The City Museum in Saint Louis - Re Revisited

 

Another classmate & friend, who lives in St Louis, generously retuned to Elsah to bring us back into the city, where we had a reservation for our last evening’s hotel…’just across the street from our favorite museum, which we’d planned to visit after making an exploration of the city’s famous Botanic Gardens. Because it was a hot day we happily found shady benches near the Buckminster Fuller geodesic domed tropical greenhouse… the Climatron. There Stephen could comfortably check into a scheduled weekly Zoom call & I could catch-up with my mail after the busy time at the reunion.

Nearby was a Jacques Lipchitz sculpture, which interests us for another connection…

We have a Lipchitz drawing from Helen & Otto’s collection hanging in our stairwell. He’s not a particular favorite, but we enjoy holding it for many reasons.

There is a Carl Milles (I would much rather own a drawing of his!) fountain not unlike the one we know on the Plaza in Kansas City… with those huge lily pads one wants to float on!

After spending a satisfying hour or so inside the tropical spaces of the dome, we discovered we’d lost the time to have lunch at the cafe… but we certainly wanted to see the Japanese garden, having visited so many of such when we were there. This one is still relatively quite young, so we could only imagine how it might evolve after such time as the centuries the ones we saw in Kyoto had been tended. We must come back… this unexpected botanical treasure deserves much more time & attention!

Still, we both were happily anxious to find a Lyft driver who was a lively & fun woman to drive us to the Last Hotel, which, knowing its location in the old shoe manufacturing district, close to the City Museum we were to see next, clued me to understand that this was named for a “shoe last”, instead of an act of desperation! It is a very nice boutique hotel with a timeless lobby spanning spaces defined by handsome 12 foot columns.

Since we are beginning to shop for new furniture for the condo I took note of the distressed leather banquets.

The capitals on these street-level columns were more detailed than those more utilitarian ones on the floors above.

The guest rooms are carved out of the industrial space of a shoe factory under the scarred concrete ceilings telling stories inside a lot of drapery to shade the hyper abundance of large industrial windows. We took a morning swim next day before we finished packing for the flight home. All in all it was a good “do”!

ONE UNIQUE MUSEUM…

However, The City Museum is quite another sort of architectural wonder. We would not miss returning here on any visit to the city! We walked almost immediately around the corner to this fabulously quirky & unique museum. This was our third visit. We were introduced to this venue by our cousin Anjana when we visited to attend a Bell Convention. “It is a jungle gym for adults” was her description while acknowledging that this is an all family adventure.

It, too, was a historic shoe factory of 8 stories, now filled with an eclectic variety of collections from any & all possible interests or “tastes”. Much of which might be considered junque… old signage & side-show art. Rooms full of activities for all ages: a gallery filled with innumerable large sponges inviting youngsters to play or build with. There are nooks housing small cafés or ice cream shops. There is an old pipe organ installed in an air shaft. Cases full of oddities like antique porcelain doll parts, for instance.

However, some of these earlier “filler” exhibits seem to be evolving over these years. New consideration & work is constantly being incorporated to finesse this raw mélange since our first visit. Many tubular structures of steel or newly handsome welded iron allow brave souls to pursue clambering adventures, sometimes up or down into other floors. A grander excitement experience is a conveyor/slide, originally designed for sending the shoes down toward other finishing processe, but now rebuilt for allowing humans to slide, on rollers with smooth & swift action all the way several floors to the lobby. This place is certainly a wild adventure!

My strong favorite, from the first visit, is a collection of stone & terracotta details salvaged from demolished buildings in Chicago & St Louis. Originally decorating corners & cornices high above street level… too far out of sight for easy study, these were at first simply rather haphazardly piled in a raw room, but now becoming featured in an evolving state, gradually being imaginably “reinstalled” as exhibits noting the history or becoming parts of venues being readied for weddings or social events.

This well-studied recomposition of an old relief frieze backed by a theatrical painting sits on a new floor shown further below…

A huge old bank vault door is installed next to a wall of safety deposit boxes & an impromptu service bar of corrugated metal, which will no doubt become replaced by some older, finer piece. I’m sure there must be entire warehouses of such stuff in the waiting…

Another such vault door caps the other ent of a dramatic tubular space.

Industrial iron & steel become transparently supportive as antique castings marry new welding… often quite clever as technique must meet playful function.

This net becomes a giant trampoline!

An almost crude, newly welded-up bit of balustrade describes the casual finesse of this project…

The lobby of the museum is quite playful

Those random piles have become quite properly displayed.

What style buildings used to have!

A peek over a mild barrier reveals a mason at work, creating a new collage of architectural fragments.

The romance of that classical terracotta reconstruction takes a stance surrounded by a painted sky while siting atop a stone mosaic patterned in an evolution of Escher-like transition of butterflies. A further example of the design team… which we understand is a collection of students.

This ceramic tile floor becomes almost jewel-like.

This old open window of reused tile work… demonstrates several ideas:

The rear of the window reveals the technical struts of the terracotta building blocks of such architectural work.

A section of seating incorporates various possible functions…

The traffic flow of guests becomes controlled by gates of various style & material… allowing the vast spaces to be divided for creative use.

The museum has commissioned a sculptor to enliven smaller spaces with humor.

The upper parts evolve into an amusement park in the sky, with even more adventurous climbing, several plane fuselages & a Ferris wheel!

Such a generously exploratory… & still evolving… public facility! We look forward to a next visit.

Principia College Revisited - Stephen's 50th Reunion

 

We attended Stephen’s 50th college reunion the last week of June. I had gone with him to his 45th & written about another earlier visit to the campus here: https://www.grbbells.com/a-visit-to-principia/

This is not his yearbook picture! But I made this kaleidoscopic portrait of him dancing through the complexity of the history & memories of 50 years.

Principia is a Christian Science school located about 35 miles up the Mississippi River from Saint Louis on the Illinois side. The campus, perched atop high limestone bluffs, overlooks the broad waters between the confluences of the Illinois & the Missouri rivers. Floods of history!

The architect Bernard Maybeck planned & designed the campus during the 20s/40s using the concept of a rural English village in order to create an intimate atmosphere for students, who were well removed from the city. The result is effective & lovely. For me personally, the buildings are the best reason for me to enjoy returning.

I found this good film on the College’s site, so I’ll let it inform us about him & his process: https://content.principia.edu/sites/maybeck/

This view is of the living room of the dorm, where we found the room which we were assigned, looks like a baronial hall with massive carved wooden beams, but closer inspection revealed that those are cast concrete! The leaded windows are genuine, as are the lovely rugs & comfy furniture. Maybeck’s concept still works, becoming ever quite permanent, bringing one to at least some fantasy of home.

We were housed in Anderson Hall, a dorm with two wings…

With a rather dramatic interior stairway!

& a lovely, rustic exterior stairway down to a lower floor.

Yet, this was my second of his reunions, so I was better prepared for his disappearing, quite naturally, to spend time with old friends. That first reunion was early in the College’s more officially open acceptance of our being a gay couple. We had felt comfortable & I happily met many friends of his. This visit, I relished such opportunities to engage on my own, particularly with those lingering with me at the breakfast table. I found myself merging into what often became long conversations. Sometimes with other spouses, finding ourselves in similar situations, or with people who had known him as the editor of the student newspaper. I am seen… I am listened to. Not only that, but I am having a good time!

I got to meet & chat with Tom, married to one of Stephen’s deep friends, Wendy, whom I’ve met several times over the years. He also is not a “Scientist”. On another morning, I chatted with a classmate Joel Selmeier who is a designer of Peace Poles, one of which is installed in Tacoma, very close to the condo we are moving into next year. A third such encounter introduced me to a fascinating writer, Brad Newsham, who has two books published about his traveling lifestyle, but — more interesting to me — a book about his time as a cabdriver in San Francisco. I will write more when I can snag time with the copy he sent us to share.

This is the photo he chose for his original graduation photo in 1972.

This is our attempt to recreate that image for this reunion, as was suggested to add to the slideshow as part of the class party.

While Stephen had expressed surprise when I agreed to make this trip with him, I explained that I too was ready for a little travel as well… since the last time we’d flown together was our trip to India two & a half years ago. We have a great history of happily traveling together & I was looking forward to more of the qualities of potential closeness during this time. Some of that became true, even as he was never quite as ready for that as I. His capabilities to multitask also take to the air!

After the closing chapel service & a last lunch we stayed another night at a B&B just a mile or so down from campus in an old riverboat town named Elsah. Several classmates have become faculty members & bought homes in its historic precincts. We were treated to a walking tour guided by one classmate who introduced us to the local museum & a general store with dozens of “antique reproduction” soft drinks.

The collection of newly bottled “antique” soda at the Elsa General Store.

Eventually, our meandering through the village brought us to have impromptu tea with yet another classmate who had not attended the reunion. We found dinner at a casual dive on the river… certainly some sort of experience, but certainly not a memorable meal! It was, however, the first time after the morality of the campus that we could enjoy a celebratory cocktail & a glass of wine… albeit served in plastic!

There is another chapter to this trip. I will write about our next day & last evening in Saint Louis.