St.Louis: Religious Architecture

The day after visiting the art museum we headed up to Nauvoo for the wedding. Nauvoo is a little historic town right on the Mississippi River . The focal point of the town is the LDS temple set on a hill above the river. It is an exact replica of a temple built in the 1840s and destroyed in 1865. They tried to match the interior to the style of the 1800s with old rugs and period furniture (once again feeding my love of 19th century furniture). The most famous interior fixture however is the spiral staircase going from the 5th floor to the underground basement. All of the interior is beautiful, but it was hard to find decent pictures online and you aren't allowed to take any inside.

The day after the wedding we visited the Cahokia mounds, which are ancient American Indian mounds built in around 1100 AD. The largest mound was the about same height as one of the Aztec temples in Mexico & are the largest mounds north of Mexio. They were used as religious sites and housing sites for the wealthier classes - it was significantly cooler on top of the mounds. At its peak, Cahokia had a population of up to 40,000 (comparable in population size to London at the same time). And then they all disappeared, as seems to happen in the Americas. 

It was taller than it looks (approximately 10 stories tall).

We went from Cahokia to The Arch. While not technically a religious building it is a monument to American expansion, which we saw as our divine right so it is close enough. The museum in the basement had a excellent exhibit on the Lewis & Clark expedition, but I would not recommend the movie on the Arch's construction (made in the 1960s. I fell asleep).

We finished our tourism at the Basilica of St. Louis. My Catholic/Mormon neighbor dragged us there and I had to admit, it was worth it. It was beautiful - as beautiful as any cathedral I've seen in Europe. We did not have enough time to stay long, but I'm glad we got to see it. 

He is so excited!

All 4 of these sites really are architectural marvels and I'm glad I got to see them all in one trip!

St.Louis: Not just corn and soybean fields

Last week I flew to St. Louis for my former roommate's wedding. I had not been to St. Louis since I was about 15 and I have a tendency to be somewhat... dismissive... toward any state considered Midwestern. I mean, flat fields of corn and soybeans? Yawn. So, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that St. Louis is a really fun city (and has hills!)

I assume this is the dude St. Louis was named after (King Louis IX)

They have an expansive park that houses the zoo and several museums (all for free). I decided to visit the Art Museum because it was hot outside and my grandparents conditioned me to visit art museums as often as possible. The museum itself and its surrounding area were beautiful and the permanent collection was impressive (Pollock, Matisse, etc.) 

They had an extensive "Decorative Arts and Design" collection (basically furniture and dishes), which I enjoyed due to my obsession with early American furniture. I mean, just look at that amazing couch. My favorite room was the Charleston room, which was a recreation of a room from a South Carolina plantation (even St.Louis knows Southern homes are where it's at). The best parts about the room were the tiny piano-like instrument and the fact that I set off the security alarm. No one came to investigate - in fact I didn't see a single guard in the entire collection, leading me to conclude that the St.Louis art museum would be an excellent place to steal art (or 18th century furniture). 

In addition to the permanent collection, there were a few visiting collections. The Atlanta art museum has a rather poor permanent collection and wonderful visiting exhibits. I'd say the St. Louis museum was pretty much the opposite. Also, it was rather confusing and difficult to find the visiting exhibits because of the addition of a wing that was only accessible through one door at the end of a long gallery. I finally found the visiting exhibition that was the most heavily advertised called "Yoko Ono: Wish Tree". A similar exhibition was done at MOMA a while ago I think. It is basically 3 Japanese maples and a bunch of blank tags for people to write their wishes on. Most of the wishes were about happiness for oneself or someone else. A surprising amount seemed to be from mothers wishing their child would get married or have a child (thus an implicit assumption these events will lead to happiness.)  I took a few pictures of my favorite ones:

The one about the monkey is my favorite. In my mind, Colten is the author's little brother

So there we have it. The Midwest contains beautiful buildings AND art. Who knew? 

Next time on my tales of St.Louis: Nauvoo, the Arch, and Catholicism