In a message dated 7/23/98 7:47:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

>
>  The feds are planning to spend $4 M to scaffold the WM based on a design
>  by Michael Graves. A recent insert in TIME magazine showed a color
>  rendition of the scaffolding.

When I went to Italy last year, I saw more scaffolding than I could have
imagined possible -- certainly not in the US!  It was an art form in itself --
and there were many different types. Some were sheathed in netting,
transforming an intricate historic steeple into a semitransparent rectangular
silhouette. Some were incredibly beautiful, like the scaffolding over La
Fenice in Venice, with its brass joints and shiny rods capped with an
enormous, translucent pitched roof over the gutted interior. (The attached
doesn't do it justice, but it might give some idea of the scale ...) Some were
really rough and simple -- including those going up around the Vatican.
Perhaps Michael Graves will raise American awareness of the beauty of
functional structures like these.

Mary K