July 2, 2005

  • The Bridge, the Building and the Art Museum

    During a recent interview seeking a well-educated, well-rounded
    candidate capable of varied tasks, my boss asked our interviewee to
    name his favorite bridge, building, and art museum.  I listened to
    the response with half an ear, composing my own:


    The 4-mile-long Astoria-Megler Bridge reaches from Washington State to
    Oregon in one long rising arc, overflown by gulls and underscored by a
    misty mixture of briny coastal fumes.  Riding up the incline
    makes you clutch your seat roller-coaster-wise, and passing through
    cloudy wet air over the roiling mouth of the Columbia, you find yourself airborne on
    four wheels.

    The only time in my life when I had time
    to notice buildings was my 9-month sojourn in Europe as an
    undergraduate, and my institutional home at the time being the
    University of Edinburgh, I thought at first my choice would have to be
    one of the great monuments on the Royal Mile, winding down from Castle
    past St. Giles to the Holyrood.  But then I remembered another
    building.  Or a remnant of one, but what a remnant!  St.
    Anthony's Chapel sits enduringly on a heathery outcrop with the misty
    Scottish air wafting through the open doorway that looks, from one
    aspect, on the great ancient/modern city below, and from the other on
    the rising green of Arthur's Seat with its quiet, looming prehistoric
    majesty.

    Finally: although I seldom frequent art museums, my abiding memory is an
    evening spent rambling an impressive display at the National Gallery of
    Art.  Spilling out after this intellectual fulfillment into the teeming
    metropolis near Judiciary Square, at the foot of a tall
    pillar announcing the exhibit in lovely pastels and ornate writing,
    there lay, passed by the uncaring feet of a thousand well-shod white-collars, a
    large, dead, bloated RAT.  I'm not sure what summary I can make of
    that experience, but it definitely had something to do with art (anagramatically at least).


    (our interviewee, incidentally, cinched his candidacy by taking the
    all-in-one approach and citing Gehry's ship-shaped Guggenheim Art Museum in Bilbao,
    Spain, and the adjoining bridge; a quick retort even more impressive
    than his easy answers to both:  "If the President announced a $1
    billion program, what would the individual cost be to every man, woman
    and child in America?" and "How does an air conditioner work?")

    And you?  Your bridge, building and museum?  (or just
    repeating, for my dull English-major's brain, how an air conditioner
    works would be okay too)

Comments (16)

  • I have no idea how an a/c works, and well just forget about the math.  My favorite bridge is the Tappan Zee Bridge in NY.  I love the way it looks like it's just sitting on top of the water.  My second favorite is the Verrazano, also in NY, because it just seems to come out of nowhere, and at night it's just gorgeous.  I think I must have a thing for bridges.  My favorite building is actually a house back in Virginia that just made me happy every time I looked at it.  It's on a corner, it sprawls, it has a huge yard, and I imagine happy content people living inside.  I guess I don't have a favorite art museum-it's the stuff on the inside that gets me.

  • I went to the Chicago art museum about a year ago.  Among the many displays was the original painting of American Gothic.

  • I love your choices (especially St. Anthony's chapel!) but I would not cross that bridge if my life depended on it.  I have a terrible phobia about heights over water (past life stuff I think, hehe).

    It is great to hear from you, by the way!!

  • Don't say that an English major's brain is....DULL! :D

  • thank gawd you didn't ask me how an air conditioner works.

    I've been on that bridge of which you speak, the Astoria one, and even ate at a restaurant called Pig and a Pancake that gave me a view of it.  Breathtaking, in that not fun take-your-breath fearful way.  There's a bridge up here called the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that is a rebuilt one, because the original, Gallopin' Gertie, was blown down four months after construction in 1940 by a good strong wind.  They rebuilt the bridge, obviously it was safer, and yeah.  Last summer I drove across it with my heart in my throat, ignorant to the story of Gallopin' Gertie, but still skeered out of my wits because of the sheer... impossibility of such a bridge.  It seems like an awful lot of faith to put into people to drive across those things, doesn't it?  lol

  • bridge -- the narrow wooden structure -- it had no side rails, a sheer drop of thirty feet or so to the water... It terrified me as a child and made me quake as a newly lisenced driver in my teens, over Macon Lake, on the way to my best friend's house in southeast Arkansas.

    building -- the old barn behind my parents' house, filled with the deterius and memories of forty years.

    museum -- a tie. The Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada (think dinosaurs. world class facility) and the National Gallery in DC. 

    Remind me never to subject myself to an interview there. Intimidating! (yet oddly fun)

  • Whoa!  Sounds like a tough interview.  Not sure I wouldn't choke.  Bridges, hmmm, for intimidating, I would have to say, Lake Ponchartrain in Louisiana, for beauty, I have always loved the Green River Valley in North Carolina with a close tie Annapolis Bay Bridge.  Art museums, been to very few, I'm afraid.  Was impressed with McArthur Park museum as a teenager in Little Rock, AR.

  • Okay, so, the deal with the air conditioner.....      hehe, no clue.

    My favorite bridge has to be the Throg's Neck Bridge.  There is nothing in particular that I like about it other than it makes me smile to think about it.  As a child I called it the Frog's Neck Bridge.  I always liked that name.  I can't think of a favorite building.  My first thought was my favorite restaruant.  I loved the castles in Austria, but one doesn't stand out to me.  My favorite museum is a toss up between the Smithsonian in D.C. and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

  • wow - what kind of job is this for??  because I'm sure I would *not* be called back!  I would have stammered and choked and I know nothing about air conditioning...

  • Loved your description of the Astoria bridge because out here is where I live.  My favorite bridge would be the Golden Gate in San Francisco for sentimental reasons.  A veteran of WW!! told me that coming back from the south Pacific, which was hell, that these strong men who had been through that hell, would come up on deck and stand there crying when they saw that bridge because of what it symbolized. 

  • I started posting a reply and it turned into a great long essay so I clipped it to post it on my site! Short answers are below, long answers and explanations at my page :)

    Bridge: the Humber Bridge, UK

    Building: too hard to choose from National Theatre London, Rievaulx Abbey North Yorkshire, Dubrovnic Croatia, La Sagrada Familia Barcelona

    Art gallery: probably the National Portrait Gallery, London

    Loved your descriptions and was terrified at the thought of that interview

  • My favorite bridge is difficult, because I am bridge phobic.  However, the bridge to Deer Isle Stonington is probably the favorite.  Building: sorry, the only favorite I seem to have right now is my home.  Art Museum: The Shelburne Museum. 

    I am such a local girl.

    Blessings abound

  • Interesting questions, particularly in light of what it is that I DO to earn a living...  so YEAH I have an opinion.

    Bridge:  I actually have two - the new bridge in France (the Millau Viaduct, designed by architect Norman Foster), and the Golden Gate (scion of an almost forgotten era in American history when we DID do anything - mainly because I missed going there when I was in the Bay Area in October '89, due to the traffic snarls from the earthquake).

    Museum: Three in particular - Gehry's Vitra Design Museum in Weil-am-Rhein, Germany (although his museum in Bilbao is actually closer to my Basque heart), the Guggenheim in NYC (because Wright's idea for this building is so SIMPLE), and the Getty in Los Angeles - mostly for the view of the city (hopefully it'd be a windy day).

    Building: Several, but among them Philip Johnson's AT&T (Sony) Building in NYC (because of an article I read once about the building's structure), The Reims Cathedral (for the sheer scale of it, and as a marvel of craftsmanship), and the New Emirates Stadium in Islington (North London, mostly cos I want to see my favourite football club).

    A/C in THIS town works on evaporation of water in the dry air.  As warm/hot outside air is forced through water-saturated pads, it evaporates the water, and the change of state takes the heat energy out of the air, cooling it.  In principle, refrigeration works sort of similarly - the refrigerant coil (or cooling coil, in the case of a chilled water system) absorbs the heat from the air forced through it (that's how the air becomes cold).  The heat is transferred to an evaporator coil, where convection again works to transfer the heat out of the refrigerant gas (or a cooling tower, where the water is churned around/poured down baffles where air is often blown across with a fan in order to again convect the heat out of the water).  THEN the refrigerant is compressed (or water compressed in a chiller) in order to lower its temperature in order to absorb more heat (and recirculated through the process again and again).

  • I've always been fascinated and entertained by bridges.  The engineering, vision, logistics, and effort involved in some of the larger bridges is overwhelming.  It would be hard for me to pick a favorite but, one that stands out in my mind is a new one that spans the Ohio river, I believe at Chesapeake.  I've only seen it once but it was beautiful and noteworthy.  It is an elegant design with a single center post and cables.  It  looks like something you would expect to see in a larger metropolitan area where more emphasis and money is allocated to esthetics.

    My favorite building might be the auditorium building in the center of the church camp grounds.  My attraction to this building is a combination of design appreciation, youthful wonder, and a bit of nastalgia.  It was big and round.  All timbers and wood construction.  There were panels on the outside wall that could be raise to allow the summer breeze blow through.  The roof was an artistic weave of beams and trusses that left an impression to even my teenage eye.

    I have little experience to draw from with art museums.  Of those I have visited the "Pump House" art gallery in my home town has always stood out, probably because of all of the local artists that are featured. 

  • Bridge-Old Cooper river bridges in Charleston SC (Had to look up name) I HATE bridges and these white knuckled sadistic metal grate nightmares were one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.  Once over- once back on a family vacation.

    Museum-  D'Orsay, Paris. The museum itself is art.  In contrast to the stair loving lunatic designer of the Louvre for instance.  Eat inside the clock when you are there! (And Rodin's 'Gates of Hell' are there)

    Building-  WTC.  Not for obvious reason.  I watched them go up one summer from a hill in a cemetary in my youth 30 mi outside the city.  I saw them fall from my office about the same distance away.  In both cases they were a distant outline on  a clear day.  (That and the Verrazano Br off to the right)

  • I was 7, with my parents and brother in a '65 VW van on a summer road trip from LA to Vancouver and back. We reached the Astoria Bridge at dusk. I don't remember crossing it--my mom was probably telling me to get my nose out of a book and look at the scenery. After crossing, we found a logging road and turned up it to find a camping spot. We climbed up a ways and were rewarded with a stunning view of the bridge at night, a glowing ribbon reflected by the water below. It was still a nice vista in the morning, though the surrounding clearcut detracted a bit.

    I think for sentimental reasons the Mackinac Bridge has to be my favorite. Nice clean lines of a big suspension bridge, beautiful surroundings, and a feature of several other summer vacations during my childhood. The other bridge that comes to mind is a pretty little cable-stayed pedestrian bridge I saw this spring in Xiamen, China. It turns 180 degrees, centered on a lone tower.

    Does Parc Guell in Barcelona count as a building? I spent a few delighted hours there, just astounded that someone had actually thought up and planned all of those weird, playful shapes. Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, mentioned a few posts up, is also wonderful, audacious, and full of unexpected touches.

    The art museum is harder. The East Wing of the National Gallery is beautiful, and the (original) Guggenheim is clever, and the Getty is a striking building in a spectacular spot (there wasn't much smog the day I was there), but if I had to choose one to the Louvre stands out both for sheer variety and odd juxtapositions.

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