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Washington, DC
From the earliest days we were dancing in the shadows
Late this January, armed only with my trusty Canon camera and a few rolls of black and white film, I accompanied my father on a southbound Acela train for a weekend trip to Washington DC. The goals were simple, righteous and straight forward: see a few monuments, take some overly artistic black and white pictures of said monuments, and watch the hometown Washington Capitals lose a hockey game. All three goals were met with some level of success.
This is across the street from what I have often claimed is one of my favorite buildings. Reflections of note include a standard Henry Moore sculpture, a lovely, illegally parked station wagon and a hint at possibly the best use of bollards in North America.
I am and always have been a fan of truly good modern art, none of which can usually be found inside this building (the nearby Hirshorn's collection and even the Corcoran put this one to shame), still its not always about the art. Views like this, as a shear wall defies gravity and (thanks to my 22mm lens) geometry, transcends whatever second rate show hides inside.
A capital eye view of the columns just outside the reading room in the Library of Congress, where no column, however Corinthian, is ever too much.
Second only to the East Wing of the National Gallery, the unabashed modernism in Washington's ambitious Metro remains consistently breathtaking. To stand in one of the transfer stations as a train arrives, slowly cutting off half the light of the washed ceilings, is one of the great, under appreciated experiences in all of architecture. The ceilings, the lighting and the wonderfully endless concrete create something more than expected, something that briefly lives up to the promise of modernism.
I have been on many different subways, from the creepy subway in Budapest to Kyoto's over automated trains to Norman Foster's brand new over designed one in Bilbao. None have the pureness or grace of this one, in all its glory, at 10:18 am on a typical late January morning.
Everyone's favorite memorial (except for me), the Washington Memorial needlessly towers over all of the lifetime bureaucrats who are just happy to have finally secured that interior courtyard window office.
For a memorial I profess to dislike, I certainly do take a lot of pictures of it.
The back of my father's head, the back of a penny and its full size inspiration.
From aside an especially effective, well known and somber wall, the Lincoln Memorial and its reflection hide behind all available trees.
I promised you that we would see the Washington Capitals lose a hockey game, and here’s what that looked like. The arena was disappointing as well, it felt kind of cheaply made, especially compared to last year’s hockey trip to the Molson Centre in Montreal.
