The Mosher lounge more often known as "The Morgue", is a silent study area in the Mosher-Jordan residence hall. The room is designed with elegant carpeting which serves two purposes. It acts as a sound muffler with its thick qualities but also sets a relaxing, almost regal tone with its maroon and gold color scheme. Upon entering its grand, oak double doors, one finds themselves at the top of a landing that opens up to the room. This creates a certain tone as one steps down to enter the study area. The high ceilings open up the room while the friezes on the various ceiling beams add an extra formal touch. A fireplace is situated in the rear of the room which is a center point for people to sit to read and study. The entire room is designed to be spacious, while allowing students to focus on their studies. The simple light fixtures and the wood panels on the lower end of the walls gives off a calming effect that helps the room be able to be used for deep concentration. The room is not designed in a way that would be distracting or otherwise impeding on its main purpose of being a room to study.
Weekly Response 1, part 2 (Ellie King)
ReplyDeleteThe Morgue: The architecture of deceit and death
The clue’s in the name, really. Though the tributes aren’t told the name when they’re brought in. Every effort has been made to make the place look welcoming.
The carpet is plush and soft under the bare feet of the tributes, imperial purple. Warmth and opulence echoes from every corner, the lights cast a comforting glow over the centre of the room, and the fire crackles merrily. Of course, they only light the fire and the lamps on Tribute Days, the rest of the year the room is shut up and empty (this is the Age of Austerity, you know).
Only the tributes and their jailers are allowed to enter when the fire is lit, so no one has ever managed to photograph that, even through the rippling glass of the doors, because the Corridor of the Condemned is not a pleasant place to be on Tribute Days (contamination is always a risk).
The tributes are divided among the tables and fed in the warm glow of the lamps, the smooth, polished wood of the tables set in complete opposition to their former lives of desperation and hunger. It’s a credit to the Empress, really, that she provides such opulent surroundings, such fine rooms, such comfort (of course, it has nothing to do with the corrosive effects of fear on the tenderness of the meat, how callous of you).
Performers in beaked masks and long cloaks of dark velvet take to the stage after the meal. It distracts the children sufficiently that they don’t notices the jailers disappearing beyond the glass doors (and beyond the hydraulic hatches at each end of the corridor outside) and the fire burning out.
Gas is pumped in quietly from the far end of the room while all eyes are on the stage, and small lives wink out one by one. (In case you were worried, the performers’ masks have filters in the beaks and sealed glass over the eyes, the long cloaks concealing protective suits).
The ramp on the right makes it easy to bring in the trolleys to remove the bodies. The room was designed for this purpose, after all; the decoration and the opulence a skin stretched taught over a knife blade.