Beautiful Mess

Not far from where I live, there's an amazing old building. In nearly every respect, it's a tumbled-down dilapidated gem. But it has one thing in common with masterpieces of classical sculpture, the kind that demand a strange sort of pilgrimage walk, a circumnavigation so that it can be viewed from every angle. One does this because the sculpture, or the old building in this case, rewards you for going to the effort. Every angle reveals or conceals something worth seeing, and it's the totality of these views that gives the full impression of it.

Museums generally have exactly this sort of viewership in mind. They enable you. Sculptures stand on pedestals placed where you can walk all the way around--not in corners or against a wall behind a velvet rope. No.

But crowded city architecture is a different matter, and necessarily so. It isn't possible for most buildings to be set apart and alone. Often more than one side will be blocked completely or perhaps the structures were simply built too near each other to allow a decent view.

This bulding was special because I was able to walk all the way around, to see it from every side. It was on the alley-way side of this beautiful mess that I took the picture you see here.