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Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Your reflection approaches and then recedes again
Milwaukee is home to Miller Beer, Harley-Davidson, internet wiseasses theonion.com, TV's (probably) fictional Laverne and Shirley, and now the only US building by Santiago Calatrava, inarguably the world's greatest living architect. The Quadracci Pavilion is an addition to the surprisingly strong collection at the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and far and away the nicest structure Milwaukee has to offer. This is the main entry hall, as visitors carefully wander towards Lake Michigan, underneath the glass skylight, underneath the wonderfully unnecessary moveable brise soleil, ignoring all art and quietly whispering to each other, "What the hell is a brise soleil anyway?"
A workable Robert-Smithson-rip-off installation adorns the shiny floor of one of the side corridors, a connection to the original museum and its boring black door.
The front entrance and its moveable brise soleil, literally French for "break sun" but more commonly referred to as a sun shade. It opens and closes reflective of daily museum hours. I waited around last Thursday night and listened to an especially cheesy audio recording which acted as a prelude to its closing, a reasonable five or so minutes of slow, precise movement.
Following the generally ill-advised advice that too much is not enough, here are five additional slides of Santiago Calatrava's sufficiently impressive Quadracci Pavilion at the always surprising Milwaukee Museum of Art. In a vain attempt to mitigate the pain of receiving all five of these big slides at once, I have attempted to minimize the traditionally lengthy explanations. Enjoy the pictures...
From the street level and overdesigned park.
From inside the nicest parking garage I have ever been in (take that, Richard Meier's Getty Center!)
Crossing the pedestrian bridge behind complete strangers.
A close up of the wonderfully unnecessary brise soleil.
And finally, directly up at the skylight and brise soleil.
