DOI issue:
Nr. 332 (January 1925)
DOI article:Eglington, Guy: Art and other things
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0079
mceRHACionAL
president, who has learnt to dispense with such
luxuries, have official top-hatted selves, who on
state occasions deputize for them. It is most
edifying, but hardly gay.
Thank goodness, though, in the actual plan-
ning of the New Wing the top hats were left at
home, with the result that an atmosphere of
friendliness, even intimacy, has been achieved.
One wanders through the rooms with no sense of
fatigue, but with the curiosity continually whetted
to press further. Unexpected corners invite, pas-
sage ways, low doors. One feels like an explorer.
After a voyage in New England one finds oneself
suddenly in a little Southern room, so cosily
tucked away that one imagines oneself the first
to discover it. The others, mere onlookers, must
surely have missed it. Amiable delusion, that
must please the architect, who laid out the wing
so playfully, took so much care that no one room
rob the next, yet held the whole so admirably
intact.
The architect indeed deserves all the credit he
is likely to get and more. If he was fortunate in
having an entire new wing to design, instead of
having to adapt his rooms to existing galleries, his
problem was none the less a formidable one.
Seventeen odd rooms, no two of the same size or
shape, had to be fitted into a space, the propor-
tions of which were laid down, on the one hand
by the proportions of the Pierpont Morgan Wing
to which it adjoins, on the other by those of the
facade of the old Assay Office, which forms now
the southern facade of the new wing. It must
have been, as Mr. Atterbury admitted, a ticklish
business, the more so since the superimposed
facade, designed as it was, not for a private house,
but for a public building, is extremely chary in
the matter of windows, and indeed permits none
whatever on the third floor. Visitors studying this
excellent piece of nineteenth century architecture
are invited to forget the brick parapet behind the
pediment.
On the balance, however, and despite minor
imperfections, the new wing is undoubtedly the
gainer by these restrictions. Given the traditions
of museum architecture, which tends to scale
JANUARY 1925
three thirty-nine
president, who has learnt to dispense with such
luxuries, have official top-hatted selves, who on
state occasions deputize for them. It is most
edifying, but hardly gay.
Thank goodness, though, in the actual plan-
ning of the New Wing the top hats were left at
home, with the result that an atmosphere of
friendliness, even intimacy, has been achieved.
One wanders through the rooms with no sense of
fatigue, but with the curiosity continually whetted
to press further. Unexpected corners invite, pas-
sage ways, low doors. One feels like an explorer.
After a voyage in New England one finds oneself
suddenly in a little Southern room, so cosily
tucked away that one imagines oneself the first
to discover it. The others, mere onlookers, must
surely have missed it. Amiable delusion, that
must please the architect, who laid out the wing
so playfully, took so much care that no one room
rob the next, yet held the whole so admirably
intact.
The architect indeed deserves all the credit he
is likely to get and more. If he was fortunate in
having an entire new wing to design, instead of
having to adapt his rooms to existing galleries, his
problem was none the less a formidable one.
Seventeen odd rooms, no two of the same size or
shape, had to be fitted into a space, the propor-
tions of which were laid down, on the one hand
by the proportions of the Pierpont Morgan Wing
to which it adjoins, on the other by those of the
facade of the old Assay Office, which forms now
the southern facade of the new wing. It must
have been, as Mr. Atterbury admitted, a ticklish
business, the more so since the superimposed
facade, designed as it was, not for a private house,
but for a public building, is extremely chary in
the matter of windows, and indeed permits none
whatever on the third floor. Visitors studying this
excellent piece of nineteenth century architecture
are invited to forget the brick parapet behind the
pediment.
On the balance, however, and despite minor
imperfections, the new wing is undoubtedly the
gainer by these restrictions. Given the traditions
of museum architecture, which tends to scale
JANUARY 1925
three thirty-nine