A walk in America’s „Middle Ages”

The Cloisters Museum in New York

MúzeumCafé 33.

One of America’s most intriguing museums, The Cloisters, is situated on the top of a hill in Fort Tryon Park at the northern tip of Manhattan. The neo-Romanesque and neo-Gothic building complex, constructed between 1934 and 1938, was commissioned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1961) and designed by Charles Collens (1873–1956) in such a manner that the edifice, which echoes the architectural styles of the Middle Ages, includes original sections transported stone by stone from five medieval cloisters in Europe. A large window overlooking the Hudson River can be regarded as characteristic of the whole exhibition. Twelve stained glass windows differing in size and shape were brought from various places in France and England and fitted into the window divided by an original stone frame. Hence this window in its joint form had never existed anywhere until it was assembled here, separated by an ocean from the places where its elements were created – while each part is original, representing European medieval art. Compiled items also feature in the present ‘treasury’ of the museum – a room which really ‘seems a museum’ without creating the illusion of a reconstructed past: playing cards painted around 1470, codices, embroidery, chalices, ciboria, crucifixes, richly ornamented vestments, tiny ivory carvings and cameos are displayed in the cabinets. The exhibition makes no secret of presenting objects which originally existed in a different setting, yet the curators have made great efforts to ensure that the general impression for visitors would be as homogenous as possible. As Sándor Radnóti commented about the museum at the end of our visit: “The special form of preservation that The Cloisters represents is obviously the product of American culture … it is a stylized frame for the great artworks displayed here.”