[bucks native]

Let's keep in mind that Dr. Barnes never intended his collection for a museum. In keeping with his will, this is a school. I'm not defending the design but it is restricted by its purpose or, I should say, function.

The Barnes Foundation’s promise to re-create the exact, unusual arrangement of artworks on the walls when the collection moves to a new site on Benjamin Franklin Parkway is based on the way the art has been used to teach Albert C. Barnes’ fundamentals of artistic composition and appreciation.

The galleries in Merion are not those of a traditional art museum, where artworks are grouped by individual artists or displayed to demonstrate a theme or chronological progression. According to John Baptiste Gatti, instructor of art and aesthetics at the Barnes, the walls are used as blackboards, as learning tools.

I can't wait to get inside.

And, please, enough about "staid" Philadelphia architecture.

What city has anything to compare with The Parkway, bookended by a stunning Greek palace on a hill and the world's most opulent city hall?

What by Furness is "staid?" What compares with The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts?

PSFS was the first international style building erected in the US.

When the city's height limit was lifted, what popped-up first; not one but two Liberty Places and they're not twins and certainly not staid.

The Cira Center is a very rare jewel.

OK, the Kimmel Center blows (in a bad way), but the community agrees on that and the need to fix it. It will be fixed. The convention center didn't get a green roof because it would have delayed construction and that would have jeopardized funding and some hotel projects. It will happen.

Has any other city challenged Gehry to create underground? Nope! Brilliant! And what he does here will not be dated, an embarrassment, in ten years. He says he will "create music" in his space beneath the museum's plaza and steps and I bet he succeeds.

Anyone care to criticize the ballpark? You can't! It's splendid. It works.

And could we get any more edgy in Northern Liberties and, now, Fishtown? Even Blatstein's (OMG, Blatstein!) piazza works. It's here. It's unique.

I'm never bored when I walk Philadelphia.