DOI article:
Gilman, Benjamin Ives: A Museum without skylights
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70502#0201
A MUSEUM WITHOUT SKYLIGHTS
BY
BENJAMIN IVES GILMAN.
Figure. I. Scheme of elevation.
I. The skylight. A. roof, not an enclosure, constitutes a house. Sun and rain,
not wind and cold have forced men to build. Overhead protection alone may give
all necessary shelter. The fact is registered in the free treatment of walls conspi-
cuous in the architecture of the far East. In Oceania they are absent. In Japan
they are removeable. In China the pagoda replaces them by a succession of eaves
superposed. Similiar series of eaves arranged to give lateral protection appear in
the blinds of our Western houses. But no human shelters in any time or country
lack a roof. Without an opaque and impervious covering an enclosure is not an
interior but an exterior space, not a room but a court. Unless designed as a meeting-
place and not as a dwelling-place, its effect will have the flavor of mediocrity that
betrays latent unreason. Apartments treated as interiors while lighted from above
are a fauxgenre in architecture.
2. The clerestory. The vraigenre of internal apartment — or chamber
surrounded by others —appeared in the design of Roman basilicas and their successors,
Christian churches. The court which the basilicas inherited from earlier architecture
was made a room by raising its walls, roofing them, and providing them with windows.
It became an audience hall, or nave, receiving high, oblique light from the raised
walls, or clerestory: and the neighboring spaces served for withdrawal, or passage,
as bays or aisles.
3. The Standard museum arrangement. The clerestory principle is immediately
applicable to a type of museum plan whose frequent use approves it for museum
Museumskunde. VII, 4. 26
BY
BENJAMIN IVES GILMAN.
Figure. I. Scheme of elevation.
I. The skylight. A. roof, not an enclosure, constitutes a house. Sun and rain,
not wind and cold have forced men to build. Overhead protection alone may give
all necessary shelter. The fact is registered in the free treatment of walls conspi-
cuous in the architecture of the far East. In Oceania they are absent. In Japan
they are removeable. In China the pagoda replaces them by a succession of eaves
superposed. Similiar series of eaves arranged to give lateral protection appear in
the blinds of our Western houses. But no human shelters in any time or country
lack a roof. Without an opaque and impervious covering an enclosure is not an
interior but an exterior space, not a room but a court. Unless designed as a meeting-
place and not as a dwelling-place, its effect will have the flavor of mediocrity that
betrays latent unreason. Apartments treated as interiors while lighted from above
are a fauxgenre in architecture.
2. The clerestory. The vraigenre of internal apartment — or chamber
surrounded by others —appeared in the design of Roman basilicas and their successors,
Christian churches. The court which the basilicas inherited from earlier architecture
was made a room by raising its walls, roofing them, and providing them with windows.
It became an audience hall, or nave, receiving high, oblique light from the raised
walls, or clerestory: and the neighboring spaces served for withdrawal, or passage,
as bays or aisles.
3. The Standard museum arrangement. The clerestory principle is immediately
applicable to a type of museum plan whose frequent use approves it for museum
Museumskunde. VII, 4. 26