I was killing some time in the Enid A. Haupt Garden waiting for a Resident Associates lecture on the 'Cities of Ancient America'. The slide lecture was given by George Scheper, a professor at JHU. It further whetted my appetite to visit the Mayan areas of Guatemala and Belize. Mostly Guatemala. Someday!!
This sketch shows a few of the towers on the Smithsonian Castle. Well, sort of. I left out a lot of fancy brickwork detail.
(Here is a hand colored "stereoview" photo of the Castle back in the day. There's more here. Neat building! Jumbled, overdone, fussy, and Victorian, it's described as "faux Norman style" in its architecture. I love looking at it! It's so unlike most of the faux Classical and the genuine modern stuff around it. It's like a frilly old lady in a bustle.)
The Enid A. Haupt Garden is fairly gaudy, an apt accompaniment to the building right now. There are some big garish tropical plants enjoying these last few days outside in the sun, lined up in the terrace area around the Castle's garden entrance. They look all wrong. They'll be gone soon!
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