Walking through, room by room
London, United Kingdom — Museum of applied arts.
Look up first, on entering.
This hall is tall, white walls and white arches, ribs crossing overhead, light slanting in from the high windows as a long strip on the floor. The chandelier is built up of metal and glass, hung low; standing under it you can count the tiers of fittings. Along the wall stand rows of wooden benches, much darker than the wall. Some sit still; some walk back and forth between the doorways, their steps muffled by the vault. Through this door, the next room changes wall colour and case height entirely.
Further in, cases follow one after another. Behind glass are ceramics, textiles, small metalwork, and whole stone carvings against the wall, scale jumping from large to small. Some galleries fill the walls with almost no bare space; others set a single piece before one wall, to be seen from far back. Round to the red-brick side and its outer court, another row of arched windows and brick mouldings. After long enough you forget which room you are in, remembering only the shape of the relief you just saw.
