The museum curators hang the pieces in columns and rows at heights well above and below the viewer's head. Curiously, I found myself finding a lot of heads.
Two heads are better than one.
Unless there's a whole gumball machine full of them.
Worn out a bit from the sheer number of objects, I wandered upstairs from Foot in the Door to the modernism area.
And found yet another room full of heads. ("Head of a Woman" by Modigliani at left; "Portrait of the Artist" by Derain at right.)
Modernism wasn't all about heads, though. I was interested in a collection of early Art Deco building designs by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1922). The drawings are all black and white with a single additional color. They were beautiful as illustrations, let alone as depictions of buildings imagined by an architect.
I found this one mostly amusing, however. Called Ecole Primaire (Primary School), it made me think about the differences between the culture of 1920s France and present-day America:
- Of course, there are separate wings (or classrooms) for boys and girls. Possibly separate entrances, as on Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Scotland Street School, but that's not visible in the drawing.
- The scale of the building is tiny: it appears to have just two classrooms. So much for the vaunted economy of scale that makes schools so financially efficient these days.
- Both classrooms are on the second floor, for no apparent reason except that it looks cool. ADA, anyone?
- Unless it's built in a flood zone, I have no idea what the purpose of the open areas under the classrooms might be. Maybe the kids could have recess under there when it rained? Or maybe it was a school for teaching car repair, and the area below was to be used for the car lifts?
I think they meant to leave room for a dog park. Great thinking!
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