October 1905

VOL. XVIII. No. 4 OCTOBER, 1905. WHOLE No. 85. PAGE THE NEW BRIDGES IN NEW YORK CITY ILLUSTRATED .... 243 MONTGOMERY SCHUYLER THE RESIDENCE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT ILLUSTRATED- . 203 A. C. DAVID A TUXEDO HOUSE THE RESIDENCE OF MR. T. HARLESTON DEACON ILLUS- TRATED . 274 THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN ILLUSTRATED 283 OLOF Z. CERVIN A PRIVATE CHAPEL IN WESTCHES- TER ILLUSTRATED 301 CARYL COLEMAN NOTES AND COMMENTS ILLUSTRATED 305 TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT THE ADVANTAGES OF TERRA-COTTA 315 C. W. SWEET, Publisher R W. REINHOLD. Business Mgr. H. W. DESMOND, Editor H. D. CROLY, Associate Editor Subscription (Yearly;, $3.00 Published Monthly OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: Nos. 14 and 16 VESEY STREET, NEW YORK CITY. WESTERN OFFICE: 511 MONADNOCK BLDC., CHICAGO, ILL. FIG. 1. THE WILLJAMSBURGH BRIDGE. Before the Building of the Stiffening Truss. Gbe Vol. XVIII OCTOBER, 1905 No. 4 New York Bridges The bridges of New York have a bad don, in 1759, took such things more name for good looks. Compared with seriously than New York takes them in the bridges over the Seine, compared 1905. with the bridges over the Thames, even, Upon the whole, the bridges of New it must be owned that the bridges over York have a worse name than they the estuary which we call the East deserve. According to the proverb, we "River" and the other estuary which we should not speak ill of them at all, since call the Harlem, deserve aesthetic dis- no one of them has ever failed in car- paragement. There is less artistic sen- rying safely over the passengers who sibility and less artistic training shown, have entrusted themselves to it, al- in them than in the like works in Paris though the greatest and most conspicu- or London. Even in the British capital, ous of them has for years been loaded inartistic as it is, the appearance of the far beyond the computations of its con- necessarily conspicuous crossings of the structors. After twenty years, the ex- Thames is and always has been recog- isting East River Bridge remains one nized as of public interest, and from of the structural lions of New York. Old London Bridge, meaning the ex- As to its artistic merit we are all pretty isting bridge of Rennie, down to the much agreed that the metallic structure, Tower Bridge, the design of them as fit with the sweep of the cables stooping matter for public discussion. Curious to the camber of the roadway is worthy to think of, the design of the Blackfriars of its conspicuousness and its magni- Bridge attracted so much attention in tude, and that the towers of masonry the London of 1759, that the learned are failures, being clumsy, inorganic Samuel Johnson took a hand in the dis- and inexpressive. cussion, the competitors being reduced Of the second bridge, which has late- to three, of whom two proposed semi- ly attained its completion, one has to circular arches, and the third elliptical. say that, whatever scientific advance it It was against this last that Johnson may show upon the pioneer, it shows a wrote. Doubtless it was personal distinct artistic retrogression. It is. not friendship for one of the other archi- between the towers that it shows this, or tects which induced him to take up his indeed can show it, since a catenary pen, and probably he had been coached. cannot "hang wrong" and there is no All the same, he shows a real grasp of instance of a suspension bridge that the mechanical principles involved, and makes an effect of ugliness between the his three letters on the subject are still supports. Even here, however, the de- worth reading. That he should have signer has done his worst to make his written upon it at all is a sign that Lon- bridge look ugly by the hugeness and in- " Copyright, 1905, by THE ARCHITECTURAL, RECORD COMPANY." All rights reserved. Act of of March 3d, 1879. Entered May 22, 1902. as second-class matter. Post Office at New York, N. Y.. Congress 244 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. sistence of the stiffening truss, which bility, and a lunatic if he proposed to seems less like an ancillary construction them to spend more money on a bridge than a rival construction. Outside of than the irreducible minimum of its what had to be right in the Williams- practical requirements demanded, by burgh Bridge, however, it may be said way of improving its appearance. that everything is wrong. It may be a Hence such insults to nature and trav- question whether solid towers of mason- esties upon art as the cantilever that ry or skeleton towers of metal are the spans the Niagara or the other cantile- more eligible for the holders of the ca- ver that spans the Hudson. And yet bles. Although, as we see in the old the very Gradgrinds who take this view East River Bridge, the former may fail of one class of structures do not apply of their effect by being left mere brute it with regard to any other. They masses without any modelling to ex- require that their stations shall have a press their special function of cable- palatial aspect in large cities, and a pic- holders, they must at least be massive. turesque aspect in rural regions, an as- On the other hand, the sk/eletonized pect in either case congruous with their towers of metal mav be made to give a surroundings, and they are willing to literally "articulate" and a detailed ex- spend their stockholders' money to this pression to this function, while in out- end, and expect their architects to take line and in what may still be called mass, all the trouble that may be necessary to they may become very graceful as well produce the required result, for which as most impressive objects. One's trouble also they are willing to pay. Yet taste must be refined, it seems to me, the other class of structure, the bridges, even to emasculation, who is afflicted have, upon the average, quite as great by the Tour Eiffel. And the same ef- an effect upon the aspects of the sur- fect that is produced by the Eiffel is rounding nature or art as the stations, promised by Mr. Lindenthal's design for and in some instances a great deal more. the North River Bridge, and on a scale No station upon the line of the road not so much reduced, the height of his which crossed Niagara by means of the twin towers at either end being of over cantilever, nor of that which spanned six hundred feet against the thousand of the Hudson by a like contrivance, was the Parisian skyscraper. But this ef- anything like so conspicuous and dom- fect was entirely foregone by the de- inant a feature in the landscape, of none signer of the Williamsburgh Bridge was it so important that it should be who seems to have done pretty much congruous and presentable, as was the everything that in him lay to nullify, or case with either of these gaunt attenua- at least to minimize even the inherent tions standing stark agaanst the sky. and necessary effects of his mechanical Evidently the application of so widely dispositions. different standards to the two classes of It is the intellectual and profes- structures has no foundation in fact or sional habit of the engineer .to view reason. The nature of things does not his problem as purely one of me- furnish any excuse for assigning the de- chanics and not at all as one of aesthet- sign of a station to a designer who is ics, to regard a bridge, as one of the only an artist and the design of a bridge to a is leaders of the profession put it, as mere- designer who only a scientist. It is true that ly "a tool of traffic," and to supply the the demand for architec- tool that is least costly both in money tural stations is comparatively recent, and in trouble to its designer. This way and by no means universally recognized even of looking at things is really forced upon yet. Pretty much all the stations the engineer, and it would be both fu- twenty or thirty years of age were tile and unjust to libel him for it. His designed by the engineers of the principal employers, the railroads, would several roads with no more thought think him a fool if he took more trouble of their appearance than was then or about the designs of his railroad bridges is no\v given to the designing of the than was necessary to ensure their sta- bridges. YORK BRIDGES. NEW 245 It is gratifying to see that this partic- almost directly as it does, is subjected ular phase of barbarism is passing. The to the fiercest kind of critical light. It right of a railroad to disfigure by its is the highest possible praise that can erections the landscape through which be given to it as a work of art, but it is it passes is still unimpeached. But there only just praise, to say that it bears that is a growing feeling that there are pas- envisagement, and that so long as the sages of natural scenery which are not work of man's hands must be seen in thus to be insulted. To take advantage connection with the miracle of nature, of a famous work of nature by adver- no work of man's hands could jar less tising to take tourists to it, and then to upon the spirit of the scene.

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