Hall of Waters...our Art Deco/Mayan City hall in the Midwest

I was dying for some outdoor sketching a week or so ago, and then my scanner went on strike...so I shot these with the camera instead.

This is an amazing building, which architects from all over the world have come to explore.  Hundreds of visitors and spa patients came here till the 1950s--it's one reason our town has such wide sidewalks, to accommodate the crowds!  Groundbreaking for the building took place in 1936, in the height of the Great Depression, and it's STILL a draw.  It houses our city offices and cultural museum, now.

You can see the Mayan influence everywhere you look...

Here are some of the interior details from a sketch I did several years ago...the bronze doors on the elevators pick up the motif at upper left. And yep, the statue is NOT Mayan, it's Napoleon Bonaparte's sister-in-law, as I remember...how she came to reside here, I don't remember.

 
It was a chilly, sunny day so I sat in my car and took advantage of solar heat pouring in the windows, only occasionally starting the car to warm my feet.