Selected views of the stairs. From left to right: 2nd flight looking up, chair at bottom of stairs, 3rd flight looking down, under 2nd flight
At the precolumbian museum’s bottom story, what struck me most was the light-or for that matter the lack thereof. To be in a stair or stairwell is usually a fairly well-lit experience and many stairs are lit up by bright fluorescent lightbulbs. This is almost the opposite for these stairs. In each sketch I was trying to shown the stark black and light gray shades present in the different views of the stairs. Even one of the chairs close to the bottom of the stairs is illuminated and controlled in a similar fashion; it sits in its own tiny pool of light. To me, the least successful sketch is the fourth, and frankly I think it was just a very hard view to pull off. The deep black shapes abstract any sense that you are looking at the bottom of a stairway.
Colin, I really liked the shading technique used in these sketches. I think it definitely helps to understand the lighting of the spaces this way instead of using a line drawing and was executed very well. In the basement, I felt that when I entered I was immediately drawn to that chair in the center of the room to almost take a full 360 view of the room in. That chair felt like one of two hierarchical spots in the underground gallery along with the statues. Light was definitely important to Radic in his renovation and it includes everything from the reflection of the colorful art installation in the courtyard to the light under the handrail was very caferully thought of and designed and your sketches definitely helped reinforce that idea.
Thanks for the comment Nick. You point out a an interesting thing about hierarchy. Now that I’m thinking about it, the only natural light that was allowed into the -2 level was shining down onto the statues. Not only was it the largest source of light in the gallery but natural light has a different quality than artificial light, even if it is a warm source of light. If I had to pick the next set of lights in the heirachary it would be the large spotlight-like ones. Finally would be the ones illuminating the objects