar aggregation of dangling Connecticut, project, detail of side elevation. the museum shop); and past the "sylvan Museum, the shallow-ribbed (and arches provides an a r m a t u re for retail street" of the play c o u r t , before conncct- shadow-enhanced) siding is applied in signage while also diffusing the long f ing to a l o n g , t h i n , gable-ended " h a e k l o t " two shades of green (dark base course, inarch of the arcade of the Shepherd £ shed (an annex that houses e x h i b i t i on light above), the better to blend into Square shopping center.) bight pairs of i p r o d u c t i o n facilities and also walls the the woods w o r k of the c o u r t y a rd and plump c o l u m ns plus one, all w i t h t play court on the south). T h e caryakids I l e r m a nn Park, one block south. A rainbow-color coordinated astragal ; shape up as a generically cartooned visiting architectural correspondent at rings, march d o w n the n o r t h side of the exercise class fabricated by a local sign tirst supposed that the "sheds" were hall, joining w i t h the clerestory lighting Company as 6 0 0 - p o u n d sheet-metal-and- prexistmg, and, in fact, a sizable comple- and canopy of suspended arches in ;? Styrofoam sandwiches, spray-painted I? ment of zoo barns, maintenance skyward approximatio n of a setting f r o m different, ethnically encompassing shades buildings, and other incidental board- Winsor M c C a y ' s " L i t t l e N e m o in o l automotive enamel in a rainbow and-batlen structures once dotted Slumberland."4 ' A giant order of Children's Museum of Houston, detail ol east elevation. coalition that joins hands w i t h h o l d - u p I lermann I'ark (including one that served caryakid was o r i g i n a l ^ auditioned , then artists f r o m the D o g o n to the A c r o p o l i s, for decades as rhe "temporary* 1 home of abandoned, as a stage-flat receiving line and, most recently, the eponymous the M u s e u m of N a t u r a l Science), all to bracket the " g r e a t " hall, w i t h a cast dwarfs arrayed on M i c h a e l Graves's coated in vanishing green. provisionally headed by Little O r p h a n Disney headquarters in B u r b a n k . , K (The Annie and the Crackerjack K i d ( w h i ch
architects' suggestion that one or t w o of The transverse section of the main presumably could be extended as a line of 35
9 ^
Children's Museum of Houston, west (entrance) end of "great" hall looking northwest.
• r
tin.' times to the small worldliness <>t Bart and-tell of V c n t u r i . Scott B r o w n , and ] Simpson and Macaulay Q i l k i n ) . A company's well-rehearsed game ol » whimsical kiosk proposed In tin areln "dress-up." T h e strategically a d o r n e d , II tects to dispense informatio n and tickets self-illuminating civic front and side was also o m i t t e d ; initially its function was elevations ot the museum recollect, in a more attainable version of the architect's taken up by a barricade of folding tables . that several months later was replaced by dream, t w o faces of American urban ism an anonymous pyramid-topped apparatus illustrated as a coda to Complexity and ol the type usually favored by airports Contradiction: the rarefied, domesticated Children's Museum of Houston, "qreat" holl looking cast. and mails. grandeur of Jefferson's decorous plai- |.i, k\uii v\ It v.in ol Houston wisr architects ol reci ird sance at the University of V i r g i n i a , lur tin-1 hildrcn's Museum and collaborated fully in rv O n a confessional note, V e n t u r i , Scott dominated by its temple-fronted r o t u n d a , its realization. Kolvn Vcnturi and Denisc Scon Brown of Vcnturi, Scon Brown Jc Associates <>f Brown, and [zenour w r o t e 20 years ago and the demotic, jumbled ostentation of Philadelphia served as- principal designers for die that "after the appearance of Complexity Main Street embodied in the above- museum, and Steven tzenoux, Dave Schaaf, and NatM \ I i.uiK-T ui their office as project designers, average h o n k y - t o n k of Canal Street in iinii Contradiction in Architecture, we Jeffery Ryan, wbo was in associate in the Vcnturi began to realize that few of o u r firm's New Orleans,** The result is a cheerful, office from 1971 n> l"*KI, was principal in charge of the project for Jackson & Ryan, assisted In M.mli.i outgoing a n d , as Vcntur i w o u l d have it, buildings were c o m p l ex and contradicto- Si-ni: is project architect. ry, at least not in their purely architec- "taut composition which contains tural qualities ol spate and structure as contrapuntal relationships, equal The title is recycled, by permission, from Bruce Webb's account ot the Fame City indoot amusement opposed to their symbolic content. . . . combinations, inflected fragments, and center that appeared in Ore. I.ill 1988, Most of the complexities and contradic- acknowledged dualities" - a strip t The other COHSIIUJCIIIS nf the Museum IJisrrici .ire tions we relished t h i n k i n g about we did compatible, classical a n d - m o d e rn tin- Museum " I line Arn iSiiuih |narden| from, not use, because we d i d not have the shoestring variation of the corncrupm.i n William Ward Watktn, architect, 1924-26; CuJttnan fl.ill. Mils c.isi dei Robe, lusK; Brown Pavilion, Mies opportunity. . . . o u r budgets were l o w , ship of the I r e m o n t Street casino, van der Rohc, 1974); the * ontemporary Arts and we did not want to design a b u i l d i n g artistically reconsidered. So o u t f i t t e d , it Museum (Gurmar Birkens, 1972)4 and the Museum of Natural 5cicnct [Pierce and Pierce, l LJf>4; Hoover & twice - once to fit some heroic idea of its renders u n t o both V i t r u v i u s and Caesar's, Furr, 1989, 1993), located ui Hermann J'.irk. importance to society and the w o r l d of in the M u s e u m District's o w n back y a r d , Children's Museum of Houston, "giant" caryatids 2 [antes rVcfcemian, I'alladi" il Lirmondswiirrh: with segmental lattice arch proposed for "great" hail art a n d , alter the bids came in, a second even.'* • Penguin, 1965, second edition, 1976L, p. fiS. looking east. lime to reflect the client's and society's 1 Andrea Palladio, I Qawttro l.ilm Ml' Arcbitttttm restricted idea of o u r architecture's (Venice, 1170), II, xvi, p. hci, .is translated In lames i • lj value."'" In postulating a symbolically Ackerman in Palladia, p. 65, enhanced architecture of the possible, J. Vincent Scully. AlHtfican AnMtst tun and they suggested that "the purest decorated Urbanim [New York: Praeger, 1969), p. -IX. Scully p,ins .i frontal view "i the Redwood Library with the shed w o u l d be some f o r m ol conventional lust.iii porticoed St Paul's, Covatu Garden, London, systems-building shelter that corresponds by uiigo [ones, t h t i . t o tkuncmstrate dun mutual vigor and trace the "strange Kale.. . not mignonne closely 10 [he space, structure, and .. . Inn lumbering, hie; III ilet.ul" ol Harrison's program requirements ol the . u \ hitci t u n , rendition ol I'.itl.idio to "the vcrv hccjmiinp,., ol 8 and upon which is laid a contrasting - f nidisli I'.ill.idi.uiisin . . . 1011 years hcliuc." Vcnturi includes Jones's portico among the examples used to and, if m the nature of the circumstances, illustrate his remarks CO (he Koyal Suciety ol Arts, contradictory - decoration.*+* I nruliin, X April IVS"', hrackehue. it mill two instances ol porticoes used m linildiup. hy Palladio Bethnal Green Museum, London, central hall. himself s.iu Giorgio Maggjore, Venice, 1566—16 10, and (lie Villa I nscari r.Malcium'iua." Mu.i, I 560), . Their persuasive, unelectrified gilding of "From Invention in Convention m Architecture,1* the " u g l y and o r d i n a r y , " as matured in Itmrtul n/ tin- Royal Society of Arts, January 1988, pp. 96-97, The effectiveness with which the the Children's M u s e u m of H o u s t o n , poses resplendent temple Inilil ol Sail Giorgio plays .iM.llllsi an ani-lactua l alternative to the unalloyed a plain hnck background "i high, exposed transept \\ ingS presLi ibed by die architect in keeping with rhc t simplicity by w h i c h Emerson expected rcSOUrCCS SI Ins dispus.il can he likened to I he ! genius " t o find b e a u t ) . . . in new and selective budget-driven procedure followed for the Children's Museum <6i* 1 s necessary tacts."' Children's museums "little Nemo In Slumber I and," Mew York Herald, .lie, after a l l , a kind ol make-believe i IMIMI Summenon, (ifurgian Com/on I New York: I March 190S. Sctibner's, 1946). p. 141. museum - different f r o m , not just smaller than, their adult n a m e s a k e s - an actuality expressed in the surely templed show- 36 ^tutntnic* "Bay 0utr
ft ^ * V The children's museum is an American accommodate an i n t e r i m , neighborhood- Other ready-made components b o r r o w e d invention, the paternity ot w h i c h can he based p r o g r a m of temporary exhibitions from highways, agriculture, and industry traced indirectly to Charles. ¥. M c K i m , the and tuition-free w o r k s h o p s called M U S E continue the sense ot pleasurable scaveng- principal architect of the palatial (and still [a designation the architects stencilled ing, inside and o u t . As a w h o l e , the only partially realized) B r o o k l y n M u s e u m diagonally across the tace ol the b u i l d - splashy, tastefully activated character of at the edge <>l Frederick L a w Olmsted's ing). The " n e w " B r o o k l y n Children's the installations and their cascading, A brook tuns through it: irrigated culvert descending Prosped Park. The first increment of the Museum ( H a r d y . H o l z m a n , Pfeiffer, hangarlike setting derive more I r o m the into Brooklyn Children's Museum. Hardy, Holzman, new museum was completed in 1 SS»9 and 1971-77] comprises a 19,600-square- progressive expositionese of Paris, M i l a n , Pfeiffer, architects. p r o m p t e d the trustees of the parent (bot e x h i b i t i o n space on five split levels, and H u s h i n g M e a d o w s (lightly salted Brooklyn Institute ol Arts and Science to augmented by w o r k s h o p s , d a r k r o o m s , a Willi boiler-room nautica f r o m fames large, although none come close to the leave objects judged not quite w o r t h y of dance studio, a library, an auditorium , Stirling's Si \ndrew "s doi mitors i than Indianapolis museum's nearly .100,000 McKim's h a n d i w o r k behind in the and staff areas that account for the rest from conventional museum fare. square leet, whose recent galleried-atrium institute's C r o w n I Iciglns mansion in ol Us 10,000 square feet. The entire addition projects an unerrin g " m a l l Bedlord Park to l o r m the basis ot a museum is placed underground , preserv- Only a few cities followed Brooklyn's world after a l l " ambience. Some also children's collection. A l t h o u g h p l a n n i n g ing the top for park uses - a notion turn-ot-the-cenrury lead at first, and those involve a laudable and fiscally advanta- began tor a purpose-built children's previous!) entertained by I.ouis Kahn and that did (Boston, 1 9 B ; D e t r o i t , 1917; geous recycling of warehouses and other museum as early as 1907, it was not u n t i l Isamu N o g u c h i for the building c o m p o - Indianapolis, 1925; and H a r t f o r d , 1927) found spaces, the best-known instance 1967 that the collection vacated the nent ot the project tor the Adele I v\ \ made do w i t h architecturally unexception- being the Boston Children's M u s e u m , 1 1 mansion (and another acquired next d o o r Memorial Playground in Riverside Park, al buildings, realized at domestic or quasi- which since I '" ' has occupied nearK in IV2KI so that the site, in w h a t is n o w Manhattan 11961-66). The kinderbunker domestic scales in parks or parklike 80,000 square feet in a century-old called Brower Park, could be cleared and is entered Ahcc-in W o n d e r l a n d fashion settings. T o d a y the official guide ot tin harborside warehouse, alongside which a new museum constructed on it. The through a 180-foot-long, diagonally American Association of M u s e u ms lists stands a giant milk-bottle-shaped museum's collections were put in storage aligned series of neon-lit corrugated-steel nearly 100 "children's, " "discovery, " or refreshment kiosk, deaccessioned f r o m and its activities transferred to a Former culverts that descend, togelhei w i t h an "junior" museums of varying size, most the I l o o d Dairy C o m p a n y as a n u t r i t i o n - pool hall and a u t o m o b i l e s h o w r o o m on a ecologically demonstrative r i l l , f r o m a o f w h i c h are relatively n e w - h o r n to serve al (though hardly competitive) alternative street c o m e r in Bedford-Stuyvesant, cast-iron streetcar kiosk deaccessioned the children ol the children ot the p o s t - to the M c D o n a l d ' s tucked profitably remodeled by H a r d y , H o l z m a n , Pfeiffer to from the Queensboro Bridge of 1907. World W a r II baby b o o m . A few are quite inside the b u i l d i n g .
»• Kudu-Mr IWrgei Ostein survcyi critical discomfort Angeles, A Cimte in its Architecture and I andtcapet 11 "Ten Ik-st Science Museums," < I attention to the style." The Architecture ot Vit union with the cornet treetnwni of i latson, Pitic & Scon (New York: Vintage, ISIK4| how in "Wcstwood linustktvputg. May 1991, p. 208, May beck also I 111;.Inii i< harlottesville: I he Cniversm ol Virginia, within the orthodoxy ol modernism in her essay Village, which Was laid out by the planner I hil.mil produced a primilive-rustii i.irianl ot the PalaCf .11 I " " h i . pp. 22-24. "Enigma ot Modern Architecture: An Introduction to Bartholomew in |s>>8. . . handsome towers, large tin- e\ position in the I Louse ot I t o o l loo for llle ihi- < runs," in W'IIII ill- Wit, «l.. / <»n> Sullivan: II', enough to be spotted from Wtlshire Boulevard, Padfic I uuibcrm.in's riisociatjori that consisted ot a I s \1kc1l.1us Pevsner, Building! 0/ Britain: I ondon i-unctmn nf dmaitient (New York; Norton, 1996), sprouted up from roofs to advertise the presence of si.1. gabled shed prefaced b) 1 Bunyanesoue l o ^ i a ol Except the < ""'- 0/ I ondon and Westminster pp. 206-207. Jordy's appraisal appears in Ki < gasoline stations" and other sundry establishments lour pairs of ^i.int tree trunk columns, (London 2) (Harmondsworaii Penguin, 1952), p- 6". " I INK M' indlism as I iict and Svmboh I ouil Sullivan's front movie theaters to banks. Turning toward the 1 .1 [ones and Christopher Woodward. A Guide Commercial Buildings, rombs,and Banks,11 in May i ompany's corner on the Miracle Mile (Albert 14 Hie "temporary museum," referred to popul.itK In the At, f'ite, rare 0/ t oiNfofl (New York: Van American timhtuigs and Their Architects, vol, 3: f . Mariiti, Sr., and S. A. Mars, 1"40>, they Imd that .is tin- "Brampton Boilers," was designed and built in Nostrand Reinhold, I^Kd, p. 172. Progressive jnj Academn Metis .it the I urn ,if the "the result, though it lacks the richness o l Sullivan's |xs4 |,y Use i\dmhuri>h engmecti Charles Young and I wentieih Century [Garden City, New York: ornament, is a marvelous openness to lllr street t otupany, who specialized in supplying "iron houses, Ih Barbara hleisher Zucker, Children's Mutesmu, Doubled*?, 1972), n. 139. More recent end similar to that ol . . . Carson I'nie Scott" and "visible hospitals. bnrraCKf, and other buildings to the British Zoos, and Dki overy Roomst An International problematic examples ot cornering include 5fTE*i lor many blocks" (pp. 206, 1561. colonies anil America." l-veii before the] w e n Keferenie Guide (New York: dreenwood Press. "notch11 design for the Best Products Showroom, Completed, tin sheds wen- ruin 11 led in the paites ol llle |SJ8-|. pp. 26-2"?. Stcramento I I V " | , casi .ldrili in .in asphaltic w ot Itl The Children's Museum is selectively embellished, l\\ttl.li,r as looking "like huo hollers placed side by parking) I ouis (satin's rijihr -angled, garage-like voids stopping svell shon of the ultimate possibilities ot tin- side." an epithet that stuck despite the hurried I \,HV S,h,i,>t,>! Architecture Seminar Wipers, vol ] .it the Yale Centei for British An (I si(,si-77), type embodied on the I .olden Nugget, which "lias application ol a coat ot paint "in green and white (New Haven: YSA, 1*»K 11. p. 2 (6. proffered si nearly the List momeni .is .i gesture of evolved over 111 years Irom a hmldine. with a si^n on stripes" atid a "portico with h|;lif iron pillars" to rhe townly rapprochement! and the hose-drying it to a tin.ilk -nun covered building." Vcniun ct at, entry Irom. John I'liysick, I'be Victoria and Aibtri 18 The "pediments, • . . pilasters and capitals" were tower/pylon-biuboard of I -., r I Carrie and Peter i.I'iirituti; Irtyin t.as Vagas^ p. .1.1. Museum: A Hittoryo\ its Hmldmg (Oxford: Phaidon- also 10 he "picked out in neon, blinking alternately" Mill.ird's \i •» l l.ivm i eniral l in Station of < linstie's. I "N2 1, pp. 2,1-25. Nearly a century later, in the glow-or-die nuniera ot the strip. Venturi, 1^59-62, concernd with official cncouraKcmcni as .i 11 William Jordy, "Craftsmanship -m^ Grandeut m I ienry Russell Hitchcock, who provides another "I earning the Right lessons Prom the Beaux-Arts," gateway to the Wunster Sqti.ire renewal area and an Architecture ol Mood: IVeruard Mavbeek's I'al.ne BCOOttm of their design and construction m Early Architectural Design, January 1979, pp. 2—28. / illusir.iti.-d by Robert Venturi, Denise Soon Brown, nf [''ine Arcs anil first t Jiurch ot ( IUIST Scientist," in t n-/ori.i» Arilnti'Ltiirc in Rrititut |New 1 laveil: Yale, T and Siistn tzenour in Learning Pram Leu Vegas Anti-in.in Itutlititix* anit iht'tr Aribtlcils. vol, I. p, IVS4I, pp. 56 -7(), was still unreconciled to then sub \1 Sec Reyrter Banham, "In the Neighborhood ol it smbridgei MIT, 1972 I, pp. M-87, -is an example 2KS. Jordy adds that Mayheck attributed the source Paxioniaii plainness, concluding in his general survey An," Art in America, lime l""i _ . pp. I24-21*. Great ot misplaced architecture! heroics, but more of the treatment for the "perversely" atl.it bed wall to ot I'-hh and 20th century architecture that "although hall arrangements also appear ill the "Bdldmgboard" s\ nipathetieally appraised in Scully's \nu ,, .:,; a p.untmi'. by |can I'aul Gfrnme, Poliict Verio (also we can today appreciate some of the practical viriin-s protect tor the National [•ootball I fall of lame (1 ''lO Architecture -in,I I I r / u i m m , pp. 209*10, -is suggesting known as lire Chariot Race), pp. l ^ l - s o . Scully, like ot this edifice as a Museum ol Science and Art, it must and I. M, PePs addition to the Museum of Fine Arts. tin ir.msiMini.il capacity of "developed" Brutalisni " t o Jordy, was also sympathetic m his estimation of the be admitted that it was inferior even to the general Boston (1977-81). break through the old abstract, Irrterttadonal Style Palace at a relatively early point [American coulemporary run ol prelabncated structures to model toward something much more naturally Arrbileeture ttriit Hrbanism, p, 1151. Ileyner H.uili.nn. which it belongs technically." 1 htcllcoc'k. 2(i Robert Venturi, "From Invention to Convention applicable to existing conditions and programs." who came across the Palace some stars later, was no Architecture: Nineteenth .tint lirenttetb CaKTJIfnH in Architecture." K.V/l limrnal, January 1^88, p. 11. less impressed by how it " breaks uiiwritien rules, iHarmondsworth: Penguin, I y5H). p. 128. James 7 loin Wolfe, "I as Vegas | What?| I as Vegas ICan'l ignores accepted prototypes" m keeping with "the William Wild 118 I4-S>2|, the architect delegated to .'I Venturi et al., I earning I mm I .a Vegas, p. 11. Hear Von! Too Noisy} 1 .as Vegas!!!!." l-squire, tolerated whimsicality of the period, the adaptable rcwrap the "boilers" when most ot their framework February l'*64; collected in thr Kjittly Cotondt material (stucco . . . I and .. . populist intentions.* and rooting were moved ro Ivetlinal <.recti m 1872. 22 Ibid p. "s Tangerine-Flake, Streamline rialiv (New York: Farrar, banham also discerned in the "about tace" disposition was a practitioner ot considerable sophistication, ii Sir.nis, and droux. |465l. p. 12. of the female figures Itiitm; the attic ot the colonnade little remembered today. I te served (mm I8~s to 2.1 The next-to-easttnost bay is slightly strcrched to "one of the better architectural pikes since Mannerist IK**2 as curator ot the Soaue Musctun. Sunimersoii provide lor a last-minute enlargement ot the ground X Venturi et al„ Learning from Las Vegas, pp. 81, tunes," "lln- I'llii Against lieruard M.ivlvik." \mtrnal records lh.it he had "been an archaeologist with floor party room requested by the client. 16. nf tb$ Socii-rv of Arthitteatrai Hjffrorsitrtf, March I epsius in i'gypl . • • |and| was the brother m law- ot 1984. pp. 16. 17. , . . Owen Jones" as well as the designer ol the 24 Ian Boyd Whyte, llrunn I .ml .in.l the Architecture 4 Perhaps the most inventively Bami|uc ol the comei Shmkclesiiuc Christ Church, Sire.uham Hilt lalso of Actwitm (Cambridge: Cambridge University, observant mnvie houses is [olin Ibrrson's koew's 12 I'hlllp |ollnsoil, "The Seven Shibboleths ol Our singled out by Hitchcock in Architecture: Nincicctitl1 I "82), p. 27. SI.iir I heatrc, Richmond, Virginia I |s)2H). renovated Profession," a speech given to thi I Ith Annual and Twentieth Centuries) and "another pointer to k in l 'Ki as thr l arpenter t enter (or the Performing Northeast Ke|U'in.il AIA t'onference, Oceanlake, new ways" in the St. Martin in the Iields Northern 25 Burton Benedict. "San Iratictsco 1^1 s. Panama Arts. 1 harles Moore. Peter Becker, and Regula Oregon, 12 October \<>bl, published in Philip District School, "built . . . in a version of Venetian Pacific Eiiternartotial E-sposinoti," m John I'indling, Campbell describe in The City > fbterveds I ot I.Jms.m: UPr/rmgs(NewYotteOxford, \f7>n%p. 146. (inthii in 1X4-1. list years before Kuskiu drew ed., tlisti'ticil Dictionary •>! World's lain and 37
However well ituentioned, the architec- permanent exhibition, Kid Technics, plugged into the ture of children's museums, both new and collections Blatter Gallery of the University ot adaptive, traverses a not particularly little if at all. I Illusion). To complete the process of green valley between K r o o k l y n ' s hole-istic Instead, it demystification (while n u r t u r i n g balance kit of parts and I louston's streetwise emphasizes sheet g r o w t h spurts), g r o u p sleepovers are shed. The most conspicuously arid ot changing encouraged, along w i t h birthday parties these may in fact he the I as Vegas exhibitions, and other routinely catered affairs. Discovery M u s e u m (Antoine Predock, many of The ideal of the children's museum 1990), w h i c h brings an acute case of which are movement, "Piaget 111 the C a l l e r y " in the Monument Valley syndrome to the desert "interactive" shorthand of one journalist, has already of enchantment. The architect is reported or "hands- ! begun to spread a b r o a d , while c o n t i n u i n g to have first consulted Learning Prom Las on" proposi- its friendly takeover of the motherland . Vegas in an effort to decipher the tions in As specially equipped supplements to picturesque local b u i l d i n g culture before conformance science museums (whose principal resolving, on w h i m , " t o do something with the by audience is steadfastly juvenile) and the ,li!ii r< in from .1 'decorated - h i d . ' " Hie now w e l l - fisted idea of junior galleries that are n o w standard "mountain mesa in abstraction " sum the children's issue 111 temples of an f r o m the M e t to moned for the occasion is .1 poured in museum as a Mam Street, children's " m u s e u m s " are a place Masada of shapes and angles tricky laboratory tor Wee windy tily: Chkago-in-minialure installation, Tigerman Fugman MiCurry architects. quintessential!)' American a m a l g a m: part and daunting enough to double as a set self-paced, Express Ways Children's Museum. surrogate parent ,\\\i\ drop-in daycare fat Home AiotM !. A n o t h er peak ot sorts didactically p r o g r a m m ed exploratio n center; part real-time adjunct 10 Sesame is scaled in the Unagidani Children's the Boston Children's M u s e u m f r o m 1962 geared mostly to a pre- through elemen- Street and Messrs. Rogers ami W i z a r d ; Museum of O s a k a , Japan (I l i r o j tiki to 1985). The familiar and close-at-hand tary-school audience. I n h i b i t s range f r o m and part newfangled, consciousness- Wakabayashi, 1991 (. w h i c h specializes 111 are also repackaged in small doses, f r o m exotic environments, real and imagined raising, mostly soothing curiosity shop. If the material culture of contemporar y the obligatory preshrunk supermarkets to (ail authentic Japanese house, stage-set the name is somewhat fuzzy and vestigial, childhood, departmentalized in 11 the wonderfully Loopy knee-high Chicago fragments of folkloric villages); to its connotations - at once fanciful and consumer-ready toy and fashion bou- realized in I 986 by Stanley Tigerman and popular mechanics demonstration pieces dignified, self-improving ami indulgent - tiques shelved together in an architectural Frederick Wilson ot I igerman Fugman la skeletal cutaway house; deconstructed confer an incidental aura on an institu- karaoke of fantasies f r o m Charles M o o r e , McCurry w i t h trompe 1'oeil painter t o r n automobiles); to three-dimensional mazes tional hybrid whose popular appeal is SITK, F. A. O. Schwar/, and I lenri Melvin for the Express Ways (now and c l i m b i n g apparatuses (some mas- irrefutable, and w h i c h Paul doldbergcr , Rendel. To ready Paris for the next Chicago) Children's M u s e u m , then in querading as giant molecules, all d o u b l i n g surveying the newly occupied infra-digs of century, a " M a i s o n des Knfants" was Lincoln Park (and soon to move f r o m as Ritalin substitutes!; to o m i n o u s , the Brooklyn Children's M u s e u m f r o m even tossed into the brave new salad of North to N a v y Pier, alas w i t h o u t the unmakebelieve lessons about the w o r l d - the Parnassus ol the Sunday New York the Pare de la Villette (Bernard T s c h u m i building bloc 111 l o w ) . Creative impulses as-it-is, conveyed w i t h unsugarcoated Times, was persuaded to enjoy on its o w n and Jean-Francois Khrel, 1 9 8 6 - 8 8 ) . are technologically abetted w i t h impres- candor on topics such as ecology, sive batteries of hand-me-dow n c o m p u t e r , terms as "a sort ot learned I tin house." hoinelessness, and death itself (the last D.T. Far f r o m the j u n i o r Wunderkamme r one photographic, and video equipment (the engineered by M i c h a e l Spock, son nl the Children's M u s e u m ot Housto n became a might suppose, today's pedagogically pediatric oracle, w h o served as director of correct children's museum cultivates \ 11 I11.1l it .1 his 011 the basis ol SIR II an
Expositions, IXfl-t'>Mt (New York: Greenwood, in Srilni'% gate is published in his TutteVOpere that limits up the rear nl the dciticd west side facadi. Counterpane," A Child's Garden of Verses l IHK5i twin, pp.221,213. The process of modeling and d'ArchitettMra 11^X4t. The formula was reapplied also diminished m size in relation to the leading weal iNew York: Isuopt, 1992), pp. 17-38. Doloring ii described m detail n I'aul Denivelle, wttli astonishing plasticity m Thomas I stub's I ox frunt Inorthwesi corner) pylon. Ihe from pylon b "Texture and I olor .11 the Panama P.uilu rhe.irer, s.m Francisco 11929), and S. 1 hades Lee's prefaced by a hicji flat-roofed portuo thai ihefters •12 Ihe career ut Winter Mc( ,n (1871-1934) is 1 Exposition,* ArchitecturalRecord, November 1913, t :is Angeles 1 heatei 11931), described as "unstinting an enormous pair ol faux doom and is supported b> suitlillari/eil b\ I I K I U I I tVSiilhcail 111 "Wlllsin M, ( as pp. 562-70. lv sumptuous." ii by then much decayed, in Moore el lour columns whose palm capitals ^\u nol quite American Master," in her Croat American ' I'WIT ,il.. The ' ff> 1 Ibtervedi I 01 Angeles, pp. 2ft, 27. "reach" the soffit. ,S(rr;; llyoston: llulliuch, 1990), pp. 2li tS. lbs seork 2iv In the proiiK.nl iii [ middii hmlduu;, Suramerson was iheco subjeci (along with thai ol Hcrbcn observes, "Stucco and 1 nade Stone were both, m a t| The nsuipllai urn ol tin' Villa Barbara figures, IS 1 analids enter the "modern" architecture o l the Crowley) of an exhib attbi Metropolitan rase, fake materials, convenient substitutes im astil.u flattened out, in tin- formation "i Venturi's housi 101 .'mil century with Bertrand I ubedtin's I lighpolm 1 Museum ol Art, Two fantastii Draftsmen, 1966, maaonr) and carved stone. Km quite unconsciously, Ins mother. Veniun. "I rlversity, Relevance, and Apariments il ondon, 1938), which "incorporaied Maurice Sendak, in reviewing an omnibus reprinting then essential character was appreciated anil Representation in Historicism, ol Plus ea <- bange • • - iwo IcopieaJ ol ihe I rciilknui caryatids" l^ nl \ K ( a i ' - ssnrk in the \iii \<>rl; limit Book scctpied. • • • Stucco and ' oade Stone have 1 ikghtl) Plus 1 Plea lor Pattern All Over Architecture With a "heterodox" lupporta tor .1 portt-cochtre in Review {25 November 1973), wrote thai "Mil as and cosmetic character; they sumiesi, MIMEIY .nut Postscript oil My Mother's t louse." tr, /'in-, liir.ll "humorous rebuke to his stylistn. crinc^, who agreeably, die artificiality of powder and range." Record, |une 1982, p. 114. complained ot the absence ot historical references in I serve the same master, out child selves," Georgian I ondon, p. 114. Hi:-.hpi urn 1." loiies and Woodward, Architecture of '2 Marcus Vitrnvuis I'ollio,The TenBooksoj London, pp, H4, Uv Michael Graves's headquar- A * Vrntiin et al., Laarttittg From *.,is vVgtfs, p. KJ. 27 Tom killi.in and I rancoisc tsrorg Bollock, Architecture, trans. Moms Hick) Morgan lets tnr the Wall Disuev t mupaio. Ilurbaiik. "fitter-flew With Demise Scott Brown on 10 May l**HB (Cambridge: Harvard, 1914), p. 117, ( ali/arnis 1 t i n v - y i i , restored the practice with an 44 Ihul.. p "It. in Philadelphia," in Insifn.i Raspi Sirrj, BoUacki and atlic loe^ia upheld In sis l'p lout "dwarfs," With •Is Kalph Waldo Emerson, "Art," in Emerson, hssays killi.in. Evtrydtfi 'Aatttrpitcta Memory and i i Jiirdv. "M.i> iH-tk," p. 2"S, i|iiotiiifi trout l>npe\ Kjunchedoverhead in pJaci ol 1 king post \^ iintt I centres iNew Ynrk: I ihrary of America, 1983), vlodarmVy [Modena: I'.mim. ivxsi. pp. jus, 204, Baudelaire's essay " I be Paintet ol Modern I ite." in noabearing members, cni-out liuures ol musical muses p. 4411. 1 2ns ;! r.mk I loyd Wright, .-IM (Organic Architecture The Painter •>/ Modern /1/<' and' >tl>rr l-tuys of appear as a proscenium-top chorus line on Graves's 11; sir George Watson I eetnra ~>t the Sulgrave i barlei Baudahure, Ir.nis. |