It was the first stop on our trip. Highly touted, brand new, we arrived late in the day, didn't pay (they let us in), and had to rush through. Not a fair way to take it in, but I think we were both a little underwhelmed. I'm not sure if the premise of the place is enough to support such a large, interactive experience. It's pretty damn hard to come up with a fun, engaging, hands-on blinking light experience that conveys the history, nuance, and contemporary relevance of issues like states' rights, federalism, the electoral college, and other such stuff I'm not good at talking about.

My favorite part of the Center was the figurative Constitutional Convention. In it are just fractionally larger-than-life resin casts of most (all?) of the attendees at the convention, with a mock copy of the Constitution that doubles as a guest register. You're invited to sign it. You may also sign the dissenter's register, if you're so inclined. This shows just a small portion of the room. Those guys had a bit too much to drink at lunch. Robert caught them in action.

Anyway, what was cool about the room had very little to do with the Constitution, and everything to do with art.

It's not crowded in the room, but there are a lot of people milling about around the figures. If you relax your pace and meander rather than charge through it, something interesting happens: out of the corners of your eyes, as you pass figures, and twist and turn through the maze of people, you begin to start or even flinch momentarily as someone turns into you or reaches to tap you on the shoulder. You snap your head around or lurch to the side to avoid the oncoming person, and all at once you realize it's one of the casts. Maybe Alexander Hamilton. Or George Washington. Or some dude from North Carolina. I kind of enjoyed this. It reminded me of some environmental art and installations that play with your sense of place and space. The room gently distorts your perception so that people become comingled with statues, and for fleeting, disjunctive moments, you fail to differentiate between the two. There's some good art around that works well on that visceral, sensory level.

Anyway, it's a difficult sensation to describe, and it's no substitute for actually feeling it, so I'll leave it at that except to say that it was neat.

Other than that, the center was so-so, and Indpendence Mall in Philly made a rather dismal impression. It's a shame that these probably once grand buildings are cloaked in abominable, uninspired concrete and glass high-rises. The whole space felt terribly claustrophobic, and while driving through the rest of the city I couldn't fight off this oppressive sense of dullness and fatigue. I know we didn't give Philly a fair shake, but in our tour of first impressions, this one was not so good.