I had heard that this gallery was a predecessor of the New York Guggenheim, and his first study of using a ramp as circulation and display. The most interesting aspect to me is that this is a functioning gallery - and was originally a store for V.C. Morris. I was curious about how an architect with the known character of FLW would deal with the design question of display - could he pull off allowing the architecture to come secondary to the merchandise? The Xanadu Gallery deals in precious and historic decorative arts from various parts of the world, predominantly Asia and Africa from what I could see. The pieces are impressive in themselves, though I found that, as suspected, they fall into the background of this piece of architecture. They become decoration to the building in groups rather than singular disconnected elements. The individual display cases which exist (I presume for the most valuable small pieces of the collection) are actually buried within the smooth curving wall and hidden from site until the viewer is directly in front of the glass pane.
Being an architect rather than a collector, I can say that I really enjoyed the space. The architecture was well executed and provides a ton of visual interest and small curiosities for those not browsing the antiques. The interior is far more comfortable and less severe than the stark white modernism of the Guggenheim, perhaps this is the difference for this architect between presenting art to the public in a sterile environment, and encouraging private connoisseurs to bring a piece back into their home.
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