Thoughts on the "Layout Gallery" concept

A couple days ago Vince sent me a link to a new post by Lance Mindheim called One Room, Several Layouts. Vince thought there might be some overlap with a few ideas that have been discussed here over the years. Maybe there's a little overlap, but not much. Even so, Mr. Mindheim's post is excellent, and I think the ideas he's putting forward are quite interesting. It's well worth reading, and I'd like to see more of posts like his that are exploring new ideas.

Maybe the perceived overlap is in the use of the word 'gallery', as I had written some posts about classifying layouts as either museum, gallery, or studio: The Museum and the Gallery?, Notes on the characteristics of Gallery, Museum and gallery and studio, and Through house and garden via Lego Train. My ideas didn't get beyond the nebulous definition stage. I was thinking of gallery-style layouts as being somewhat more freeform and experimental than what we think of as layouts with strict definitions of time, location, and operability: gallery-style would be something of a cross between a Games Preserve and a Place of Fine Arts style Exploratorium, but with a model railroad as a medium slant. In a later post I introduced the studio category, which is essentially a variation on gallery, but again, as Yogi Berra might say, the definitions aren't well defined :-)

I think Mr. Mindheim's proposal for several small layouts, that are maybe thematically linked, although maybe not, is quite an intriguing idea. However, I suspect in practice the modules might be in different stages of development at any given time, and that it might be difficult to keep the gallery clean and tidy as shown in the photo. If the emphasis was more on the gallery being an informal environment for ongoing development, exploration, and learning, as was the old Exploratorium, that might be more workable and help the gallery from devolving into a showroom - but maybe all I'm doing is putting a new spin on a what it means to be a workshop :-) 

I like the support structure for his N scale layout. It would be interesting to see what if any changes in viewer perception would arise if it held the layout at eye-level instead of what looks like waist-level. I think that would further help move model railroading away from its train set roots.

Anyway, an excellent post and I hope it stimulates discussion.