House on the Rock, part three.

[valis2]

Visiting Wisconsin's legendary House on the Rock with gypsyjolie was absolutely magical.

Part one | Part two

And here is part three, where I come completely unhinged in my love for this place. And there are some good pictures, finally!

So here we are, the marquees at the entrance to yet another incarnation of the House. Here we enter into a great winding labrynth full of music automaton dioramas, some huge, some small, all fascinating.






I'm trying to remember the name of this room. It has a quilted ceiling, and it was the first "full room" musical automaton, I think. You basically can peer into the room from a large doorway.


Even the ceiling is quilted. It's really rather marvelous. You can see it at the 2:49 mark of this rather dark vid.


I loved this so much. It was a huge music-box cylinder. HUGE. It reminded me of so many mystical things; a Torah being unrolled, Babylonian cuneiform writing...


This was the automaton connected to the cylinder, if I recall correctly, but I'm not sure.


And here we have one of the really amazing automatons. This thing was incredible. It was the size of a wall, two stories (or maybe three) high. It played a song from the Mikado and there were several things that moved. Fans, instruments, etc. gypsyjolie referred to it as Eyebrows. You'll see why soon enough. Here is a slightly disorienting vid of the Mikado room that I found on YouTube.


Everything about it was so beautiful. I know it's probably hard to make out, but there were so many things to look at--it was absolutely amazing.


One of the figures.


One of the cool mythological creatures.


Eyebrows himself! Not only does he play the timpani, but his eyebrows move up and down.


I hope I didn't talk this up too much, but seriously, awesomeness. I love this picture.


And here? Even closer? This is one of my favorite pictures ever. Seriously. EVER.


The fan this figure is holding was one of the moving elements.


You can see how high this thing reaches. Seriously. I think it has to be three stories high.


The next amazing multi-story musical automaton diorama...plays the Blue Danube. Another slightly disorienting vid, this time of the Blue Danube room. This one was so odd. It wrapped around at a really crazy angle and there was a tree. Kind of like a backwards 7.


Closeup of the mermaid figures.




Here's a closeup of the violin torture device. It turns out that it's an illusion; the string sounds are actually provided by the pipe organ.


I love this picture! Though it isn't really centered properly, I think. The mermaid should have been a little to the right, maybe.


omg I love this photo too. It's a huge musicbox wheel. HUGE. Too bad about the spots, but I was taking this through glass, so it's to be expected, I suppose.


I wish I could live there.

Comments

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I have one more entry left, as soon as I have some time...

:)