two humble pyramids...

top, a 1920's brochure for train travel in switzerland; bottom, an 1884 new york land survey station...

the poetry of upside down triangles...

models and drawings of oscar niemeyer's 1955 concept for the caracas museum of modern art.

"our desire was to develop a compact form detaching itself clearly from the landscape and expressing in the purity of its lines the forces of contemporary art, and to offer the visitor the surprise and the emotion resulting a violent contrast between a sealed exterior and an interior flooded with sunlight".

the absolute balance of stunning and awkward in niemeyer's inverted pyramid, reminds me of the utopian 1700's works of etienne-louis boullee. images are from oscar niemeyer, works in progress, 1956.