House on the Rock – Part 5

Back in May of 2017 I visited the House on the Rock in Wisconsin and promised myself I would post about it once I had a chance to process and digest what I saw. Three years later I still haven’t processed enough to put it into perspective. Instead, I’m sharing my Instagram posts from the actual trip, with very fresh commentary within 24-72 hours of visiting.

Need to catch up? Go back to part 1, part 2, part 3 or part 4

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House 3

Okay, I don’t want to say I’m ready. I’m definitely not ready. But we’ve already been here for 4 hours and the employees are telling us the path ahead is just as long as the one we’ve already walked. And oh by the way they’re closing up in an hour. We pushed ahead with a skyrocketing fear of the abhorrent idea of being locked inside after closing. In a flurry of anxiety, we took the plunge.

I’ve read that Building 3 is based on Dante’s Inferno. The central conceit of The Inferno is that Hell is structured in concentric rings, with each level punishing different categories of sins. Most importantly, punishment is specific to the individual and matches his sins. In my opinion Building 3 borrows these concepts but Alex Jordan is no Virgil. He’s not leading us on an educational tour of a myriad of sins and the diverse methods of punishment each sinner receives. This is a single ring, a deeply personal vision of Jordan’s unique fight between salvation and damnation. The punishment is his alone and the path loops you around in spirals past repeating imagery in a chaotic churn between the symbols of transgression and judgement. You are now inside Jordan’s nightmare about the fate of his own soul. More than anything that came before this point, the feeling of lucid dreaming overwhelms. Sense of direction is lost in the shadows and curves of the path. The journey forward is a helpless one where you can only exist as an observer, swept along with no ability to influence the outcome. You may want to choose the path of salvation but Jordan hasn’t chosen for himself yet. This is not your story, it’s his. Start walking.

Giant copper brewing tanks, sometimes 2 stories tall, crowd into the main room of Building 3. The central chandelier, made up of red lamps that resemble the ones on the carousel, provides most of the lighting. And that isn’t much. Along one wall ceramic booze jugs with strange faces fill a space between copper tanks. Later the tanks transition to more of a power station motif, with warnings about overload. It’s not subtle, one is forced to conclude that Jordan struggled with alcohol and addiction.

From every direction ranks of organ pipes, some real and some artificially gargantuan, protrude from walls and rise to the ceiling. Angels in merciful poses accompany them. There are organ consoles in this room, but relatively few for the number of pipes. I find myself thinking of Gabriel, but more than that I think of the book of Revelations and the seven trumpets that herald the apocalypse. You may be tempted to dismiss this as a flight of fancy, over-interpretation of simple symbols, but hang on to that thought. The pay-off comes later.

Pianos hang vertically on walls. More angels, more pipes. I don’t think I got a good photo but there are narrow spiral staircases and bridges all around that are not intended for guests. Shadowy, silhouetted life-sized saints or angels gaze down at you from these bridges.

One side of the room is dominated by giant clockwork parts, a huge clock face and sprockets with a carillon of jumbo church bells suspended above it.

The clock is in pieces, in a jumbled disarray of gears and framework. Time has no meaning here.

Pipes and pipes and pipes and pipes and gradually they become less like organ pipes and more like steam pipes.

Then a huge steam machine with a massive propeller looms up around a curve in the bend. Sorry for the blur, we were rushing at this point.

Suddenly we’re given an opportunity to step outside and walk a path to “inspiration point.” We decline in the interest of time. But I notice among a series of inspiring quotes by people like Walt Disney, Alex Jordan has included a quote of his own. “My house will stand on a rock on a hill. Overlooking a valley deep and still.” Yes, he tells you, this whole endeavor is about transcending mortality and the haunting specter of death.

Endless red lamps and shadows.

Towers of silenced drums.

Organ consoles. More pipes. More hanging pianos.

Now we reach the other carousel. Dolls, all dolls, layers and layers ascending higher than you can see. No cheerful music or banging drums this time. Just silent, spinning dolls.

We thought we were approaching the back of the big carousel and we’re surprised that it was a doll version. Many of the passengers are unlit, with task lighting highlighting the ones that I suppose are more important. Or whatever. Who knows?

Welcome to the dollhouse… portion of the experience. Hundreds of them. All decorated. Even rooms you can hardly see are decorated. Some scenes are set off from the houses, isolated in bell jars. Women and girls are most often included as occupants, many times standing on porches. I saw male dolls in the bell jar isolation units. Large baby dolls are interspersed, towering over the house’s and ruining the village-like appearance.

Imagine what a difference adequate lighting would make.

One of the bell jar scenes and more houses. I originally withheld one scene because it was particularly disturbing and when @akanderswo posted it the photo was flagged and her account was suspended for a day. I’ve included it at the end of this set. Trigger warning: It appears to be a doll in the act of self-harm (non-gore). Scroll past to the next block of text if you’d rather not see it.

Some of the last music machines of the day.

The following is a wax cylinder recording. Except it’s not actually playing from the real cylinder. It’s a recording of the cylinder with some moving parts in a fabricated playback machine. I liked the aesthetic of the machine, though. But what a sound to send you on from creepy doll land to creepy circus land.

Tiny circus! Tiny circuses! So many tiny circuses! Too much to look at and the ticking clock drove us on. Plus some coulrophobia, not mine but I won’t name names. For my own sake I wanted to escape the woman behind us who was doot-dooting circus music the whole time she was in there.

Oh, you don’t like clowns? How about life-sized automaton clowns with hyena laughs and shifty eyes?

We all float down here. I’m not scared of clowns but this guy made me reconsider.

I want to get off of Mr. Jordan’s wild ride.

Precariously perched piles of pachyderms.

The realization hits me that this entire room is the final music machine and the automatons have us surrounded. We’re at the circus. We’re IN the circus. The circus is all around us. And it’s not miniature anymore, it’s life-sized.

The circus is all around us.

The circus is ALL AROUND us.

THE CIRCUS IS ALL AROUND US.

A huge tri-level circus float dominates the center of the room. A marching band in full regalia pounds out a rousing tune while a symphony orchestra at the far end of the room provides backup. Glamorous circus stars perch around the ornate framework, gazing off to the distant horizon. Here and there you can make accidental eye-contact with a drummer or horn player. It occurs to you that there could be a dead body in here and no one would be the wiser. It then occurs to you that you are outnumbered by the automatons. Your mind turns to Twilight Zone ideas where each automaton is a former visitor, and you hope to all things holy that you won’t look up and see an empty orchestra chair with your name on it.

They’re all unique. There are no duplicates.

I’m not sure why the next exhibit is a dueling gallery. Actually, after what we’ve been through I sort of get it. This collection is enormous and contains many interesting designs, but like everything before it’s impossible to know what’s a real antique and what’s a fabrication.

That’s better than a purse.

More cultural fetishization. I’m so tired.

And the armor. And the fake Crown Jewels. I had a scary moment when I was reviewing my photos because I could swear the soldier in the foreground of the elephant battle scene moved. But no. That’s crazy talk. I’m not going crazy.

Back out of circus world and around the doll carousel. We pass one side that’s well lit, then around to red lights and shadow, then back to actual lighting again. Here’s where it gets dicey. The very top tier is adorned with life-sized mannequins. Naked mannequins. With anatomically detailed musculature and nipples and strange markings that imply they’ve been repurposed from a previous life. They’re also kind of dirty. In one of these photos you can see the shins of a couple mannequins at the top. The last two photos show the full mannequin bodies, so scroll past if you don’t want to see simulated nudity in an artistic context.

As we wind down towards the end we pass a spiky castle fairyland and some inexplicably monstrous little creatures.

Back to the doll carousel for another pass around the perimeter. I originally censored the mannequins that topped the doll carousel so my Instagram account wouldn’t get frozen. This was an unsettling sight right at the end. The mannequins are dirty and clearly repurposed from another use. They may have held instruments for whatever purpose they served. They also appeared to have had a couple of anatomical details added which you ordinarily wouldn’t find on a standard department store mannequin. We were beaten down by so much overwhelming weirdness, so at this point we didn’t linger. It had been 5 1/2 hours of inundation and all we wanted to do was breathe fresh air and visit the gift shop. So we moved on.

And then we faced the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Remember when I said the organ pipe ranks made me think of the seven trumpets? I may not have been too far off of the mark.

Oh and there was an enormous cannon with spikes.

Then another triumphant carriage like the end of Heritage of the Sea, this one carrying a fleet of dolls. And then we’re surrounded by angels, angels everywhere. And then one last glimpse of the carousel from above as we receive our deliverance.

One last bewildered and exhausted look around and then we’re released to the outside where the Japanese garden awaits in blissful quiet.

And that was it. We emerged into a Japanese garden that took us across a water feature and into the gift shop as the place was closing up for the evening. I bought a shirt, and ornament, and a ballpoint pen, and then we staggered across the nearly empty parking lot. We had spent more than 5 hours in the House on the Rock, with one break for ice cream about 1/3 of the way through. We were starving and exhausted so we hit the road and drove into the Wisconsin countryside to find a restaurant that would bring us back from the brink.

The next day we toured Frank Lloyd Wright’s home, Taliesin, which happens to be right next door to Alex Jordan’s monstrosity. It’s a fascinating study in contrasts, and I recommend doing both while you’re in area. HOTR first, Taliesin second. Maybe in another 3 years I’ll come up with the words to compare the two experiences.

The end?

Yes. The end.