Thursday, September 29, 2005

The New De Young

I don't like the new De Young.

In fact I'm pretty upset about the whole business. All those great City Beautiful inspired public-palaces are gone. There is no more alligator pit in the Steinhart Aquarium. There is no fancy marble, or gilt paint on the iron work. It's all gone.

Beyond the loss of a historical resource, beyond the loss of craftmanship that cannot be regained, it is to me a loss of ideology.

Those museums were old school. Seriously old school. Science and the arts weren't interactive. They were lofty relics stored in dimly lit halls behind glass. Somber, imposing, inscrutable. That's what I loved about those places. I can't really get into the whole new-science, info-tainment, facts-delivered-by-handpuppet places that seem to have swept over the museum scene. I'm sure there are educators who'll tell me that this method is more effective in teaching facts to ADD addled children, but will it make them more curious about the world? I don't know. I don't think so.

As a kid those palaces instilled in me that science was important, that it was mysterious. Why else would there be such a big fancy building to house it all in? You had to meditate on what was in those dusty diaramas to make sense of it. And more often than not, you couldn't make sense of it. Not completely, because the whole story wasn't told. It wasn't holistic. A friend of mine once told me that good art leaves you with more questions than it answers, and I felt that way about those museums in Golden Gate Park. They gave you the briefest taste that the world was a very interesting place.


And if they ever do anything to the Exporitorium I'll bite somebody.

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