The Courtyard

Last week some of the sketch group ventured into the Des Moines Art Center galleries to sketch. In the museum (as it is in many) you can only use graphite and paper--no paint, markers, etc. However, the courtyard in the middle of the galleries, accessed from the front lobby, is not restricted. So I sat outside in the sun and sketched the confluence of the three buildings that comprise the Art Center. 

"In the Courtyard," wc/ink on paper

The buildings were designed by three internationally famous architects, though obviously in different eras. The first permanent building was designed in the late 1940s by the Finnish master Eero Saarinen, assisted by his son Elio, who later designed the Gateway Arch. That original building was purposely made horizontal and low to conform with the Iowa geography and clad in limestone. Unlike many, this building's entrance is human sized rather than grand (think: Metropolitan Museum in New York). The second building was added about twenty years later during the era of brutalist architecture, designed by the now-famous I.M. Pei at the outset of his career. Made of concrete, it was added to provide large exhibition space for sculpture and large-format paintings. The last building, opened in the early 1980s, was designed by Richard Meier, who designed the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. These three buildings are, each in its own way, architectural gems.