No, its exterior is detracting in daylight and doesn’t redeem anything. I really don’t think Howard Roark would have approved of this.

It’s really too late to cry about it, but it’s really jarring when you drive up the east side of the gallery and see it.

Not only did the expansion go over budget and increase permanent operating costs, attendance for its money-making special exhibits has been way below predictions.

I have a hazy memory of a lovely day at the N-A. I hope the addition has redeeming features in daylight as well as when lit. (Redeeming as in, both aesthetically and fiscally.) Maybe it could be a butterfly pavilion in the spring

Ah, well. I can’t really embarrass my kids these days, so prolly should branch out.

For now, I need to go research the bogus Enterprise. I may find a clue as to why I never fully made the jump from TOS, but I suspect it’s the same reason I’m locked in the Tom Baker years of Dr. Who–as much as I embrace new technology, there are some things that just shouldn’t go there. Sometimes, that primitive presentation is part of the charm.

And sometimes, trying to embrace what you think is sleek and futuristic just ends up looking like a place for the 4-H to set up their entries for the county fair.

Maybe if they loaded this place up with Dali, it might start to make more sense to me. . .

Next it’ll be my family. RIGHT? RIGHT? AL and CL, I’m looking at YOU.

And you cannot embarrass me!

I considered the Louvre, but in the end I think that’s not at all the same because the French actually have a history with Egyptian antiquity pilfering, so that doesn’t look so out of place. Or maybe it’s that it feels kind of appropriate, like a Victorian garden curio. And you can see through it, so it’s not so in your face as the two-hour garden shed.

I somehow don’t think you can make the same stretch for a hangar. Or maybe I’m biased because I live in the land of prefabs, where the fundie churchgoers seem to think a massive garage is a great step up from renting a storefront at the strip mall. I’ve lost count of the buildings just like this that have sprung up in cow pastures and spent orange groves. The only thing missing is a giant cross on top and a sign out front declaring, “Who needs brick and mortar when god’s happy to pull up a folding chair and join us inside?”

Well, maybe they’ll reserve this thing for the modern “art” and you can avoid it all in one fell swoop.

I have to admit that I remember the brouhaha in Paris over the pyramid built in the middle of the Louvre courtyard, which was still being built when I was there. Now, construction mess aside, it looked as clashy to me as this nastiness does next to the Nelson.

On the other hand, it looks pretty in this picture and I wonder if that’s what out-of-towners think when they see the construction trailer airplane hangar Bloch addition.

This place is the one thing I miss about my year in MO, so I’m bummed. How this monstrosity came to be situated in the midst of the Nelson is on a par with Sarasota’s bogus “season of art” (they forgot the F), wherein modern atrocities like the giant fiberglass molar are foisted upon us at the bayfront for months. Kind of makes me wonder why I argue against cutting art subsidies.

DKC, you know, I was thinking that last night when I posted and simply forgot. I may have to mosey on down that way with the Tax Deductions and take some pix in daylight.

Honestly? I’d like it if it were somewhere else in the city. Like, oh, the airport.