Light is Important in Gallery Design

Light is Important in Gallery Design
On Monday morning, when the St. Louis weather provided the definition of gloomy, the new Greenberg Van Doren Gallery at 3540 Washington Avenue in Grand Center provided a welcome contrast. The converted three-story commercial loft building is today an urban crystal, a no-nonsense solid form rendered transparent and seductive, with arrows of light shooting all the way through the building, front to back on the second floor, and with sensuous incidents of shape and color provided by works of art by some of the greatest painters, printmakers, photographers and sculptors of this century and the last.

Sometimes, to great effect, a building's skin may veil deliberately the pleasures to be experienced inside it. Greenberg Van Doren, however, shares its visual riches as one passes by on foot, in a car or on the bus. The view alone is a gratitude-deservin g addition to the urban scene, another reason for the region to feel as if good things are happening and a reminder that so often it is the arts leading the way toward the reconstruction of our cities and to rejuvenation of our sagging spirits. But the building's qualities do not end at its front windows.

What's so good about this building? Left on its own, it could be nondescript at best, an ugly duckling at worst. But what is striking nowadays - in addition to the continuing vis