Again, an ArtLibraryCrawl library resides in an extraordinary building.
The Cloisters Museum is an imposing frankenstructure which incorporates a number of authentic medieval architectural elements.
These components came from the collection founder George Grey Barnard, sculptor and collector.
They also came from the collection of John D Rockefeller, who acquired Barnards works and merged the collections to form an extraordinary gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The grounds are a large, quiet reserve at the tippity top of Manhattan, purchased by John D Rockefeller in order to shore up some "peaceful tranquility" away form the bustle of downtown. It was, then, a scarcely inhabited part of Manhattan.
Not only did the philanthropist establish the quiet green space of the Cloisters grounds, now planted according to medieval horticultural practices, he successfully bought all the land across the Hudson River - the Palisades- in order to establish a serene view from the proposed Cloisters Museum.
An ambitious vision then, an extraordinary result now.
The wide open green space is universe away from the tiny Lower East Side apartment we called home in NY.
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| Cloisters Museum, with a view of the leafy Palisades in the distance, across the Hudson River. |
Back to the building though. It is completely overwhelming.
Built to resemble the Medieval aesthetic it exhibits, it incorporates structural elements of five separate French cloistered abbeys, and a large Spanish apse (pictured from within, below) all of which were dissembled and shipped brick by brick to the new world of NY, NY.
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