Travels in the 2nd half

Most major universities have art galleries. Yale has two, The Yale Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. Together, they present an amazing collection of work and are worth a trip to New Haven. Best of all, they are free. The Yale Art Gallery is the oldest university art museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1832 when John Trumbull , an artist and soldier in the Revolutionary War, gave 100 of his paintings to Yale college. He also designed the gallery that was built to house his donation. That building was torn down in 1901. It was replaced by Street Hall, a building that opened in 1861 at the corner of High Street and Chapel Street, as the Yale School of the Arts. In 1928 the gallery expanded into what was called the Yale Gallery of Fine Arts (today the Old Yale Art Gallery Building) across High Street from Street Hall. Finally the Louis Kahn Building was opened in 1953 on the north side of Old Gallery. Today these three buildings together house the collection...

Cement tiles in Ecléctika One of my favorite activities in San Juan is to take a tour sponsored by the Puerto Rico Historic Building Drawing Society. PRHBDS is an organization dedicated to recording and maintain the architectural and design history of the island. As part of their mission, they lead tours to highlight that patrimony. On a recent trip to the island I had the opportunity to take a tour that showed off the history of using “hydraulic tiles” in the houses of Old San Juan. Hydraulic Tiles , also known as cement or encaustic tiles, were developed in Catalonia in the 1850’s. The process represented a new way to produce durable floor tiles at affordable prices. Hydraulic tiles are made of two layers of cement, a base layer topped with a layer that has received coloring to produce vibrant and long-lasting patterns. What made them significantly less expensive that previous tiles is that are easy to mass produce. They do not need to be fired in a kiln. They are poured...