Thursday, April 19, 2007

Not Your Average Architectural Orniment


Photo & Text Copyright 2007 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved, including reproduction or republishing.

Fate of Scholars? Guano and moss? This grotesque from the late 1930's by Dudley Pratt is one of 28 that adorn Smith Hall on the Liberal Arts Quadrangle on the campus of the University of Washington. These are really imposing and somewhat humorous to my eye. One student wrote to me that although she'd spent a lot of time in the "Quad" she had never noticed these! Poor students so weighed down with studies that they don't look up. The UW campus is quite lovely with many interesting buildings featuring gargoyles and pictorial ornaments, but these are amazing. Looks like some cleaning of moss will be in order before long on Smith's Grotesques.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my, that is really neat. I really like this photograph.

I just posted a story about my wife, Patty, and her last radiation treatment for breast cancer, and, afterwards, our walk in Nature, and our encounter with President Bush's airplane.

Abraham Lincoln

Dsole said...

Hi Kim!
This is a wonderful finding! You're right, not my average architectural orniment! LOL
One of the things I'm learning with this DP blogging is to look up while I'm walking (ok, not always!) searching for details that i've never noticed before even I've seen the building many many times.
I think that should be an example :)
Have a great week-end!

Anonymous said...

I remember seeing this for the first time, walking back to my dorm after a long night of studying for midterms. Kinda scared the crap out of me. :)

Stefan Jansson said...

Surely this has to be someone who later became a professor at here.