Photograph by Jim Harrison.
Eric Höweler, associate professor of architecture and co-founding principal of Höweler + Yoon Architecture, looked to Solomon’s collection for inspiration as he began working on the design. He thought it would be fun to embed an abstract profile of Peter Rabbit into the entryway’s limestone columns. “Maybe,” he recalls thinking, “Peter Solomon would identify with Peter Rabbit.”
In a pandemic-less year, the gate will rarely be closed.
Photograph by Jim Harrison.
That isn’t the only whimsical feature. Scattered throughout the new gate’s ironwork are playful castings of storybook images, each piece looking like a toy left behind: the Mad Hatter’s topper, the Cheshire Cat, the Red Queen’s crown. The little hidden clues, Höweler hopes, will draw people in and away from the distractions that otherwise occupy them. “We have a kind of at-a-glance culture,” he explains, “so the double-take was something that we really wanted to en