Number 7, 2014

This past June, Andrew Tallon, Associate Professor of Art at Vassar College, traveled to Bryn Athyn with a Leica Geosystems C10 laser scanner and conducted a laser survey of both Bryn Athyn Cathedral and the first floor of Glencairn. The resulting three-dimensional spatial maps will allow us to study these buildings in a new way, by creating ‘slices’ through the structures in the form of plans, sections, elevations, and perspective views. His goal was to study the "refinements," or subtle curves in plan and elevation, which were incorporated into the designs of both buildings. The use of a laser scanner was essential because, according to Dr. Tallon, "Though relatively well documented in the textual sources, the refinements applied at Bryn Athyn Cathedral are in most cases subtle enough to escape detection by the eye." In this essay, he presents the results of his Bryn Athyn laser scans for the first time. He also attempts to answer a question that has perplexed many of those who study these remarkable buildings: "Who is the architect of Bryn Athyn Cathedral?"

Number 6, 2014

On June 19, 1914, members of the Bryn Athyn New Church congregation participated in a cornerstone laying ceremony for Bryn Athyn Cathedral. Ground had been broken in the fall of 1913, and by the next summer construction was underway on the basement foundations. The date of June 19 was chosen because it coincided with an annual church celebration known as “New Church Day.” Clouds and rain earlier in the day had threatened to postpone the ceremony, but the sun managed to break through the clouds at the very moment that the stone was dedicated by Bishop William F. Pendleton.

Number 5, 2014

In the essay below, Irene shares her thoughts about the Minerva Victoria. She holds a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania (1980), and is a specialist in Greek and Roman sculpture and in ancient art and archaeological collections. She is currently the Deputy Director of the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona, with teaching appointments in the School of Anthropology and in the Department of Art History. From 2006 to 2012 Irene was the Executive Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Number 4, 2014

This past week, during Glencairn Museum's annual Sacred Arts Festival, the Venerable Losang Samten worked for five days to create a traditional Tibetan sand mandala. Mandalas are an ancient art form of Tibetan Buddhism. Drawn in colored sand, they represent the world in its divine form, and serve as a map by which an ordinary human mind can be transformed into an enlightened mind. Losang, a renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and former personal attendant to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was born in central Tibet. He traveled to the United States in 1988 to make the first public mandala in the West, at the American Museum of Natural History. He taught Tibetan Language at the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 1997, and was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002. In 2004 he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Losang is now the Spiritual Director of the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. He was interviewed at Glencairn Museum on April 23, 2014.

Number 3, 2014

In the 1920s, before construction had begun on Glencairn, Raymond Pitcairn noticed two medieval bronze bells for sale in the gallery of a New York City art dealer. Unfortunately for Pitcairn, while he was deciding whether or not to buy the bells, they were purchased by William Randolph Hearst, the legendary newspaper publisher and art collector. In a remarkable turn of events, more than a decade later Mildred Pitcairn gave the bells to her husband as a Christmas present. After construction on Glencairn was complete, the bells were hung from ropes in the Great Hall, where they remain to this day.

Number 2, 2014

Raymond Pitcairn is remembered primarily for two architectural achievements: Bryn Athyn Cathedral, and Glencairn, the Bryn Athyn home he built for his family and art collection. One of Pitcairn’s other creative outlets is less well known—his lifelong interest in photography. This hobby is the focus of Glencairn Museum’s current exhibition, Behind the Lens: Raymond Pitcairn and Photography (through November 15, 2014). The Glencairn Museum Archives maintains a large collection of photographic prints and negatives, including thousands of glass negatives. The images in the exhibition have been drawn from this remarkable resource.

Number 1, 2014

Crispin Paine, Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UK), is a leading authority on the interpretation of religious objects in museums. His new book, Religious Objects in Museums: Private Lives and Public Duties, uses examples from around the world to examine how religious objects are “transformed” when they enter museums—how they are interpreted by curators, and how visitors respond to them. Last fall, after lecturing at Yale University, Crispin traveled to Bryn Athyn to spend several days at Glencairn Museum, where he consulted with museum staff and addressed a group of Bryn Athyn College students and faculty. Glencairn staff accompanied Crispin while he toured several local museums, including the National Christmas Center & Museum and the Biblical Tabernacle Reproduction at the Mennonite Information Center. In this essay, he shares his thoughts about museums of world religion, faith museums, and religion in secular museums.

Number 10, 2013

Several weeks ago Glencairn Museum welcomed Philipp Serba from the Goethe University of Frankfurt in Germany, who is researching several Neo-Assyrian alabaster reliefs in Glencairn's Ancient Near Eastern collection. Philipp is using state-of-the-art computer technology to create a 3D-reconstruction of the wall reliefs in the Northwest Palace of Assurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.) in Nimrud, Iraq. Reliefs from this palace are located in museums and archaeological collections around the world. Glencairn has two of them, each depicting a winged, bearded figure wearing a horned helmet. In this essay, he surveys the relationship between these supernatural figures and their original positions in the Northwest Palace.