Category Archives: Architecture

Carcar City Museum (Cebu)

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Carcar City Museum (formerly Carcar Dispensary and Puericulture Center)

Part 6 of the Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort & Spa-sponsored City Tour

The very first museum in South Cebu, this museum is housed in the former Carcar Puericulture Center and Dispensary, a two-storey hospital for women and children. Resembling a doll house rather than a medical institution, it was perhaps meant that way to dispel the fears of the patients.

The second floor veranda

An excellent example of American-era civic architecture in the Philippines, this ornate and gracefully designed dispensary was initiated by Mayor Mariano Mercado in 1929 and inaugurated by Ms.Flora Base Mercado, the mayor’s wife, in 1937 with Gov. Sotero Cabahug in attendance.

Historical plaque

The building was inaugurated as the Carcar City Museum on July 8, 2008, during Carcar’s first anniversary as a city.

Calado woodwork

Stairs

This outstanding, beautifully restored white painted architectural landmark has a profusion of artful latticework, semicircular transoms, carved barandillas (railings) and mini-canopies and stained glass window panes. Beside the museum is a small gated park that pays homage to Don Mariano Mercado, who was responsible for many of Carcar’s beautiful landmarks.

The author at Carcar City Museum

Its galleries, in several rooms, feature objects with historical, cultural and artistic relevance such as a traditional corn milling stone, antique furniture, winning costumes used by Carcar contingents in numerous artistic performances, women’s clothing worn during that era, religious artifacts, leather cutters, kitchen utensils, journals, paintings, war weapons, medical tools, musical instruments and old news clippings about Gen. Pantaleon “Leon Kilat” Villegas.

Antique sewing machine

Farming implements

Props for Linambay (Cebuano term for komedya or moro-moro)

On the museum walls, visitors can see a chronology of events that took place in Carcar from the Pleistocene period up to the present. The terrace (terasa) is the best place to feel the cold breeze from the outside. 

Aparador

Bajo de unas (double bass) used in a rondalla 

Sousaphone

Carcar City Museum: Carcar Square, Carcar City, Cebu.  Open Mondays to Saturdays, 8 AM to 5 PM. Admission: free.

Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort & Spa: Buyong, Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, 6015, Cebu. Tel: (032) 492-0100. Fax: (032) 492-1808.  E-mail: maribago@bluewater.com.ph.   Website: www.bluewatermaribago.com.ph.  Metro Manila sales office: Rm. 704, Cityland Herrera Tower, 98 Herrera cor. Valero Sts., Salcedo Village, Makati City, Metro Manila. Tel: (02) 887-1348 and (02) 817-5751. Fax: (02) 893-5391.

Church of St. Isidore the Farmer (San Fernando, Cebu)

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Church of St. Isidore the Farmer

Part 5 of the Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort & Spa-sponsored City Tour

The town’s first church was constructed at Brgy. Pitalo but, after repeated repairs, it was decided that a new and much better church was be constructed on a land donated by Doña Clara Najarro at Taboan Market, not far from the town’s present cemetery.

The Neo-Gothic facade

The present masonry church was started by Fr. Miguel del Burgo on December 1870, following the plans of Spanish architect and engineer Don Domingo Esconrillas, and continued by Fr. Emiliano Diez on March 11, 1876. During the November 25, 1877 typhoon, half of the church’s roof, the sacristy and convent fell.  It was finished and solemnly blessed on October 25, 1886.

The pointed recessed arch main entrance

During World War II, the church was spared from war damage. In 1945, the separate, two storey, coral stone convent was turned into a school. From 1968-76, Fr. Constantino Boctoy renovated the church.

The right side of the church

Its Neo-Gothic facade has a flamboyant pointed, recessed arch main entrance flanked by two small pointed arch windows.  The main doorway is topped, above the cornice line, by a large, elaborately carved rose window.  Flat pilasters, mounted on high rectangular pedestals, rise up to the pediment line.  They end up in pinnacles and divide the facade into three vertical sections.

One of two bell towers

The upper level, integrated with the gable, is crowned at the apex by a cross and has a small, centrally located carved Augustinian emblem.  Traceries line eaves of the pediment. The church interior has been heavily renovated.

The church interior

A strong typhoon cut the tops of the twin Gothic-style square bell towers and they were never rebuilt to its original height. The present twin belfries, seemingly incongruous with the overall coral stone structure, were actually built in concrete later in the 20th century. They have one wheel window on the lower level, flame-like windows on the upper and both taper into spires topped by pinnacles at the corners of the painted dome.

The church altar

Church of St. Isidore the Farmer:  Natalio B. Bacalso South National Highway, Brgy. Poblacion South. Tel: (032) 488-9314. Feast of St. Isidore the Farmer: May 15.

How To Get There: San Fernando is located 29.3 kms. south of Cebu City. Buses to San Fernando park at the Cebu South Bus Terminal along N. Bacalso Ave. in Cebu City.  The church is just across the municipal hall.

Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort & Spa: Buyong, Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, 6015, Cebu. Tel: (032) 492-0100. Fax: (032) 492-1808.  E-mail: maribago@bluewater.com.ph.   Website: www.bluewatermaribago.com.ph.  Metro Manila sales office: Rm. 704, Cityland Herrera Tower, 98 Herrera cor. Valero Sts., Salcedo Village, Makati City, Metro Manila. Tel: (02) 887-1348 and (02) 817-5751. Fax: (02) 893-5391.

Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi (Naga City, Cebu)

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Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi

Part 4 of the Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort & Spa-sponsored City Tour

The town’s coral and limestone church was built by Fr. Simon Aguirre in 1839 following plans prepared by Bishop Santos Gomez Marañon.  Its bell tower was destroyed by the November 25, 1876 typhoon, repaired, destroyed again in 1942 and rebuilt in 1974 by Msgr. Cesar Alcoseba. On October 3, 2007, the church was upgraded as an archdiocesan shrine.

The unusual Baroque facade that suggests Mexican art

The convent was started in 1864 by Fr. Enrique Magaz, continued in 1882 by Fr. Gregorio Ros and finished in 1887 by Fr. Roman Gonzalez.  It was destroyed in 1942 and rebuilt in 1974 by Msgr. Cesar Alcoseba. During World War II, the original bell tower was destroyed and portions of the church were damaged. A new separate bell tower was built in 1979.

The side of the church

The church has one main nave, a transept and measures 75 m. long, 15.4 m. wide and 10.6 m. wide.  Angels and gargoyles guard its doors. It’s simple interior, relatively unchanged since it was built over a century ago, features a dropped ceiling bearing geometric patterns and a gilded retablo and cornices adorning the Corinthian pillars and side walls.  A huge statue of St. Francis of Assisi adorns the patio adjacent to the church.

The church interior

The unusual Baroque-style façade, suggestive of Mexican art that is skillfully integrated into the local Filipino religious architecture, has no distinct architectural style.  It has twin minaret-shaped buttresses with projecting domes and is divided into lower and upper rectangular panels.

The main and two side retablos

The bare lower panel has a triangular arched recessed main entrance with molded door jambs flanked by six square columns while the overly-decorated upper panel has a miniature retablo (the cross with outgoing rays represent the expansion of the Christian faith) flanked by two sets of tiny columns and a frieze heavily-decorated with ornamental Roman-like acanthus leaf patterns and self-repeating designs divided into several rows.

Plaque

The pediment has a centrally located niche flanked by two sets of tiny columns with the Biblical saying Predicate Evangelicum omni creaturae.  It is also decorated with winged cherubs, rosettes, dancette or zigzag molding (below the raking cornice) and other embellishments. The symbols of the Cross, the Lamb of Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Monstrance are supported by ornamented columns resting on atlantes.

Statue of St. Francis of Assisi

Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi: Cebu South Rd. Tel: (032) 489-9799  and (032) 272-2123. Feast of St. Francis of Assisi: October 10.

How To Get There: Naga is located 21.7 kms. south of Cebu City.

Bluewater Maribago Beach Resort & Spa: Buyong, Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City, 6015, Cebu. Tel: (032) 492-0100. Fax: (032) 492-1808.  E-mail: maribago@bluewater.com.ph.   Website: www.bluewatermaribago.com.ph.  Metro Manila sales office: Rm. 704, Cityland Herrera Tower, 98 Herrera cor. Valero Sts., Salcedo Village, Makati City, Metro Manila. Tel: (02) 887-1348 and (02) 817-5751. Fax: (02) 893-5391.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral (New York City, U.S.A.)

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St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Our third, and final, mass in the U.S. was held at the decorated  Gothic Revival-style Cathedral of St. Patrick (commonly called St. Patrick’s Cathedral), the seat of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York (created in 1808 and made into an archdiocese by Pope Pius IX on July 19, 1850). Held on the first Friday of July, this was our second visit to the cathedral (the first was 13 days ago) and we attended this mass to pray for a safe journey back to Manila, our flight back being just 8 hours away.

The cathedral is located on the east side of Fifth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets in Midtown Manhattan. Directly across the street is the Rockefeller Center and it specifically faces the Atlas statue. A prominent landmark of New York City, the land on which the present cathedral sits was purchased in 1810 and it was designed by James Renwick, Jr.  In 1976, the cathedral and its associated buildings were declared a National Historic Landmark.

Here’s some interesting trivia regarding St. Patrick’s Cathedral:

The 100.6 m. high spire

St. Patrick’s Cathedral currently has two pipe organs, both built by the firm of George Kilgen & Son of St. Louis, Missouri. They consist of more than 9,000 pipes, 206 stops, 150 ranks and 10 divisions.

The cathedral interior

The Gallery Organ,  located in the Choir Gallery below the Rose Window over the Fifth Avenue entrance and in the Triforium, near the South Transept, was edicated on February 11, 1930. It took 3 years to build at a cost of US$250,000. Designed by Robert J. Reiley, consulting architect of the Cathedral, it has one of the nation’s most glorious wood facades and is adorned with angels and Latin inscriptions. Containing 7,855 pipes, ranging in length from 32 ft. to 1/2 inch, its longest pipes run horizontally across the North and South Triforia.

The pulpit

The Chancell Organ,  located in the North Ambulatory next to the Chapel of St. Joseph, was dedicated on January 30, 1928. It has 1,480 pipes; located on the opposite side of the Ambulatory, diagonally across from the console, and is encased in a carved oak screen ornamented with Gothic elements of design and symbolism.

Stained glass windows

Here is a timeline of the cathedral’s construction:

  • On August 15, 1858, the cornerstone was laid, just south of the diocese’s orphanage.
  • Work began that same year, was halted during the Civil War,and resumed in 1865.
  • In 1878, the cathedral was completed and was dedicated on May 25, 1879.
  • In 1879, the cathedral’s first organ, composed of 4 manuals with 51 stops and 56 ranks, was built by George Jardine & Son, one of New York’s most distinguished organ builders, and installed.
  • In 1880, the archbishop’s house and rectory were, both by James Renwick, Jr.
  • In 1880, an organ by J.H. & C.S. Odell (then also from New York City), composed of 2 manuals with 20 stops and 23 ranks, was installed in the chancel.
  • An adjacent school, no longer in existence, was opened in 1882.
  • The spires were added in 1888, and at 329 feet and 6 inches (100.4 meters) were the tallest structures in New York City and the second highest in the United States.
  • From 1901 to 1906, an addition on the east, including a Lady chapel (designed by Charles T. Matthews), was constructed.
  • Between 1912 and 1930, the Lady Chapel’s stained-glass windows were made by English stained glass artist and designer Paul Vincent Woodroffe.
  • In 1927 and 1931, the cathedral was renovated, the sanctuary was enlarged and two great organs were installed.
  • In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the cathedral’s main altar area was renovated under the guidance of Archbishop (and later cardinal) Francis Spellman. The previous high altar and reredoswere removed (now located in the University Church of Fordham University). New items include the sanctuary bronze baldachin and the rose stained glass window.
  • In the 1940s and 1950s tonal changes were made on the two organs.
  • In the 1970s and 1980s, additional renovations were made on the organs by Jack Steinkampf of Yonkers, New York, particularly in the revoicing of flutes and reeds, and the addition of the Trumpette en Chamade.
  • In the 1980s, the altar was further renovated, under the direction of Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor. To be more visible to the congregation, a stone altar was built from sections of the side altars and added to the middle of the sanctuary. However, in 2013, this altar was removed.
  • In 1993, the organs underwent major restoration. new consoles for both the Gallery and Chancel Organs to replace the original ones (which had deteriorated beyond repair) were acquired. Robert Turner (of Hacienda Heights, California) constructed twin, 5-manual consoles while Solid State Logic, Ltd. of England designed and engineered the combination action. Fiber-optic wiring were used to enable both consoles to control the Gallery, Chancel and Nave Organs at the same time. In 1993, the Gallery console was finished and installed in time for Christmas Midnight Mass. In early 1994, the Chancel console was installed. In 1995, the entire Chancel Organ was restored
  • On September 15, 2007, the 10th anniversary of the organ’s renovation, the organs were blessed. The Bicentennial Concert Series was also inaugurated with a performance James E. Goettsche, the Vatican Organist.
  • In 2012, an extensive US$177 million restoration of the cathedral was begun and lasted 3 years. The exterior marble was cleaned, the stained glass windows were repaired and the ceiling was painted, among many restorations. On September 17, 2015, the restoration was completed before Pope Francis visited the cathedral on September 24 and 25, 2015.

The cathedral ceiling

Beneath the high altar is a crypt in which the nine past deceased Archbishops of New York as well as notable Catholic figures that served the Archdiocese are entombed. They include:

Plaque commemorating Pope Paul VI’s October 4. 1965 visit

The galeros of Cardinals McCloskey, Farley, Hayes and Spellman (also worn by Pope Pius XII, as Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, until the latter’s election to the papacy at the 1939 Papal conclave) are located high above the crypt at the back of the sanctuary. In 1965, the ceremony of the consistory was revised by Pope Paul VI and therefore no galero was presented to Cardinal Cooke or any of his successors.

Plaque commemorating Pope John Paul II’s second Papal visit

Requiem Masses were said at the cathedral for the following notable people:

Special memorial Masses were also held at the cathedral for the following:

The cathedral or parts of it were featured in a number of movies, TV shows, songs and literary works:

  • The climax of Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), where Taylor destroyed Earth with the Alpha–Omega bomb, were set in the cathedral’s underground ruins. Centuries earlier, mutant humans surviving a nuclear holocaust founded a religion on the bomb (later depicted in Battle for the Planet of the Apes). They reconsecrated the cathedral to their new religion and installed the bomb in front of the organ pipes in place of the crucifix.
  • The TV show Futurama, Fry, Leela, et al. are visiting the sewer mutants beneath the ruins of Old New York and Fry sticks his head in the cathedral, sees the bomb, and says, “So you guys worship an unexploded atomic bomb?” A mutant replies, “Not really, it’s mostly a Christmas and Easter thing.”
  • Nelson DeMille‘s 1981 novel, Cathedral, concerning a fictional seizure and threatened destruction of the cathedral by members of the Irish Republican Army on St. Patrick’s Day, is mostly set in and around the cathedral and details of the cathedral’s structure contribute important elements to the plot.
  • The cathedral is also featured in the 1990 film Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
  • In Giannina Braschi‘s novel, Empire of Dreams (1994), the ringing of the church bells at the cathedral marks a pastoral revolution in New York City.
  • The cathedral was referenced in the song Not A Love Story by musical-theatre songwriters Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk. 

The author and son Jandy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

St. Patrick’s Catheral: 5th Ave, New York, NY 10022, USA.

New York Public Library (New York City, U.S.A.)

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New York Public Library

This public library system in New York City, one of the world’s leading libraries with nearly 53 million items, is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) and fourth largest in the world. A private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing, this library has branches in the boroughs of Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island, and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the metropolitan area of New York State.

Courtyard

The New York Public Library, with its collection consisted of more than 1,000,000 volumes, also has four research libraries which are also open to the general public. It is famed for its possession of a Gutenberg Bible and a Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the main branch of the New York Public Library, costing US$9 million to build, was officially opened on May 23, 1911 in a ceremony presided over by President William Howard Taft. That same day, after a dedication ceremony attended by 50,000 people, the library was open to the general public.  In 1965, the building was declared as a National Historic Landmark.

Grand lobby

The massive building exterior, which has suffered damage from weathering and pollution, underwent a three-year, $50 million renovation and restoration, underwritten by a $100-million gift from philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman (his name was inscribed at the bottom of the columns framing the building’s entrances) and overseen by Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., and the refurbished facade was unveiled on February 2, 2011.

Stairway on the left

The library, a French Beaux-Arts masterpiece designed by architects Carrère & Hastings, was the largest marble structure up to that time in the United States. The two reclining, placid but attentive stone lions (nicknamed Patience and Fortitude) guarding the entrance, sculpted by Eward Clark Potter, was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers.

Stairway on the right

This 3-storey building’s broad street frontage, along Fifth Avenue, adds to the variety and dignity of the streetscape. The library’s main façade expands horizontally and completely dominates the field of vision. The terrace, which lifts up the building from street level, is accessed by a wide, inviting stairway.

Bust of John M. Carrere

Bust of Thomas Hastings

The central portico, composed of 3 large, semicircular arched openings with a tall, sculpted attic, is reminiscent of an ancient Roman triumphal arch (a symbolic reference suggesting a ceremonial welcome). The allegorical fountains (Truth to the right and Beauty to the left), by Frederick MacMonnies, are embedded in the walls adjacent to the portico.

Edna Barnes Salomon Room

Print and Photographs Study Room

The interior, organized around a central circulation core, has a grand entry hall, two courtyards and a modest but exquisitely-detailed lobby split into two stairs which take the visitor to the functional rooms of the second floor and then, further up, to the spacious and stately reading room on the third floor.

Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division

Today, it is equipped with computers, with access to library collections and the Internet, and docking facilities for laptops. Many writers and scholars, selected annually, have accomplished important research and writing at the library through a Fellows program that makes reserved rooms available for them.

McGraw Rotunda

The rectangular McGraw Rotunda, set beneath arched bays and over 17-ft. high paired Corinthian walnut pilasters, has a richly decorative, Renaissance-style ceiling, with coffered (sunken) panels and painted, by James Wall Finn, with the vast, luminous, 27 by 33-ft. mural “Prometheus Bringing the Gift of Fire.” The colorfully cloudy sky is provided with the bright natural light by the massively-scaled windows.

Prometheus Bringing the Gift of Fire

A set of four large arched panels by Edward Laning, featuring “The Story of the Recorded Word” (the story depicted across each of the murals illustrate crucial periods of development in the history of books and printing) were executed from 1938 to 1942 as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) Project, with supplies furnished by Isaac Phelps Stokes (author of the “Iconography of Manhattan Island’).

Bill Blass Public Catalog Room

Moses with the Tablets of Law, the first mural, to the left of the entrance to the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room, depicts Moses, as recorded in the Book of Exodus, descending from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments.

Moses with the Tablets of Law

The Medieval Scribe, the second mural to the right of the same door, depicts a monk of the Middle Ages copying a manuscript while, behind him, is a scene of destruction and rapine.

The Medieval Scribe

Gutenberg Showing a Proof to the Elector of Mainz, the third mural to the left of the doorway to Room 316, depicts Johann Gutenberg showing a proof of his Bible to Adolph of Nassau, Elector of Mainz.

Gutenberg Showing a Proof to the Elector of Mainz

The Linotype-Mergenthaler and Whitelaw Reid, the fourth mural to the right, depicts Ottmar Mergenthaler (America’s contribution) at the keyboard of his linotype as his patron, Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune, examines a page printed by the new device.

The Linotype-Mergenthaler and Whitelaw Reid

New York Public Library (NYPL): 476 5th Ave. cor. 42nd St., New York City, New York 10018, U.S.A

Massachusetts State House (Boston, U.S.A.)

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The Massachusetts State House (also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the New State House),  with its instantly recognizable golden dome, is situated on 27,000 sq. m. (6.7 acres), covering two city blocks, of land on top of the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston.  Located opposite the Boston Common, it is the state capitol and seat of government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Check out “Boston Common”

Massachusetts State House

Housing the Massachusetts General Court (state legislature) and the offices of the Governor of Massachusetts, the building was designed by architect Charles Bulfinch (for its design, he made use of two existing buildings in London: William Chambers‘s Somerset House, and James Wyatt‘s Pantheon).  Considered a masterpiece of Federal architecture and among Bulfinch’s finest works, the building, built on land once owned by John Hancock (Massachusetts’s first elected governor), has repeatedly been enlarged since.

The author at the Bullfinch Entrance

Here is the historical timeline of the building:

  • On July 4, 1795, the Masonic cornerstone ceremony, presided by Paul Revere (Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts) took place.
  • It was completed in January 1798 at a cost of $133,333 (more than five times the budget). Before its completion, Massachusetts’s government house was the Old State House on what is now Washington Street.
  • In 1802, the leaking original wood dome was covered with copper sheathing by Paul Revere‘s Revere Copper Company. Revere was the first American to roll copper successfully into sheets in a commercially viable manner.
  • In 1895, the original building was expanded with an annex designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Bostonian architect Charles Brigham.
  • In 1917, the east and west wings, designed by architects Sturgis, Bryant, Chapman & Andrews, were completed.
  • In 1874, the dome was first painted gray and then light yellow before being gilded with 23 karat gold leaf.
  • During World War II, the dome was painted gray once again, to prevent reflection during blackouts and to protect the city and building from bombing attacks.
  • On December 19, 1960, the building was designated as a National Historic Landmark for its architectural significance.
  • On October 15, 1966, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
  • In 1997, at a cost of more than $300,000, the dome was re-gilded, in 23k gold.

The golden dome

The building’s red brick walls, white pillars and trim, and golden dome catch the sun in every season. The dome is topped with a gilded, wooden pine cone which symbolizes both the importance of Boston’s lumber industry, during Early Colonial times, and of the state of Maine, which was a district of the Commonwealth when the Bulfinch section of the building was completed.

General Hooker Entrance

In front of the building, on the grounds below the central colonnade,  are the equestrian statue of American Civil War General Joseph Hooker  (done by renowned Massachusetts sculptor Daniel Chester French) as well as those of orator Daniel Webster (sculpted in bronze by Hiram Powers in 1858) and educator and statesman Horace Mann (dating from 1865, it was sculpted by Emma Stebbins).

Equestrian statue of Gen. Joseph Hooker

On the west wing plaza is the statue of former US President John F. Kennedy (designed by Isabel McIlvain, it was dedicated on May 29, 1990) while on the lawns below the two State House wings are the somber statues of Anne Hutchinson (sculpted by Cyrus Edwin Dallin in 1922) and early Boston Quaker Mary Dyer, both religious martyrs of Colonial days,. Inside the building is a statue of William Francis Bartlett, an officer in the American Civil War.

Statue of Mary Dyer

Massachusetts State House: 24 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02108. Tel: (617) 727-3676. Open Mondays to Fridays, 8 AM – 6 PM.  Coordinates: 42°21′29.4″N 71°3′49.3″W.

Gallery at the Historical Museum of Natural History (Boston, Massachusetts)

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RH Boston – The Gallery at the Historical Museum of Natural History

This stately Neo-Classical, red brick and-brownstone building, commanding a park-like block of Berkeley St., between Newbury and Boylston in Boston’s Back Bay, was designed by architect William Gibbons Preston in 1863.  Originally the Museum of Natural History, it was known, over the years to Bostonians, as the Bonwit Teller building and later the  home to the clothier Louis Boston.

The Neo-Classical, red brick and brownstone facade

Now Restoration Hardware’s (a California-based home-furnishings company) Boston flagship store, it was redesigned by AD 100 firm Backen, Gillam & Kroeger Architects, the designers of numerous other RH stores. To approximate the original interior, the designers consulted old photographs and architectural drawings.

In a renovation work that was, more or less, a complete gut requiring 15 months, they took out mezzanines inserted by previous tenants, removed an elevator bank that blocked the central axis through the building and painstakingly restored and recreated original millwork, plaster and steel details.

The Central Atrium

Wall, ceiling and decorative surfaces were coated in neutral gray. Most significant, to recapture views from the ground floor all the way to the gilded, coffered ceiling, they opened up the 70 ft. high, 3-storey central atrium.

The glass and steel traction elevator

Unveiled spring of 2103, the 40,000 sq. ft. RH Design Gallery is the largest outpost for this expanding retailer whose product categories includes tabletop goods (Chinese porcelain dinnerware, Belgian linens, etc.) and “objects of curiosity” (architectural fragments, faux antlers, iPod-compatible reproduction Victrolas, etc.).

When I entered glass and steel entry pavilion of this Civil War–era structure, I was enthralled by its graceful Corinthian pilasters, Romanesque arches, and monumental interior atrium. Gliding up and down the atrium is the store’s pièce de résistance – a new, custom glass and steel traction elevator modeled after the one in Los Angeles’s 1893 Bradbury Building.

The store’s four floors (including a basement level) offer a florist and a dedicated area for RH’s Baby & Child collections (featuring pint-size leather chesterfields and armchairs). In addition, there’s masculine spaces such as wine bar run by Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley (of Yountville, California).

There’s also a quartet of club rooms – a billiard lounge with a rehabbed Brunswick pool table, a cinema room where TVs play classic movies, an inviting library packed with vintage novels and design books, and a pub serving craft beers at a century-old bar surrounded by Motown and rock-and-roll memorabilia.

Sharing the floor with the club rooms is a Paris-themed “conservatory and park.” Here, outdoor furniture is displayed among artificial olive trees and a 24 ft. tall steel replica of the Eiffel Tower (a flea-market find and a fitting totem of RH’s Francophile design impulses).

Check out “Eiffel Tower“

Gallery at the Historical Museum of Natural History: 34 Berkeley St., Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Website: www.restorationhardware.com.

Park Street Church (Boston, Massachusetts)

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Park Street Church

The Park Street Church, an active, thriving missionary-centered Conservative Congregational church with 2,000 in Sunday attendance and around 1,000 members, is a historical stop on the Freedom Trail located next to the historic Granary Burying Ground.

Check out “Freedom Trail“

Its cornerstone was laid on May 1, 1809 and its construction, under the guidance of architect Peter Banner (his design is reminiscent of St. Bride’s Church in London by famous British architect Christopher Wren), chief mason Benajah Young  and woodcarver Solomon Willard, was completed by the end of the year. On January 10, 1810, it had its first worship service.

The church became known as “Brimstone Corner,” in part because of the fervent missionary character of its preaching and, in part, because of the gunpowder stored in its crypt (which gave off a ferocious smell of sulfur) during the War of 1812.

The church’s beautiful white steeple, a landmark visible from several Boston neighborhoods, rises to 66 m. (217 ft.), making the church the tallest building in the United States from 1810 to 1828. The red brick façade has white accents.  There is a little museum on the first floor.

The church is the site of a number of historical events:

Park Street Church: 1 Park St. cor. Tremont St., Boston, Massachusetts 02108. Tel: (617) 523-3383.  Website: www.parkstreet.org. Open Wednesdays – Fridays, 9:30 AM -3 PM. Worship services: Sundays 8:30 AM, 11 AM and 4 PM. Admission is free.

How to Get There: The church located right across from the Park Street subway stop (Red Line) at the edge of Boston Common.

Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, actually a collection of institutions housed in the historic, gloriously renovated Old Patent Office Building, served as one of the earliest United States Patent Office buildings.  Here, Neo-Classicism meets 21st-century exuberance.

The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture

Covering an entire city block defined by F and G Streets and 7th and 9th Streets NW, just south of  Chinatown in downtown Washington, it now houses two Smithsonian Institution museums – the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The building’s Greek Rival-stye facade

It also houses the Lawrence A. Fleischman Gallery of the Archives of American Art; an art conservation facility (Lunder Conservation Center); an enclosed, 28,000-sq. ft. courtyard (Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard); a 20,400 sq. ft. open storage facility (Luce Foundation Center); a new 356-seat underground auditorium (Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium) and other operations within the Old Patent Office complex. By the end of 2007, more than 786,000 people had visited the two museums and, 10 years later, during the time of my visit, 1.3 million people have visited the place.

Check out “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art – National Portrait Gallery” and Portraiture and “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture – Smithsonian American Art Museum”

Before it became what it is today, through the Civil War and into the post-war period, the building was once home to many early government departments. It was used as a hospital, and The Bureau of Indian Affairs, the General Land Office, and the Bureau of Pensions jointly occupied the building with the Patent Office.

National Portrait Gallery

Both Clara Barton and American poet Walt Whitman worked as nurses there during the American Civil War. From 1854 to 1857, Barton worked in the building as a clerk to the Patent Commissioner, the first woman federal employee to receive equal pay. From January 24 to June 30, 1865, Waltman, who frequented “that noblest of Washington buildings” and read to wounded men, worked in Bureau of Indian Affairs before being fired for having a copy of Leaves of Grass in his desk.

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Here is the historical timeline of the building:

  • In 1836, construction of the building was started.
  • In 1851, architect Robert Mills was summarily dismissed as Congressional committees questioned his competence and his insistence on design changes that inserted unnecessary supporting columns and tie-rods. Construction continued under the direction of Thomas U. Walter, one of Mills’ harshest critics
  • During the Civil War, the building was turned into military barracks, hospital, and morgue. Wounded soldiers lay on cots in second-floor galleries, among glass cases holding models of inventions that had been submitted with patent applications.
  • In 1865, the building was completed
  • In March 1965, it was chosen as the venue for Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball.
  • In 1877, the building’s west wing suffered a fire, destroying some 87,000 patent models
  • From 1877–1885, it was restored by Adolf Cluss in the style he termed “modern Renaissance.”
  • In 1887, the Bureau of Pension moved to the new  Pension Bureau Building.
  • In 1898, the General Land Office and the Bureau of Indian Affairs vacated the building.
  • In 1932 the United States Civil Service Commission and the Government Accounting Office occupied the building after the Patent Office vacated it.
  • In 1942, the Government Accounting Office vacated the structure after its new headquarters nearby was complete.
  • In 1952, legislation to tear down the building and sell the land so a private parking garage could be built on the centrally located site was introduced in Congress in the waning days of the 82nd United States Congress but did not pass.
  • On March 21, 1958, Congress unanimously passed legislation authorizing the transfer of the building to the Smithsonian for a national art museum. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the legislation a few days later. Congress appropriated $33.5 million for the renovation.
  • In 1962, Congress passed legislation establishing the National Portrait Gallery
  • In November 1963, the Civil Service Commission moved out of the structure.
  • Starting in 1964, the Faulkner, Kingsbury & Stenhouse firm of architects supervised the renovation of the interior as museum space.
  • In November 1964, preparations for the buildings renovation began
  • On January 12, 1965, the building was designated as a S. National Historic Landmark.
  • By May 1965, the Grunley, Walsh Construction Co. began demolition of non-historic interior structures.
  • On October 15, 1966, it was added to S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP reference No. 66000902).
  • By April 1968, the $6 million renovation was complete
  • In January 1968, the National Museum of American Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) and the National Portrait Gallery opened. The north wing housed the art museum and the south wing housed the portrait gallery. Office space and a cafe occupied the east wing. The center courtyard had outdoor eating space for the cafe and several large trees.
  • In 1970, the renovation won the American Institute of Architects National Honor Award.
  • In 1995, the Smithsonian revealed that the building was in serious disrepair. The roof leaked, netting had to be placed in some galleries to catch falling ceiling plaster, window frames were rotting, the floor tiles in the Great Hall were crumbling, and the exterior facade was so degraded it was shedding fist-sized pieces of rock.
  • In January 1997, the Smithsonian announced that the building would close in January 2000 for a two-year, $42 million renovation (the estimated cost of the renovation then grew, initially in 2000 to $110-120 million). Hartman-Cox Architects was hired to oversee the conservation and repair. To be restored were the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, colonnades, vaulted galleries, large windows, and skylights as long as a city block.
  • Just three years later, as the renovation was about to begin, the cost of repairs had risen to $110 million to $120 million.
  • Prior to the building’s closure in January 2000, a decision was reached to allot about one-third of the building’s total space to the National Portrait Gallery while simultaneously eliminating the informal north–south division between the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Smithsonian resolved the dispute practically – Art that best fit an exhibition space got it. Modern art, which often tends toward large canvases, was installed on the high-ceilinged third floor.
  • By March 2001, as the cost of the renovation rose to $180 million, Nan Tucker McEvoy (a California newspaper heiress and arts patron) donated $10 million for the renovation.
  • Later in 2001, the Henry Luce Foundation gave another $10 million.
  • In June 2001, reconstruction costs were estimated at $214 million.
  • In July 2001, the reopening was pushed back even further to July 2006.
  • In 2003, the government increased its contribution to $166 million and more than $40 million in private funds had been raised.
  • In August 2003, Congress approved a major change to the renovation design – adding a glass roof to the open courtyard in the center of the Old Patent Office Building.
  • In March 2004, the Smithsonian announced that architect Norman Foster of Foster and Partners would design the glass canopy.
  • In early November 2004, the National Capital Planning Commission(NCPC), which has statutory authority to approve all buildings and renovations in the D.C. metropolitan area, approved the preliminary design for the glass canopy.  That same month, real estate development executive Robert Kogod and his wife, Arlene (heiress to Charles E. Smith Construction fortune) donated $25 million to complete the canopy. By then, costs had risen to $298 million. $60 million in private funds still needed to be raised.
  • In January 2005, the United States Commission of Fine Arts, an advisory commission on design, approved the canopy.
  • In April 2005, the Smithsonian said that the canopy would not be ready by the time the museum reopened in July 2006, and would be installed in 2007.
  • On June 2, 2005, the the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) reversed its preliminary approval of the canopy
  • On August 4, 2005, the Smithsonian brought five alternatives to the NCPC.
  • On September 8, 2005, the NCPC reversed itself yet again, and approved one of the revised designs. The delay cost the Smithsonian $10 million.
  • In October 2005, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation made a $45 million donation to the NPG to finish both the building renovation and the canopy. The Smithsonian agreed to call the two museums, the conservation center, courtyard, storage facility, and other operations within the Old Patent Office complex the “Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture” in appreciation for the gift.
  • On July 1, 2006, after undergoing extensive renovations, the building and the Smithsonian American Art Museum was reopened. The total cost of the building’s renovation was $283 million.
  • In just two months, attendance at the renovated building rose significantly to 214,495.
  • On October 7, 1968, the National Portrait Gallery opened to the public.
  • In September 2007, video security cameras were hastily installed to stop vandalism as some patrons spit on art they did not like, while others kissed or touched some paintings.

Luce Foundation Center

The massive building, designed in the Greek Revival style by architect Robert Mills and Thomas U. Walter, took 31 years to complete. Mills spanned the interior spaces with masonry vaulting without the use of wooden beams. Skylights and interior light courts filled the spaces with daylight. It has a sandstone and marble façade, and a central portico modeled after the the Parthenon of Athens, a departure in Washington where previously ambitious public buildings had been based on Roman and Renaissance precedents.

The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture: 8th and F St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001.  Tel: 202.633.1000 (recorded information/live voice).  E-mail:  info@si.edu.  Website:   www.si.edu/visit.  Coordinates: 38.89778°N 77.022936°W

National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

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National Gallery of Art – West Building

The National Gallery of Art (NGA), and its attached 2.5-hectare (6.1-acre) Sculpture Garden, is located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. The NGA’s permanent collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present.

Check out “National Gallery of Art – Sculpture Garden”

National Gallery of Art – East Building

The substantial core collection includes major works of art donated founding benefactors Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, Chester Dale and Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. In total, the NGA has 271,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space.

Spider (Louise Bourgeois, 1996 – 1997) – Sculpture Garden

Here are some interesting trivia regarding this museum:

Check out “National Gallery of Art – Sculpture Garden” and “Museum of Modern Art”

This national art museum includes the original Neo-Classical West Building (designed by John Russell Pope), which is linked underground to the modern East Building (designed by I. M. Pei). Often, the Gallery presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art.

Check out “National Gallery of Art – West Building” and  “National Gallery of Art – East Building” 

Here is the historical timeline of the museum:

  • During World War I, Andrew W. Mellon, a Pittsburgh banker (and later Treasury Secretary from 1921 until 1932)  began gathering a private collection of old master paintings and sculptures.
  • During the late 1920s, Mellon decided to direct his collecting efforts towards the establishment of a new national gallery for the United States.
  • In 1930, partly for tax reasons, Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, which was to be the legal owner of works intended for the gallery.
  • In 1930–1931, as part of the Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings, the Trust made its first major acquisition – 21 paintings from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg including such masterpieces as Raphael‘s Alba Madonna, Titian‘s Venus with a Mirror, and Jan van Eyck‘s Annunciation.
  • In 1929 Mellon had initiated contact with Charles Greeley Abbot, the recently appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
  • In 1931, Mellon was appointed as a Commissioner of the Institution’s National Gallery of Art. When the director of the Gallery retired, Mellon asked Abbot not to appoint a successor, as he proposed to endow a new building with funds for expansion of the collections. However, Mellon’s trial for tax evasion, centering on the Trust and the Hermitage paintings, caused the plan to be modified.
  • In 1935, Mellon announced in The Washington Star, his intention to establish a new gallery for old masters, separate from the Smithsonian. When asked by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on “the attitude of the Government towards the gift.”
  • In January 1937, Mellon formally offered to create the new Gallery.
  • On March 24, 1937, Mellon’s birthday, a joint resolution of the United States Congress accepted the substantial art collection and funds for construction of the building (provided through the Trust), and approved the construction of a museum for the American people on the National Mall. The new gallery, effectively self-governing (not controlled by the Smithsonian Institution), took the old name “National Gallery of Art” while the Smithsonian’s gallery would be renamed the “National Collection of Fine Arts” (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
  • On May 23, 1999, the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, the final addition to the complex, was completed and opened to the public.
  • In 2011, an extensive refurbishment and renovation of the French galleries were undertaken. In one weekend, as part of the celebration of the reopening of this wing, organist Alexander Frey performed 4 sold-out recitals of music of France in the French Gallery.
  • In 2013, the NGA purchased, from a private French collection Gerard van Honthorst‘s 1623 painting, 1.23 by 2.06-m. (4 by 6.8 ft.) The Concert, which had not been publicly viewed since 1795.

Ginevra de Benci – Obverse (1474-78), the only painting of Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas

The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio‘s Maesta, the tondo of the Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione‘s Allendale Nativity, Giovanni Bellini‘s The Feast of the Gods, Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.

A Woman Holding a Pink (Rembrandt Van Rijn)

The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of Saint Martin and the Beggar, by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Anton Kern, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. There are also later works from the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, and Roy Lichtenstein.

The author with the Self Portrait Vincent Van Gogh (1889) in the background

The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the Chalice of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole‘s series of paintings titled The Voyage of Life, (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).

Watson and the Shark (John Singlton Copley)

The National Gallery of Art’s print collection began with 400 prints donated by five collectors in 1941.  In 1942, Joseph E. Widener donated his entire collection of nearly 2,000 works and, in 1943, Lessing Rosenwald donated his collection of 8,000 old master and modern prints.  Between 1943 and 1979, Rosenwald donated almost 14,000 more works. In 2008, Dave and Reba White Williams donated their collection of more than 5,200 American prints.  Today, in addition to rare illustrated books, the collection comprises 75,000 prints including collections of works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, William Blake, Mary Cassatt, Edvard Munch, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Walkway to the West Building and Cascade Cafe

A walkway beneath 4th Street, called “the Concourse,” connects the two buildings.  In 2008, the Concourse was transformed into Multiverse, an artistic installation by American artist Leo Villareal. The largest and most complex light sculpture by Villareal, Multiverse featured approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED nodes that run through channels along the entire 200-foot (61 m)-long space.

Multiverse (Leo Villareal)

The concourse also includes a large auditorium for lectures, films, and other educational programs, a smaller auditorium, expansive gallery space, a food court (Cascade Café), bookstore (Concourse Bookstore) and a gift shop (Children’s Shop). Cascade Café serves an ever-changing selection of soups, salads, specialty entrées, burgers, signature sandwiches, and fresh pastries and desserts in a food-court environment.

Cascade Cafe

National Gallery of Art: Constitution Ave. NW (between 3rd and 9th Streets), Washington, D.C..   Tel: (202) 737-4215.  Website: www.nga.gov. Open Mondays to Saturdays, 10 AM – 5 PM, and Sundays, 11 AM to 6 PM.  It is closed on December 25 and January 1. Admission is free.

How to Get There: The most convenient metro stops are Archives/Navy Memorial (Yellow and Green lines; 0.2 miles); Judiciary Square (Red line; 0.5 miles), and Smithsonian (Blue and Orange lines; 0.7 miles).