"Knowledge Begins in Wonder"
Introduction
The Smithsonian was one of the first museums in the country to develop a special children's place during the early part of the 20th century. Convinced that museums could provide a fertile environment conducive to children as well as adults, then Smithsonian secretary Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834-1906) converted a room on the first floor of the Smithsonian Institution Building's south tower into a gallery of natural history exhibits aimed specifically at children. Langley felt that if children were to benefit from the educational possibilities that existed in museums, a different approach to exhibit design would be necessary. Langley identified himself with children in trying to make suitable choices for the room. Special display cases were designed so that the exhibits were all within a child's view. Latin labels, commonly found in all natural history museum displays of the day, were abolished and replaced with poetic inscriptions, because, as Langley explained taking the viewpoint of a child:
We are not very much interested in the Latin names, and however much they may mean to grown-up people, we do not want to have our entertainment spoiled by its being made a lesson.
During 1900 and 1901, the room was altered and lavishly decorated with special colors and imagery that were chosen based on their ability to provide a pleasant environment. Throughout the course of these two years, many physical changes took place in the south tower room under Langley's close and constant supervision. Washington architects Joseph Hornblower and James P. Marshall oversaw the many structural changes to the room and local interior designer Grace Lincoln Temple provided the ornamental details.
Color lithograph of the Children's Room from the 1901 Smithsonian Annual Report.
The Architectural Design
Washington architects Joseph Hornblower and James P. Marshall were brought in to oversee many of the structural changes to the room. A pair of iron columns that supported the floor above were replaced by a single iron beam spanning the width of the room imbedded into the outer load bearing masonry walls. The beam was encased by plaster on lath as was the drop ceiling, which would serve as a canvas for the decorative painting by the designer Grace Lincoln Temple. The tall, narrow windows were enlarged and the doorway was altered to allow more light into the room.
In the center of the room was a huge aquarium designed by Hornblower and Marshall that contained a special fountain and brightly-colored fish, plants, and stones. It rested on a massive table also designed by the architects (fig. 1). The colorful fish inside were just a few of the live specimens on view in the room meant to encourage children to marvel at nature's beauty. A shiny white mosaic floor with colorful borders of red, blue, green, yellow, and black tiles inspired by Celtic designs was installed in the room (fig. 2). The firm designed many of the room's furnishings as well.
In order to ensure the most enjoyable and stimulating experience possible, Langley directed Hornblower and Marshall to design new display cases that were low to the ground, closer to the child's height, so that the specimens inside could be more easily viewed. Constructed of light maple wood, the cases easily harmonized with the bright interior. The numbers of specimens in these cases were kept low so as not to overwhelm children.
A pair of leafy wrought iron gates designed by the architects were attached to new wood framed glass doors (fig. 3). The foliated design alluded to the natural world on the other side of the glass doors, making the doors less a barrier to the outside than a transition. It were as if nature, in the form of climbing intertwined ivy, had permeated the room in a tangible way.
The Decorative Design of the Children's Room
For the artistic design of the room, Grace Lincoln Temple, a prominent interior designer, was chosen (fig. 1.). She was one of the first women to work as a decorator of public buildings. To create a bright, cheery environment, Temple chose luminous shades of green to cover the greater portion of the walls, which were sectioned off by gilded moldings. Temple created a unique stencil design for the wall frieze consisting of a graceful parade of stylized birds in bright colors encircling the room just above the cases (fig. 2.). The design was probably inspired by the Celtic pages in the 1856 design sourcebook The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones (1809-1874), a well-known advocate of design reform.
The green-and-gold color scheme of the walls was repeated on the ceiling where they were enriched by the addition of intense blues and browns (fig. 3). Langley initially wanted to re-create a ceiling fresco by Correggio that he had seen in Parma, Italy, in which playful cherubs peered down at the viewer through a leafy arbor. However, as an exact copy proved prohibitively expensive, he asked Grace Lincoln Temple to develop a variation of the fresco. Her design called for a fanciful trellis about which were entwined naturalistic grapevines and leaves and on which were perched brilliantly rendered birds against an airy blue sky (figs. 4&5).
