Southwest Museum
Mount Washington
January 16, 2016
Margaret’s passion is Native American culture, and one of her favorite museums back when she used to live in Los Angeles years ago was the Southwest Museum. The location is farther from Margaret’s home than we usually go, but she had mentioned it several times and clearly wanted to see it, so we made it our destination for this visit.
Over the course of the 20th century, the Southwest accumulated the second largest collection of Native American artifacts in the country. Established in 1907, it moved to its beautiful hilltop site above Highland Park in 1914. Unfortunately, the museum fell on hard times. It lacked the financial resources to maintain its collection and aging building alone and merged with the Autry Museum in 2003. There has been controversy over that merger, but we reserve judgment. The critics probably do not understand, or do not care about, the expense involved in preserving the collection and restoring the building. One wonders, how many of them contribute financially to either effort?
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has set up a website Treasure It Together, devoted to the Southwest Museum building and site, to disseminate information and foster discussion about how best to preserve and restore the historic site.
For a time, the Mt. Washington site was completely closed to the public. One gallery is now open on weekends. During the week, Autry employees work in the closed gallery spaces, doing conservation work on the collection. One important component of the conservation work is that pieces are being photographed and digital photos added to a searchable online database.
We guessed–correctly it turned out–that there would be no cafe on site and brought sandwiches and other picnic supplies. We parked in one of the two handicapped spots in the museum’s front courtyard and ate our lunch at one of several tables under the arcade.
The current exhibition is Four Centuries of Pueblo Pottery. There were some truly impressive pieces on display, from the early 17th century to the present. The explanations which accompany the pottery items set the historical context well. The technical details are explained, as are the differences between the different pueblo cultures.
Admission is free, with donations encouraged. The top level is wheelchair accessible. There is a small bottom area open to the public as well, but the interior connection is only by staircase. We each took a quick look at the lower level but did not try to get Margaret down there, since there is not yet a gallery reopened downstairs. The lower level could be accessed by wheelchair patrons, but one would have to enter from the street below the museum, go up a ramp, through the pedestrian tunnel, then up an elevator. That lower level currently just contains a timeline of the museum’s history, a few display cases showing archaeological techniques, the restrooms, and a video terminal on which one can view digital photos of the museum’s basket collection.
There is a Metro stop right across the street from the pedestrian entrance to the museum. Visitors who come by car drive up a narrow winding driveway. There is a general parking lot, which we did not explore, and two handicapped spaces right in front of the museum.
Our only gripe is that there is too little information about the museum online. There is one page on the Autry’s website devoted to the Mt. Washington campus, but it fails to give practical visitor information such as whether there is a cafe on site (there is not), what parking is available, and whether the building is wheelchair accessible (mostly it is, as noted above). Meredith emailed the Autry asking for more information but did not receive a reply.
After the museum visit we met Meredith’s sister Kathleen for coffee. She showed us and Margaret photos from her recent trip.