LIGHT SHOW

I mentioned that we spent the night before our departure to Chicago at the Union Station Hotel. What it calls the Grand Hall has a barrel vault ceiling, elaborately restored. From 5 until 10 PM, there is a light show on the hour, lasting perhaps 5 minutes. These are but a few samples.                  

NOT A CATHEDRAL

But rather a train station, or it used to be one. Now it’s the barrel vault ceiling of the St. Louis Union Station Hotel, where we are spending the night before our early train to Chicago. There is a light show in the lobby every evening. I’ll add some more detail during our ride on Friday.                        

TOY FACTORY

My paralegal told me not to bother going to work today because there is nothing particular needing my attention. Since she runs my professional life I decided to follow her sage advice    

A better shot of the light projections on the barrel vault over Union Station's main hall, showing Santa's legendary toy factory. I wonder if the elves are organized. I tried  to add a short phone video but *&%&* Blogger keeps crashing during the upload, The work around was to copy it from Flickr.

  

HOW ABOUT A DING DONG?

What we call the headhouse of the old Union Station is now a spectacular hotel lobby with luxury rooms to the left and right, and more out under the train shed. A little hard to tell since I was using a very wide angle lens but the view is straight up into a beautiful barrel vault ceiling. In the last couple of years the management has added light shows.

I tend to have loose associations, which is not a bad thing unless you are psychotic. Watching this part of the display, I couldn't get a certain old Monty Python bit out of my head. Sorry for any offense.

            

The More I Think About It . . .

Late post today. We were out last night at opening night of our Shakespeare In The Park festival. Great production of Henry IV (they're doing Henry V, too) but it was so cold that we left at intermission. When we got home I started to prepare this but fell asleep over my laptop. It gets harder to keep the batteries charged, doesn't it? 

This is more of the light show in Union Station. The good news is that it's likely to pull people in and spend some money. The shopping/dining area under the train shed adjacent to the main building has been a flop. Not enough traffic. it was never enough to be a destination. Most of the original tenants left and what remains is tawdry. The display on the barrel vault might help.

On the other hand, it wrecks the grandeur of the space. If you look at the link in yesterday's post, you see something nearly perfect. The red chairs and elegant club-head lamps are gone. The new seating is gray. There is a column at each end of the hall holding light projectors. They often block the view of the ends of the barrel vault, so beautiful in their symmetry. For comparison, think about the effect of such a show in other grand interior spaces, like the dome of the U. S. Capitol or inside the spiral of the Guggenheim Museum.

So money and mass taste win again, but without the money the building would never have been restored in the first place.
                               

Light Show

Take a look at this post about Union Station from three years ago. Just a stunning space. The hotel got a new owner a couple of years ago that made another large investment in the property. The Great Hall has been redecorated - not for the better IMHO - with a big, unexpected addition. For 4 or 5 minutes at every hour a light show is projected onto the barrel vault. It was somewhere between spectacular and cheesy. I admit to being fascinated but afterward if felt very inappropriate to the dignified grandeur of the room.

I'll be running with this a little further. You can form your own opinion.