STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 603 



The great Royal Museum of Ancient Paintings and of Sculpture 

 (Musee Royal de Peinture anciennc et de Sculpture) made an excellent 

 impression on me, with the exception that the halls are not well cared 

 for. 



I did not at this time examine any other institutions in Brussels, 

 partly because the}' were already well known to me and partly because 

 they were said not to l)e yery important, as in the case of the Congo 

 Museum in the somewhat distant Teryueren. ^ 



XV. HANOVER. 

 44. PROVINCIAL ]\IUSEUM. 



The Proyincial Museum is a new, rather large, and isolated museum, 

 near a park, for which a public competition had taken place in 1896. It 

 was not quite completed in October, 1901, but opened in February, 1902. 

 It was constructed between 1897 and 1902 by H. Stier, in a modified, 

 Italian high renaissance style, at a cost of more than $500,000. The 

 city contributed the site and 1137,500. It form.'s a rectangle 82 meters 

 long and 61 meters wide, with its main front facing the southwest, the 

 most fayorable orientation for a building practically square; other- 

 wise it is better to have the narrow sides face the south and the north. 

 For this purpose the triangular site which was ayailable, the main 

 front being placed along its hypothenuse, would haye been utilized to 

 the best advantage if the right perpendicular (Plank street) had been 

 taken as the principal axis. In this case, then, the form of the ])uild- 

 ing would not have been shaped after general architectural principles, 

 but only Avith regard to the collections to be housed. The three- 

 storied building incloses a courtyard measuring 48 by 28 meters. The 

 average width of the wings is 16 meters; the ground-floor storA' is 3.6 

 meters high; the second story 5.9, and the third story 6.5. On the 

 ground floor and the second story there is throughout light from both 

 sides (see ground plan of the latter floor in tig. 143); in the third story 

 there are 11 rooms with light from one side and 11 rooms with sky- 

 light. The total height from the street level to the cornices, 16.2 

 meters; the four pavilions on the corners extending 4.45 meters above 

 this, and the rotunda still 28.8 higher. The entrance hall on the 

 ground floor is 9,5 high and !(> meters square with a branching stair- 

 way to the second story, where again there is a large hall (with cupola) 

 16 meters square— the main hall of the museum. 



The building is of flreproof construction throughout, except the 

 cupola, which is of wood (for economy's sake). The roofs, however, 

 are covered with copper sheets with iron bands and purlins. The 

 exterior walls are of sandstone and tufa, with granite water tal>les; the 

 carved ornamentation of the main front is of limestone; the sides facing 

 the courtyard are cemented and painted with amphiboline color, and the 



