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

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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. insult it by an infamous work of art is a And, indeed, the bridges across the kind of "self-devouring absurdity" of Harlem are by no means so black as r which it is to be hoped, and even partly they a e painted. The ordinary specta- to be expected, that we have seen the tor derives !his notion of them from last. Such a work is the cantilever across those that he sees in crossing on the Niagara, of which we may take it, from bridge of the New York Central. Per-

FIG. 2. THE NEW YORK CENTRAL. BRIDGE. Harlem River and Park Ave., New York City. W. J. Wilgus, Chief Engineer.

the later crossings of the gorge that haps he may count himself lucky that the projectors have had the grace to be- among those he sees is not that he is come ashamed. In sooth, it is a grew- traversing. Certainly the railroad bridge some object, fit to be compared only is not a thing of beauty, nor does it bear with the other grewsome monstrosity of any evidence that the looks of it were the same construction that crosses the at all a matter of consideration with its Hudson at Poughkeepsie. It is cheer- designer. L is frankly, one may say ing to be told, on professional authority, brutally, a "tool of transportation." But that these works represent a passing there is in its grim utilitarianism no and now past phase even of engineer- hint of pretentiousness or of vulgarity. ing; that in that view they are not It is only when a designer without sound, and are not even cheap, except- aesthetic sensibility or training sets out ing only in first cost. The later cross- to secure aesthetic results, to decorate the ings of Niagara, the "spandril braced undecorative, and to bestow comeliness arch" of 520 feet span which carries a upon his uncomely parts that he becomes offensive at least it is then that be- railroad and the hinged arch of the rec- ; he oid span of 840 feet which carries a comes most offensive. Nobody would highway, are neither of them unsuitable think of looking twice at the railroad even to their unique situation. The lat- bridge for pleasure, or for any other ter especially, confronting the cataract purpose than to note the scientific adapt- THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

to if he does awkward relations with the cen- ation of means ends ; but ciently tral if it happen to look at it, there is no rea- feature were symmetrized by son why he should be afflicted. In fact, being repeated on the other, whereas it is it might appear that the engineer had in fact counterparted by the plate gird- read his Ruskin, and applied that para- er of the roadway. One says, with con- doxical passage setting forth what an fidence, that the arrangement would be ugly necessity a railroad is and what an intolerable to a designer of any aesthetic aesthetic crime it is to attempt to re- sensibility, and that such a designer lieve its necessary ugliness. But the would find some way of circumventing briclgies the traveler sees in the its awkwardness. The Madison Avenue

FIG. THE BRIDGE AT MADISON AVE.

Harlem River, Xew York City. A. P. Boiler, Engineer.

crossing are the Madison Avenue on briclge, on the other side of the railroad "one side, which is not the best of the bridge, is by no means in the same class bridges, and the Third Avenue on the with this unfortunate work. Its ques- other, which is pretty certainly the worst, tionable peculiarity is that the draw unless that bad eminence be disputed by span is straight sided, whereas all the the Willis Avenue Bridge, further down. other bridges of the Harlem show a The latter derives an adventitious ugli- curved outline. Even to the layman, ness from the fact that the curved draw vaguely aware of the enormous leverage span is flanked, on one side, by a bow- exerted upon the arms when the draw string girder, which would be in suffi- swings free and is sustained onlv at the NEW YORK BRIDGES. 247

FIG. 4. THE THIRD AVE. BRIDGE.

Harlem River, New York City. The late Thomas Curtis Clarke, Engineer. centre, the arrangement seems rude and seeing them. The best way, and the inchoate, and the layman is interested most favorable, is to see them from the and reassured when the expert explains river itself, passing underneath them. to him his instinctive repugnance to the This experience the present writer has arrangement by telling him that it is only lately enjoyed, beginning with the East when the moving load is disregarded in River Bridge, passing, the actual Will- the design that the rectilinear triangle iamsburgh, the site of the projected is the right expression of the structure, Manhattan, the piers of the projected and that when this load is taken into and begun Blackwell's Island, the Willis consideration the curved outline results. Avenue, the Second Avenue, the Third All the same, the Madison Avenue Avenue, the Park Avenue (the New Bridge, though the least successful of York Central Railroad Bridge), the the four with which its author has Madison Avenue, the piers of the pro- spanned the Harlem, is by no means a jected Lenox Avenue, the "Central" as repulsive object, and in the detail it is often called the Jerome Avenue and by evident that the aesthetic questions quite the older-fashioned the Macomb's Dam ignored by the author of the Third Ave- Bridge, the bridge of the Northern Rail- nue Bridge have received careful and in- way, "High Bridge," as we still call the telligent consideration. aqueduct over the Harlem, the great But to see the bridges of the Harlem twin arches of the Washington, finally from the railroad is the worst way of the bridge of the Thirtieth street branch

FIG. 5. THE WILLIS AVE. BRIDGE. Harlem River, New York City. The late Thomas Curtis Clarke, Engineer. 248 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

FIG. G. THE PROPOSED HEXDRIK HUDSON MEMORIAL BRIDGE.

Spuyten Duyvil Creek. A. P. Boiler, Chief Engineer.

of the New York Central and the bridge dealing as it does, with spans and over the Harlem ship canal, both at spaces quite beyond the science of Spuyten Duyvil. antiquity or the scope of mason- This is a very considerable list, as ry. Yet the central skeleton of steel compared with those that span the takes its place between arcades that Thames or the Seine. The four that might rival those of Segovia or Nismes span the East River, and the Washing- or any of the most famous of those Ro- ton are, of course, far more important man works whose "flight of arches as examples of modern engineering than through the silent night" excites the anything the English or the French cap- wonder of the moderns. Upon the whole ital has to show, being by their extent it seems fair to say that the engineer- in the first rank of bridge constructions. ing vindicates itself, even artistically, at the of Even those that span the lesser estuary expense the architecture. Whether are of greater span, and so more diffi- the designer has done well to adopt the cult and costlier than the corresponding Roman triumphal arch, instead of some Old World examples. And it is to be construction less trite and more suited hoped there is to be added to them, as to the romantic character of the gorge, the one avowedly and intendedly monu- is one of the questions which he may be mental bridge of New York, of which moved to consider more maturely be- the monumental character is taken ac- fore his work comes to be built. Mean- count it is of in the design, that bridge for while to be said even for his tri- which Mr. Boiler has already prepared umphal arches that they do admirably a most interesting and suggestive and completely fulfil their purpose of sketch, the bridge spanning Spuyten giving "load" and emphasis to his abut- Duyvil Creek, defining the boundary of ments and thus a visible assurance of Manhattan and emphasizing its insular- sufficiency to his construction. There ity. There could be no more appropriate will at least be a general agreement that of way celebrating the tercentenary of the conception of the Hendrik Hudson the discovery of "Hudson's River" Memorial Bridge is noble and adequate in 1609, than by the opening of this and well deserving of execution. work. A study of the sketch will evince There are at least three viaducts in how worthily, in its main outlines and Manhattan that deserve to be considered masses, which is to say in its essentials, along with the bridges four, including the design fits both its romantic and the aqueduct, the "High Bridge," still storied site and its commemorative so-called, that continues to deserve the purpose. In these respects it would world-wide celebrity it achieved at the be hard to name a famous monu- time of its completion, sixty odd years ment of antiquity that surpasses this ago, when it was the one public work we example of the utmost modernitv, had to show that could hold its own in NEW YORK BRIDGES. 249

a European competition. The other fectly and easily within the scope of an three are Manhattan Valley Viaduct, arch of masonry. The construction is which carries the Riverside Drive over so largely masonic, that the little inter- the dry depression at I25th Street, the polation of a skeleton of metal has the single arch of masonry and metal that air of an economical makeshift, thus sac- carries the same drive over the like de- rificing the effect of a homogeneous con- pression at cj6th Street, and the single struction, pretty clearly to be preferred steel arch that carries the Interborough, when it can be attained within reason- suddenly emerging from a subway into able limits of cost, especially for a work an elevated structure, across I25th which consists of a single feature, and Street. These three share the distinc- certainly gaining nothing, architectur- tion from the work of 1840 that whereas ally speaking, by the addition of another there is nothing in High Bridge to date system. It may be explained to the it within two thousand years, nothing in questioner that' it was a question of the material or disposition that was not comparative costliness of foundations known and employed by the Romans, for the two systems. It is unfortunate they are all unmistakable examples of that this explanation cannot be made by the most modern engineering. With re- the work itself. to one of the arch at gard them, p6th The Manhattan Valley Viaduct is a Street, it appears questionable whether far more extensive and ambitious work. it not might advantageously have been Certainly in its completed form, it looks built of the old material and in the old much better than was promised by the forms. The very moderate span is per- original drawings, which nevertheless,

FIG. 7. "HIGH" BRIDGE OVER THE HARLEM RIVER. Date 1S42. 250 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

may have been followed. From in- arch is necessary to span the street land or from the river, it is an which runs underneath, there is no evi- impressive work. But from either dent reason why this wider span should view it is plain that it might have not have been made the unit of the been much more impressive. The series, and the others conformed to it, effect of a long arcade on such a scale to the great gain in architectural ef- as this is unfailing. But clearly it is fect, and apparently to the simplification necessary to its utmost effectiveness of the construction also. There is a dis- that the members of which it is made up tinct and apparently an unnecessary should be uniform. Every opening of awkwardness in the manner in which the different size and shape interrupts and ironwork impinges against the masonry dislocates the series and to that extent abutment at the north end, an ab- weakens the effect of a succession the ef- sence or a helplessness of design in fectiveness of which increases in a geo- omitting to take account of the change metrical ratio by repetition. Hence the of direction in the roadway at this point, effect of the intercalation in a series and to indicate it by appropriate device. of equal and similar arches, of a single One finds the solid web of the arches arch of greater span and lower spring- on the front also anomalous in a con- ing and different proportions altogether struction elsewhere skeletonized. These though of the same material is most un- things detract rather seriously from the fortunate. It does not seem to have effect which the viaduct might have had been enforced. Granting that the wider if thev had been obviated. But the actual

FIG. 8. THE MANHATTAN VALLEY VIADUCT.

New York City. F. Stuart Williamson, Engineer. NEW YORK BRIDGES. 251

FIG. 9. VIADUCT OF THE INTBRBOROUGH RAILWAY AT 125TH ST. New York City. Wm. Barclay Parsons, Chief Engineer.

effect is nevertheless very good, the ac- One feature of the treatment is note- cessories of masonry and the fittings of worthy as constituting, among other metal, though entirely commonplace, things, a criticism upon the treatment of are entirely inoffensive, and the viaduct, the same feature in the Washington architecturally, a creditable public Bridge, and that is the narrowing of iho work. heel of the arch almost to the diameter The single steel arch by which the In- of the pin, before it expands again into terborough is carried over I25th Street the casting which joins the arch to the differs from the other two viaducts in skewback. In the Washington bridge, that it is strictly an example of engineer- it will be remembered a sacrifice has ing, in which architectural conventions been made to conventional architec- are not recognized at all, and that, one ture of the form which the arch would is inclined to say, it is all the better naturally assume at this point. The architecturally on that account. It is an breadth of the truss which constitutes evidence of the truth that it is pri- the arch is continued even to the skew- marily, upon the selection of a construc- bick, by building out on each side of tion that the success of an engineering the pin a mechanically unmeaning frame work depends. The arch being chosen, for the mere purpose of continuing it. and being a form apprehensible, even to In the light of the newer example the the unskilled, the rest follows almost of older seems to be in this respect a mis- at for there is far more force course. Follows, least, as to the arch take ; surely structural itself, for there is a certain awkwardness of expression in leaving the in the manner in which the superincum- lines undisguised to tell their own story, bent track and station are carried, an than by surrounding them with the sug- does not awkwardness that it seems might have gestion of a construction which been avoided by making the supports of in fact exist. The case is not altered by the superstructure normal to the curve the likelihood that the exposure of the of the arch instead of vertical, and re- construction was not made at all with serving the uprights for the support of reference to the architectural appear- the the light construction above the tracks. ance of the work, but upon strictly 252 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. engineering principle of avoiding a waste comes the handmaid of what may be of material, while the superfluous mate- called, from the absence of anv artistic rial which disguises the facts of con- personality from it, a machine made struction in the other case was evidently project of engineering. The arrange- added in accordance with a theory of ment here illustrated is doubtless prefer- architectural appearance. Visitors to able where the engineering problem in- the Chicago Fair will remember how the volves so little of novelty or experiment narrowing almost to a point of the great as a suspension bridge of these modest steel arches which sustained the huge and well precedented dimensions, if the roof of the Liberal Arts Building pro- architect be the right one. In this case moted the sense of reality by which that there is no doubt about that, the archi- structure "queered" the sham of con- tect being the late F. C. Withers, whose ventional architecture in staff with which origination and control of the design it was associated and impressed upon are p'.iin, and the icsult is by no means the observer, whether or not he was the least interesting of his many inter- able to follow the demonstration in de- esting, well-studied and picturesque tail, that the construction in metal was works. Comparing this example of

FIG. 10. SUSPBNSION BRIDGE. TRINITY CEMETERY.

Broadway and looth St., New York City. Frederick Clarke Withers, Architect.

"the thing itself," whereas the construc- "architect's engineering" with most ex- tion in quasi-masonry was merely a the- amples of "engineer's architecture," one atrical representation of a construction. cannot help finding that it has much the It world not be fair to leave the men- better of the comparison. tion of these lesser viaducts without add- But these things, interesting as they ing to the list that of the suspension are, are not very much to the purpose, bridge which reunites the two halves of when the purpose is to inquire how the Trinity Cemetery at I55th Street, sep- structures which are unmistakable ex- arated by the prolongation through it of amples of modern engineering, on a the line of Broadway under the name of scale large enough to make them con- the Boulevard Lafayette, and by its pic- spicuous, may be so designed as to turesqueness quite justifies the separa- make them worthy of association with tion as well as the reunion. It is not by works of nature and with works of any means a tour de force in the engi- architectural art. It is with regard to neering way, which is possibly to its aes- the big bridges alone, the bridges across thetic advantage, and it is quite obviously the Harlem and still more across the a work in which the engineer has been East River, with their spans approach- invoked as a subordinate to the archi- ing the "records" of their several kinds tect, instead of the commoner converse of construction, that this question ur- arrangement whereby architecture be- gently and insistently arises. The wide YORK BRIDGES. NEW 253 range of artistic merit, from the intol- and thrown upon the arms that reach erable to the highly attractive, among out from the central pivot to hold it, and these structures presumably of equal these in turn are distinguished in treat- scientific competency, or at least all ment from the central structure. The scientifically competent, indicates plainly design is here an expression of the me- enough the existence of a personal chanical facts. But, in the clearness equation in a sensibility and a training and force of the expression it seems to quite apart from the professional prep- me to yield to the less complicated and aration of an engineer. Taking the two pretentious bridge of the Northern Rail- New York Central bridges, that at way just above it, in which the design is Fourth Avenue and that at Spuyten a graphical exposition, made with Duyvil, as examples of normal engi- the neatness, clearness, conciseness and neering, of which the author never gave grace that entitle us to apply the term a thought to the expression of what he "beautiful" to a geometrical demonstra- was doing, we find on one side the posi- tion, and gaining force from the very tive ugliness, the "superfluity of naughti- absence of ornamental accessories, and ness," of the bridges at Willis Avenue the reduction of the demonstration to its

FIG. II. BRIDGE OVER THE HARLEM RIVER AT SECOND AVE.

New York City. Theodore Cooper, Engineer. J. J. R. Cross, Engineer of Masonry. and Third Avenue, on the other the pos- simplest expression. It has an Euclid- itive grace and attractiveness of the ian "beauty." And the same may be bridges at Second Avenue, at Seventh said in equal measure of the bridge at Avenue, at Eighth Avenue and the Ship Second Avenue, in which not the Canal bridge. Of these the Central smallest superfluity has been added Bridge at Seventh Avenue is the most to the essentials, but in which pretentious and costly, is plainly that in these have been completely expressed. which the most extensive sacrifice to the The general form of the swing- Graces has been made, and it cannot be span is nearly identical with that we said that they have been made in vain. have just been considering, while an ad- The architectural accessories, the shelter ditional element of expressiveness has towers and the like are as carefully and been introduced by the innovation of re- successfully designed as the architec- moving the "operating room" from the tural essentials, the piers pierced by basal pivot in which it is commonly con- arches which carry the approaches, or, cealed and establishing it aloft as an ey- when it is at rest, take the ends of the rie. To the spectator from the river, swinging central span, while the sub- this bridge gains much in effect from the structure and the superstructure alike of very lucky choice of material for the this central span are so designed as to abutments, as well as from their admir- tell their story of the enormous weight able design, the material being a dark detachable from its terminal supports and mottled granite which weathers into RECORD. 254 THE ARCHITECTURAL

FIG. 12. THE CENTRAL, BRIDGE.

7th Ave. and 155th St., New York City. A. P. Boiler, Engineer. great picturesqueness. If these two artistically, by getting an architect to bridges be, as it seems to me they must add some architectual "features" to the be allowed to be, artistically the most work of the engineer. The observation " successful and satisfactory of all the of Polonius that 'beautified' is a vile crossings of the Harlem, it is worth in- phrase" applies with particular force to quiring what they have in common. One bridge building. finds that what they have in common i.f From this examination it appears that their austerity, the rigid rejection of the of the draw bridges already completed unessential which assists the spectator's across the Harlem with swinging draw comprehension of their clear and forci- spans and of which the swinging draw ble expression of the essential. If this span offers the chief artistic difficulty, again be true, the truth of it shows how if two are bad enough to be awful idle is the attempt to beautify an essen- warnings, two are good enough to be tially ugly construction by invoking an mod2ls in their kind, while nobody will artist after the scientist has ruined it deny that, of the remainder, the Cen-

FIG 13. ROADWAY OF THE CENTRAL BRIDGE.

7th Ave. and 155th St., New York City. A. P. Boiler, Chief Engineer. NEW YORK BRIDGES. 255 tral Bridge and the bridge over the ings, this is no doubt accurate. But Ship Canal are highly creditable works, one must protest against an acquies- in an artistic as well as in a scientific cence in it as a permanent division. To sense, the two built by the New York draw a hard and fast line between scien- Central for its own purposes being artis- tific construction and artistic construc- tically neither here nor there. Neither tion, is to hand over the future to is there any question of the attractive- builders by hypothesis inartistic, or else ness of the two great bridges in which to invoke the artistic constructor, nec- there was no swinging span to be taken essarily too late, to see what can be done into the account, the Washington and with a design which is already, from his the old High Bridge. Upon the whole point of view, irretrievable, and which, the showing is one of which no New from its own point of view, he fails to Yorker has any reason to be ashamed. understand and consequently is power- Considering the anarchical condition less to express. According to that fa-

FIG. 1.4. BRIDGE OF NORTHERN RAILWAY. Eighth Ave. and the Harlem River, New York City. A. P. Boiler, Engineer.

of the relations of the two professions mous confession of the western legis- which have to do with building, the want lator, "it is impossible for a man to give of provision for the scientific training of expression to an idea of which he is not architects or for the artistic training of possessed of." The way out of this im- engineers, it is a much better showing passe seems to be a requirement, as Mr. than we had any right to expect. Sandier puts it in a recent paper, that Mr. Russell Sturgis lays it down that "the architect shall become an engineer," "whatever is traditional in form or or that the engineer shall become an ar- structure," "comes within the archi- chitect, which would come to the same tect's province," whereas "all that is so thing. Evidently we cannot go on un- new or so complex as to require care- der the assumption that the largest and ful scientific examination based upon most conspicuous structures we erect mathematics is the province of the en- shall be the least artistic, and that build- gineer." As a classification of the actu- ing shall be divided between men who al apportionment of the design of build- have no training in scientific knowledge 256 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. of construction and men who have no the "first concoction" of a structural training in aesthetic sensibility as to its design that its success or failure is in- results. volved, he began at the beginning, and It happens that, with respect to the from the beginning his engineers and two most important bridges then or now his architect really co-operated, really under construction in New York, Mr. worked together. It is simple justice to Lindenthal, upon his appointment in say that he was especially fortunate in 1901, as Commissioner of Bridges, found his architect. Mr. Hornbostel had not a way out of the difficulty and opened a only a more thorough grounding in path full of promise for the future of technical engineering than falls to the

FIG. 15. SHIP CANAL BRIDGE OVER THE HARLEM RIVER. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. A. P. Boiler, Engineer. artistic engineering. Mr. Lindenthal's lot of most architects. What is even own work as an engineer had put him more to the purpose, he was able to distinctly among the engineers who be- take what may be called the engineer- lieve in the artistic as well as the scien- ing view of architectural problems, or tific future of their art, and who are la- vice versa, as you choose. What this boring to make that future present. For ability is, and how enormously valuable quite the first time in this country on it is, nay, how essential to a progres- such a scale, and as the chief constructor sive architecture, one may readily see by of a great city, he invoked the co-opera- referring to the most striking historical tion of the artistic with the scientific example of such an architecture. In an constructor. Recognizing that it is in engineering sense, Gothic architecture NEW YORK BRIDGES. 257 was the development of vaulted con- It seems, at least, to be an unreason- struction in masonry. In an artistic able pessimism to abandon all hope of sense it was the expression of that de- him, and to acquiesce as in a natural velopment. And so closely and inex- and permanent arrangement in the pres- tricably were the two things connected ent unnatural and transient arrangement that they seem to be identical, that you under which the most conspicuous cannot put your finger on any single works of men's hand shall continue to step of the transition from Romanesque be done by men whose training is exclu- to full Gothic, and say by way of con- sively scientific, shall continue to be tradistinction/This is science"or"This is done, as a German visitor found that

FIG. 16. WASHINGTON BRIDGE FROM THE SOUTH.

New York City. R. H. Hutton, Constructing Engineer. art." Why should there not be an ar- American public works are now univer- tist-engineer of the future who works sally done "without reference to art." in metal, and whose work may rival that Especially is such a concession unrea- of an les- of the artist-engineer of the past who sonable in the presence object wrought in masonry? When he arrives son that artistic training may be invoked and success to enhance it may not be extravagant to apply to with advantage thus the him the majestic language of Milton: the expressiveness and impres- of erections in metal of the "He shall bring together every joint and siveness member and shall mould them into an most modern construction and on the such a demonstra- immortal feature of loveliness and per- greatest scale. And fection." tion has clearly been furnished in the co- 258 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

operation of the artistic and the scien- (a name quite undistinguishing, which tific constructor under Mr. Lindenthal's might advantageously be changed for administration of the Department of the Wallabout) was entirely uncom- Bridges here in New York. The results mitted as to its superstructure, remain- of that co-operation were hailed as an ing, as in fact it does yet, entirely on pa- advance by our whole artistic world. per. The improvements practicable in The Blackwell's Island and the Man- the revision of the design for the Black- hattan were the two great bridges that well's Island Bridge were some refine- Mr. Lindenthal found authorized and ment of the general forms of the can- the former as planned for; a triplet of tilever, of which the two outside spans

FIG. 17. WASHINGTON BRIDGE FROM THE MANHATTAN SIDE. New York City. R. H. Hutton, Constructing Engineer. cantilevers, but without the suspended now take the shape of the universally spans which have thus far proved so admired curves of the Pont Mirabeau, architecturally intractable, the ends of of a more expressive and intelligibly the brackets simply meeting, and with "articulate" design of the piers and two intermediate supports upon the is- towers, and especially of the clarifying land from which the bridge takes its by simplification of the cross section. name; the latter as a suspension bridge The difference between the unrtevised : of the same type as that of its eld^r ne gh- and the revised design here is as crucial bors. The Blackwell's Island Bridge an instance, though not so conspicuous had been committed by the beginning of in the drawings or in a distant and gen- its terminal the Manhattan eral view as in the case of the Manhat- one of piers ; YORK BRIDGES. NEW 259

scientific as well as artistic training to take it apart and put it together again in such wise as to meet architectural as well as mechanical requirements. And this is precisely what has been done by the redesigner who combined the scientific and the artistic points of view. Dark- ness is at his coming light ; confusion order in his path. There could not be a more impressive object lesson than a comparison of these two perspectives affords of the difference between the merely mechanical and the architectural solutions of any engineerisg problem. And look at the illustrations taken from the models of the terminal piers of the Blackwell's Island and the Manhattan. How entirely remote they are, except- ing the substructure of pier and arch in masonry, to which the former was al- ready committed by actual construction, from anv forms of historical arch-

FIG. 18. ENTRANCE TO BLACKWELL'S ISLAND BRIDGE. The Original Design. tan, of the difference between the ar- rangement of a construction with refer- ence to nothing but its mechan- ical stability and sufficiency, and the arrangement of it with refer- ence to expression, with reference to making it tell its own story as clearly, as forcibly, as eloquently as may be. The attainment of this is the attainment of artistic engineering. We are bound to assume that the original cross section of the Blackwell's Island Bridge was mechanically sufficient. But we have only to look at it to see, from an architectural point of view, what a help- less and hopeless muddle of makeshifts it is. Evidently the thought of an ex- pressive or a dignified arrangement had never so much entered the mind of its designer. The most that academic ar- chitecture could do to it was to cloak FIG. 19. REVISED DESIGN FOR ENTRANCE and dissemble its chaotic ugliness by a TO BLACKWELL'S ISLAND BRIDGE. mass of "features" which would have Gustav Lindenthal, Engineer. been nothing to the purpose. It needed Henry F. Hornbostel, Architect. 260 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

clearly achieved, and in achieving them have given fair promise of a "zukunfts- baukunst." The only drawback one notes to complete expression in the pier of the Blackwell's Island Bridge is in the masonry pier, and that, as has been said, was predetermined. And it seems that the one serious defect of expression in the piers of the Manhattan comes from the same cause. In the eye bar chain, the chain being firmly attached to the top of the pier, the necessary "play," which in the wire cable is secured by the free movement of the cable over its sad- dle, is attained by the movement of the pier itself, which is pivoted at the bot-

FIG. 20. PIER AND TOWER OF THE BLACKWELL'S ISLAND BRIDGE. Gustav Lindenthal, Engineer. Henry F. Hornbostel, Architect.

itecture, and yet with what clearness and with what force they tell their

several stories ! It is the highest and also the rarest result of a training' in the forms of historical architecture that the student shall attain through it the power of invention, or rather of assisting" atthe evolution, of new forms, which have no- thing superficially in common with those which have been his academic models and yet which have in common with them the possession of unmistakable FIG. 21. PIER AND TOWER OF PROPOSED "style." This high and rare triumph, in MANHATTAN BRIDGE. these two designs, Mr. Hornbostel and Gustav Lindenthal, Engineer. his engineering collaborators have Henry F. Hornbostel, Architect. XEW YORK BRIDGES. 261

torn. Certainly this arrangement is not expressed in the actual form of the pier of the Manhattan, which spreads at the bottom and is visibly and strongly at- tached to its masonry support. As a matter of fact, it seems, the pivotal point at which the movement is permitted and allowed for is the joint marked by a collar, below which the foot of the pier begins to spread. Evidently there is hert a failure to expound and express in the forms the actual construction of a col- umn pivoted and movable. But that is a detail in a construction which is so clearly a great advance upon anything that had before been done, at least upon this side of the Atlantic, in the architec- tural design of a great modern bridge. Upon its production it wr as hailed as such an advance by the whole architec- tural profession and by our whole art world, especially including the Municipal Art Commission. One does not yet un- derstand how the public expectation of seeing it established in execution has been baffled. The engineering innova- tion which was questioned and question- able was evidently inextricably con- nected with the unquestionable architec- tural improvement. For it was nothing less than the abolition of the stiffening truss necessary to secure the rigidity of a suspension structure suspended from wire cables, a stiffening truss which, as FIG 22. PROPOSED MANHATTAN BRIDGE. we see in the old Brooklvn Bridge, as Gustav Lindenthal, Engineer. we see still more in the Williamsburgh Henry F. Hornbostel, Architect. Bridge, and as we should most of all have seen in the execution of the orig- ested engineers who could be found to for cannot inal design the Manhattan, make the investigation. Their report itself as in be prevented from asserting was conclusively in favor of the practica- rival construc- effect an independent and bility and sufficiency of the proposed tion. The enormous architectural ad- construction, and was satisfactory to the vantage of the eye bar chain which Mr. municipal authorities, the experts of the Lindenthal proposed to substitute was Board of Aldermen alone excepted, who that by reason of the points of attach- continued to "hold up" the appropria- ment which formed an integral part of tions for the bridge upon the ground, at the chain it enabled the stiffening truss least upon the ostensible and ridiculous to be incorporated in the suspensory ground, that they were still unsatisfied structure, doing away altogether with that the eye bar chain might advantage- the independently trussed roadway, and ously supersede the wire cable ! But, as hanging from the suspenders a clear and soon as Mr. Lindenthal went out of of- unobstructed bridge-floor. So bold an fice, the new authorities of the Bridge innovation necessarily induced question Department proceeded to revert to the and invited investigation, and Mayor superseded construction, quite ignoring Low appointed a commission of the both the proceedings of their predeces- most eminent engineers and disinter- sors and the report of the experts, and 262 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. not pretending to a particle of expert ey. It seems that here was an excel- authority beyond their own. The occa- lent opportunity, perhaps the best op- sion seemed eminently one for inquiry portunity it had ever had, for the Art upon the part of the Municipal Art Commission to render a considerable Commission, which seemed to be en- public service, in the direct line of its titled to have cause shown to it a why own powers and duties, by calling for design which it had approved with en- such an expert commission. "Instead thusiasm should be rejected over its of which" the Commission, without ask- Lindenthal it with a head. Mr. supplied ing any questions, and with one honor- of action in a ground making specific able exception, meekly approved the de- series of to the sub- objections design sign substituted for that which it had al- stituted for its and to own, offering readily so heartily approved, and balked his to an commis- prove points expert the project of making the most note- sion. The Art has Municipal Society worthy advance this country had wit- never in its to render history attempted nessed in the direction of artistic engi- a more civic service than it important neering. Thereby it seems to have laid tried to render by forcing upon the at- itself open to the bitter comment which tention of the public and of the Art Charles O'Conor made upon the Bar Commission the reason there was to Association, what time that body refused apprehend that the city was not get- to investigate charges against him "I ting the best bridge possible for its mon- thought you amounted to something." Montgomery Schuylcr. The Residence of Mr. Samuel Cabot

Winslow & Bigelow, Architects

In any characteristic American house landish in appearance. The architect of to-day, the observer can usually dis- has merely dealt with the conditions cern the effect of two different tenden- which confronted him," in a frank, sin- cies the tendency which induces the in- cere and simple way, and he has conse- telligent architect to adhere to certain quently designed a building whicjh is authentic types of domestic design, and historically suggestive without being the tendency which induces him to mod- merely imitative, and which is individ- ify the type in order to meet local and ual without being arbitrary. personal conditions, or to produce novel The immediate surrounding of the and individual effects. In some in- house are rough and uncultivated, and stances one of the tendencies gets the are over grown, for the most part, with better of the other. The house may ad- pines and hemlocks. The grounds are here so closely to an authentic type that consequently treated in a manner which it loses all individual and local proprie- is for the most part informal, but which ty, or the architect may sacrifice every- none the less, does not ignore certain thing to his desire to be original, and sources of formal effect. The house is may thereby lose the deeper charm approached by a curved driveway. All which people of taste derive from the architectural ieatures have been excluded sight of mature and well-behaved archi- from the garden, which is enclosed by tectural forms. In other cases the two an evergreen hedge, and the masonry tendencies are both present, but are far is rigorously and not very happily rus- from being harmoniously combined. ticated. On the other hand, tne terrace But in all the really successful houses has the advantage of certain straight erected from plans by intelligent and lines and the garden of certain axes in well-trained architects, the two tenden- relation to the house. The general ef- cies are not only both present, but they fect of the combination, apart from the are merged in a certain integrity of ef- rusticated masonry, is or will be very but of course the illustrations fect. happy ; Such integrity of effect has unquestios- given herewith do not afford the reader ably been obtained by Messrs. Winslow much idea of the way in which the sur- and Bigelow, in the house which they roundings of the house will ultimately have designed at Canton, Mass., for Mr. look. A good deal of necessary plant- Samuel Cabot. It would, indeed, be dif- ing remains to be done, or has ficult to name anyone authentic type of obtained a wholly insufficient growth, domestic architecture from which Mr. and after the lapse of several years the Cabot's house has been derived. It con- effect will be entirely different. The about the forms in general to the style of an Ital- curious and significant thing to the ian villa, yet it is not at all Italian in the relation of the house landscape effect which it makes. Some of the de- is the way in which this simple regular in tail is in a way Colonial, yet no one building, which is distinctly classic land- would call it a Colonial house. In fact, feeling, harmonizes with the rough one may as well abandon any attempt scape and this in spite of the fact that between the to apply a definite historical name to its some of the immediate steps not architecture. Yet in spite of this building and its surroundings hwe fact, it none the less arouses certain been very carefully graded. of the itself pleasant and palpable, if vague, histor- The design building pre- ical associations. It is not in the least sents an unusual combination of effec- inter- either miscellaneous, or curious, or out- tive lines, excellent proportions, ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 264 THE

THE HOUSE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT. The Front and the West End. Canton, Mass. Photo by T. E. Marr. Winslow & Bigelow, Architects. RESIDENCE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT. 265

ENTRANCE TO THE HOUSE OF MR. SAMUEL, CABOT.

Canton, Mass. .Winslow & Bigelow, Architects. Photo by T. E. Marr. 266 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. RESIDENCE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT. 267

THE SOUTH FRONT OP THE HOUSE OP MR. SAMUEL. CABOT. Canton, Mass. Photo by T. E. Marr. Winslow & Bigelow. Architects. 268 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE HALL, OF THE HOUSE OF MR. SAMUEL, CABOT. Canton, Mass. Photo by T. E. Marr. Winslow & Bigelow, Architects. RESIDENCE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT. 269

DINING-ROOM AND LIBRARY OF THE HOUSE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT. Architects. Canton, Mass. Photo by T. E. Marr. Wtnalow & Bigelow, 270 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE LIVING-ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF MR. SAMUEL. CABOT. Canton, Mass. Window & Bigelow, Architects. RESIDENCE OF MR. SAMUEL CABOT. 271 esting- openings, and telling projec- as the entrance porch are managed in tions with other dispositions, in which a way which is individual and which the completeness of the design has brings out both their importance and evidently been sacrificed to the exigen- their necessary subordination. The cies of the plan. It frequently requires problem of obtaining a satisfactory en- courage for an architect, who pos- trance to a house of this size has seldom sesses as much taste, as does the archi- been managed better than it is in the tect of this house, to arrange some of case of Mr. Samuel Cabot's residence. his openings and masses in a way that The plan of the house is peculiar, be- the cause it makes no for a impairs perfectly satisfactory appear- provision piazza ; ance of his facade, but when such sac- but something equally good, if not rifices are demanded by the comfort of better, is arranged, viz., a completely en- the residents of the house, he is as a closed loggia. The entrance on the rule justified in making them. A house north side of the building gives upon a is primarily a place in which to live. The large hall, as wide as the recess in the convenience of its inhabitants should be faqade, and by walking straight through the first consideration of the architect, the hall one reaches the paved and and inasmuch as it is generally neces- domed loggia, which obtains sunlight sary in this world to sacrifice one good and air from five large arched window- thing in order to obtain another, a well- doors opening to the south. The ar- lighted and thoroughly comfortable in- rangement is obviously one which is terior generally means an exterior better adapted to the winter than to the whose appearance betrays certain ir- summer; but when a house is occu- regularities. In the case of Mr. Cabot's pied all the year around some such house, for instance, the appearance of combination of both winter and summer the facades, particularly the one giving conveniences is desirable. on the terrace, is injured by the number The design of the interior is char- and character of the openings. The acterized by simplicity and good taste, large double window, opening from the and the residents of the house have loy- hall of the second floor, in particular is ally co-operated with the architect in almost a scar upon that front of the selecting the furniture and hangings of building. Yet one can readily under- the building. The entrance hallway is stand what a convenience and comfort spacious, and is paneled to the ceiling such a window would be, and one would in dark wood. The stairway has not hesitate to say that the architect was been very well managed, as a matter of in it the charac- but what so rare as a thor- not justified giving size, appearance ; ter and position he did. Throughout the oughly good stairway in a house which whole building the openings have been cannot cost more than a certain arranged for the convenience of its in- amount? The living-room is a still habitants, and without very much re- more attractive apartment. The frame- gard to the attractive spacing of the work is provided by a low dado, run- faqades. In the same way the three- ning completely around the room, by the story service extension, while very con- flat pilasters, which enclose windows, venient in arrangement and charming the doors, and the mantelpiece, and a in some of its details, has been added plain but effective cornice. The wall on to the main house without very much spaces enclosed by this framework are regard for the integrity of the composi- treated in solid, flat colors. Nothing and tion. Yet in spite of these deductions could be simpler than this design, the the whole effect of the exterior is not yet how sweet, precise and pleasant is as only charming and personal, but it is, on effect is. The dining-room simply but with some the whole, architecturally interesting and treated as the living room, sound. The proportions and masses are differences in detail. The floor is paved of laid in general admirable, the detail simple in with red tiles instead being and design, and most discreetly used, while in oak, the ceiling is domed, such subordinate but important members there is no paneling. Similar flat pilas- 2/2 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. ters are, however, used to frame in the It arouses Italian suggestions, which wall spaces, the scale of which is reduced are not, however, in the least in- by mouldings parallel to the lines of congruous with the Colonial furniture. the outer frame. The wall surfaces are Altogether, the interior as well as the again painted a solid color. The domed exterior will add to the reputation al- ceiling, the tiled floor, and the severe ready achieved by Messrs Winslow & treatment of the walls give novelty to Bigelow of ranking very high among the appearance of the room, without the American designers of effective, ap- adding any impropriety to its effect. propriate, and comfortable houses.

A. C. David.

PLAN OF C4BOT HOUSE. A Tuxedo House

The Residence of Mr. T. Harleston Deacon

Tuxedo will, in the course of time, be- necessary to make extensive alterations. come a place of peculiar interest to the The period of reconstruction has begun, historian of American domestic archi- and there is a new Tuxedo as well as an tecture. It was founded as a place of old. residence for rich people during the The house of Mr. T. Harleston Dea- warm weather, at a time when the differ- con, illustrated herewith, emphatically ent types of the contemporary American belongs to the new Tuxedo. It was residence were beginning to be estab- completed only last spring. It is sub- lished and the last ; during twenty years stantially constructed of concrete, and examples have been built of almost is a fully equipped, residence, intended every popular phase of design, and al- for habitation during a large part of most all the leading architects of New the year. Like the other houses in Tux- York and its vicinity are represented. edo, it conforms to the type rather of the Thus a chronological exhibit of the large and handsome suburban residence dwellings erected at Tuxedo since the than that of the country estate. It is last years of the eighties would portray surrounded by enough land to detach it very well, not only the changing ideals entirely from its neighbors, but the area of American architecture during these of this land is not large enough to af- years, but also the changing economic ford an opportunity for any thorough and social conditions which have contrib- landscape treatment. It is situated like uted to make those houses what they so many Tuxedo houses, on the side of a are. Of course there would be some hill, on which a number of fine deciduous limitations to this exhibit. There was trees are growing. The approach to the no room for the distinctively "palatial" house from the road curves down the residence, or for the large country hill, and the slope of the actual site of estate, in a community like that of Tux- the house is so sharp that the cellar, edo. It is only the smaller house, sur- which on the front is sunk in the ground, rounded by a comparatively few acres of is on the back enclosed by a high ma- that finds but wall. a land, one represented ; sonry The only way whereby these smaller houses were generally de- terrace on the level of the main floor of signed by good architects, and sufficient the house could be obtained in the rear money was spent upon them to afford was by extending the foundation wall certain architectural opportunities. Con- until it surrounded as much space as sequently, nearly every house which the was necessary for the cellar. One of place contains has a certain significance, our illustrations shows the view of and towards the end of the period this rock, river and wooded hillside, which is significance tends to increase rather obtained from this terrace, and which is than diminish. The first houses were very beautiful and picturesque. generally frame cottages, intended only It was natural that on such a site Mr. for occasional use, and for the most part Deacon should have wished to place a constructed somewhat unsubstantially picturesque house, and a house of this and designed without any great care. kind he has obtained from his architect, Now, -however, the houses are occupied Mr. Wilson Eyre. The lines of this are con- with its and its for longer periods ; they house, gables high- structed of more substantial materials, pitched roof, are for the most part and are intended frequently for winter as Elizabethan; but the effect is very dif- character well as for summer use. The result is, ferent, owing to the different that whenever a newcomer buys an old of the material and construction. The ex- house in Tuxedo he generally finds it posed timbers in an Elizabethan house 274 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE HOUSE OF MR. T. HARL.ESTON DEACON. Tuxedo, N. Y. Photo by A. Patzig. Wilson Eyre, Architect. A TUXEDO HOUSE. 27.5

REAR OF THE HOUtSE, OF MR. T. HARLE3TON DEACON. Tuxedo, N. Y. Photo by A. Patzig. Wilson Eyre, Architect. 276 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

VIEW FROM THE HOUSE OF MR. T. HARLESTON DEACON. Tuxedo, N. Y. Photo by A. Patzig. Wilson Eyre, Architect. A TUXEDO HOUSE. 277

DEN IN THE HOUSE OF MR. T. HARLESTON DEACON.

Tuxedo, N. Y. Photo by A. Patzig. Wilson Eyre, Architect. 278 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. A TUXEDO HOUSE. 279 280 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

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o| A TUXEDO HOUSE. 28l

DINING-ROOM AND LJVING-ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF MR. T. HARLESTON DEACON. Tuxedo, N. Y. Photo by A. Patzig. Wilson Eyre, Architect. 282 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. give the architect certain lines and pro- older English houses. The wall covering jections on the face of the building, also, while it is not expressly Jacobean, which enables him to make its effect light is assuredly Jacobean in spirit, because, and but such an effect can after the manner of such it graceful ; things, does hardly be obtained from a solid concrete its very best to attract attention. In the wall pierced only by the absolutely living-room the ceiling is also Jacobean, necessary openings and without any the two windows on either side of the projections on the front except the over- mantelpiece are filled with stained glass, hang of the roof, and one bay window. and the carving of the woodwork A house of this kind must be vigorously around the mantelpiece is still more rather than daintily picturesque. The elaborately wrought, but the effect is rough walls give the impression of great rendered less complete by the modern solidity and strength, and this impres- upholstered furniture, the draperies and sion, while, owing to the character of the knicknacks. the construction, it is not reinforced by Whether one prefers a series of Jacob- deep reveals in the openings, is carried ean interiors to a series of rooms deco- out in the massive terminal chimneys, rated, according to the current fashion, in and the emphasizing of the openings by one or more of the French, Italian or the blackening of the window frames. English Renaissance styles is, of course, The architect has accepted with the ut- chiefly a matter of taste. It would as- most frankness the character of the suredly be a bad thing for the American selected construction, and has divested architect entirely to throw away the rich his building of adventitious or applied materials which he can gather from the ornament. Indeed, as one stands down Jacobean storehouse, and it has not in the driveway on a level with the proved to be beyond the skill of several house, it suggests vaguely houses which American designers of interiors, notably we have seen on English village streets. Mr. Stanford White, to use without any Of course the suggestion does not per- impropriety some Jacobean detail and sist when the house is seen from below furniture in Renaissance rooms. But or from but from certain the a manifest above ; points Jacobean room has of view this mixture of plainness, solid- danger, whether we like it or not the ity, picturesqueness and informality danger, viz., that the incidents and the arouse one's recollections of English vil- features of the design will overpower lage houses. This attempt of Mr. Eyre's the total effect. Jacobean details are to carry the best qualities of concrete unquestionably insubordinate, and fre- construction into his design is worth quently claim more attention than the the careful attention of other archi- economy of a thorough design can tects. properly grant. Barring the dining The design of the interior of the room, the details of the rooms in Mr. house suggests the same period as the Deacon's house have this tendency to design of the exterior. The woodwork be insubordinate, so that, in spite of their is all of it dark, and while a certain careful planning, and the many valuable amount of Renaissance detail is used, properties they contain, their effect is the effects sought are similar to those not all that they might be. They consti- of Jacobean rooms. The entrance hall, tute, nevertheless, an extremely inter- for instance, is enriched with a Jacobean esting set of interiors, which may teach ceiling, and with an elaborately carved any one who examines them closely an mantelpiece and stair-rail, and both the instructive lesson in what to do and in stained glass window and the furniture what not to do in arranging and decorat- arouse kindred associations with the insr a series of rooms. The City Hall at Copenhagen

HISTORY. to engage in business or to sublet a por- In the year 1892, the city council of tion of the new structure for such pur- Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, poses. The rooms are unfinished and began the erection of a new city hall, unused, a big sacrifice for their pride, the sixth in order, the older ones having for these "kellers" pay well. been outgrown or burned down. This EXTERIOR. has of late rapidly, some- capital grown The hall lies in a busy part of the city thing after the manner of our Ameri- near the central railway station and can cities, and the requirements called these two buildings constitute the neigh- for a big structure. If not the largest borhood an important radial point, ever undertaken in that little building though not in the geographical center. country, none other comparable with it In shape it is oblong and very nearly has for many years been carried 226 feet by 408. It is free on all sides. A competition for the selec- through. The long axis lies nearly in a southeast- tion of an architect was inaugurated, erly direction. On the east, south and Danish architects The only praticipating. west sides are fine broad streets. On best were selected for a final competi- the other side of the street to the west tion, the first being preliminary. The lies a park. result was the choice of Martin Nyrop To the north is a large square, like as architect, his plans having found nearly all other older European open favor. places, those dating from the days pre- The work was carried without along ceding the engineer's checker-board with an to the best haste, eye single regulation of cities. The shape of this results. The foundation was expensive piazza is quite irregular and long in the and slow work. The superstructure direction of the main axis of the hall. followed and the tower framing was The building is of brick with granite completed in 1898, six years after the base and chalkstone trimmings. The corner stone was laid. But they are ac- most notable feature is the division into customed to slow over there. building two parts. On the east the high tower In 1901 some of the offices were occu- marks this division, placed directly op- In the of the pied. beginning year 1903 posite a street, on the long side and not the council its first city held session on the square. On the west, corre- within the new walls. It is now practi- sponding to the tower, is a gable with cally complete. The Hall of State is re- a turret, the so-called pjigeon tower. the in the ceiving finishing touches and These two parts are officially known upper part of one stairway the plasterer as the front and the rear. is for the "al fresco'' mural preparing Standing in front the eye is caught else is in the most painting. Everything by the row of large windows in the third order. perfect running story ending with a vigorous bay near is There is, however, one department each corner. Back of these windows lines are not even begun and perhaps it never the Hall of State. The roof will be. In nearly all German cities it bold, and to bring them out still more is customary to have a cafe restaurant the corridor walls are carried through in the basement story of the city hall the roof, many feet high, and broken up the so-called "Rath-haus-keller." into large crenellations. Such a one has been planned by the ar- The frieze of the cornice is white with and chitect, with a separate, very convenient, very little modeling, of chalkstone win- but yet inconspicuous entrance near the brick. It is punctuated with small attic. main door. In the last minute the city dows, which light the large The council considered it beneath its dignity wall line finishes with a large copper RECORD. 284 THE ARCHITECTURAL THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 285

gutter, touched up with gold. The roof and texture to the surface. There is a is of slate. middle line of windows, the largest placed Directly over the imposing arch of the near the top. But the finish of the entrance is a large gilt figure of Bishop tower is not Italian, only a northern Absalon, the founder of the city. On mind would have conceived of it. The each side and lower down are shield architect has cleverly avoided weaken- bearers. In front the pavement is hol- ing the base of the tower with an en- lowed out in a semi-octagonal shape trance. This, which is really a large with the diameter toward the building driveway, is placed on the side and there and sloping down to this. It was a bold is one similar on the west. thing to do to compel people coming The rear is in every way plain and from the front to go down this incline is also lower. It has an additional story,

"OX THE WEST SIDE 1 = THE PARK OF TIVOLI." The City Hall cf Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, Architect. and then climb the stairs in order to get owing to the slope of the ground. to the building. But the results justify Along the west side the City Fathers this means of breaking up the square have stolen a part of the wide boule- and no one minds the inconvenience. vard and fenced it in. Of this they have The immense and high tower, 330 made a little park, which adds materially feet, with a decided taper to the shaft, to the attractiveness though the trees is the dominating feature. It is strong- have as yet hardly begun to show. The ly reminiscent of Siena and North Italy boulevard is so wide that even after in feeling, even to the extent of the taking away enough for this garden "cannon holes" in the brickwork spot there is sufficient room for the bricks omitted, partly to assist in build- traffic. ing of future scaffolds, partly to give life The immediate surroundings of the 286 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE ARCH OF THE ENTRANCE. The City Hall of Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, Architect. THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 287

court. The ordinary offices in the rear enclose a grass covered court. The di- vision between the two contains the kernel of the structure, the council chamber. It is thus well surrounded and the members in meeting feel the protection of seclusion for their gather- ings. The entrance vestibule, though not very large, is, however, attractive in its simple lines. It is granite, chalkstone and brick. The tympanum directly in front of the visitor is filled with a high- ly conventionalized group, a council gathering in the old time, under a tree. Below are the former city guilds, each with its emblem. Just above the coun- cil there is a telling inscription, sarcas- tic in only too many instances A city is what its people make it, or more lit erally, Like city, like people. The "piece de resistance" of the entire structure, that which is seen by 99 per cent, of all comers, is the glass covered court directly beyond the vestibule. A "THE PUNCTUATION MARKS OF WHITE STONB." hall are fairly good. On the west side is the park of Tivoli. To the front are hotels and on the side business struc- tures. There are no other public struc- tures near by. The selection of site is very happy as the building counts from so many directions. Quite natur- ally by contrast the mind reverts to that other newly completed and also highly personal structure, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of London. This could not have been placed more unhappily. Nar- row streets and high buildings surround it on all sides not a single point of view. And the immense expense ren- ders it practically hopeless that a way will ever be cut through the narrow block in front and out to the wide and busy Victoria street. PLAN AND EXTERIOR. The division into two parts is also quite evident in the interior. In the front, which is far richer, are the show rooms and rooms for the higher officials. "THE ARCHITECT HAS DRAWN FREELY These are grouped around a covered FROM THE ZOOLOGY OF THE NORTH." 288 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

brighter, pleasanter, more inviting court There is no "grande escalier," but would be difficult to imagine. Directly there are two fine stairways, one in the in front is the wall of the dividing wing, tower and one in the corresponding containing the council chamber, its five west gable. Both lead directly to the large windows clearly indicating its council chamber. The one to the west characrer. On the three other sides is the richer and leads to the special en- are passages in three stories, connecting trance for the president and the four the various rooms. In the first story mavors. It is called the President's is a wall with few openings. In the stairway. Directly at the head of the second there are more openings and a stairs is a fine wall painting in faience, balcony runs all around. In the third representing the daughters of Aegir, the is a colonnade light and graceful. The seagod of the Scandinavian myth. In color treatment is white stone in the the cloistered ceiling above are seagulls

"THERE IS EVIDENCE OF LOVING CARE IN ALL THE DETAILS." The City Hall of Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, Architect.

first story, alternating bands of chalk- and the walls below are decorated with stone and very light red brick in the conventionalized fishnets and trees, second. Darker brick above, and the subjects suggested by the character of woodwork of the glass ceiling kept in a the painting. The stairway in the main dark tone. Back oi the colonnade the tower is for the councilmen. The wall walls are plastered white. decoration at the top are "al fresco," an- The architect called my attention to cient views of the city and of one of the er-tire absence of paint or pigment in the earlier city halls. In the ceiling are this splendid room. He wanted the ma- verses chanted by the old-time town terials to tell their own story. The let- criers at various watches of the night. tering under the colonnade is of slightly On each side of the council chamber variegated brown terra-cotta, set in is a cloak room and an ante-room with plaster. Each inscription commemo- balconies to the two courts. There is. rates some event in the history of the also a small buffet for midnight lunches. citv. It is verv decorative. The council chamber is dark on account THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 289

DETAIL OF ONE OF THE ENTRANCES FROM THE COURT. Architect. The City Hall cf Copenhagen Martin Nyrop, 290 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

of the dark glass, but this does not mat- are rooms also on the open court. ter as it is only used evenings. The These offices are connected with a gal- ceiling is heavily beamed, and close up lery running all around a narrow court. under it, so as not at all to obtrude Above is a glass roof to light this court. on the members in session, is a visitor's MATERIALS. gallery on three sides. In each corner toward the court are loggias for hon- When remarking to the architect that ored guests, and between is a retiring they build so much with brick in Den- alcove with a bay. mark, he answered, "Yes, but you will There is a slightly raised platform for notice our bricks are hand made, not a the president, the four mayors and some from a machine," and he made series other functionaries, with a canopy over of identical motions. It was hardly nec- call attention to it. the president's chair. The desks are not essary to No individual but tables forming four-quar- pressed bricks could give that pleasing ter circles. Along the end walls are texture to the walls. The use of such seats with high panel work, for the use bricks would quite effectually deaden of members when they wish to consult the entire structure. each other during long speech. The other materials are also mostly Eight large chandeliers light the room of Danish production. The granite of in such a way as to keep the upper part the base and for the steps is from the rather obscured. The press has the first Island of Bornholm. The chalkstone row in the gallery at one end. that gives so much variety and life has Below the council chamber is a large already been mentioned. There is a room for a civic museum, as yet hardly great deal of burned and glazed clay iDegur*. Still lower on a level with the faience in the decoration, also of Danish floor of the covered court are the city manufacture. The floors are of mar- archives, lighted from the south through ble or of mosaic in all halls and large windows from the open court. corridors. The large Hall of State, extending The roof is of slate in cement. The nearly the entire front of the building, sheet metal is copper. The woodwork is receiving the finishing touches. It is mostly oak with the doors in the more is a fine room with dark beamed ceiling, important rooms of mahogany. In touched up somewhat with color. At some departments, as in the treasury, each end is a visitor's gallery, with stairs they have used our own pitch pine which, direct from the corridor. The floor is true to its nature, is already becoming of American yellow pine, laid in her- grimy. ringbone pattern. It is in short wide Throughout there is used solid sub- pieces, but flat sawed. Some day there stantial material and the workmanship will be trouble, just when it is least is of the best. But when one gets up wanted, when a grand ball is going on. into the attic and sees the lumber piles At one end a door opens into a suite in the roof construction, one's surprise is of three rooms for the library. At great. Why in these modern days of the other is a session chamber for the steel use such inflammable materials and magistrates, or the heads of depart- invite disaster? But it is no easy matter ments. to get out of old ruts and they are now The City of Denmark is blessed with so accustomed to wood in the roof, they four mayors. One corresponds to the seem to think of no other way. treasurer and he and one other mayor ORNAMENTATION AND EMBLEMS. and the president have rooms in the architect in a with her- front. The other mayors, the city The country ad- architect, engineer and scores of other aldry and a long history, has in- officers are arranged in the rear. vantages : ideas for decoration are These rear offices are finished plain evitably suggested. with a minimum of wood. The south Nyrop has made good use of these end is wider than the two sides and here opportunities and yet in this treatment, THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 291

DETAIL IN THE COURT. Architect. The City Hall of Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE COURT. The City Hall of Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, Architect. THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 293 the symbolism, is never obtrusive. A ings of former city halls, and historic motive that is constantly recurring is views of the city, have already been taken from the coat-of-arms of Copen- mentioned. Lastly there is the rich hagen, three towers. Among other lore Scandinavian mythology, which places it is seen at the corners of the has also furnished subjects. copper gutter, too far away to be dis- The architect has drawn freely from tinguished and yet they are good accent the zoology of the North. Perhaps the marks. best of conventionalizations are those In the main vestibule the long row of the snakes in the vestibules, the wal- of figures representing the various old- rus heads of the rear doorway and the time guilds each with its own device is conspicuous and fine bears on top of certainly fine. In the same way quaint the crenellated wall of the front. Dogs, old seals are also made to serve deco- cats, mice, crows and seagulls, all fall gracefully into the decorative scheme, each in its place. Nor have the builders hesitated to use portraiture in stone. The heads at the bottom of the spandrels of the col- onnade in the covered 'court are highly conventionalized likenesses of those city fathers, who undertook the construc- tion of this building. The architect him- self is used as a model and also his wife. Another effective scheme of decora- tion is suggested by the very processes of erecting the structure. Flat newel posts are placed three or four on each run of the stairway in the large tower. On the side toward the well hole are carved splendid figures of all manner of workmen. There is the roofer and the bricklayer, the carpenter and plasterer, all busily at work. Further down are the laborers, the men coming up with bricks and mortar, timber, slates and what not. Last of all, bringing up the rear, comes the clerk-of-works, also a piece of portraiture. It is a clever and the stairs. DETAIL OF THE COURT. effective way of decorating Perhaps the most prominent decora- in endless rative purposes. And there is the tion is the free use of brick crown, in this case not the royal one, geometric patterns and the punctuation but the so-called civic crown. It is used marks of white stone. These brick pat- over the bay windows in the open court terns are strongly reminiscent of North- and in the chandeliers of the council ern Italy and the mind reverts quite at In chamber, and in several other places. readily to S. Stefano Bologna. hard- Then there is the long history of the fact it is said the Danish architects North in their country and the city. Directly over the ly go beyond Inly years stuclv. Clever fellows ! entrance is placed most appropriately a of travel and do know that their own coun- large gilt figure of the founder of the Well they so a brick has city, the vigorous Bishop Absalon. Two try, eminently country, shield bearers a little lower down, com- more to learn from Lombardy than plete this effective frpmine of the door- from Tuscany. way. The historic inscriotion in the The svmbolism that is employed is covered court, and the "al fresco" paint- really part of the scheme of decoration. 294 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

"A FINE WALL-PAINTING IN FAIENCE, REPRESENTING THE DAUGHTERS OF AEGIR."

The City Hall of Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, Architect THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 295

The six large figures along the cresting In connection with the ventilation one of the roof in front (see photograph should note the crenellation of the from the model room) are all old-time brick wall breaking through the roof. town criers, variously equipped. They These are really foul air vents, and it and the large tower clock, which chimes would be interesting to know which every quarter of an hour, have taken the suggested the other, the vent duct or place of the real watchers. These are the crenellation. ever on duty. The rooster weather- The snow on the large skylights is vane on top of the tower, is another melted by steam heat as soon as it falls symbol of watchfulness. to prevent trouble. The which to the char- rear, is, owing It will give some conception of the acter of the offices it contains, distinct- size of the building to be told that sixty more has under a on ly modern, canopy women are employed every day to clean each corner a "blue coat" and a fire- the 485 rooms that are now in use. For in uniform. Then there laddy everyday there are some unfinished portions to is the small door on the to east, leading allow for future expansion, as for in- the for the infirm department poor. stance the large space over the Hall of Over it are carved in the a hen granite State, now merely a garret. In order out to her stretching protecting wings that the janitors may not forget the chicks. And the dove is seen over lastly door mats the architect has arranged windows in the stories and many upper recesses in the floor. And in this way the dormers on a especially perched pro- they are not sliding about nor tripping content with her jecting beam, quite the unwary. home. No doubt this was done, in order Time is kept by an exceedingly fine to that a hall is after all do- suggest city chronometer, in the information room it is the civic home. In fact it mestic ; of the first story, connected electrically be said that the architect has suc- may with the dials in the tower. These dials ceeded in a remarkably giving homely are in diameter the same as the front feeling to the structure. It is far from door opening. Unusually well tuned a collection of mere show rooms and chimes peal forth at every quarter. At front It is a building pre-emi- parlors. the first quarter one little melody. At for use, and in no nently every day way the second two, and so on. At six repellent because of cold and distant and twelve o'clock quite a little tune is And yet it is dignified grandiosity. played. the of known worth, having no dignity COST. need of ostentation. We Americans are rather to PRACTICAL AND MECHANICAL,. prone reduce things to a dollar basis in order The building is heated by four Bab- to get at a comparison. It is not always cock & Wilcox boilers, placed in a sepa- the better part of discretion to do so. rate model-equipped structure, con- This practical and immense sructure, nected by a concrete tunnel under the a thing of beauty and a joy for centuries streets. The heating is mostly indirect, to come, cost the ridiculous sum of using several fans. The air to some 5,817,500 crowns or hardly more than of the rooms is filtered through long one and a half million dollars. Just rows of zizag cloth filters, and think of it. And there we have our then moistened with steam, escaping own city hall of P ! but spare us. through automatically refilling tanks. We'll never do it again. And we do not In another part, where there was no even have the excuse of shielding our- room for filters, the air is merely washed selves with the higher cost of building by a fine spray. The heat regulation is at home for the difference is really very not automatic, except in one depart- slight. Labor is to be sure lower, but ment, using a Danish thermostat. It materials are higher and progress slow- seems quite different from the American er, so one thing equalizes very nearly system, for there is no compressed air. the other. But it is of brick, say some. THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 296

The faience of the in the Well, if we could always save money picture splay of the in the covered and get as fine results as this, let us by archway door, all means use brick and discard stone. court, is made up of seagulls skimming

r Unfortunately we cannot, as anyone over the water filled w ith fish, or fight- over their In the can easily determine for himself by ing prey. correspond- to the east are crows spending a few hours on the trolley cars ing doorway fly- of Antwerpen. For even the Dutch ing over a landscape. Both are by have failed to make those endless rows Hansen-Rejstrup. The large painting of houses with cornice lines all of the of the Daughters of Aegir, also in fa- is Froelich. The bear in the same height, anything but intolerably ience, by dull. One would'have to go to the New fountain by the court and the genuine York brown stone front to find streets "al fresco" paintings are by Skovgaard. more sterile and soul wearying. The panel over the door in the library, representing the architect and his su- COLLABORATING ARTISTS. perintendent on the roof of the build- instructions for It is quite evident that the final suc- ing discussing some cess of a structure such as this is to a the mason foreman, is painted by great extent dependent on the charac- Kroeyer. ter of the many collaborators. These The so-called frescoes of the window's seem all to have been Danish which and stairs, conventionalized flowers, ought not to surprise us. Copenhagen leaves, etc., in few colors are by Moel- is an artist center. For though very ler-Jensen. There are other paintings nearly the smallest of countries, the by Ring, Hammershoej and Carl Jen- capital of Denmark has what is claimed sen, so the list is extensive. Apparently to be the largest collection of French all have worked understandingly with sculpture outside of France. Besides the architect to produce one large har- the celebrated collection of the. great monious whole. modern Thorvaldsen, there are numer- STYLE. ous other art collections and museums. If you should ask the architect what It might not be amiss to mention style he had adopted for his structure, some of the artists who have linked their he would probably say he did not know. names to the structure, only less prom- And this is no discredit to either archi- inently than the architect himself. The tect or building. Yet the question is figure of the founder-bishop is by Prof. justified for the building has style, style Bissen. And the town criers on the in that broad sense that an orator has roof by Prof. Aarslef. The reader may style or a writer or an actor, a style have noticed that much of the best work imparted by the author to every part in Europe is done by Professors. The be it even "minute and unseen." It may European Universities have a way of be quite a fanciful idea but one likes to attaching great names to their facul- think that its designer gave to this one ties. In return the holder gets a sal- building all his time, all his thought, ary and delivers some lectures, but the all his ideas. One likes to. imagine that greater part of the time remains his he prepared himself for this one work, own. not by a large indiscriminate practice, The policeman and the fireman, the frittering himself away on all manner of walrus of the rear door and the snakes commercial problems, but rather by a together with most of the minor sculp- long preliminary training in select tural decorations are by Bundgaard. works, executed patiently and without The very decorative tympanum of the haste. Meanwhile his mind was filling vestibule with the guilds below is by with thoughts and ideas for the oppor- Frau Slott-Moeller. There was a com- tunity of his life. Then it seems he petition for this and, curiously enough, spent all, gave of himself with a free first and second prizes were captured by hand and concentrated every energy on women. "The men began coming in this one object. It may be fanciful, third place," the architect remarked. probably is, but the writer has been able THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 297

THE TOWN-CRIERS OF COPENHAGEN. RECORD. 298 THE ARCHITECTURAL

A COUNCIL, CHAMBER. The City Hall of Copenhagen. Martin Nyrop, Architect. THE CITY HALL AT COPENHAGEN. 299 to find no other work of importance author's years of study and travel. In from Nyrop's hand. And the fact is the mosaic are delightful reminders of that the erection of this structure coin- the elegant simplicity and effectiveness cides with the best years of a man's ac- of the pavements of Pompei. The tower tive life. Herr Nyrop had just turned and the scooping out of the pavement forty when the question of a city hall in front hark back to Siena. The archi- was seriously discussed. A year or two tect no doubt filled his sketch book later he captured the prize in a competi- with brick details in Bologna. The tion. The building is now receiving its motives of the wall decorations are final touches in the Hali of State, and suggested by paintings on the plas- the architect is not yet sixty. It is quite ter walls and ceilings of German and enough glory for one man. There is Danish churches. The treatment over something of the flavor of old time, the the long row of large windows in the days before machinery. There is evi- front recalls old manor houses, so- dent a loving care for all details, noth- called "herregaardar," a local Danish ing slurred over, nothing slipshod, noth- element. So also is much of the brick- ing "scablonenhaft" as the Germans work local in its flavor. In the ceiling say. of the treasury old coins of the realm But to one man this city hall must be are used to show the purpose of the a disappointment on paper. That is room. the average, self-assertive and all-know- It might be fair to expect a critical ing committee man, appointed to pro- and analytical study of this prominent cure a new city hall, court-house or li- structure. But I shall not attempt this. brary for his community. Its big fault It can be done far better by some one to him is the lack of columns. And trained, some one more cold-blooded, competing architects know this. It is with a steady hand to guide the dissect- not such a big trick to string a lot of ing knife. Nor would I, if I could, care columns along a front, most any drafts- to spoil the pleasure of two short winter man can do it. And then too, most im- days spent in Copenhagen, the greater in portant of all, many architects can make part of the time this fascinating build- a committee believe that it costs no ing. more practically no more. Nor does It is quite possible that no one would it cost any more, as far as the drafting pick Herr Nyrop in a group, as the expenses of the office are concerned. architect, if it were not for that roll of As a money maker, a brain saver and a drawings under his arm, or perhaps job catcher, the column and the pedi- still better by the earnest seriousness ment have outdistanced every other de- of his eye, that goes so well with his vice known to a designer. One must product. For he is thoroughly devoid feel positively thankful that there is not of posing and swagger. But he is un- a column on the facade anywhere. The mistakably a kindly and "gemytlich" column is used in one place in the cov- Dane a quiet, pleasant, gray-haired ered court, and there, most naturally, man with silver brimmed spectacles to make the upper part structurally on his nose, in stature and weight lighter and more graceful. perhaps below the medium, but in pro- But there are many other reminis- ductiveness and as a gentleman the peer cences of historic architecture, of the of the best. Olof Z. Ccrvin. 300 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD

DOOR OF A PRIVATE CHAPEL IN WE3TCHE3TER. A Private Chapel in Westchester

Among the private chapels in New decorate and furnish. Before he pro- York and its neighborhood, it is doubt- ceeded with the work he asked himseli ful if is there one more complete in its these questions : First, what style of appointments than that of the Holy architecture should be employed? Sec- Child at in the of what , County ond, spiritual thought should dom- Westchester. This chapel is in a coun- inate the religious motive? Third, what try house, recently built by a gentleman furnishings are necessary for a private of large means, from the plans of chapel ? Messrs. Little & O'Connor. While the The first question was answered by dwelling itself is Spanish Renaissance the style of the house: Renaissance; in character, much in the style of the but Italian was used instead of Spanish,

A PRIVATE CHAPEL IN WESTCHESTER.

Franciscan Missions of California, the because it is simpler in decorative de- architectural lines of the interior of the tail, more dignified in line and color. chapel are Italian. It is situated at the The second question was easily an- very top of the house, and is almost a swered, for it is self-evident that a building by itself, but it is concealed chapel in a private house should em- from view by the parapets of the main phasize the beauty and holiness of structure, except its roof of red tiles, Christian family life, the innocence of which forms the crown of the dwelling. childhood, the watchfulness of fatherly The chapel, originally a bare room and motherly love. The third question 30 feet long by 24 feet wide, was placed called for a greater study, because a in the hands of the writer to construct. private chapel can be simply an oratory 302 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

a room set apart for family prayers, or it can be this and more, namely, a place where the Eucharistic Sacrifice can be offered; or it can be all of this, and at the same time so equipped that public services of every kind can be cele- brated within its walls : in other words, a Church in miniature. This last form was chosen for the Chapel of the Holy Ch;ld. The architectural composition of the chapel was carefully worked out, good Florentine examples closely followed, and great attention given to harmony oi line and ornament. The ceiling is left open, conforming to the contour of the pitched roof. The oak ridge-beam, rafters and ties are all in plain view, but highly finished in a dark tone of

THE HOLY WATER STOOP.

color, while the intervening spaces or coffers are plastered, textured and met- allized with a rich deep yellow gold. The whole room is wainscoted to the height of the window stool, broken by pilasters reaching from the floor to the underside of a well developed cornice, enriched with simple mouldings and carvings, all in quartered oak of the same tone and finish as the ceiling-timbers, except the carved capital of the pilas- ters, which are gilded. Both the side walls are broken by three windows and one door-opening; the spaces above the wainscot, and between these open- ings and the pilasters, are plastered and covered with a textils of a peculiar dark green color; and the end walls are treated in a similar manner. The floor is made in very light quartered oak, marquetried in one tone, and polished like a mirror. The general color scheme of dark waxed oak, light polished floor, golden coffers and green wall surfaces was chosen in order to form a background THE TABERXACLE DOOR. that would enhance the preciousness of A PRIVATE CHAPEL IN WESTCHESTER. 303

and the gold and silver, the paintings The Chapel is illuminated by the mosaics of the altar, and the colored means of electric lights on each pilaster glass of the windows. there is a carved wooden console, fin- The altar, standing on a predella of ished in antique gold, carrying three three steps, was developed from a sin- electrical candles, the corabe represent- gle motive: The beautiful wall taber- ing a cherubim. The prie-dieux are of nacle of da Fiesole in the Santa in and all the Mino oak, with carvings gold ; Croce at Florence. An exact full size copy of this masterpiece was obtained and used as the actual Tabernacle, and the other parts of the altar. The mensa, the retable and reredos, were composed from its various members, and heavily gilded with deep yellow gold, relieved with greenish gold and silver. The spaces in the reredos, on either side of the Tabernacle, are filled with careful copies of a portion of Bennozzo Goz- zoli's celebrated picture of Paradise, in

the Palazzo Ricardi at Florence : An- gel's in prayer and adoration amid a garden of roses. The Tabernacle door is made from an original design, and executed in metal overlaid with gold, and inlaid with iridescent glass mosa-

ic ; this same combination of metal and mosaic is employed in the crucifix, flower vases and canonical candlesticks. The entrance to the chapel is at the opposite end of the room from the altar, and is composed of a carved and fluted oak trim, carrying on escutcheon bear- ing the dedicatory inscription : Deipara Immaculate, and provided with a double leaved carved door, a work of the early Eighteenth Century, which was obtained from an abandoned church in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, a fine example of the handicraft of the native converts of the Franciscan missionaries. The subjects portrayed in the win- dows were selected from the Child life of Christ, in illustration of the doctrine ot the incarnation in its bearing on Di- vine, conjugal, parental and filial love, in its relationship to a perfect family life. The themes depicted are the An- nunciation, the Nativity, the Adoration, the Presentation, the Disputation, and the Home at Nazareth. They are worked out in American mosaic glass: "Innumerable of stained and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd THE ALTAR CANDLESTICK. wings." 304 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Other accessories, such as the altar fur- tectural lines and decoration of the niture, holy-water-stoop, laces, vest- chapel, as far as they may be shown ments, are in keeping with the ensemble in black and white, where so much de- of the chapel. The accompanying il- pends upon color in unison with archi- lustrations give a fair idea of the archi- tectural expression. Caryl Coleman.

THE ALTAR OF THE PRIVATE CHAPEL. Mr. John Safford Fiske then the arcade and the square covered flat- sends from the faced mass of the after a 3IE.NA Italy photo- building repeat, graphs, which we repro- few centuries, forms perfectly familiar to CHAMBER duce, of a new building in the citizens of Siena; the style is in their OF Siena. The utilitarian very blood. In mass and in detail the build- COMMERCE, idea, the purpose, of the ing is something that all Sienese would rec- building does not readily ognize u_> it arose. And this familiarity with combine with the idea of the subject is seen in the evident freedom Siena in the mind of anyone who knows the with which this modern Italian designer place well; but in that hill town as well as treats the accepted forms venerable tradi- in the larger cities of Tuscany, modern com- tions of his ancestry, in art. mercial prosperity is spreading, and they have what seems an anomaly in such a com- It is a matter of great regret that the munity, a Camera di Commercio. The mate- florid parapet or gutter-member that piece rial, at least of the arcade, and the window of rich scroll-work which rises above the casings, is a pale gray stone, and the relief cyma recta, should have disappeared in the sculptures of the band above the arches are picture. The background has been wiped or emphasized by a red background, though this painted or in some way the verity of the with the interspersed armorial shields, ap- sky-line has been lost altogether. Still a pears to be the only color effect which is little of the parapet can be seen above the sought in the exterior design. Speaking no\v short face of the building at the extreme left only of the exterior design, there are two of the picture. Disregarding that, it will be things which seem worthy of special men- seen that the crowning effect of the wall is tion. The first is the entire fitness of such an entablature made up of a cornice sup- a revival of Italian fifteenth century archi- ported on modillions, and below that a tecture for the purpose of an ancient Tuscan rounded moulding and a dentil course with town. Such a building would not be much in no more frieze nor architrave below this harmony with our New York streets; nor again than the ornamental band decorated by would it be any more suitable in the streets a fret in low relief, which seems rather to of Norwich or Farmington in Connecticut, to make part of the wall than of the entabla- name only two picturesque and attractive ture. So the pilasters which form the cor- towns of true New England type. Again, it ners of the building are frankly stated to be is hard to imagine a town of the active West piers and are built up of rusticated blocks, in which this building would not be rather although their capitals seem to make pilas- preposterous. For, note the spaciousness of ters of them, and this form is repeated in the plan a Loggia filling the whole ground both stories of the facade. In the arcade be- story and only one story of enclosed rooms low its continuous character is emphasized by above. The one hundred and fifty feet of the returning of the archivolt at every fresh length, and the thirty feet or thereabout of abutment, so that mouldings do not width are given up frankly to purposes which spring directly from the capitals of the col- a small building of no pretensions would umns, but are returned upon themselves, answer as well, except as the community is serving as mere decorations of a solid stone invited to enjoy it as a place of resort as a archivolt which is sufficient to itself and ac- summer house. There is that moderate cost cepts the mouldings as mere ornament. All of building which excites the envy of Ameri- of this is characteristic of the fifteenth cen- cans who study the customs of continental tury designer, nor need it excite any sur- Europe. The equivalent in cost of this prise; but it is just because this design shows building in Norwich or Farmington would sympathy with the radical departure, with be a frame building covered with shingles the independent spirit of the Risorgimento because if we measure it by the price of and that it is not tied by the formulae estab- wheat, the work of the stone mason is lished at a later time, that it is to be wel- cheaper in Italy than we can imagine, and comed here. That "Classic" which is a "soft 306 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE SIEXA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 307

snap" is not the classic of this kind. No one that: those words are put into the mouth of will find that his draughtsmen are ready to my reader, in order that it may be said, in turn out such details as these, because they answer, that street fronts may be treated are not to be found all ready-made. You alone, very often. The ordinary city house must go to photographs for these, and pho- in which I am dictating this paper what has tographs require study. its front to do with the structure? The floors The second picture is a view taken within and roof are carried on the side-walls, all the open arcade, and surprises one rather by the front has to do is to present window open- the width of the portico. One sees, in look- ings and door openings in convenient rela- ing at this, that the hall above must be ca- tions with the top of the flooring, in each pacious, and that this great Loggia is a de- story, and to stand up and stand plumb. lightful place of resort when twilight falls Such a front may or may not be the medium for the late afternoon sun shines full into it. of careful designing in the arrangement and It is a place of resort for mornings and even- proportioning of openings and solids, the use ings, and not for the heat of the day. of mouldings, the use of sculpture what not? R. S. but it may properly be treated as a flat wall. So much only in reply to the very In the June number of courteous letter of Messrs. Dean & Dean, and THE these Notes and Comments to its suggestions that the whole structure of there was criticised the the building ought to have been studied be- WHITTEMORE Whjttemore Building in fore any critical remarks were made. BUILDING Chicago; and a letter from There remains to be urged this considera- which I am tion, that if you don't see rela- AGAIN the architects, many things glad to receive and to ac- tively bad as well as others relatively good, knowledge which, indeed. your criticism is naught. All are agreed that there is no modern all are I had asked for states that there is no steel style; agreed that the concealed in the brick piers. "The building fine art of architecture can hardly be called into in is an honest brick wall all around except, of being connection with our business structures course, the cast-iron columns in the first and our hotels that is to with story front." This is interesting because it say the most prominent buildings of shows that the architects have been willing our cities. Every architect who has built a to trust their brick-work. We do get first- great hospital, a library, a clubhouse, knows, a will rate brick-work in our cities, when a little and many one say, that the burden he has to pains are taken; and undoubtedly it is safe had carry was too much for him and sufficient building in the present in- that he could not have his desire of a care- stance, these high and slender brick piers, fully thought out design. steadied as they might be, very easily. Here are two ways out of the Slough of Now it is clear that if the note in the June Despond in which we wallow the close number had been a critical account of the copying of European monuments of old time, and building, it would have been absurdly in- the putting up of frankly non-architec- adequate. In fact, no such critical account tural things, which may lead to something would be possible to a writer looking at the architectural, by and by. Call those two front only. And therefore it is just as well methods A and B is there a third way, C? to state here that the front only is described Each one of us thinks so, at some time, he and commented on in that note. All that tries it, it seems not to lead to the promised could be seen in the unsatisfactory photo- land. Eidlitz built the American Exchange graph was the general lay-out of the front; Bank the Continental Bank, 1856-1858; probably that is all that a first-rate print Wight built the Academy of Design, 1865; could have shown; and accordingly all that R. W. Gibson, modifying a scheme ^originated was said was to one end to comment by the late Mr. Stent, built the Church Mis- only " upon the forlorn way in which a presumably sions House at Fourth avenqe and East good structural front was left without artis- 22d street; McKim, Mead & White built tic treatment. My very hasty assumption Madison Square Garden with its arcades, that there was steel in the piers merely serves and the colonnade of entrance of the to show (once more! as if it were needed!) Metropolitan .Club; Sullivan built the that you mustn't take anything for granted. Guaranty Building (now the Prudential) The fact that the piers are brick alone does in Buffalo; Wm. A. Potter built Alex- not modify at all the general opinion that a ander Hall at Princeton: these are buildings passerby might form of the front as a piece of all sorts except houses and churches of architectural design. (which we are not considering now), and "But the front ought not to be criticised by each of them is original in a high sense. The itself." Messrs. Dean & Dean do not cay man sat down to his work, thought out his THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD, 3o8 NOTES AND COMMENTS. 309 plan, allowed the exterior and the details under the direction of prominent artists. The within and without to take shape in his feature most novel and interesting was the mind, designed as freely, built as well as use of the big vases of growing plants a de- he could; and so not one of these buildings vice suitably formal and royal in its sugges- can be classified as of any bygone style. tion to be very appropriate in location and If any other such building comes into being, purpose. For a week's display, during which the editor of the Architectural Record will the King was to traverse a large amount of call it up to account for itself! But none ground, they were much better than ropes of such are heard of. In this absence of orig- flowers or than one or two staff arches would inal architectural buildings, I have ventured, have been. of late, into the field of factory buildings, warehouse buildings, storage buildings structures built away from the stately thor- An interesting item that oughfares and in humble guise, chiefly of has latel y been drifting brick; and it is surprising what fine things PRIVATE the have been discovered. The Record for Janu- homelessly through pa- HOUSES Ders> report that Charles ary and February, 1904, and several numbers AS M. Schwab destines the of the present year, 1905, may be cited. PUBLIC home which he is building Those are buildings in which a designer may GIFTS on Riverside Drive for a be allowed to be original may allow himself public when he to be original; for he has no overmastering museum, can no dwell there. item types in his books of reference and he sees longer The seems not to have been and it is in- the impossibility of using as types photos of contradicted, in its reminder that buildings, in foreign parts. This search has teresting hardly a splen- did house has been been, is and will be a delightful excitation. private bequeathed to the And when the Whittemore Building became American people. There is a new idea for known to rne through a photogi-aph of its our philanthropy! With the increased ap- of fac.ade, I added that one to my list; but, as pearance very elaborate, costly and beau- was said above, the defects and shortcomings tiful houses filled with artistic treasures, need to be taken up, in their turn, and the which are not allowed to stock it like a mu- defect there seemed (and seems) to me a seum, but which are severally fitted to their lack of artistic thought given to what might immediate surroundings so that they be- have been fine. R. S. come a part of its essential furniture or, as in the case of a chimneypiece or stairway, of the house itself the problem of what to do with it when the owner has gone is bound to be more The street decorations and more pressing. Adequately to maintain such a with which the municipal- home makes very heavy de- mands not on the ity of Paris welcomed the only purse but on the love of art a demand that STRE.E.T King of Spain, on his not many heirs can vislt in the first week cf satisfy. There may, also, be no heirs; while DECORATION to June, were of a sort some- separate the house and its treasures, will- the latter what novel, but withal so ing to a public museum, is to rob them of their practical and effective, thai setting and so to destroy a good they ought to have suggestion for American part of their value. If we have not had this kind of cities on gala occasions in summer. At in- philanthropy before, it is because we tervals of thirty metres along the principal have only lately, with the rise of vast for- streets there were placed huge vases filled tunes, commenced to build this sort of houses. with begonias in red and yellow, these being In Europe many a private palace has become the Spanish colors, and alternately with by such means public property; and to name these were masts painted in red and yellow over the most famous museums is to recite the and surmounted by shields bearing the royal names of families and homes as Pitti, arms. To enhance the floral effect obtained Uffizzi, Luxembourg, and Chantilly. That in by the vases, prizes were offered for the best the possibility of such a future for his work, decorated windows, and it is said that the the architect must find vastly increased in- principal greenhouses of France, Italy, Bel- centive and inspiration, scarcely needs a gium and Holland were called upon for saying; nor need one explain that the citizen plants, the latter country sending hundreds who leaves to the public the product of his of thousands of late flowering red and yellow artistic taste and judgment in collection and tulips. The electric illuminations also carried arrangement leaves much more of his per- out the Spanish colors, and the whole work sonality than he who bequeaths to It only of decoration was done as usual in Paris stocks and bonds. THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 310 NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lake Forest is a town in of the little spire that is evidently timber LAKE, Illinois, twenty-five miles construction, too, and the plaster tiiere must or so north of Chicago, be put on lath of some sort. FOREST close upon the lake, and a Now, all this is a matter of feeling; and it TOWN most attractive village of is a thing which must "be insisted on in every HALL the sort that is built to or- instance, the fact that it is a matter of der in a flat country. The feeling and that an extreme refinement of interesting Town Hall and feeling would keep a designer from the anom- Fire-house shown in our illustration will be aly of using a lath-and-plaster surface and far more interesting now that the leaves are a brick-plastered surface side by side as if on the trees, but it was wise to photograph they were alike in dignity and significance. the building before May-time had come. For In other words, the very fact that the de- a brand new structure, complete representa- signer's walls were to be in white plaster tion of the bare facts for the five-year old contrasting with red brick, would seem to building the picturesqueness caused by sur- bid him call for a different surface from ei- roundings and the pretty shadows of foliage ther when it should come to the filling in or upon its white walls. the covering up of a timber construction. It These white walls in their contrast with is easy to use a third tone or tint or hue the reddish gray walls of brick, form the sig- it is easy to work up one surface or an- nificance of the design. Smoothness con- other with embossed patterns and with trasting with the broken surface of rough scratching, with sgraffito work, in fact. A brick laid up in the ordinary simple fashion, harmony of three colors is easier to work out whiteness contrasting with the mottled and than one of two; a harmony of four is far varied color below, which color is again mod- more amusing and more effective than one of ified by a few simple patterns in the ma- three, and the case seemed to call for just sonry itself, and again the inevitable con- that introduction of the third element in trolling of the walls with all their play of places where there was no longer a solid ma- color and character by the large and simple sonry wall to start from. roof those are the principles of this design, This is a most attractive design; the pro- and they are principles worth insisting on. portions are graceful without losing that pic- In some cases this insistence may be thought, turesque energy which so small a public in the case before us, a little unreasonable. building seems to require. I wish we could Thus, the breaking of the three-centered see in the picture the door of the fire-house arches of the entrance porch by the stone proper, the porte-cochSre through which the blocks is unfortunate; for what is as pretty fire engine is run in and out. That would of as the three-centered curve seen in per- necessity make an interesting feature in the spective, repeated, as it would have been, by wall where it occurs. R. S. the projection of the different rings of the arch, each beyond the last? The contrast of the white is not to be objected to; if some patriotic citizen of Lake Forest were to go The Studebaker Building by night with a chisel and cut the mouldings in Kansas City is another made by the brick offsets through the stone interesting brick building. so as to keep the curves of the arch continu- STUDEBAKER for in this the general ous it would seem as if the objection made BUILDING mass is more attractive above would disappear at once. Why, in- than even the larger de- deed, should that detail, identified with a tails. If anyone should most forlorn old style, with the worst of the wish to argue the question late neo-classic styles why should that have of relative effect of the corbelled cornice com- crept into this simple and reasonable design? ing directly against the sky and the same Again, one is conscious of a certain im- member with an attic rising above it, let him propriety in the use of the same plastered compare the wall cornice in this case as it surfaces in the wood-built dormer window as runs along the main faQade, with so much of in the walls; for it can hardly be supposed it as belts the square tower. That is really that in this case the plaster should be laid an effective tower; it would have a more upon brickwork. Our American timber fram- mediaeval and more fortress-like effect if it ing is not carried so far. It is hardly to b rose still higher clear above the roof, but it supposed that the dormer window is really is as high as is needed for the water-head framed, solid, filled in with brick nogging or the machinery of the elevator, or both. and then plastered. In like manner the top- The square tower which has just arisen in most band of white in the tower, the frieze New York, connected somehow with the arm- that comes just below the overhanging eaves ory of a militia regiment and dominating 312 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE STUDEBAKER BUILDING. Kansas City, Mo. Root & Siemens, Architects. NOTES A.\D COMMENTS. 313

Fourth avenue from 34th street southward, is, Rodin's impressionism is highly esteemed is certainly more effective from a distance; in Germany. In fact, one would perhaps be but then it is built for effect alone and can safe in saying that approval of him is more have no utility under any circumstances. general not necessarily more vigorous The tower of San Gimigiano has not, as in England and in Germany than it is in yet, suggested any repetition in modern France. At home he still has severe critics times of that peculiar effect, yet perhaps it who find him barbaric and crude. At Diis- may come. A certain number of tall, square, seldorf last year there was an exhibition of brick towers needed economically for fac- his work that is said to have been the most tory and warehouse buildings, might well be comprehensive yet made; Berlin and Dres- arranged in an attractive group, if a few den have also had exhibitions, and the Royal architects, building in crowded manufactur- Gallery in Berlin has acquired two or three ing quarters, should agree to join forces. examples of him. But there is a deal of in- R. S. terest in Germany just now in developing national sculpture, and at the time of the Schiller centennial, when the award to Rodin was made, France and Germany were watch- Even in this hurrying ing one another with much political sus- country, it causes some THE picion. It is inspiring to find art apprecia- surprise to read reports tion thus rising superior to politics. PASSING that "a historic building, OF A seventeen years old," PIONEER should have to give way before the march of pro- gress. And the phrase There are few recent de- loses none of its remarkableness by the fact YE.LLOW velopments in the art of that the building's historical significance is American building of more due to no momentous or interesting events PINE, FOR interest than the use of that have taken place within its walls, dur- INTERIOR. greater varieties of wood ing their short life, but to their marking of FINISH for the interior finish of a step in the ancient and usually slow mov- handsome rooms. The ing history of architecture. The structure greatly increased cost of referred to is that known as the Tower Build- certain kinds of wood, both hard and soft, ing, on lower Broadway, New York City, has stimulated architects to try other kinds planned by Bradford L. Gilbert, and which have been less used in the past; and claimed to be the first example of steel skele- excellent results have in this way been ob- ton construction. It is significant that the tained from elm, butternut and yellow pine. seven stories of steel frame, then erected so Yellow pine in particular has recently been experimentally, are to give place now to a increasing in favor as a wood which can be twenty-story building. A suggestion has been successfully used for the highest class of in- that it made ought to have been kept as terior finish. It has always been one of the much as the pioneer locomotive or steam- most popular of American hard woods for boat; and it is a that the pity big new sky- flooring and other purposes; but it has been could scraper not be constructed around the shown in a number of different instances that little cloud it and scraper, protecting showing it can be stained so that it puts up an ap- it off by contrast. pearance very similar to that of Flemish oak. The grain of the wood is usually exceedingly good and needs only to be properly treated in order to bring out its admirable qualities. The bestowal Au- upon Visitors to the St Louis Fair may remember guste Rodin of an honorary a cottage in the Forestry Building, erected A DEGREE degree by the University exclusively of yellow pine, which was a con- of Jena, is an event well de- FOR clusive exhibit of the possibilities of that serving of comment. Here wood for both the trim and furniture of a RODIN is a sculptor made a "Doc- That exhibit has al- tor," and he is a French handsome apartment. had the effect of stimulating architects sculptor who is thus hon- ready use in an increased variety of ored by a German university. "Exceptional" to yellow pine and this use will be extended as fast is hardly the term to apply to an act that is ways, can be accom- unparalleled. If not the most important, it as people learn how much of the wood is perhaps the most striking, recognition that plished to diversify the effect by has been given to Rodin's talent. The truth proper staining. THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Mr. Wilson Eyre, whose impression of being completely visualized, ol photograph we print here- being really seen while in the process of be- with, needs no introduction ing designed, whereas the work of many very \VILSON to the readers of the Archi- clever American architects, particularly when E.YF.E tectural Record. He is one they hail from the Beaux Arts, give rather of the half dozen American the impression merely of clever draughtsman- architects who have made ship, and when to this advantage of a genu- for themselves a national inely projective imagination is added the reputation, chiefly because of their designs further advantage of thorough technical for dwellings, and of these none is more in- training, it can be inferred how high are dividual than is Mr. Eyre. While his work Mr. Eyre's qualifications as a designer. The

MR. WILSON EYRE. has been by no means limited to private writer has had the pleasure of actually see- dwellings, it is as an architect of houses and ing only five or six of Mr. Eyre's houses; gardens that he is best known. His designs but of those he has seen, in the flesh instead exhibit an interesting mixture of traditional of in reproduction, a house and garden and original, of formal and informal ele- at Greenwich, Conn., will linger long ments. His imagination is steeped in some in his memory as the satisfactory treat- of the best traditions of domestic archi- ment of the late colonial three-story dwell- tecture; but it remains, nevertheless, personal ing it has been his good fortune to run and vigorous. His buildings always give the across. TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT.

DETAILS OVER ENTRANCE OF CARNEGIE LIBRARY, LINCOLN, NEB.

Made by Northwestern Terra-Cotta Co. Fishel & Lowrie, Architects

No. II.

In its July number the Architectural Before, however, entering upon any Record published the first of a series ot discussion of the merits of terra-cotta articles, in which it was proposed to a short explanation is necessary of the give some account of the increasing- point of view from which, this discus- use of terra-cotta in this country, and sion is undertaken. It will be necessary its advantages and qualities, compared to make it comparative, and to show to those of other materials. It was that in certain respects and for certain pointed out in this first article of the purposes terra-cotta is preferable to series that the of terra- stone but it must not that employment ; be supposed cotta in large quantities in American we are foolish enough to claim that building was practically contemporane- the comparison is all in favor of terra- ous with the specifically modern move- cotta, or that for certain purposes the in American architecture and that use of kinds oT stone is ment ; appropriate it was prominent architects, still living, not to be preferred. Stone has obvious \vho have been chiefly responsible for advantages in the construction and its introduction, for its varied applica- ornamentation of a building, with which tion, and for its increasing popularity. brick and terra-cotta cannot pretend to There can be no doubt that since 1880 compete, and it is absolutely essential its use has grown more rapidly than to the proper use of terra-cotta in this that of any other important .building country that the strong and weak material and this fact the of the classes of materials ; suggested points two inference that there was a close and should be clearly understood. Such an vital connection between the best quali- understanding would be extremely ties of terra-cotta as a material and the beneficial both to the terra-cotta and peculiar needs of contemporary Ameri- the stone industries, because the two can building and architecture. In the materials are at bottom supplementary, present number of the series, we pro- rather than competitive. Terra-cotta is pose to inquire whether and how far not a substitute for stone. Under cer- such a connection can be established. tain conditions and for certain architec- 3i6 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. tural effect terra-cotta should be used. Xor is this ail. The comparatiye use Under other conditions and for other of the two materials is confused by the architectural effects, stone of one kind fact that terra-cotta is cheaper and more or another should be used. The trouble flexible material than stone, and that is that many architects and many more consequently it is often used as a sub- laymen do not fnlh understand what stitute for stone, not because the ar-

OFFICE BUILDING FOR THE MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE CO., CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA. Terra-Cotta ra-ade by Perth Amboy Terra-Cotta Co. Clinton & Russell, Architects. the comparatiye merits of the two ma- chitect wants to use terra-cotta, but be- terials are and fre- cause he cannot afford to use stone. ; consequently they quently use stone, when terra-cotta Under such circumstances, he usually would have better served their purpose, compromises by specifying a kind of or they use terra-cotta when a more terra-cotta which is made to look as effect could ob- as like stone and the appropriate have been much possible ; tained with stone. manufacturer of terra-cotta is required THE ADJ'AXTAGES OF TERRA COTTA. 317

to produce a "sham'' material in which just because it is being used more ap- the substantial and characteristic mer- propriately. As a substitute for stone, its of each material is sacrificed for the and consequently as the competitor of sake of putting' up a false appearance. the many compositions which are now The terra-cotta makers naturally dis- being placed on the market, it has no at all like to manufacture a material for future ; but as an independent which they obtain no credit, and which material, which for certain uses, both has no advantage save its cheapness; aesthetic and practical, has undisputable

DETAIL FROM GERMAN BANK, BALTIMORE, MD. Made by Conkling- Armstrong Terra-Cotta Co. Baldwin & Pennington, Architects. and for years they have protested and peculiar merits, it has a future, against die merelv imitative use of which is only limited by the future of terra-cotta. Their protests have had American fireproof construction. some effect. Terra-cotta is now being We have already referred to the fact used more intelligently and more ap- 'that terra-cotta is frequently specified propriately, as well as more largely, instead of stone merely, and only, be- than ever before is still it is but this matter of ; and what more cause cheaper, important, it is being used more largely, the comparative economy of terra-cotta THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. deserves further consideration. Its and when consequently a comparative- comparative cheapness, while it is one ly stiff price is charged for it. Terra- great source of the popularity of terra- cotta, which has been properly put to- cotta, is also the principal cause of its gether and burnt, is more durable than abuse as a so that it most stones but a of building material, ; such quality terra- cannot be called an unqualified advan- cotta, while it is economical, is not nec- tage. It leads to the manufacture of essarily cheap. It may cost what se?ms inferior of the material for to be a sum but in that it very grades large ; case

CENTRAL SAVING FUNDS & TRUST CO.

Fourth and Market Streets, Philadelphia, Pa. William Copeland Fuiber, Architect. White matt glaze terra-cotta supplied by Excelsior Terra-Cotta Co. the ornamental adornment of cheap will be worth the sum it costs. The and it has had the disad- of its as buildings ; question expense compared vantage of associating terra-cotta in the to stone is one into which we do not minds of certain people with various need to go in detail. It all depends cheap types of construction and habita- upon many varying considerations, siiCii tion. As a matter of fact terra-cotta, as the amount and character of the ma- while it can be cheapened like any other terial required, the location of the near- manufactured anticile, is only really est available quarries, and the extent to economical when it is verv well made, which the material must be ornamented. THE ADVANTAGES OF TERRA COTTA. 319

The question which the architect should ment can be cut in stone, but only at as a rule seriously ask is not whether a very considerable cost. The moulder terra-cotta is cheaper than stone, but of terra-cotta can work with compara- whether it will be possible for him to tive rapidity, and a mould when it is obtain in any other material an equal- once finished can be used, if desired, for ly satisfactory service and effect for a many duplicates of the same ornament- similarly economical price. al detail or motive. The process is The characteristic advantages of terra- made still more economical owing to cotta depend upon two fundamental the fact that in modern American build- facts : The fact, in the first place, that ing much of the ornament is stereo- it is capable of being moulded before typed in character and that the manu- it is hardened, and the fact that, in the facturers can consequently keep large second place, it is hardened by a process numbers of standard forms in stock and of burning and firing. The first fact is can thus turn out detail of this kind at

DETAIL SHOWING TORUS, COLUMNS, PILASTERS, FACIA AND FRIEZE OF TERRA-COTTA, BUILDING NORTH-WEST CORNER OF FIFTH AVENUE AND THIRTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK CITY. Made by New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Co.

responsible for its flexible adaptation short notice and at less than the or- to architectural ornamental forms, dinary expense. If, on the other hand, while the second fact is responsible for an architect either prefers to design his its durability and for its high value as own detail, or uses forms, which are an ornamental, or something more than not stereotyped, the process of making an ornamental adjunct to a system ol terra-cotta is equally well adapted to his fireproof construction. needs. It affords him the opportunity The fact that terra-cotta is in a soft of examining the full-sized reproduction and pliable condition, before it is burnt, of the figure or the ornament he pro- and that consequently it can be moulded poses to use while the clay is still in a into a desired shape at a comparatively pliable condition, and he can in this small expense, is the chief source of its way assure himself that his detail is availability for purpose of architectur- properly designed and vigorously and al ornament. The same sort of orna- correctlv modelled. It need not be 320 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

finally burnt and hardened until he is effect were not desirable and in such absolutely and finally satisfied with his cases terra-cotta had a field of use own work and that of the modeller. which was absolutely its own. Its flexi- In the earlier stages of the use of bility and economy for ornamental pur- terra-cotta in this country, it was the pose remains one of the main sources foregoing advantage which chiefly ap- of its popularity, but with the develop- pealed both to the architect and the ment of the art of building in this coun- try, and particularly the art of fireproof construction, it was soon found that terra-cotta had various other advan- tages, both aesthetic and practical, which enormously enlarged its special field of service. Other characteristics, .such as its durability, its lightness, and its fire- resisting power, began still more to commend it to builders, and curiously enough, it began also to be discovered that it was as a rule artistically most effective when it served most excellent- ly the foregoing practical needs. It was in buildings, that is, the ornament and structure of which needed to be par- ticularly light, durable and uninflamma- ble that the texture, the color and the form of terra-cotta ornament or sur- face covering proved to be most use- ful to the architect.

That terra-cotta is, when propeity made, more durable, lighter and less easily damaged by fire than stone does not need any elaborate proof. Its con- sistency and its hollowness necessarily make it light. For convenience of burn- ing, it must be made hollow and only moderately thick, and a given bulk, con- sequently, weighs very much less than a similar bulk of stone. A block of gran- ite, for instance, containing one cubic foot, weighs about 168 Ibs., a block of sandstone somewhere between 100 and 170 Ibs., and a block of limestone about Ibs. A solid block of terra-cotta WETZEL BUILDING, EAST 44TH STREET, 144 NEW YORK. of the same size would weigh about Terra Cotta by The South Amboy Terra Gotta 1 20 Ibs., while the hollow terra-cotta Co. cube, such as is ordinarily used, does builder. It afforded them a method of not weigh more than 70 Ibs. As to its ' ornamenting a building by means of durability and indestructibility, that solid form and without going to the ex- again is a direct result of its process of pense of stone carving. Stone carving manufacture. The heat, through which was generally preferred, because it was a well-made block of terra-cotta is possible in this way to obtain greater passed, is so much higher than the accuracy of line and a more precise and heat to which a building is likely to be subtile effect but in a that the material is well ; great many exposed, pre- cases accuracy of line and precision of pared to withstand any further vicissi- THE ADVANTAGES OF TERRA COTTA. 321 tudes of that kind. In fact a degree of ing of ordinary masonry construction. heat, which would disintegrate stone or The old masonry house cannot eco- fuse iron, merely has the effect of re- nomicalh rise above a certain moder- juvenating terra-cotta, and the fire-test ate height, and in a building of moder- through which it is passed and where- ate height the mere weight of the ma- by it is hardened, makes it similarly im- sonry is an important source of archi- pervious to the wear and tear of world- tectural effect. It is no wonder, con- ly use. As is well known the remnants sequently, that the architects of such which have come down to us of the buildings have used stone wherever arts of remote antiquity consist for the stone was economically available. But most part of objects made of burnt in the case of a building, the weight or clay. As Sir Charles Lyell says in his which is carried on a steel frame, walls "Antiquity of Man :" "Granite disinte- and partitions composed of light and

DETAIL BY XEW JERSEY TERRA-COTTA CO. grates and crumbles into particles of peculiarly uninflammable materials are mica, quartz and felspar; marble soon desirable, both for the sake of economy moulders into dust of ca/bonate of and for the sake of appearance. The lime, but hard, well-burnt clay endures lighter the walls, the lighter the cage forever in the ancient landmarks of which has to carry them. These walls mankind." are only curtains, or screens, and like A light, durable, uninflammable ma- all curtains and screens should be com- terial was rendered, of course, peculiar- paratively slight, rather than heavy, ly necessary by the characteristically both in appearance and reality. Many American system of fireproof construc- architects continue to build them of tion. A the walls of which are the tendency to use brick building, stone ; but carried upon a towering steel structure, and terra-cotta for the purpose is on has very different needs from a build- the increase, and is to be commended 322 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. from every point of view. The de- like on a part of the building near mands of this form of construction and the street level. But above in such, sky- of its appropriate decoration, are at scrapers as the Wanamaker Store, the prestent better satisfied by terra-cotta Building of the International Banking than by any other material. Co., The Times and Railway Evchange The consequence is that, as we point- Buildings, the whole superficial effect ed out recently, the tallest and best de- of the structure is obtained from a

PRODUCE EXCHANGE BANK, NEW YORK, N. Y. Terra Cotca by Standard Terra Cotta Co. Ernest Flagg, Architect. signed sky-scrapers recently erected terra-cotta coating. Moreover, this both in New York and Chicago have terra-cotta is being used to the very been encased in terra-cotta. Generally best advantage. A few years ago in stone is used for the few lower stories, many of the large office buildings it because architects like the effect of a was customary to crown the structure heavier looking base, and because these with terra-cotta ornament on a large lower stories afford them an opportuni- scale, but no matter how well designed ty to place the stone carving which they or how well made this ornament was THE ADVANTAGES OF TERRA COTTA. 323 it was placed too far from the street capable of much further extension-^ to be effective. Now the tendency is particularly when architects become to make the terra-cotta effective chiefly more accustomed to the use of glazed by means of a consistent and pleasant and colored terra-cotta. Certain at-, color tone. There is little attempt to tempts have already been made to en- give any depth to the surface of the liven the upper part of sky-scrapers building by heavy ornament. The dec- with bright colors, among which may

ENTRANCE TO CHICKERING HALL, BOSTON, MASS.

Terra-cotta furnished by Atlantic Terra-Cotta Co. Peabody & Stearns, Architects.

oration is kept frankly superficial, and be mentioned the Broadway-Chambers is obtained, if not simply from color, and Beaver Street Buildings, and par- mass and salient line, then from the ticularly the building of the Washing- of the terra-cotta blocks ton Times and it is to be that arrangement ; expected into some kind of pattern. This meth- the next few years will witness still fur- od of decorating a sky-scraper, which ther developments in this novel and re- has the merits of being at once eco- munerative field. nomical, effective and appropriate, is Herbert Croly. SWEET'S "The Book of the Catalogue" A Department Devoted to Items of Interest Regarding "Sweet's Indexed Catalogue of Building Construction"

Sweet's Index" Is now on the press, ana will be distributed thin Fall

The first volume will contain approxi- page, and to a specific paragraph for mately a thousand pages, and will place whatever he may be seeking. in the hands of the architectural profes- sion, builders, and others for the first time The advance sheets of "Sweet's Index" a substantial encyclopaedia of the chief have been submitted to a number of our building products now upon the market. leading architects for advice and criti- cism. The is unani- In a certain sense, it will put the entire opinion practically building material market under the thumb mous that "the new method" of making and trade information will in and the eye ol" the architect. Suppose, for presenting a short the instance, the architect desires information time completely replace old catalogue, which is as much regarding Safety Treads, or a particular lumbering out of date as the stage-coach. One archi- make of Safety Tread, (say, the product tect writes that "the whole catalogue is a of the Universal Safety Tread Co.) by queer product of routine, and, perhaps turning to the Cross-Index of "Sweet's" one should add, the personal vanity of and looking under the letter "S" at the the firm that prepares it. Indeed, these item "Safety Tread," or under the letter old catalogues seem to be gotten up "U" at the entry "Universal Safety Tread mostly from the point of view of the firms Co.," he will be directed to the particular that issue them, and rarely with a view pages whereon he will find in a condensed, of what the architect or builder really definite form the information he desires. want. In other words, like all our un- The product of each firm represented in popular literature, they are not manu- "Sweet's Index" is described under the factured for the particular audiance to following greneraJ scheme of headings: which they are addressed. One would 1. Products. think that in preparing a catalogue the 2. Facilities for manufacturing. first question the writer of it would ask X. Territory covered by manufacturing. himself is What information does the 4. Adaptability of products. reader of this catalogue need? In what Instructions as to orders. shape should it be presented to him? As 6. Facts in regard to installation. I am writing, I have before me a cata- 7. General information regarding pro- logue of one of our leading electrical firms ducts. It contains a great deal of valuable in- 8. Price-list and tables. formation, and possibly a hundred dif- 0. Form of specification recommended. ferent articles are referred to which are All the above accompanied by diagrams described and illustrated. Nevertheless, of an and illustrations exhibiting trade-marks, it is not provided with any form I special styles, etc., etc. Index, and. as a consequence, each time desire to turn to it for any information, I must perforce go through the entire book, It .will be seen that the purpose of or at least some of the pages, until, by "Sweet's Index" is to furnish the architect accident. I find the precise thing I am with a succinct, book of logical catalogues. looking for. This is not a common-sense a work which he may use in precisely the arrangement. It kills any possibility of same that way he uses a dictionary, or a-i "reference," and reduces the pamphlet to encyclopaedia. Instead of having to hunt a mass of reading matter which, even in for and a loose through promiscuous cata- its arrangement, is devoid of any clew to logue written as though the architect were aid the would-be investigator." a man of leisure, and with time to read sixteen, thirty-two or sixty-four pages The "reading matter" scheme of a of reading matter, whenever he needs any catalogue is clearly wrong. A catalogue particular item of information, by means should be an instrument for "reference." of "Sweet's Index" the architect will be No architect has time to "read" a cata- able to turn to one volume, to a given logue. A catalogue is needed solely for THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 325

PEXXSYIA3VNIA LINES WEST OF PITTSBURGH. NORTH WEST SYSTKM GENERAL OFFICE, UNION STATION.

PITTSBURGH,PA., Sept* llth, 1905*

Architectural Record, (Index Dep't) No. 14-16 Vesey Street, Few York City* Gentlemen:

I understand that you have had pre- pared for distribution, a Scientific Catalogue Book System, and I would be greatly obliged to you, it you will advise me of the terms under which distribution of these Catalogue Book Systems are made. It is a problem that is giving us considerable worry at the present time, as cat- alogues come to us in all sizes and shapes and are very hard to take care of, or to rile, so that they can be referred to later* Thanking you in advance for this courtesy, I remain,

Yours truly,

QAA^U^-IC. Chief Engineer M;r of W.

DYS-R 326 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

"reference," and the reference idea is the maker, for here, too, the ideas that govern dominant idea in the compilation of are technical. though of a different "Sweet's Index." What are the leading kind. The reader's necessities are again types of concrete piles? How far is each overlooked, for they are not satisfied by adaptable to this or that purpose? What "clever trade writing" and by the mere is the Unit system of concrete beams? excellences of typographical arrangement. What is Novus glass, and what is its range The printer, too, confuses the result when

of application? What are the particular he controls it, for his ambition is more advantages of the screens manufactured often to set type for the admiration of by the E. T. Burrowes Co., or the weather- other printers than for the plain purposes strips made by the Roebuck Weather of the reader. The convolutions and invo- Strip & Wire Screen Co.? What are the lutions of type-setting, as exemplified in characteristics of the Acetylene Gener- certain catalogues, constitute some of ator manufactured by the Sunlight Gas the wonders of the "old method" of cata- Machine Co., or Stanley Hinges, or the logue making. A common instance of the apparatus of the Powers Regulator Co., printers' evil is the use of tint inks on or the Johnson Temperature Regulating tinted papers. The result, no doubt, looks Co., Bommer Bros. Spring Hinges, or the artistic. It makes an excellent impres- Hose apparatus of the Cliff & Guibert sion when glanced at, but it taxes the eye- Co.? It is almost impossible to obtain sight and makes the most uncomfortable this information without an immense reading imaginable. Similar mistakes are amount of trouble from the "promiscuous made in selecting the size of type. Some catalogue," but with "Sweet's Index" the catalogues are manufactured as though answers can be obtained immediately. they were intended to serve for the se- Similarly with all other facts regarding verest ocular test, and as though no archi- the products manufactured by the hun- tect ever lived beyond the age of thirty. dreds of firms who, with others, will be or was ever afflicted with any of the im- represented in "Sweet's Index" perfections that assail the ordinary vision. It has been said that if it were possible True, in small type one may say more on for a school-boy to write school books, a given page, but the purpose of the cata- they would be the best in the world, be- logue is not merely to contain informa- cause the school-boy would know the tion, but to impart it. tight places and the scholastic difficulties of the subject. The technical equipment In this way the "old catalogue" is be- of the schoolmaster usually carries the set with evils. It is too much of a product subject way over the heads of those in the of routine and technical aloofness. It is class-room. Similarly in making cata- not "built for reference," and it does not logues. The man who knows most about get down to the simple, but by no means the products of a particular firm often de- easy task of plainly answering the ques- scribes those products very poorly for a tions that the outsider is likely to ask third person who does not possess any about any given article. It reminds one special knowledge of the article de- somewhat of certain railroad time-tables. scribed. It is almost impossible for him They contain all the information, no not to take a great deal for granted. He doubt, but that doesn't help the traveler knows possibly every detail of the manu- who is not experienced in the ways and facture of the goods he is writing about, makes of railroad time-tables. As a result, and, despite himself, assumes that the the big trunk lines find it necessary to es- reader possesses at least some of this tablish Bureaus off Information to explain special information. He knows so well to the public what their time-tables mean! what "R 32" is, that his remarks about it And yet, a little real thought given to the often assume the very information which current time-table would make it a very the outsider is most in need of. He will much more expressive sign-post to the not take the trouble to really "get down" traveling public and would even save the to the subject. If some firms would ana- company itself no little expense. The lyze their catalogues with an intelligent governing idea seems to be that time- outsider, they would be surprised to learn tables have been made in that way since how much their special trade literature the year one; therefore, it is a good thing does not contain which, nevertheless. It to stick to the old way. They are devised ought to contain, if it is to serve the pur- by railroad men for railroad men, who poses for which it is intended. assume that the public possesses almost as much knowledge as a train despatcher. Nor is the matter handled with much And so the game goes on! It is so much greater clearness when turned over to the easier to merely do a thing than to think professional "Ad" writer or catalogue about the way of doing it adequately.