Here’s where I would be happy to spend a rainy Saturday. Henry Chapman Mercer was an archeologist with a passion for collecting, particulalry artifacts of pre industrial life. He believed that the story of human life and accomplishment was told through tools and he had an impressive array of early tools. The Museum is six stories tall and was cast in concrete, Mercer wanting to be the ‘little pig’ whose structure would outlast the others. He had been greatly affected by the knowledge of the Great Fire of Boston in 1872, which had destroyed his aunt’s prized collection of Medieval armour. He wanted something that would endure and keep his collection safe. When it was completed, to the derision of his critics, he lit a fire on the roof of the building to prove how fire resistant his museum was. In addition to tools, his collection includes early American furnishings, carriages, stoveplates, gallows, fire engines, a whaleboat and the Lenape stone (a stone showing drawings of North Americans hunting wooly mammoths, found to be a hoax) plus a library all displayed in a Fun House style, only add to it’s charm.
(Mercer Museum to be found in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Additional information: Wikipedia)
Mercer Museum- a castle of concrete and glass built by tile manufacturing magnate Henry Mercer to house his plethora of collections (and protect them from fire).
