Still, nothing can prepare visitors for the architectural shock of walking through a door at the top of a narrow stairway and finding themselves on the observation deck of a cavernous 19th-century gymnasium.

With works illustrating these overlapping movements, the first galleries at the Fondation Maeght gradually prepare visitors for the great breakthrough to abstraction in Suprematism and Constructivism.

Texas Town includes a Play Barn and the Texas Hall of Wonders, and prepares visitors for the rest of the exhibit.

DRIVING up Ashburton Avenue in Yonkers, past bodegas, auto-parts stores and fast-food outlets, Jeffrey Gardere keeps up a steady stream of badinage, preparing visitors for his new neighborhood and new house.

Though these stories are intended to prepare visitors for the realities of hiking, they thankfully do not advocate discomfort.

Loew's Paradise has an elaborate terra-cotta facade, but that hardly prepares visitors for the extravaganza awaiting within.

But by creating alternate routes and slowing the pace through the galleries, Mr. Holl also prepares visitors for the encounter with art.

Over the telephone the hotel manager prepares first-time visitors to the realities of island living.

The Visitors' Support Centre at the entrance to the cave has innovative architectural features - "a circular sweep and a linear spatial organization - a sequence of programmatic spaces that prepare visitors for the spectacle below."

All of this should prepare visitors for a place where classic cars are treated as "unique works of automotive art," yet the first sight of the main gallery is overwhelming.