^

N EN S Vol. XXX No. 3 SEPTEMBER, 1911 Whole No. 156

"By MONTGOMERY SCHUYLER COVER DESIGN BY

PART I THE TERRAIN AND THE RIVERS

PART II THE BUSINESS QUARTER AND COMMERCIAL BUILDING

PART III A REAL CIVIC CENTER PART IV THE MODERN AUDITORIUM CHURCH PART V THE HOMES OF

TKe

PART II Correspondence with his friend and co-worker Augustus Saint-Gaudens Edited by Homer Saint-Gaudens

Published by THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD COMPANY

President . W. DEfMOND ,^-SSrSs^. , CLINTON W. SWEET Vice-President . HARRY Treasurer T. MILLER sgp FRED W. DODGE Secretary . . . FRANKLIN HARRY W. DESMOND Editor RUSSELL F. WHITEHEAD .... Associate Editor RALPH REINHOLD Business Manager

: ;:<> 11-15 EAST TWENTY-FOURTH STREET, . CITY

Subscription (Yearly) $3.00. Published Monthly ^^%T

Copyrifht, 1911, by "THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD COMPANY." All rights reserved. Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter. Post Office at New York. N. Y. Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879 ALLEGHENY COUNTY SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL. PALMER & HORNBOSTEL, ARCHITECTS. ARCHiTECTVRAL RECORD SEPTEMBER. 1911

VOLVME XXX NVMBER.

THE BVILDINC OF PITTSBVRGH PART ONE THE TERRAIN THE RJVEFVS

BY MONTGOMERY S C H V Y L E R.

"EVERY SCHOOLBOY KNOWS," and not navigation by bateaux lasted until it was alone that prodigy of precocious infor- superseded not by steamboats but by mation, Macaulay's every schoolboy, but railroads, and practically it was a navi- in literal fact every American schoolboy, gation by raft, for the rlatboats used in that Pittsburgh is at the confluence of carrying coal down the river were, even the Allegheny and the Monongahela, down to the period of the Civil War. coalescing into the Ohio. "Geography invariably sold for the timber in them makes and it inevitable as as reached the market. history" ; was soon they that the point of meeting of the two No other American city has a situa- rivers to make a greater than either tion of so wild a pictnresqueness as this should have been a coign of vantage in meeting of the waters. It may be ques- the struggle for the possession of "the tioned whether the confluence was more West" which began here with the be- impressive when the eyes of frhe first ginning of the Ohio. Very likely it had white man beheld it and the gorges were been fought for and fought over before dark with the forests that covered their the eyes of any white man saw it. Cer- precipitous sides or now when the for- tainly it became the centre of intrigue ests have departed and the gorges reek and of strife almost as soon as it began with the fumes of the most modern in- to be known by French or English ex- dustrialism. In 1749 the Jesuit father, plorers or adventurers. The head of Bonnicamps was "chaplain and astrono- navigation of the Ohio, like the head of mer" to the expedition of Captain Louis navigation of the Hudson, was a stra- Celoron, which went about through the tegic point alike when the navigation wilderness depositing leaden plates was limited to the canoes of the natives claiming the ownership of the country and when it was extended to the bateaux for the king of France in virtue, as of the white traders. Practically the Washington wrote four years later, of 2O6 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

"a discovery made by one La Salle sixty whom it is so largely owing that the years ago/' The Jesuit father recorded continent was to become English-Ameri- his opinion that the junction of the riv- can and not French, and whose monu- ers was the most beautiful place he had ment, in a true sense, is the great city seen on the Beautiful River, and thus which occupies the site of the frontier- vindicated himself as a person of sensi- post of the "Great West" of 1758. The bility. Four years later another eye-wit- point which was the storm-centre of the ness recorded in his journal, November French and Indian War was left un- 22, 1753: marked for several generations, with the I spent some time in viewing the rivers customary American negligence of the and the land at the Fork, which I think ex- tremely well calculated for a fort, as it has past. It is only lately, and. by the piety the absolute command of both rivers. The of the of the land at this point is twenty or twenty-five Allegheny County Chapter feet above the common surface of the water, Daughters of the American Revolution and a considerable body of flat, well-timbered that the block-house which was an land all around it, very convenient for build- out- ing-. lying redoubt of Fort Pitt has been as This practical reporter made no pre- authentically as possible restored and is tensions to aesthetic sensibility, but he suitably maintained as a show place. looked at the site of Pittsburgh with the Very few indeed of American historical eye of a soldier and also of a "specu- monuments make so strong an appeal to lator in real estate." He was Major the imagination. of the mili- When Pittsburgh began its peaceful tia. While he perfectly saw the strategic career, first as a point of shipment of value of Pittsburgh in war, he could not coal "down the river," foresee the advantages which were to and to the West, and continued it so make of "the Fork'' the site of a great much more notably as a huge forge and city, for his own investments were made the heart of the American "black coun- much further down the Ohio valley. He try," it was plainly predestined that the was not destined to see "the Fork" "considerable body of flat, well timbered again, although the next year he was on land, very convenient for building," that his way to it, when he received in his Washington noted and that constitutes camp the workmen who had been en- "the Point," should take on a factitious gaged in building and had half-built a value. The value is indeed now so great fort for the Ohio Company at the as to give special point and plausibility place he had indicated, and who had to the assaults of Henry George on "the been turned out by an irresistible unearned increment." For it is really French force which took possession of the only land available for the purposes the uncompleted work and proceeded to of the commercial centre of a great city. complete it and name it Fort Duquesne Even the retail trade, as well as the after the Governor of French . quarters of wholesale commerce and of The next year following, 1755 high finance, clings obstinately to it and That was the year when Lisbon town resists diversions. A well meant attempt Saw the earth open and gulp her down And Braddock's army was done so brown to establish a great market out in. the Left 'without a to its crown. scalp residential quarter, the East End. has he came within a few miles of it as aide- resulted in an impressive structure de-camp to Brae! dock, when that com- which, one regrets to learn, finds no mander, in spite of his aide's warnings, function but is a complete failure for ran his brave bull's head into an am- its intended purpose. Even in , bush, near the suburb of Pittsburgh where the topography seems almost to where he is buried and which is still preclude the notion of a business centre, called after his name. Fort Duquesne such a centre has been found to be the new fort became in 1754 and re- irreversibly fixed by the fact that one mained for four years, when the British fork of the Chicago River flows parallel finally re-occupied it, rebuilt it and re- to the lake and within half a mile of it, named it Fort Pitt, to become Pitts- and the space thus enclosed and strictly burgh in honor of the statesman to limited becomes of far greater value THE TERRA1X AXD THE RIVERS. 207

than the space outside. In Pittsburgh hill, over a country of which much is the restriction is much more rigid, and too precipitous to be available for build- the space much smaller. Washington's ing. "considerable body of flat, well tim- Happily, one is able to show these bered" has (there hardly been a tree on conditions much more graphically than it within living memory) "land, very they could be shown by pages of descrip- convenient for building" is, indeed, "con- tion. In 1904, the Pittsburgh Chamber siderable" for the purposes of a frontier of Commerce had prepared, I believe outpost, but very inconsiderable for the as an exhibit for the St. Louis Fair, a of a modern It is purposes city. "relief map" of the city and vicinity, in on each side between rivers jammed which is now one of the most interesting with precipitous banks, very different of the many interesting exhibits in the from the narrow and sluggish Chicago, Carnegie Institute. This shows how while almost immediately the land be- the same natural causes which have de- hind the .Point rises into what is locallv termined the confluence of the rivers as

"THE BLOCK HOUSE," PITTSBURGH, A REDOUBT OF FORT PITT, BUILT 1764 (Restored). known as the "Hump" which is very the site of a great city have made the much less "convenient" and eligible for building of a great city here a work of building. The flat land of the Point was peculiar difficulty. The vertical scale of predestined for the business centre of the map is twice the horizontal, and the Pittsburgh, and there is less of it than irregularity of the terrain is thus suit- in any other American city, at least on ably emphasized. Roughly, the area to this side of the Rocky Mountains. The which the business centre of Pittsburgh shape of the Point is that of New York is limited by nature is a triangle, a mile below City Hall Park, the Point be- long by half a mile wide at the base, ing analogous to the Battery; but it is and this is the focus of the activities on a very much smaller scale. The sev- of half a million people, the "clearing enth city of the is much house," the financial centre, the centre more straitened for room than any of not only of wholesale but of retail trade. the preceding six. Laterally, it can ex- A great majority of the population with pand only across considerable rivers. which it teems by day departs from it Longitudinally, it can expand only up- at nightfall, as from the corresponding 208 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

quarter in New York, though in fact peninsula to the "East End," from two only a small part of the activities which to five miles from the Point. There is, in Pittsburgh are concentrated on the indeed, a colony, rather than a suburb, lowland about the site of Fort Duquesne at Sewickley, some dozen miles down and Fort Pitt are exercised below Wall the Ohio, which is to say northwest- Street. The workers radiate centrifu- ward, accessible by train or motor, of gally across the rivers or up the penin- those who can afford to live so far sula. The rivers are more practicable from their work. The colony, though for bridges than those that flank Man- so much nearer its "metropole" than hattan, being, say, a fifth of the width Tuxedo, is like it in the character of of the Hudson at its debouchure into its population, which is numerically not New York harbor and a third of that of so important as it is architecturally and the estuary we call the East "River." socially, and hardly belongs to our sub- But "across the river" there are by no ject, being neither urban nor properly means the facilities for home-making suburban, but a collection of "seats."

RELIEF MAP OP PITTSBURGH AND VICINITY. that exist for the workers of downtown Meanwhile, the great workshops that New York. On the "," in- have made and that make industrial deed, the side of the Allegheny, there Pittsburgh are scattered about in the is a available for plateau occupancy of foldings of the hills, each giving its own about a mile by half a mile, before the name to its settlement, and by no means hillside becomes too steep for house force themselves upon the sight of the on building; but the South Side, the casual tourist. His chief glimpse, and Monongahela side, there is only one it is only a glimpse, of the industrial of alluvium at the river's strip edge, a Pittsburgh which underlies the pic- little over a in mile extreme length, but turesque Pittsburgh he has come to not much over a quarter of a mile in see, is apt to- be that from a motor extreme breadth, which harbors the car, speeding along the picturesque kind of waterside population you would "Grant Boulevard," a recent and ad- imagine. So that by far the greater part mirable public work that skirts and of the daylight population of Pittsburgh overhangs the Allegheny in the man- is forced by its expansion back up the ner of the Cornici. and shows the THE TERRAIN AND THE RIVERS. 209

THE SIXTH STREET BRIDGE, PITTSBURGH, PA. Theodore Cooper, Engineer.

arro\v fringe of industrial settlement burgh Survey," which were issued two on the hither shore below. If it be his years ago by "Charities." From these business or his pleasure to dig beneath studies he will learn that the struggle the surface, he will find every assistance for life is nowhere waged under circum- in the three numbers of "The Pitts- stances of greater crudity and greater

THE SEVENTH STREET BRIDGE, PITTSBURGH, PA. , Engineer. 2IO THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE ALLEGHENY OBSERVATORY. T. E. Billquist, Architect. cruelty than those which beset the un- confusion of tongues fell upon them. skilled labor of Pittsburgh and that such It would take a Mezzofanti to be a labor labor is nowhere more helpless. That, leader or even a walking delegate in the indeed, seems likely enough.- One can industrial world of Pittsburgh. The pic- understand that the linguistic difficulties turesque tourist is fain to console him- attending the organization of labor in self with the assurance of men who Pittsburgh are such as would have beset know the industrial world of Pitts- the agitator who should have undertaken burgh that tne cases cited in those re- to organize the building trades engaged ports are rather exceptional than typical, upon the tower of Babel just after the and with the reflection that, at the

THE BRIDGE. THE TERRAIN AND THE RISERS. 211

worst, the polyglottic workers are bet- highway bridges which transport pas- ter off here than where they came from sengers and freight have for the most or they would not be here, and so to part been private enterprises, built and return to those superficial aspects of the operated for income in the shape of industrial development with which his tolls. Of late the city has taken over business lies. these bridges at a valuation with the Here, then, we have a small and very purpose of making them free for pas- congested centre, rigidly hemmed in to sengers, as has been the tendency also which there is by all routes a centripetal in other American cities. The county movement of the great majority of its and the city one finds in Pittsburgh to inhabitants every morning and from it be more independent and important a centrifugal movement every night. "administrative entities," in John Hay's The means of escape and re-entry are phrase, than they are apt to be where the most urgent of municipal needs. the city is so distinctly as here the pre- Across the rivers these means are dominant partner, and the county engi-

GROUP OF SKYSCRAPERS PITTSBURGH, PA. bridges. Ferries seem not to have been neer has no less than 292 bridges in use within living memorv. Indeed, under his charge. Then, a park on the lie of the land makes the crossing this irregular surface is out of the ques- part of a continuous road, and a ferry tion without bridges. One would ex- at almost any point would merely drop pect great variety in bridges and, in- the wayfarer at the bottom of an in- deed, he finds it. But he is hardly pre- accessible cliff. And besides, the two pared to find so many of the bridges the as affairs of for that rivers, innumerable ravines and good, design ; erosions with which the surface of the Pittsburgh has more bridges than any land is scored call for bridges for inter- other city is no less clear nor more in- urban traffic. So Pittsburgh might very disputable than that it has more pic- well be designated the City of Bridges. turesque and amusing bridges than any They have been projected and executed other. It is a great thing that they under all manner of auspices. Each rail- should be so good, seeing that in the road, of course, builds its owr n. The view of the citv they are as im- THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

portant as the buildings. It is, to be the unlimited abutment of the. everlast- sure, only as a matter of mass and out- ing hills. This extremely pretty thing line that a bridge can be effective. At must deepen the New Yorker's regret least it is in that general aspect that it that a bridge devised upon the same is most effective as well as most con- scheme for the spanning of Spuyten spicuous, since the engineer has not yet Duyvil Creek, only three times as long appeared who can make a latticed post and of crnirse gaining architectural ef- or a latticed girder an object of interest in fect with the increase of length in more itself, excepting possibly to other engi- than an arithmetical ratio should have neers. been rather inscrutably frustrated of ex- It is his choice of the construction ecution in the name of "art." It is only which determines the general form of fair to the bridge builders of New York his structure that determines the aes- to note, in comparing their work with thetic success or failure of his work; that of the bridge builders of Pittsburgh. and nobody needs that the designers, to be told that mod- oi the bridges across ern engineering of- the Allegheny and fers in this respect the Monongahela a very wide range. did not have the Fortunately, both disadvantage under the engineers of the which the design- principal bridges ers of the bridges in Pittsburgh and across the Harlem i h e i r employers labored of having seem to have been to provide that impressed with the | "drawspan" which conviction that it is the chief stum- did matter how bling block of these i heir work looked. latter. In Pitts- The railroad bridg- burgh, the water- es, indeed, sacrifice borne traffic has nothing to the grac- to take care <>f it- es, though they are self. straightforward and Every cross street expressive of their in lower Pittsburgh structure, and so which is not abort- at least inoffensive ; ed on the way de- and much the same bouches upon one be said of such or the other river may MONONGAHEI,A INCLINE, a work as the can- and from it one Plttsbtirg h. Pn. tilever at the Point lifts his eyes to the across the Monongahela. But the double hills. Very commonly the summit he sees bowstring of the Sixth Street bridge, is crowned with some erection, with re- the double suspension of the Seventh gard to which nothing matters in the Street bridge across the Allegheny, and least from this distance and from this the powerful single arch of the Twenty- point of view, excepting its outline. second Street bridge across the Monon- There is a bulbous erection on the Alle- gahela, are positively impressive and at- gheny ridge which is conspicuous from tractive objects, while they are yet typ- a great many points of view and the ical examples of modern and scientific glimpse of which is always pleasant, engineering. Such an example also is though one cannot form the slightest the simple steel bow' sprung over Pan- notion of any architectural quality or de- ther Hollow in , obvious- fect it may have, excepting only its sil- ly the most appropriate construction in houette. Similarly, there is an Ursuline a site like this where the structure has Convent some quarter of a century old DESIGN FOR MUNICIPAL, CENTER PROPOSED BY THE PITTSBURGH CHAPTER, A. I. A. 214 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

which one is always glad to catch sight only successful economically, but, as of from the trolley car that takes him compared with the tunnel which is the to the "East End," so effectively and alternative on the .steep south bank of picturesquely does it crown the crest. the Monongahela, it has the double ad- And there is the Allegheny Observatory, vantage of constituting in itself a more which indeed is not within the range of interesting object than the black hole vision from the city, but the mass of in the cliffside which is all that the tun- which lends itself happily to its com- nel has to show, and also, and particular- manding and westward looking site, oc- ly in the specific instance of this cupying, as it is said to do, a height "Alonongahela Incline/' of giving access greater than any between itself and the to a commanding and panoramic point Rocky Mountains. of view7 at the top under which the hud- One of the Pittsburgh contrivances for dled roofs and the gleaming rivers can to- be seen to mitigating the asperities of the the utmost of intelligibility pography is too characteristic to be left and impressiveness. It is a pity, of unnoticed. This is the "inclined plane" course, that Pittsburgh should not have which takes not only passengers but been laid out at the beginning with loaded trucks of the greatest size and greater prevision of its destiny. But capacity, and tranquilly lifts them up that is a lament that may as fairly be feet at several hundred an angle of not made of every American city, excepting less than 45 degrees. This device is not only Washinjrton.

REINFORCED CONCRETE GARAGE, Rutan & Russell, Architects. P A P. T TWO THE BVS1NESS QYAFVTEK.AND THE COMMERCIAL BVILD1NGS

OXK is AT FIRST rather at a loss the city has reached the intolerable to perceive why a business quarter point. Something, it is clear, must be so restricted should be at the same done to facilitate the centripetal move- time so labyrinthine. As a matter ment of the morning and the centrifugal of fact, there are points in the cen- movement of the evening. This vague tral tangle of thoroughfares where the something the local chapter of the Insti- stranger can lose himself as readily as tute of Architects has undertaken to in the heart of Boston. The explanation make definite by submitting a scheme is that when the settlement increased for the straightening and widening of along the two rivers the first streets the chief radii, and incidentally by pro- were laid out parallel to the nearer viding a "civic centre" which will not bank, and that from the intersection, only restore to the county buildings of towards the centre of the peninsula, of Richardson's designing a generation ago, the streets which were subsequently laid which still constitute so much the most on the same lines, there resulted this important of the civic monuments of labyrinthine tangle. As in Boston, the Pittsburgh, some of the visibility of irregularity of the street plan had some which they have been deprived by the compensation in the picturesqueness of erection of a huge commercial sky- the result. "Corner lots" were of all scraper directly envisaging their princi- shapes and really necessitated on the pal fagade, but which shall also give part of the builders some unusual dis- space and setting for the new Gity Hall positions which could not fail to be which the city so urgently needs. The more interesting than the intersections actual City Hall is a relic of the six- of a rectangular and Procrustean plan. ties, a dull edifice which did not enlist Buildings became visible in glimpses, by the services of any architect, properly bits, at the stoppage of vistas or culs- so-called, and which has in any case de-sac, to the refreshment of the eyes been hopelessly outgrown, and the pub- of the wayfarer. Not, naturally, that lic offices overflowed into an adjoining the old builders made the most of the skyscraper with which the municipal opportunities which to most of them building is connected by a bridge as were only difficulties, or that the archi- flimsy and ridiculous as the Bridge of tects who have succeeded them have Sighs which connects the Tombs in New done so. It is not altogether creditable York with the Criminal Court. The old i(\ the present generation of architects City Hall, however, is by no means the that the most effective and picturesque worst public building in Pittsburgh. turning of a street corner should still be That bad eminence distinctly belongs to the crokcted gable in Victorian Gothic, the Post Office. This edifice marks the bearing date 1880, which signalizes the nadir of the public architecture of the I'.issell Building. All the same, with the United States, having been designed growth of Pittsburgh, the same difficul- about a quarter of a century ago by a ties in the regulation of the street traffic Supervising Architect, who explained at have been experienced which were met the time of his appointment that it was in Boston and surmounted there some his mission to emancipate the Govern- twenty-five years ago by burying the ment architecture from the trammels of street cars in subways at the central "the East" and to introduce into it some ganglion of the system. In Pittsburgh "Western ideas," Colorado having been the congestion entailed by the growth of the scene of his private practice. He THE FARMERS' BANK BUILDING, ALDEN & HARLOW, ARCHITECTS. ENTRANCE DETAIL THE FARMERS' BANK BUILDING. Alden & Harlow, Architects. 218 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. subsequently explained that he had en- mit the necessity of its being so ugly deavored in his designing for the Gov- as it is. In fact, these gaunt parallele- His are sacrifices to ernment "to avoid monotony." pipeds manifestly utility ; method of avoiding monotony, it ap- and, when the stranger is taken to see peared, and his introduction of "West- one of them always the latest and the ern ideas," consisted in loading the tallest, as the chief local lions, he neces- fronts and skylines of his erections with sarily fails to admire. In truth, it is all the "features" they could be mechani- to yawn. One skyscraper is so little apt to differ cally made to carry, without reference from another skyscraper, ex- to the congruity of the features with cept in height. One ingenious architect one another, or to their tendency to com- has endeavored to mitigate the amor- pose what could be called a countenance. phousness of his skyscraper by crowning "It is difficult to settle the order of it with a gilt umbrella, but his example precedency among his vices," but of all has not been received nor indeed de- the nightmares that resulted from the served imitation. One skyscraper there application of his theories in the hands is in Pittsburgh and one of the of an untutored practitioner this Post tallest, attaining the local maximum Office at Pittsburgh is one of the most height of twenty-five stories, in which terrific. To compare it with the work an interesting attempt has been made. that is now coming out of the Supervis- without infringing upon the strict ing Architect's office now is to be as- utilitarian limitations of the building by sured that the world moves, even and attempting any variations of form, to especially the world of American offi- give the surfaces some interest by a cial art. But however less terrific than systematic introduction of color. It is this is the City Hall, there will not be rather odd how little has been attempted a dog to bark at its going; and the pro- in that way. A change of tint, quite un- posed new City Hall, occurring almost meaning structurally, between the veneer at the "Hump," which marks the end of the base and the veneer of the super- of the flat, occupying one face of the structure, is as far as most designers square of which the flank of Richard- venture. Yet there seems no reason son's Court House occupies another, why the structural unit, which is not gives distinct artistic interest to a scheme the window, but the steel frame com- the like of which is imposed by an im- prising a group of windows, should not perious practical necessity, and which be revealed and decorated in the enve- may fairly be argued to be the "irre- lope and made a pattern to be repeated ducible minimum" of the municipal re- or varied as structural conditions are quirements. repeated or varied. Something like this It will at any rate be seen from what is attempted in the Farmers' Bank Build- has preceded that the skyscraper was ing with interesting results, the pattern in Pittsburgn an urgent necessity and becoming a rough mosaic of light that it did not arrive a day before it masonry and red brickwork. One does was needed. Cities there are, with un- not see the necessity or desirableness of limited facilities for expansion, in which making two sections of the shaft, of thir- the tall building seems an affectation, and teen and five stories, respectively. In to which the gibe of "a ten-story build- fact, that variation looks like a rever- ing in a ten-acre lot" is applicable. It sion to the abandoned method of design is clearly inapplicable here. It follows in the "transitional" tall buildings be- of necessity that the collection of sky- fore the steel frame, the supplantation of scrapers in Pittsburgh should be more which by a shaft of quite uniform treat- crowded and more impressive than the ment of the shaft marked a step for- like collection in any other American ward, both in logic and aesthetics. But city, New York and Chicago alone ex- one can unreservedly commend the rein- cepted. That it is an ugly necessity is forcement by the decoration of the outer as clear in this case as in either of the piers, as distinguished from the central others, even though one be loath to ad- portion which they frame, as a virtual 1 BISSELL BUILDING, Joseph Stillburg, Architect. 2 MARQUISE, FULTON BUILDING. 3 TERRA COTTA PANELS, WESTINGHOUSE BUILDING. 4 LAMPHOLDERS, DEPARTMENT STORE Peabody & Stearns, Architects. 22O THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. division, without projection or recession, who, indeed, may not in all cases be curtain and the dif- the architect of record. into pavilion and ; The Westing- ference of inlay in the "capital" effec- house Building, which, perhaps to its tively increases the separation of it from architectural advantage, belongs to the the shaft, in addition to the corbelled transitional period before the steel cornice which exists to mark that dis- frame came in to supplement the ele- tinction. The experiment of differentia- vator, thus gives evidence of a distinct tion of the surfaces by color is of much decorative talent in the design and the interest and is successful enough, one modeling of the panels in terra cotta. may hope, to lead other designers of sky- Nobody would think of admiring any- scrapers to further experimentation in thing in the monotonous front of the the same direction. The building is also Fulton Building except the ironwork of fortunate in the quality and in the subor- the marquise, nor in the Home Depart- dination and appropriateness to the archi- ment Store except the metal work of the tecture of the which adorns lampholder. The entrance to the Key- the base, where it is near enough to the stone Building is signalized by the dis- eye for its detail to be appreciable, and played eagle, a most spirited and success- where it is laudably restrained within the ful bird, and the entrances to the Oliver lines of strictly architectural decoration. Mercantile Building (not to be con- And one is also constrained to praise founded with the Oliver office building) the treatment of a corner reserved from and to the Century Building have an lofty building, for the sake, one infers, architectural interest which fate pre- of securing light and air to the main vented their respective authors from ex- building, and upon which the architects tending in full measure to the super- have erected a restaurant of a single structure. Such "bits" as these give in- story in quaint and not unpleasing con- terest to a walk through the streets of trast with the lofty structure that over- a town, and it seems that the streets of shadows it. Pittsburgh are rather unusually rife But. as a rule, the skyscrapers of with them. Pittsburgh are as unattractive by their One of the most conspicuous of the proportions as they are impressive by skyscrapers, one of the most impressive their dimensions, as unattractive as is the exteriorly and interiorly by its regardless- common run of skyscrapers elsewhere. ness of expense, is the Frick Building. The architects, regarding the limitations Against the owner of this, one cherishes a imposed by the uses and the structure perfectly unreasonable grudge for having of the building as so many fetters upon put it where it overslaughs and blots out their capacity for design, look upon their Richardson's Court House, which re- work as a piece of utilitarian engineer- mains the .most monumental thing in ing, which no doubt it very largely is, Pittsburgh. Of course, the grudge real- and vindicate themselves as artists only Iv lies not against the owner but against in the affectionate handling of some de- the community which failed to make a tail which is quite irrelevant to the gen- reservation in front of the Court House eral effect of the building. "They have which should furnish it with an ade- their exits and their entrances," and it quate foreground. One has perhaps a is in these that what individuality they more reasonable grudge against the may have as designers is apt to appear. architect for not taking any thought as Interiors, it is true, are another matter to the appearance of his work in what in those skyscrapers, as banks, of which is by far the most important and con- the primary occupancy is that of an spicuous view. This is the view from "institution," and interior elaboration the west, in which the Frick Building and sumptuosity are therefore allow- towers up for many stories above the able. And some one exterior feature, much lower Carnegie Building, which or even detail, will often reveal the art- was already in existence when the taller ist whom the conditions of his work did structure was planned and which yet not permit him to reveal otherwise, and rears into the empyrean behind, and be- THE COMMERCIAL BL'ILDIXGS. 22 r yoiid it a bald brick back, quite una- But one may justifiably prefer the gran- dorned and apparently quite unconsid- ite Greek temple of the Bank of West- cred. ern Pennsylvania which has a very se- When the question is of housing a date and established appearance and is financial institution, one likes to see the so little an example of the last fashion institution insisting upon having its that the date inscribed upon it is neces- quarters to itself rather than becoming sary to assure the beholder that it is a only the most conspicuous of its own recent work and" not a relic of the old tenants and complicating its special busi- Greek Revival of the thirties. ness with a speculation in real estate. Railway stations, and hotels are of The separate banking institution is com- course among the primary practical ing to be recognized as, if not the most requisites of an industrial centre like

DETAIL OP THIRD STORY FARMERS' BANK BUILDING. J. Massey Rhind, Sculptor. Alden & Harlow, Architects. dignified, at least the most "swagger" Pittsburgh, but they hardly make the method of accommodation. The Wall showing one would expect in its archi- Street of Pittsburgh has many examples tecture. The Pennsylvania Station is of the small and separate bank which the only one that is conspicuous in the one comes upon with pleasure, even business quarter upon the verge of when the success is not wholly con- which it stands. It. has the look rather formable to the intention. The most of a hotel or of an office building than "swagger"' of the separate banks is of a station, or would have but for a probably the building of the First rather inscrutable addition of a clearly National, evidently of the most recent monumental treatment and intention, inspiration of the Beaux Arts and quite which one discovers to fulfil the humble "as it must be" from that point of view. function of a cab-stand and which is so ENTRANCE DETAIL PEOPLES' SAVINGS BANK. Pittsburgh, Pa. Alden & Harlow, Architects. MAIN ENTRANCE JONES & LAUGHLIN BUILDING, MACCLURE & SPAHR, ARCH'TS. 224 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

pretentious as to give rise to the local so fortunate here as the similar feature in gibe that the designer of the station was the Post Office of Paterson, N. J.. a cab driver. This "institutional" where it has more both of local ap- annex of what would otherwise be a propriateness, for Paterson was as Dutch commonplace enough office building, im- in its origin as Pittsburgh was not, and pressive as it is in itself, excites rather of architectural congruity. wonder than admiration in its 'actual The hotels are not architecturally environment. Distinctly more attrac- ambitious. Indeed, the chief of the tive and more expressive of its purpose downtown hotels, the Fort Pitt, abdi- is the Fort Wayne station in Allegheny, cates decorative pretension almost as of which the clock notifies the traveller completely as the new steel sleeper that by crossing the river he has come which has so suddenly broken with the into the region of "Central"' and out traditions of two generations of the ut-

DETAIL OF LOWER STORIES OF THE TWELVE-STORY REINFORCED CONCRETE "CENTURY BUILDING." Rutan & Russell, Architects.

of the region of "Eastern" time, though most gorgeousness and elaboration in this is said to be the only timepiece in the Pullman. The Fort Pitt is severely Allegheny which observes the distinc- plain, having not one of the "unneces- tion. The building is one of the very sary features" in which Ruskin declares best specimens of the progeny of that architecture to consist, excepting that old Harlem meat market which has its ample fronts are punctuated with ob- been so fruitful in recent architecture, viously impracticable balconies which a notably picturesque adaptation which the inmates could not put to the uses of has also the merit of seeming perfectly balconies but at the imminent risk of adapted to its uses. The adapter has their own necks. The inside, indeed, is had the temerity to add a clock tower another matter, though the richness is to his original, but this feature is hardly here also tempered by moderation and FORT WAYNE STATION, ALLEGHENY. Price and McLanahan, Architects. 226 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. restraint. The "Rookwood Room," which is still further explained by the which The Architectural Record has de- fact that three of the architectural firms scribed and illustrated, is much less which have had most to do with the severe than those of the public rooms building of Pittsburgh since this pioneer which were designed by the architects of appeared have derived from its author. the building. The only other noticeable Whatever the cause, one is inclined to hotel is the Schenley, two miles or so say that Pittsburgh is the American city to the eastward. This has more of which more than any other, more even architectural elaboration, as its situation than Boston, bears traces of the Roman- may be held to justify. esque Revival. Richardson did nothing. Of properly public buildings, having in civil architecture at least, more signi- already paid one's disrespects to the Post ficant than this group. It fully bears Office and the City Hall, one can only out his description of it while it was

NATIONAL BANK OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. Geo. S. Orth & Bro., Architects. say that there is but one specimen of still building, that of "a dignified pile public architecture in downtown Pitts- of rocks." One may say, perhaps, that 'burgh which is much worth looking at the success is clearest and most convinc- or talking about and that, of course, is ing at those points where the architect Richardson's group of the Court House has limited his efforts to fulfilling his and Jail. Unhappily, it can no longer, description, as in the tower and in the since the irruption of the Frick Build- jail, and becomes less so as any fur- ing, be seen to the best advantage. The ther elaboration is attempted. Nothing effect which is must have produced while could be more satisfactory in its kind it stood free, or at least while it domin- than the jail and its masterly and simple ated its own surroundings, would account "Bridge of Sighs," or than the triple for the great vogue of Richardsonian main entrance, of which the arches have Romanesque in Pittsburgh, a vogue the ample abutment of the whole extent THE COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS. 22: of the wall. The great triplets of the to claim your indifference to abutment,'' second story, by the exaggeration of the a remark which the patentee would have openings, tend still further to attenuate done well to take more seriously when their flanking piers. "Richardson." he was designing this fenestration. This said in the mutual rail- group is one of the chief ornaments of lery that accompanied their cooperation Pittsburgh. It would be among the on the Capitol at Albany, "when you chief ornaments of any American city patent that arch of yours, don't forget fortunate enough to possess it.

ALLEGHENY COUNTY COURT HOUSE. H. H. Richardson. Architect. 228 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

-^_ ' THE WHITE DOG" FARMERS' BANK CAFE. Alden & Harlow, Architects.

BUSINESS BUILDING SHOE STORE. Alden & Harlow, Architects. PAPcT THP.EE A P.EAL CIVIC CENTER.

JF LOWER Pittsburgh is in urgent need sand and comparable with the Flavian of a "municipal centre" for its practical Amphitheatre in everything but the needs of traffic as well as for its solidity of its construction. On the hill aesthetic requirements and to give de- opposite are the beginnings of the tachment and distinction to its com- University of Western Pennsylvania, munal edifices, it cannot be said to be one building of the projected pro- without a civic centre in a larger sense. cession at the base and one at the This it has attained in fact in a fuller summit of the hill, while the central measure than it has been attained in place is held by the four-square mass any other American city. If at the en- of the Soldiers' Monument, which is trance to Central Park New York had flanked to our right by the extensive a reservation which should comprise and elaborate expanse of the new Ath- the chief seats of public instruction and letic Club, the discreet of the public entertainment, it would have only University Club almost adjoining it. what Pittsburgh already has at the en- The polygonal central tower of one of trance to Schenley Park, partly by nat- the auditorium churches is another im- ural advantages, partly by private muni- pressive feature of the panorama. To ficence and public spirit, partly by the the right of the Institute, and out of enlightened interest of "promoters" in the picture, rise the twin towers of the real estate. Thanks to the lucky union Catholic Cathedral and. still to the right, of all these things, the panorama which and behind the point of view, the cream one looking northward from Schenley colored walls and dark corrugated roofs Park sees unfold itself comprises and of the group of buildings that consti- combines the social and civic functions tute the "Carnegie Tech." There is no which are elsewhere scattered. Close at other "civic centre" in this country to hand to the right is the Carnegie Insti- be compared with this, excepting pos- tute, perhaps the most impressive monu- sibly Copley Square, and Copley Square ment in the world of individual muni- is so much less extensive as hardly to ficence. To the left is the huge sta- come into comparison. This is the dium, and why stadium, seeing that it heart of clubland. The two clubs of is primarily a baseball ground, though. , the Pittsburgh indeed, also available for foot races, a and the Duquesne. retain their pre- huge erection holding some thirty thou- eminence of a?e and aristocracv and are Base Ball "Stadium." PANORAMA OF THE

appropriately housed, the latter in a interscholastic competition in track

house built for its uses, the former in athletics ! one of the mansions of old Pittsburgh Doubtless it were an exaggeration to near the Point, which has been enlarged say that all or perhaps that any of the and converted to its uses without losing buildings of the civic centre of Pitts- its character of old family residence. burgh have that architectural interest But the eastward movement of the resi- of those two masterpieces in their sev- dential quarter has left them little larger eral kinds which help to make up the functions than those of luncheon clubs. civic centre of Boston, Trinity Church At night they are deserted for the region and the Public Library. On the other to which the social centre of the city has hand, there is no such jarring note as migrated. It will be the heart of stage- is struck in the Bostonian concert by land as well as of clubland, for already the Museum of Fine Arts, if that there is the concert hall of the Carnegie doomed edifice be not already demol- Institute and the great hall of the Sol- ished. The Carnegie Institute is the diers' Memorial which serves on occa- most extensive and expensive contribu- sion as a concert hall, and the erection tion to the Pittsburgh show. Of this is already determined of the chief it seems just to say that it suffers from theatre of the city erected as a pendant having been designed, as well as built, to the Athletic Club as the other wing piecemeal, and from an unforeseen ad- of the group of which the Soldiers' dition to an original scheme which was Memorial is the centre. Even now one made without prevision of it, and which finds it feasible, between dinner time has not received sufficient consideration and train time, to attend vespers in the in the extension. In effect, it "scatters." cathedral, to listen to an organ recital It consists of two buildings which rather in the hall of the Institute by electric compete than cooperate with each other light, and to witness in the Stadium an in their architectural effect. The pres- U. of W. P. Hotel Schenley, Soldiers' Pittsburgh Athletic Assn. ENTER OF PITTSBURGH. Memorial.

ence of a third term, in the form of own sakes with the ostentation that al- some dominating and uniting feature or ways borders upon vulgarity. mass, is needed to bring the two edi- Quite equally palatial is the latest ad- fices into harmony and subordination. dition to the architecture of the civic There is, evidently, a library and centre, the clubhouse of the Pittsburgh museum, and there is evidently a music Athletic Association. By its unusual

hall ; but there is not a monumental dimensions, its material and the elab-

whole. The architectural interest is in oration of its treatment this is, for the the parts and this is undeniable, both moment perhaps, the architectural lion of the Florentine expanses of the library of Pittsburgh. That a clubhouse should and of the Parisian sumptuosity and be a "palazzo," that it should renounce modernness of the front of the music the domestic in favor of the palatial hall. Its effect is duly furthered by expression, has come to be the consensus the sculpture, in which, to whatever de- of American architects, in respect, at tailed criticism of detail it may be least, of big and not intimate clubs. It amenable, it is manifest that it has been is architecture appropriate to a club of successfully considered as a matter of the kind of which a New Yorker, architectural propriety, as a matter of asked if he "belonged" to a certain scale and relation and "load." The palatial club, while admitting his mem- same effect of sumptuosity is carried bership, added that he would as soon still further and still more successfully think of "belonging" to the Fifth Ave- in the design of the foyer which is a nue Hotel. Granting the palatiality. really palatial treatment of a great hall there is no question that the precedents of reception, of which the sumptuosity for the architecture must be sought in and the preciosity are merely the worthy the palaces of Italy. The present struc- execution of the architectural scheme ture is said to be derived from the and are nowhere introduced for their Grimani in Venice, with the addition of THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 232

Exterior

Stair Case, Museum Entrance. CARNEGIE LIBRARY BUILDING. Alden & Harlow, Architects. MUSIC HALL ENTRANCE CARNEGIE LIBRART BUILDING. ALDEN & HARLOW, ARCHITECTS. 234 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. the frieze of the Library of St. Mark. domestic in expression as the marble This is rather a hard saying, since frontages of the Athletic Club are neither the Grimani nor any other Vene- palatial. tian palace exhibits so exact a bisection The dominating member of the group, of the height as is shown here as the of which the Athletic Association forms main motive of the design. Questions one wing and the new theatre is to form of expression quite apart, the two equal the other, is one of the most noteworthy orders, the lower here of Corinthian buildings in Pittsburgh and would be pilasters, the upper of Corinthian one of the most noteworthy of modern columns, inevitably entail a grievous buildings anywhere. It is one of the monotony. It is true that they also curiosities of the present Classical Re- tend to emphasize the lateral extent of vival that the Mausoleum, which was the front to are one of the seven the classic which they applied ; wonders of and, when the horizontal dimension is world, should not long ago have been in itself so impressive as it is here, it brought into requisition by a generation is well worth emphasizing, even though of architects who ransack the remains not to the exclusion of every other of antiquity for some classic "motive." source of architectural effect. Here it The oversight is partly explained by is emphasized even to the extent of the date of the exploration of the ruins making nothing of the main entrance at of Halicarnassus by Newton upon the centre, which is but an arch like whose researches all the restorers have the others of the ground floor. One relied. In 1856, the date of his visit wonders if the effect would not have to Halicarnassus, the Greek Revival been better if the designer had omitted was already supplanted in England by one of his orders, with the entablature the Gothic Revival, and a discovery which so exactly and, one must add, so which twenty years earlier would have awkwardly bisects the front, had treated stimulated the architectural world to his ground floor by itself as a basement reproduction or adaptation was of in- and had included the succeeding three terest only to a few archaeologists. It stories in an order which would, equally seems, however, that the material dis- with his two orders, have given empha- covered and recovered by the English sis to his horizontal dimension, which explorer sufficed, when collated with would have avoided the monotony in- Pliny's description, which is said to have herent in the actual disposition, and been derived from the writings' of the which would have supplied the single original architect, to afford material for motive and the predominant feature an authentic and nearly complete res- which the actual design lacks. The de- toration. Says Fergusson sign is unquestionably and successfully We know enough to be able to restore the with absolute certainty, and palatial, all the same, and is at all points principal parts to ascertain its dimensions and general ap- handsomely executed. But one, whose pearance within very insignificant limits of error. chief interest in a work of architecture, or of any art, is the individuality that The essential agreement between the it manifests, will be apt to derive more restorations of Fergusson and Bernier, satisfaction from another clubhouse by assuming them to have been indepen- the same architects, but of a very differ- dently made,, seems to bear this out. ent inspiration from these stately and Other restorations have been attempted ornate fagades. This other is the Cen- by Pullan and Oldfield. And yet, in tral Young Women's Christian Associa- spite of the archaeological zeal thus tion, so modestly placed in a side street evinced, the interest of architects in the that you would be apt to miss it unless discovery of the Mausoleum, which ex- declared to you were taken to see it, a modest Martial have been entirely ample in brick and terra cotta of superseded as a "wonder" by the build- Colonial architecture decorated with ing of the Colosseum by his Imperial delicate and charming Italian detail and, patron, has been so slight and so slow albeit of an "institutional" aspect, as that the application of its motive was c; I

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Swimming Pool. THE PITTSBURGH ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION. Janssen and Abbott, Architects. THE CENTRAL YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSO- CIATION. JANSSEN & ABBOTT, ARCHITECTS. FIGURE IN FRONT OF SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL. , Sculptor. DETAIL OP THE SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL. PALMER & HORNBOSTEL, ARCHITECTS. 242 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

reserved for an American architect of man in the latter half of the nineteenth. the twentieth century. It is noteworthy One cannot help seeing, however, that that since the design for Pittsburgh was the design is much more available for made the motive of the Mausoleum has modern and practical uses than classi- been used a second time by an Ameri- cal designs which have become very can architect as a design for the Scottish hackneyed, than the design of the Par-

AUDITORIUM OP THE SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL. Palmer & Hornbostel, Architects.

Rite temple in Washington. One would thenon, for example. Certainly nobody not like to see the Mausoleum vulgar- who has inspected the Soldiers' Memor- ized, as it doubtless would have been ial can have any doubt that the model long ago if it had been brought to light is available for the purpose for which by Stuart and Revett in the eighteenth it has there been employed for a great century instead of by another English- public hall, namely, with a private hall A REAL CIVIC CENTER. 243 above it. "Two chambers, superimposed cannot congratulate the architect of the the one on the other," were the contents Bellefield Presbyterian Church upon any- of the Mausoleum. These are the essen- thing else, one can congratulate him up- tial requirements of the Soldiers' Memo- on having left the lufferboards out of his rial, and they are evidently satisfactorily belfry windows, to an excellent result fulfilled and also architecturally ex- when his tower stands out against a twi- pressed. light sky. Those who recall Mr. Barney's Diagonally opposite to the buildings sprightly caricature of the winding line of the University and behind the Carne- of the university buildings down the hill, gie Institute, for the most part, is the at the foot of which stands Memorial group of the "Carnegie Tech.," a col- Hall, as a procession of circus wagons lection of unpretentious and business- will entirely miss that effect in the con- like buildings which derive a touch of templation of the two buildings already picturesqueness from their emphatic erected which are apparently the upper- roofs, but which seem to require some most and lowermost of the projected dominating and uniting feature to con- line. They are modest and simple col- vert them from an assemblage into an lege buildings in yellow brick, with spar- ensemble. This need, one learns, is in ing classical detail which certainly does the way to be supplied by a tower-like nobody any harm, and with one interest- structure rising from a basement de- ing innovation in the piercing of the voted to quasi-public purposes and much parapet in a decorative pattern, an in- more elaborately architecturesque than novation rather timidly done in the the prevailing architecture of the schools. lower and older building, but in the up- But already the architectural excellence per and newer with. boldness and vigor and the architectural impressiveness of which makes the detail distinct; and, this real civic centre suffice to strike the as this parapet is silhouetted against the stranger with admiring astonishment, in sky. with a corresponding increase and to foster a j.ust pride on the part effectiveness. And, by the way, if one of the Pittsburgher.

EAGLE OVER ENTRANCE TO BUILDING. Trinity (P. E.) Church (1870). First Presbyterian Church, R. M. Upjohn, Architect. T. C. Chandler, Architect.

TWO CHURCHES IX DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH. THE ASBURY (M. E.) CHURCH. Pittsburgh, Pa. O. M. Topp, Architect.

PA R.T F O V P. THE MODERN AVDJTOKIVM CHVRCH

Tins GROUP of monumental or institu- of their congregations. Twr o churches, tional buildings is the imposing entrance however, have established and main- to residential Pittsburgh, which stretches tained a religious reservation in the eastward from Bellefield to East Liberty haunts of trade and continue their work and beyond. It is a region of homes. among the encompassing skyscrapers, as Urban or suburban quarter surpasses the they began it when they were sur- 'East End of Pittsburgh in the fact and rounded by homes, even as old Trinity, the expression of mere and exclusive at the head of Wall Street, continues to domesticity. There are hardly any shops defy the encroachments of the money in the whole region. There is a business changers. One of these churches is also quarter in East Liberty, as there is a Trinity, designed forty years ago by the business quarter in Harlem, although we son of the designer of the New York- have seen that an attempt to establish Trinity. It is enabled to continue its a great market in East Liberty, plausible work by means of an endowment be- as the attempt seemed, was a failure. queathed to it by a parishioner whose Residential Pittsburgh transacts its busi- memory every visitor to Pittsburgh has ness, even its housekeeping business, in reason to bless for his providence. There the main, with the business quarter at has been adjoined to it a parish house the foot of the peninsula. Schools and of which the rear wall is of an Old churches are the only requirements that World picturesqueness and griminess seem to be met close at hand and to con- that recall one of the old byways of stitute exceptions to the rule of purely London. Alongside of Trinity stands domestic building. the First Presbyterian church of much The churches, indeed, constitute a very later date, but of an animated and notable exception. Downtown Pitts- pleasant aspect. The two together give burgh, Pittsburgh below the "Hump," distinction to the oasis which their pres- has lost its churches with the migration ence preserves and supply a very wel- 246 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Interior (Showing Fine Aisles). SAINT PAUL'S (R. C.) CATHEDRAL. Eagan & Prindeville, Architects. THE MODERN AUDITORIUM CHURCH. 247 come relief to their architectural sur- richness with which the elaborate design roundings. These two are of an academic has been executed. a n d abundant- Doubtless the ly precedented most extensive, Gothic. At the expensive and other end of conspicuous of Pittsburgh i n the Gothic East Liberty churches of stands Calvary Pittsburgh is St. Church, of Paul's Cathedral. as it which, new Were it less mer- is, the reputation itorious than it estab- is already is in point of lished as one of design, it would scholar- the most still be notice- ly and impres- able and inter- sive of American esting as, I be- Gothic churches, lieve, the only with its having example in this a d h e- general country, certain- rence to the lines ly almost the of historical only example of Gothic a English a fully devel- and in- "weight oped five-aisled stance," a depth church. One and which power, says fully devel- one no means by oped, and so it always finds in is as respects the the prototypes. nave and aisles ; But this has but the most been so fully il- striking defect lustrated and de- of the is scribed in a re- design that it has not a cent number of T h e Architec- fully developed choir and sanc- trual Record In fact, (January. 1911) tuary. it can be as to dispense hardly us from any said to possess a choir at all. celebration of it here. Over in being in effect: cut off behind Allegheny one comes with some the transepts, pleasure and and losing both even more as- externally, this loss tonishment up- though on a Methodist hardly appears in the church in Beech photo- and still Avenue, per- graph, l more haps of no very internally, the special interest culminating feature and chief in design, but of of the a very special * glory type. from this interest for the TOWER P. E. CHURCH OF THE ASCEXSIOX. Apart defect. liberality a n d Halsey Wood. Architect. great 248 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

ian and the German Ro- manesque to be accept- ed as examples of Gothic, On the other hand, in the transition from

tower to spire, the bel- fry stage in the west- ern tower is very artis- tically handled, and is perhaps the most ad- mirable piece of design in the whole cathedral. The additional aisle makes its effect, both outside and especially inside, with the extent and the multiplicity of the vistas which it opens, and is very evident- ly worth while. Upon the whole the Pittsburgh cathedral quite holds its own with the other Gothic churches erected in thi> country for its commu- nion, with St. Patrick's in Fifth Avenue for instance, and is so far a success, a worthy member, and from some points of view the crowning member of that architectural group which makes up the "civic centre" of Pittsburgh. In less pretentious Gothic there is a pleasant church, the Mary S. Brown Me- morial, while the tower of the Church of the Ascen- sion, a charming, dumpy piece of Collegiate Gothic that would look perfectly at home by the Isis KKT.UL OF MAIN ENTRANCE ST. AUGUSTINE (.R. C.) CHURCH. or the Cam, is one of the best in Pitts- Rutan & Russell, Architects. things burgh. which one trusts is not irremediable, the But Gothic is by no means the prevail- cathedral is a well-behaved and seemly ing mode in the church architecture of selection from historical examples, al- Pittsburgh. Excepting the cathedral, the though one cannot help observing that most conspicuous churches of the Roman both the great western towers and the communion derive from the Italian towers of the transepts retain too Romanesque. It would be hard to find much the character and form of a prettier specimen than the central divi- the many-storied towers of the Ital- sion of St. Augustine's. Romanesque in THE MODERN AUDITORIUM CHURCH, 249

in spirit, though so free and eclectic in a solution of that problem which has actual detail, is the like feature in the imposed itself upon the church builders church of the Sacred Heart at Braddock. of such churches in Pittsburgh; and it And Romanesque is the style of the will impose itself beyond the borders of church of the Epiphany, which is sig- Pittsburgh when it becomes better known nalized by one of the most successful elsewhere. Though derived from Rich- examples of ecclesiastical interior decora- ardson's work, it by no means imitates tion to be seen in Pittsburgh or for that that work. It happens that there is a matter anywhere in America. The cru- little church by the master himself on dity and tawdriness of ordinary Catholic the "North Side." Evidently it was church decoration are of ten made a reproach to the church. The reproach will not survive many such confutations as are given to it in this church of the Epiphany, with the sober richness and har- mony of its coloring, with its profuse and yet tem- perate use of precious marbles and of glass mosaics, and with its very effective electric illumina- tion. It is of the same artistic class with the decoration of the church of the Paulist Eathers in Xew York. (It is true that it would be hard to name a third example upon the same plane with these two. ) It is notice- able and suggestive how the basilican plan with its round apse lends itself to the effect of this Byzan- tine decoration, an effect quite unattainable in a polygonal Gothic chevet, whether or not one pre- fers it to the effect that may be attained by that feature. It is not, however, this phase of historical Ro- manesque that character- izes the church architec- ture of Pittsburgh. Rather it is the PVovencal, even the Richardsonian, Ro- manesque which, applied to the problem of a mod- ENTRANCE-SACRED HEART (R. c.) CHURCH. .ern, Protestant, "audito- rilim" church, has resulted Braddock, Pa. John T. Comes, Architect. ENTRANCE BEECH AVENUE METHODIST CHURCH. VRYDAUGH & WOLF, ARCHITECTS. THE MODERN AUDITORIUM CHURCH. 251

DUQUESNE HEIGHTS (BAPTIST) CHURCH. Janssen & Abbott, Architects.

MARY S. BROWN MEMORIAL CHUJRCH. Geo. S. Orth & Bro., Architects. THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD, done at the minimum of cost. In com- cism are quite alien and repugnant to position it exhibits its author's gift and divines of this temper, and a fully de- fondness for simplification, and indeed veloped Gothic church is almost a con- the effective simplicity is all that the tradiction in terms as a preaching-place photograph shows. It cannot show the for a man in a black coat. All the same, detail, the patterns of hrickwork in the he is entitled to his own architectural gable, the accumulation of bricks set five environment and expression, and it ap- or six deep to form the voussoirs of pears that in Pittsburgh he has secured arches of very moderate span, nor the them. Trinity may have helped by the effect of mass and power that these dis- large central tower which is its chief or- positions impart. It is only in its detail nament, though it did not induce any that the typical Pittsburgh church takes revolutionarv re-arrangement of the in-

THE SHADYSIDE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (1890). Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, Architects. after Richardson, though indeed his terior. But Richardson's pupils and suc- Trinity in Boston may have had some- cessors, having the Shadyside Presbyte- thing to do with fixing the type. It is rian Church to build in Pittsburgh, had known that the Scotch-Irish element the happy thought of 'making the central which was so strong in the early settle- tower the whole church, outside and in- ment of the city is connected with a very side, and all else but outlying append- rigorous and uncompromising theology. ages. This was a little more than twenty To this day, the reader of newspapers, years ago. The building was the pioneer. remarking a trial for heresy, is very apt Its example was promptly followed; the also to remark that the chief head- square was converted into a polygon hunters come from the Pittsburgh pres- more nearly approaching the theatrical bvterv. Sacerdotalism and ecclesiasti- form, and the type was established. It

1

FIRST UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. Thomas Boyd, Architect.

CHRIST'S (M. E.) CHURCH. Weary & Kramer, Architects. THE MODERN AUDITORIUM CHURCH. 255 will readily be seen what facilities the this general pattern. Such, evidently, is central polygon offers for an expres- not, however, the opinion of the authori- sive and impressive treatment of its roof ties of the First Congregational Church, in open timber work, though it must be which has reverted, in its new edifice in owned that not many of the designers Bellefield, which comes into the "civic of auditorium churches have really lived centre," to the Greco-Roman temple, up to their privileges in this respect. The with a hexastyle portico of the Ionic of illustrations will show, however, how the the Erectheum, as the most suitable form has imposed itself, with compara- architectural exponent of the Congre- tively slight modifications, and what an gationalism of the twentieth century. attractive form it is. Such buildings as Neither, as evidently, is it the opinion of the First and Third United Presbyterian the authorities of the First Baptist Churches, as Christ's and Asbury Metho- Church, whose unfinished edifice denotes dist Churches, denote a problem solved, a sprightly and scholarly and individual a type established. It is a rare and version of the traditional Gothic scheme, notable achievement in modern architec- and would be taken by the observer as ture, and it has been done, here in Pitts- intended for the use of a high-church burgh, and in the space of less than a Episcopalian parish and by no means as single generation of men. One does not the auditorium of a Baptist preacher in see why all the "Evangelical" churches a black coat. of the city should not be conformed to Another building Pittsburgh possesses,

P'lRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. Struthers & Hanna, Architects. p CJ O ~.2 c Ph

Si THE RECORD. 25 8 ARCHITECTURAL

SCHOOL HOUSE. J. T. Comes, Architect. which is clearly an auditorium, ap- there are architects of synagogues. parently an auditorium of a religious Having no architecture of their own, the significance, and which could yet by no Jews build in imitation of their neigh- chance be mistaken for a Christian bors. One even notes many instances in church. That is, it is a synagogue. The which the Russian Jews have sur- type of the synagogue is by no means mounted their religious edifices with bul- established, as here in Pittsburgh is the bous domes, in imitation of the bad type of the "Evangelical" church. In church architecture of their Russian fact, there are as many views of the kind oppressors. There may perhaps be said of building a synagogue ought to be as to be an effective consensus that their

EAST LIBERTY BRANCH CARNEGIE LIBRARY. Alden & Harlow, Architects. THE MODERN AUDITORIUM CHURCH. 259 should be something Oriental in the as- East Liberty in a Georgian version of pect of a synagogue. The decoration of classic, and one at Homewood in a Tudor the present edifice recognizes that con- version of Gothic. Attractive envelopes sensus, but quite in its own way, by its they are of a ground plan which material which is faience, and its de- one judges to be essentially identical sign which is arabesque. The detail is for both; but it it quite impossible clever and characteristic, the coloration to deny the superior congruity to effective, and the building is a distinct its place and its purpose of the and entertaining addition to the street Gothic building. This is very charm- architecture. ing so charming that, if we assume The schools, apart from the University them to be equally well done in and the "Tech.," are not so much in evi- their several styles which perhaps they dence as one might expect. But this are not, quite a comparison ought would not be Pittsburgh if it had not to settle the question of the most some Carnegie branch libraries to show. available style for a suburban or rural As a matter of fact it has two, one at library.

MEDICAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN LVANIA. Palmer & Hornbostel, Architects.

A "3 tf ^

O S 262 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Perspective.

Plan. SKETCH FOR COMPLETION OF CARNEGIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL, Henry Hornbostel, Architect. Interior. PORTERFIELD MEMORIAL GYMNASIUM. Janssen & Abbott, Architect.

RESIDENCE OF J. L. KENDALL, ESQ., WOODLAND ROAD. Janssen & Abbott, Architects. PAR.T FIVE

THE CHIEF RESIDENTIAL quarter of Pitts- There are no slums in all this region. burgh, then, consists of miles of homes, Some quarters, indeed, we have traversed not hovels on the one hand nor pal- in coming up from commercial to resi- aces on the other, but in truth those dential Pittsburgh to which that oppro- abodes of "golden mediocrity" such as brious epithet might apply; and there every American city, New York per- are doubtless others in those foldings of haps excepted, possesses in more pro- the hills along the rivers where are fusion and perfection than any foreign found the great workshops of the city, city. Sixty years ago Anthony Trollope like the forges of the Cyclopean three observed of Portland, Maine, that he had who in sounding caverns under Aetna never seen in any other place of the wrought in rire, every great workshop size so many houses' which must have the nucleus of its respective slum. But required an expenditure of '"eight hun- there are no hovels in the East End. dred a year" (meaning pounds sterling) Equally there are, you may say, no pal- to keep them up. ''Golden mediocrity" aces. Only a very few mansions in all is the phrase Mr. G. W. Steevens trans- this myriad of comfortable homes rise lated from Horace to describe the im- to palatial pretensions. It is specially pression of Constitution Avenue in Bos- notable in considering the most expensive ton. It is the impression made by one of the recent houses of Pittsburgh to American city after another until from observe how. although exteriorly and in- seeing one after another the belief is teriorly the design of it has been exe- forced upon you that there are an enor- cuted quite regardless of expense and the mous number of people in this country decoration is of great sumptuousness. who are very, very comfortable. But I successful pains are taken to avoid pala- do not know any region of any city tial pretensions, to make it plain, that where it is more forcibly impressed upon there are no ''state apartments." that it you than the East End of Pittsburgh. is a house, in Bacon's phrase "built to 266 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

TYPICAL OF THE HANCOCK RESIDENCE OF BOSTON.

THE FERGUSON RESIDENCE. Peabody & Stearns, Architects. THE HOMES OF PITTSBURGH. 267

live in and not to look on." All that test that. It is not in costliness alto- is desirable in a palace, such abodes as gether that the difference lies between this show, all that makes for comfort or the palatial and the domestic. It is not for real dignity, can be attained while wholly in the expenditure of money, and avoiding the palatial pretension into most certainly it is not in the greater which so many of our millionaires have expenditure of art upon the palatial ex- in other places fallen. As a matter of amples. It is in the ostentation and in- fact, there is a palace or two in Pitts- flation which denote that money has been burgh, a residence or so in which the spent for the mere sake of spending it, ostentation of Ochre Point or Central or rather of showing that it has been Park East is emulated; but these man- spent, that palatiality consists. Domes- sions are not only highly exceptional, ticity consists, for example, in renounc- but manifestly "out of the key." Per- ing the "state apartments," which evi- haps a partial explanation may be that dently have nothing to do with the com- the possessors of the most conspicuous fort of the owner or his family or even

THE SAMUEL ADAMS RESIDENCE, SEWICKLEY, PA. Alden & Harlow, Architects. and swollen fortunes of Pittsburgh go his guests, unless he entertains his away from Pittsburgh to spend the in- guests in mass meeting. The house to come of them. During my sojourn which I referred just now as being dis- there, one of the newspapers had a page tinctly domestic and not palatial, in spite of caricatures delineating the most con- of its extent and its elaboration, made spicuous of the absentees and appealing this impression, I suppose, partly because to them to come back. If they came it contained no "Sunday parlor" or back to force the pace of luxury in liv- other rooms which . were too fine for ing, including that of domestic architec- the ordinary uses of the family, and ture, their absenteeism has its compensa- partly from the dimensions of the tions. rooms. They were, to be sure, large Not, of course, 'that there are not in as well as rich, but not large or rich Pittsburgh costly and even very costly enough to give the impression that they houses. The illustrations sufficiently at- were not in constant use and habitation 268 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

In of our cities the con- not large enough especially in the third evolution. any the domestic dimension, that of height. This is, ''in trast between common this connection," the most important di- architecture of a generation ago and that mension of all. An apartment of which of to-day affords matter equally for as- the loftiness is the most obvious dimen- tonishment and congratulation. In none sion is by that fact taken out of the is the contrast sharper than in Pitts- category of "livable" houses and put burgh, partly because the new is better into the category of "show places." It there than it mostly is elsewhere, partly was, by the way, a Pittsburgher. though because the old is worse. Many relics his house happened to be built in New are still left in the East End of the York, who is said to have given his ordinary vernacular house of the sixties architects, as his first condition, that he and seventies. It was a gruesome abode.

THE DU PREY RESIDENCE.

distinctly did not want and would not a brick box with no visible top, of which have a palace. It was a counsel as sage the openings were covered with curved from the point of view of his own com- lintels of cast iron. This was the type. fort as from the point of view of abat- and houses which varied from it by being ing envy. And it is by such a counsel more pretentious were correspondingly as this, expressed or implied, that the more deplorable. Nothing so depressing architects even of the costliest houses in is built now anywhere in this quarter. the East End of Pittsburgh appear to Even the rows of ready-made houses of have been guided. the speculative builder have undergone As in most American cities, so espe- a marked amelioration. The brick boxes cially in Pittsburgh, one is not more as- which are the relics of a generation ago tonished at the extent of good domestic pay for their antiquity, one suspects, in architecture than at the rapidity of its a lower rent than is commanded by a THE HOMES OF PITTSBURGH. 269

.

First Floor Plan, RESIDENCE OF J. W. FRIEND, ESQ. Rutan & Russell, Architects.

RECORD. 272 THE ARCHITECTURAL

Elevation.

First Floor Plan. RESIDENCE OF WALLACE H. ROWE, ESQ. Rutan & Russell, Architects. THE HOMES OF PITTSBURGH.

Plan.

THE J. W. FRIEND RESIDENCE. Mac Clure & Spahr, Architects. THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 274

Ground Floor Plan. THE RESIDENCE OF R. B. MELLON, ESQ. Alden & Harlow, Architects.

A HOUSE BY MAC CLURE & SPAHR, ARCHITECTS.

THE RESIDENCE OF W. W. SMITH, ESQ., Mac Clure & Spahr, Architects. THE HOMES OF PITTSBURGH. 277

modern house of the same capacity. New houses which are built for the occupancy brick boxes would not be marketable of the owner, it seems that nobody who now at any rate which would yield a can afford to build a house for himself decent return on the investment. The ventures to do so without the advice of speculative builder, whose wisdom in his an architect, and that the owner of a generation is beyond dispute, has taken modest mansion is as apt to be well the hint of the attractiveness of beauty. served, architecturally speaking, as the And note that everybody in Pittsburgh owner of a large and costly mansion. In occupies his own house to himself. One fact, the houses which allure the stranger notes hardly half a dozen apartment by some touch of grace and expressive- houses in the whole residential district. ness in composition or of felicity in de-

THE RESIDENCE OF R. S. SUYDAM, ESQ., Mac Clure & Spahr, Architects.

and only one or two of any pretensions. tail are as apt to be the small as the The enormous demand for small houses large. Nowhere else, certainlv, does it leads to a competition in architecture as appear that there is a more effective well as in other things. And one notes consensus that a man's house ought to be also that this competition leads often to a personal and custom-made, not a Pro- the employment of artistic architects to crustean and ready-made, affair. And, of do his designing for the speculative course, this consensus is the very begin- builder, and that the resultant ready- ning of a true and living domestic archi- made houses are often of real architec- tecture. tural interest. It were quite hopeless to attempt a As to the custom-made houses, the discussion of this domestic architecture 278 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. in any detail. There is too much of it, the Columbian Exposition will recall that and it is much too multifarious for that. the Hancock house was employed, most One can only refer to the illustrations, appropriately, as the motive of the Mas- which certainly aimed to include only sachusetts Building at the Fair. An ap- the best but as certainly fail to include preciative Pittsburgher, seeing it. or- all the best. All the types with modern dered from its architects one of the instances of which one has become same, as nearly as the conditions would familiarized elsewhere are illustrated permit, for his own residence, and an here, all excepting the French chateau, appreciative neighbor, seeing this pioneer, which has been rather curiously slighted, ordered another for himself. These two and of which one hardly recalls any suc- specimens propagated the species until

llol'SE FOR MRS. E. R. MARVIN., Janssen & Abbott, Architects. cessful examples, though bits of its de- now it is difficult to walk far in the East tail are frequent enough. But we have End without coming on a Hancock the Italian villa, the Tudor manor house, house, more or less true to type, and bet- the English half-timbered cottage, the ter or worse done. It is a scheme as Georgian mansion. One version of the eligible practically as architecturally, see- Georgian mansion, a more or less ac- ing that it involves the hallway and stair- curate cqpy of the old Hancock house way in the middle, with rooms on each in Boston, or at least an employment of side, which is as convenient an arrange- the motive of that structure, is very fre- ment, on a regular plot, as has yet been quent and conspicuous. This came from devised. If Procrustes desired to Boston by way of Chicago. Visitors to make "the average family" comfort- THE M. W. ACHESON, JR., RESIDENCE. Mac Clure & Spahr, Architects.

THE WELLS-KING RESIDENCE. B. Orth, Architect. RESIDENCE OP FRANKLIN ABBOTT, ESQ , JANSSEN & ABBOTT, ARCHITECTS.

i H

l 282 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

able, he could not devise a more eligible types are apt to be understood and to plan. The same scheme also lends be worked out with a rationality and re- itself to. a box, with a four-hipped roof, finement which attest the scholarship as like a square or oblong umbrella, which well as the sensibility of the architect. roof may be covered with corrugated .But, after all, what takes the visitor tiles projecting umbrageously at the most is the considerable number of dwell- eaves. This type also is so frequent in ings which are unquestionably artistic Pittsburgh as to be characteristic. A but impossible to classify under any his- local architect remarked that, "If a Pitts- torical style, in which the architect, start- burgh man were let alone, that is the ing with his requirements and faithfully kind of house he would have," and one following them, has put his materials, is inclined to add, if the house is well brick commonly his chief material, to- done, small blame to the Pittsburgh man. gether to the best of his ability to pro- He might do much worse. It is often duce an expressive and agreeable result, very well and impressively done. Also allowing his detail, so to speak, to grow numerous enough to be noticeable itself. Many Pittsburgh houses of this is the gabled house, of brick or stone kind which are of no style yet have below and timber above, with a solid, style, and that is perhaps the highest rich and elaborated barge-board which attainment open to the modern architect forms its chief decoration. All these in domestic architecture. INTIMATE LETTERS O F STAN FOP.D WHITE CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FRIEND tf CO-WORKER AVCVSTVS SAINTCAVDENS

EDITED BY HO M E R SAINT CAVD E N S SECOND INSTALLMENT.

FIRST letters low he be THE INSTALLMENT of from ; must having a hard time Stanford White to Augustus $aint-Gau- and yet it is just like him. dens dealt with the construction of their "An Englishman in the sixteenth cen- tomb. During the development of this tury describes Calais in his diary as 'a commission White set out upon his ini- beggarly extorting hole, monstrous dear tial trip to Europe. There, through a and sluttish.' All I can do is to agree larger part of his stay, he made his head- with him. quarters in the Saint-Gaudens' apart- "And now, old boy, having been ment in Paris, and from it, as Saint- 'werry' modest, the real reason I am Gaudens has written, "White would dart writing you is to tell you about an off in extraordinarily vigorous excur- acquaintance of yours. Perhaps you sions to the towns surrounding Paris have seen her, and I am wasting my that contain those of Gothic time and a fool of nev- marvels making myself ; architecture of which he was an adorer." ertheless, here goes : I was at Lille yes- Accordingly, I will begin the second por- terday and went to the museum. 1 tion of letters with one which White suppose it is the best provincial collec sent a letter tion but I Saint-Gaudens, crowded anywhere ; wandered past pen with enthusiasm concerning the chief of and wash drawings by Michel Angelo these expeditions. White wrote and Raphael, by Era Bartolemew, by Tintorretto, Francia, Signorelli, Peru- and "Dear St. Gaudens : gino, Massaccio, Gielandajo, pen wash "Something more to do? Of course! drawings by Verrocchio and one You do not think I would take the -even by Donatello, even drawings by these and ink and wash trouble to write you without some sel- men, drawings at that. I wandered them with a fish reason. I hope it will not be your past listless sort of air. I was on a hunt for death, however. It is only to warn you even a wax head that I am going to have my letters sent something else, by I couldn't find it and was to your studio. All you will have to do Raphael. about to to the Js to put them aside in a nice little niche, appeal guardian, when Moses ! Gin and selt- and then, when you get word from me, suddenly, 'Holy forward them to some Poste Restante zer !' everything, anything, would be but as straws in the and charge the stamps and envelopes to whirlpool. "When have made mind me. The only reason I trouble you is be- you up your cause if there is a draft for one thou- that a thing should look one way, and sand francs in one of. them I do not wish it looks another, you are very apt to be For a minute I for it to go stalking all over the country disappointed. gasped breath the like a vessel after me. ; next, changing "Is not McKim an old fraud? He tack, my sails shook in the wind and I has neither written me nor gone to said, 'Is this thing right?' And then the utter loveliness of it all other see my mother, nor anything. Poor fel- swept feelings aside. Do you know that it is The White-Saint Gaudens letters began in the August issue. colored, and that all it needs is eye- 284 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD, lashes to be what people call a 'wax "I am devilish glad you are coming figure,' that the skin is flesh-color, the home so soon. Let me see. You are lips red, the eyes chestnut, the hair going to sail on the 26th. I have then auburn, the dress blue and the pedestal but one month more to write you. gold? It is easy enough to take excep- 'Thank God !' I hear you saying. tion all this reason will im- "I will to to ; and your suppose you have give up mediately tell you it is wrong. But your visit to Lille and the Low Coun- then you go and look at it, and wish tries. But do not miss a day at the you may die or something, you no more South Kensington and a day at the question it not being 'high art' than you British Museum. Be sure not to. It think of a yellow harvest moon being will fire you ail up. Go to the Royal nothing but a mass of extinct volcanoes. Academy, too, and see the early fellows * * * "It is no use on I shall have there. going ; to wait until I can dance around your "I will tell you now, as shortly as I studio to express my enthusiasm. Get can, what has happened about the Ran- down on your knees in front of your dall pedestal. I am getting sick and tired autotype which gives but a half idea of writing you long accounts in which of it. Never was so sweet a face made I seem to have had a devil of a trouble by man in this world; and I am sure if and a hell of a time, which is all damn they are all as lovely in the next it must nonsense. be heaven indeed. "Sometime in January I received a "I have got a bully idea for you, too. letter from Thomas Greenleaf, control- Right alongside was a little medallion ler of Sailors' Snug Harbor, asking me in wax, colored, of Savonarola, perfect- to call on him in reference to the pedes- ly stunning, no bigger than your little tal, which I did. I then made a sketch medallions. I am sure could do of a with a seat behind it you pedestal big ; * * *" with it showed it to liked it something Dix, who ; went clown to Staten Island to see the site. It after White's return to I to at was Amer- which objected once ; hobnobbed ica, however, that the remainder of the with the superintendent and got some * * * letters to follow were written. For the points as to price, etc.. from him. most part they concern themselves with "Then I prepared for the Committee the Farragut Monument, in which the a drawing from our first sketch that I voung men became so vitally interested. am sure would have come out well. The Yet, by way of a preparatory skirmish, seat was about forty feet across. In before White's attack upon the difficul- front of the pedestal was a long stone ties of this commission, came his lesser on which I thought you could put a set-to over the pedestal for their one* relief of a yawl boat in a storm or some- other monument at the time, the Ran- thing of the kind, and around the back dall. The following letter which deals of the seat there ran a bronze inscrip- with the monument is interesting, as it tion. All this cost about seventy-five shows how the rejected design for this thousand dollars. Randall pedestal largely influenced what "Also, to make sure, I prepared an was accomplished in the statue to Far- alternative design, costing about forty- ragut. White writes five thousand dollars. "I sent these two with a strong letter, "May 8. 1880. insisting on your desire to have a hori- "Dear Old Boy: zontal line to oppose your perpendicular "I was darned glad to get your last one, and strongly advocating bluestone. of April 2 1 st. Why in hell didn't you So far everything had gone all right. write me before ! After the account I Nothing had been said about your hav- received of your sufferings I have been ing to furnish the design, and I kept dis- solemnly sitting on a picket fence im- creetly silent. But I knew Babcock was agining all sorts of things, and the day on the Committee and so did not go off before I received your letter I wrote to on any exultation war-whoops to you. I Miss Eugenia to know how you was. knew him only too well. Six weeks INTIMATE LETTERS OF STANFORD WHITE. 285 passed. I received a letter from Dix came to my assistance with 'Precisely. asking me to meet him. Dr. Paxton and I suppose the work will be cut under Mr. Babcock in reference to the pedestal. your direction.' ' Dr. Paxton couldn't come, and I found, 'Certainly/ I replied, 'or not at all.' to my dismay, that Babcock led Dix Then I cleared out. around by the nose. I don't know "The second design I made as severe whether Babcock. is you know He and simple as possible, one stone on top President of the Board of Commerce, of another. I should have made it like the meanest business one of sharpest and your sketch in the photograph, but it men in New York, a perfect blockhead had to be made in two stones on account about and the most man art, pig-headed of the enormous expense of one as it I In first know of. the place they (he) is the approximate estimates came to did not want the seat, would not have four thousand six hundred dollars. Since it under any consideration. They (he) sending the sketches, I have heard noth- wanted a single pedestal like those in ing from them. Perhaps thev are dis- the Park. The Webster was the best. gusted with the plainness of the design. It's in the the damndest thing city. If so, I should say as you have to fur- 'Had I seen the Webster?' 'No, 'l nish the design that that is a matter for hadn't/ 'Well, I'd better see it, as I you to settle. Perhaps Babcock is hav- could then form some idea of what ing 'one of his granite men who.' etc., they (he) wanted.' carry out the design. If he has, I shall "I thanked him and said I supposed have the whole office of Evarts, South- that the reason they consulted me was ard & Choate down on him. But this that to have something you wanted, and is not at all likely. They are probably in all cases that was .what / proposed to like most committees inactive. I shall make. Babcock got red in the face, but stir Dix up and find out what has been Dix came to my support and said, 'Pre- settled on. "There I've a letter. cisely.' ; written you long "Babcock then said, 'I suppose you Believe me, it is more trouble to write know Mr. St. Gaudens' contract includes than I've been to in the whole affair. the design for the pedestal.' I said, I enjoyed making the first designs and 'Yes.' He then read the contract and have them for my pains. Otherwise, Dix chimed in with, 'Oh, yes, I suppose save my contempt for Babcock, I have of course Mr. White understands that. got along well with everybody. If the Indeed, Mr. St. Gaudens introduces him Committee so 'graciously decide,' I shall to me as his representative in his ab- put the thing through, and if we can sence.' He then read your letter, which strike them for anything, \vell and good. unfortunately could be read both ways But if you say anything more about (though, of course, it made no differ- 'bill' to me, I'll retaliate on you in a way ence). I said that that was a matter you least expect. I am writing this on for them to settle with you. Then Bab- the train between Newport and New cock objected to bluestone and said the York which may account for its more base must be of granite. They asked me than legible handwriting. to prepare a new design to be presented "I cannot tell you how driven I am at next month's meeting of the board, with business on account of McKim's and Babcock made the enlightened prop- absence from the office. For the last osition that I need only make the sketch, month I have been nearly frantic, being as all 'these granite men' had draughts- often at my office till midnight. Poor men in their employ who would make all McKim is much better, but still unable the details, etc., etc., and save me a lot to work. He will have to go abroad of trouble. again. He will be devilish sorry to miss "I thereupon in your name and mine you. Damn strong-minded women, say distinctly refused to have anything to I. I tell you, 'You no catchee me marry.' to do with it, unless the work was to be "Loads, heaps and piles of love carried out and Dix Louis and sincere to properly ; again my regards your 286 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. wife, whom I still owe a letter as well as say I liked the sea? I'm a fried pump- kin if I other things, and to yourself the hug of blossom ever say so again; and, a bear. Lovingly." if I ever go aboard a Cunarder more, (Signed by White's caricature.) much less an extra one, I'll be damned into the end-most corner of the last circle Here, at last, I may turn to the of the worst hell that any poet, ancient Farragut correspondence, in which is or modern, has ever created or chooses adequately shown the vital influence of to create. And then the eleven old White upon Saint-Gaudens that was to maids! Oh, Lord! I started timidly remain for so many years. With the making a drawing the other day, and in five minutes I Farragut both White and Saint-Gaudens had them all, literally became anxious to create a new variation about my ears, with 'Oh, how nice!' of the old type of pedestal, a desire re- 'What are you drawing?' 'Do let me see sponsible for most of the ensuing confu- it'; 'Now I think it's real mean'; 'Well, can it sion, as thereby the young men required we see when you get through?' more money than the contract provided. etc., etc., one of them actually leaning on Their efforts to obtain this additional ap- my shoulder. Ugh ! Commit me to propriation were in vain, however. Con- America for ill-breeding and curiosity! sequently, since to complete the work ac- Boarding-house Yankees ! ! ! What more cording to their ideals they had dipped awful creatures exist on the face of the into their own scant funds in the hope earth? .Let us change them for some- of an ultimate repayment, they were both thing more pleasant, and hop like Byron's much out of pocket 'at the time of the Don Juan from the ridiculous to the unveiling. White writes sublime. "Do not fail to spend at least a week "Saturday, September 6, 1879. in London before you come back. There "H'on board the Holympus. are oceans of things there, far more than "* * * I did not answer your ques- in Paris or indeed any place that I have tion about the height of the figure. come across Greek and Renaissance * * * I to have nose flat- coins and medallions the ought my by hundred ; tened. But I wasn't a responsible being, and my hair alternately stood un and flat- so 'miff said.' My feeling would be to tened down in front of the Greek and lower it 'by all means.' I think the Assyrian bas-reliefs. If I could only figure would be in better proportion to have got casts of some of them, I should * * * the pedestal, too. But that is have been a happy man for life. Then a matter for you to decide, and you can again in the South Kensington Museum settle it very easily by having Louis besides casts of everything that ever was or make a Farragut eight feet two in paper ever will be there are at least forty and the effect. With the to seeing paper fifty screaming Renaissance panels ; pedestal already made, that would be for instance, the one you have and I * * * near enough to judge. bought in Florence is one of tnem, orig- "One reason I did not answer the inals, and lots of portraits by Delia Rob- question was because I thought I would bia, Civitella and all manner of things. wait until I could see the Lafayette in I did not see half. I never saw such a Union Square and send you the measure. country as England. Do you know that I don't care a damn about the Lafayette at Windsor Castle there are upwards of myself, but I will measure it immediately one hundred drawings of Holbein's like on my arrival and write you what it is. those I copied at Basle? D'ye under- There is nothing else I can think of that stand ioo!!! some of them even more I should write you about before I get splendid and forty oil paintings. And to think I did not home. go there? Oh! Och ! "Heigh-ho! This is the dullest busi- Sorrow the day that I was born! ness I ever came across. There is no "We steamed out of Queenstown at amusement, nobody to talk to, and I am ten knots an hour, into rather nasty so dead of ennui that I can't even read, weather which Kept by us for five days, much less write or draw. Did I ever ending up in a roaring old storm, the INTIMATE LETTERS OF STANFORD WHITE. 287

of in maids have been reduced to seven there night which we succeeded making ; the enormous sum of two knots an hour, are three widows who ought to" be old first the maids one is cor- wind dead ahead. The day out ; widow who pretty and the of a that calls wind blew very hard, and majority respondingly naughty ; thing, the ladies thought we were ?oing to the itself a she-doctor and rejoices in being bottom. I said to the little third officer, the sister of Vic Woodhull, and Miss 'Nice sea on.' Lou Claflin, a girl whom nobody knows " 'Yes sir.' anything about, who keeps entirely to " 'Still, sailors don't mind anything herself and is consequently looked down all the old the like this.' upon by maids ; pretty " 'Oh, no, sir. It isn't more'n a half little girl who has turned out the most gale.' interesting of the passengers; Mr. it was a little Wright, her father, ex-Mayor of Spring- ""Monday stronger. 'Yes, sir, pretty fresh this morning.' field, and his partner, Mr. Covell, a it blew like hell. New York lawyer; a humble Western ""Tuesday 'You wouldn't call it a storm, though, man and his little boy, and an Irish would you?' I said. priest. " 'Oh, well, sir, no sir, it's hardly a "Thus far did I get and no further storm, but it's pretty dirty.' various things and laziness interfering. "Wednesday the ship began trying to We got to Fire Island at six, Friday get her stern over her nose. There night, and quarantine at eight o'clock and were six at table, including the Captain, had to lay there all night. Purser, Doctor and myself. About "Don't read this until you have noth- eleven o'clock at night I managed to get ing to do." on deck. The sea was pretty wild, but I thought in a good smacking storm that Again the be than the waves would bigger ship ; as it was, there were two or three to the "57 Broadway, New York, length of the vessel. So I staggered up "Tuesday, Qth of September, 1879. to the little officer with whom I had got "My Beloved Snooks: quite friendly. "I have but a moment to write and do ' 'Well, what do you think of this ?' so in the utmost haste to let you know " 'Oh, sir, I guess they won't sleep the following fact. much to-night.' "I made yesterday three unsuccessful ' 'Still/ said I, coming back to my oft- attempts to measure the Lafayette and repeated question, 'You wouldn't call this get in the lock-up. To-day I came near a very heavy sea, would you?' succeeding in both. Here is the result. ' 'Why, good heavens, sir ! What It is impossible to get an accurate meas- would you like? I think you would like ure without a step-ladder and a requisi- to sink the ship ! tion on the city government ! But I will "We had a high old time that night; swear that it is not over eight feet the steerage hatchway was stove in, and five or under eight feet three. If it had the front staircases to the hurricane deck not come so near to our figure, I should carried away, and the doctor got a huge have telegraphed you. If you still wave into his cabin and has been on his stick to eight feet six I do not think you back with lumbago ever since. Mean- will go much wrong. But I myself while, the ship had been getting so stuffy, should most certainly advise reduc- with everything battened down, that we ing the figure and base to eight feet * all thanked God when her nose was sail- six. * * ing clear of the wave and we could "I have gone into partnership with breathe fresh air again. McKim and Mead on the same proposi- "I am only writing this to fill up time; tion made to me in Mead's letter. It and, if it is as damned stupid work really, after all, was quite as liberal as reading as it is writing it, I'm sorry for I could expect for the first year. If I you. Here is a corrected inventory of can get a little decorative work outside the ship's company. The eleven old of the office, I shall manage all right. 288 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

To-morrow I shall be engulfed in busi- pedestal, or Babb, on whose judgment ness. I mostly rely. La Farge is not coming "I have seen La Farge for a moment abroad, and his affair he wrote me about and cannot see him again until next is all glass bubbles. He asked most week. His grand scheme is likely to fall kindly after you. He has gone most ex- but he seems fat and cheerful. into stained all through ; tensively glass, making He asked in the warmest way after you kinds of experiments. Some of his and your work." work impressed me as much as ever, but his decoration and figure drawing looked Again pretty sloppy, after the old work. "About X 's monument, I have "My dear Gaudens : both good and bad news to communi- "* * * You can form no idea of cate. His son has died and Mead says what a fearful state of drive I am in. he is in a most howling hurry for his I have been home but I have eight days. monument. I have not seen him yet, as four of had to spend of them out town, I believe he is not in town, nor have and McKim's as well as with business, I been able to completely understand mine and yours pressing on all sides. I Casoni & Isola's failure and must see have seemed to have done nothing but them first before I can see him. But it rush, rush around after people with little does not us in and complicate any way ; or no result. Things do seem to crop but for this unhappy affair of X like heads all around me. I up hydras' son dying, I might have managed things had a talk with Richardson and long so it would have been better for you. Olmstead about the Farragut pedestal. I may do it yet and shall try all my both seemed to like it They very much. might, but of course I can tell nothing Richardson especially, and both Imed it until I see him. better than the old one. Olmstead said he "I got your note about the little photo- felt very sure you could have any site you graph of the Farragut and shall see choose. still favored the one might He about it at once. You must not get mad in front of the Worth and Monument, if I do not do things as quickly as you did not at all like the one we think of in might think I ought to. I have had my Madison it a sort Square. He thought nose jammed immediately to the grind- of shiftless which would the place, give stone in the office, and you will -have to statue no prominence whatever. He make allowance for it. seemed to think it be might anywhere "I have just been up to see my aunt along the sidewalk, as well as the place in Newburgh, and I am writing this in we proppsed. He suggested the follow- the boat on my way to New York. ing places : in the triangles formed by "I drove up to Armstrong's and saw the intersection of Broadway and Sixth him for a little while. He said he had in Avenue, which way the whole of the just got a note from you. He was as little parks would be made to conform pleasant as ever, but he seemed to me a to the pedestal, or at a place somewhere much more saddened man than when he near the entrance of the Central Park. was in Paris. They have either had He also suggested just north of the foun- some pecuniary misfortune, or the lone- tain in Union Square. ly life up there is telling on him. He "I myself still favor the Madison spends half his time farming, and he told Square site, its very quietness being a me I was the first artist he had seen for recommendation. Of the other sites, the three months. He asked me all manner one north of the fountain in Union of questions about you and your work. Square seemed far the best. He has done very little painting since he "The elevated railway, it seems to me, has been home. * * *" knocks the others. We could not take a place directly opposite the Fifth Ave- Again nue Hotel we of but ; could, course, just "57 Broadway, New York, it is far the best above by place. "September (?), Tuesday, 1879. "I have not seen La Farge about the "Mr. Horgustus Gaudens, INTIMATE LETTERS OF STANFORD WHITE. 289

THE PARRAGUT MONUMENT MADISON SQUARE, NEW YORK. ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 290 THE

"No Artist, signs he liked the one that could fall "Paris. back on precedent, rather than the more unless the was "I feel quite sot up. Babb likes original one, original one so that it the new pedestal better nor the old astonishingly good compen- sated for its one, and likes it very much; and strangeness. from he thinks that eight feet three to eight "Funny, coming La Farge, size for a statue wasn't it? feet five a very good ; but he said he wouldn't make it smaller. "I then asked him to sail into the last - and tell us what to do and I am going to see X to-morrow, and pedestal how tremble in my boots now. to better it. 1 "He said the or of the "I've got my trunk ! I've got my pea curving, rising, line from the ends toward the cock's skin, and had to pay 5555, four upward was an ob- little gold pieces, for the pleasure. But pedestal prop'er insuperable He disliked it and I've got 'em and the next time they go jection. any way, as his chief reason that it an- on a railway travel I'll eat trunk, pea- gave was cock's feathers and the railroad officials tagonistic with the circular nlan of the seat and the al- in the bargain. destroyed perspective "I will go to see about the photo- most entirely. "He liked the decorative treatment graph of Farragut to-morrow. I send much and the much. you the letter I started on the Olympus. very dolphins very the that troubles me I don't know why I send it. It isn't "Now only thing worth the stamp. I had a frightful row about his criticism is his objection to the with the Woodhull woman, and I think curved rising line of the back of the for the reason that it bothered she hid the book it was written in. They seat, me found it some time after the boat was in considerably and had lain on my con- science like flannel cakes in Summer. I port stuffed behind one of the cushions. sure it will not look I "There is nothing about conventionali- am well, and am that zation of the sea, is there? The sea was almost equally sure a straight back, or one and altogether too much for me to draw, but very slightly subtly rising will. Almost have I may write you a little about it. As everybody, architects, to conventionalization, by reason of spoken about it. if feel about place and material, I believe it is neces- "Still, you very strongly let us it. I send some sary the more I think of it; and I it, why keep you with this and can see what think you believe so, too, even though tracings you I mean. you wont acknowledge it. Also I am have sure that whatever you do yourself "As you lowered your figure three lower the will be bully and much better than if inches, we might pedestal that raise the ends of the anybody else meddled with it. by amount, "Everybody sends love and everybody wall three inches, and lower it three wishes you home I send love to every- inches where it joins the pedestal. Then bodv and wish you home none the less. the bulk would be very little more than "Lovingly." the nresent design, and I do not see (Signed by White's caricature.) how it could injure your figure. Of course, I should know about this as soon as possible, as I have to know it before I send you the full size outlines "57 Broadway, New York, of the pedestal and back. If you think "Opposite Exchange Place, it necessarv. you can telegraph, but it "October 15, 1879. will only gain ten days. "Dear (Saint-Gaudens' caricature) : "Also, you clay-daubing wretch, why "Some time ago I took the two pedes- did not you tell me which site you tals to La Farge. His criticism was very wished. You wrote me that you thought quick and to the point. He liked them them all 'good.' both; but liked the first sketch the best, "I myself strongly like the Madison for the reason that he thought it simpler Square site and 'so do we all of us.' and more of a whole, and that of two de- but you must decide, and for God's INTIMATE LETTERS OF STANFORD WHITE. 291 sake do so and then hire a hall forever mind that if we died we would die hard. afterward. So I sent Cisco your letter and one from "I wonder if there will be any St. myself, asking for an appointment, Gaudens left after reading all these let- drank a brandy cocktail, and told For- ters. dyce if he couldn't devise some way of "Poor boy." reducing the bid, never to darken the (Signed by White's caricature.) door of McKim, Mead & White's of- fices again. Next morning I got a letter Again from Cisco saying he would be in Satur- day the 'hull' day long; and Fordyce "October 17, 1879. appears with a sort of a yaller green "My dear old boy: bluestone in his hand, which he says is "Here is the long-oromised epistle. I the 'grandest,' (he is a Scotchman), stone shall try and not make it more than on the market, and that he will build the forty-eleven pages long nor must you pedestal for three hundred and fifty dol- think I have been out to too much lars cheaper, that is, for two thousand trouble. I am just as much interested three hundred and fifty dollars. He in the as are it as the success of pedestal you ; swore was strong as the bluestone, nor, alas ! shall I see many such chances and to prove it picked ut> a piece of in my life to do work in so entirely an bluestone and hit them together and artistic spirt, unhampered by the well- smashed his own stone into a thousand hells us on side it? small that encircle every ; splinters. Convincing, wasn't women who want closets, for instance. "Nevertheless, the stone turned out to * * * be a very good stone and a very stunning "I arrived in New 'York on Saturday color. I'll send you a specimen of it. the 6th of September and went to the "So Saturday noon I sailed down to office on Monday the 8th. For the first Cisco's office, with the photographs in week I had my hands and mv head as one hand and my stone in the other. He full as I ever wish them to be of things received me very kindly, read over your to do and think over. I wrote you a let- letter again and asked me what he could ter at the end of it coming down the do for me. I told him how long we had Hudson on the Powell. That brings us worked on the pedestal and how anxious to Monday the i.^th. On the I7th, I we were to have it built, how the bids think. I wrote to Fordyce & Browning, had come over the amount in hand, and the contractors who gave the bid on the how we hoped for the Committee's as- old pedestal, to call at the office and sistance. He said, 'Ah, dear me!' two give me a bid on the revised design. Mr. or three times; thought pedestal No. i Fordyce called the next day and took the would be very grand, and liked pedestal drawings away with him but did not No. 2 almost as well, liked the stone, bring his estimate in until six days after ! too. And at the end he rose from his I had seen Olmstead meanwhile and seat and said he was very sorry that written about the site but I did Dix was not that he you ; General alive, would not think it advisable to see Cisco or have been the proper oerson to apply to, send your letter to the park commission- that as for himself he really could do ers until I had a definite bid on the nothing about it, that the two thousand pedestal. Meanwhile I had begun to be dollars would always be at my disposal, worried and scared, for both and then wished me 'good pretty " morning.' prices and labor had gone up nearly 'Then you do not think any more twenty-five per cent., and I was not at money could be raised?' I said as I all when Mr. told me shook hands with him. surprised Fordyce " the lowest bid he could make on the 'Possibly possibly,' he replied. 'You seven hun- had better see as he St. pedestal was two thousand X , ie Mr. dred dollars. We went all over the plans Gaudens' friend.' carefully but could see no way of cut- "I went away quite discouraged. The ting it down. So I sat down, said 'hell Committee is evidently utterly disor- and damn it !' and then made up my ganized and without a head, and what THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 292

disheartened me most was Cisco's ap- ting the point to Cisco in a way worthy parent utter lack of interest in the whole my four pages twice over. The plan I matter. I then wrote him three notes had formed was to get the list of sub- in succession about a mile long and very scribers and then make attacks on all wisely tore them all up and boiled them of them, with my dad's assistance, until down to the four-na^e letter which I I came across some feller who took send you. After seeing Cisco, I had enough interest in the thing to make the spoken to my father and asked his ad- cause his own. I sent my dad's letter

K^

FACSIMILE OF STANFORD WHITE'S LETTER TO AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDEXS. (Showing diagram for location of Farragut Monument.) vice. Cisco, by the way, at first sup- and my own to Cisco in the same en- posed I was the man who was going to velope and was asked to call on him next contract for the pedestal. So my dad day. told me he would give me a formal let- "He was as kind as before, told me ter of introduction to him which would he had computed the interest and found make him at least listen courteously to there was two thousand four hundred what I had to say again. What he did and fifty dollars, just the sum we want write was a letter of about a dozen lines, to build the plain shell, above the nine expressing our cause strongly and put- thousand dollars, ne said it would be INTIMATE LETTERS OF STANFORD WHITE. 293 next to impossible to get a list of the hand and calling on his secretary to wit- subscribers and that it would be very ness that he wouldn't give a cent, not a foolish for me to try to do anything damn cent. Then he said he didn't want to talk about raising any more monev now, espe- any more about it, so I picked up ciaHy as the statue was behindhand, but my hat and walked out of his office, with that, when the statue and pedestal were my fingers itching to clutch him by the put up, if they were a success, he thought throat. there would be no doubt but that the "His whole manner of acting was as extra si.v hundred dollars or so could be if we were trying to come some game raised among a dozen or so of the sub- over the Committee and that he brushed scribers. For instance, he would give us away as beneath listening to. I was fifty dollars, perhaps X one hundred boiling mad and at first a little troubled and so on. He then bade me 'good what to do, and wisely slept over it. - morning' and told me to see X and The next morning I wrote him the let- get his advice. ter enclosed and went immediately down "So I marched off with joy in my to see Cisco, told him what had happened soul and had hard work to stop myself and showed him the letter I had sent to writing you a high-cockalorum of a let- X . He metaphorically patted me on ter at once. I did not write vou before the told me not to back, mind.X ; for the reason that so far nothing was that, this is entre nous, his physicians settled, and I saw no reason of dis- had told him that he could not live more heartening you when possibly matters than two or three years and that in con- turn out for the best after he was in a de- might ; and, sequence constantly seeing Cisco, I thought it safest to see pressed and morbid condition. rather than I X , write you a paen of "So went away again highly elated, victory and have to take it all back by as I was afraid Cisco would say, 'Well, next post. you had better drop the whole matter "Alas, I only did too wisely, or rather and do what the contract calls for.' He I won't say alas. Who the devil cares at least is our friend, and I am sure for X ? I saw him three times after will gather others to us. This zvas four this, but on each occasion he was in a days ago. bad humor, and I did not venture upon "Now you know all about it : what has the pedestal. Last week I called to see happened and exactly how the matter him, called again about his old mauso- stands. You must draw your own in- leum, and took the photographs of the ferences and tell me what to do. There pedestal with me in case the opportunity will be above the contract for the pedes- was favorable. He did not want- to see tal about six hundred to seven hundred me about his monument, although he had dollars extra for the cutting of the re- told me to call, but asked what I had liefs. Toward this, at a pinch, the dif- in my hands. I thought I had better ference in the cost of casting a figure settle matters at once, and I showed him eight feet three instead of nine feet the pedestal and told him as quietly might legitimately go, and I feel almost and shortly as I could how we stood and sure that the balance can be raised what Cisco had said. among the subscribers when the time on a comes but of course it is a "He immediately got up high ; risky thing, horse and acted in a most outrageous and one that you must decide for your- manner, misunderstood everything I said, self. and in fact would listen to nothing. 'The "I have told you everything and at Committee wouldn't a and the is guarantee cent/ frightful length ; now pack 'Mr. St. Gaudens had a contract, and he on your shoulders, and you can throw should stick to it.' 'The idea of asking it off which way vou choose. You're for more money.' 'The Committee boss, and I await your orders. If you wouldn't pay a cent, nor would they go so decide, we have plenty of time to 7 begging. 'Cisco could speak for him- design a new 'chaste and inexpensive' self.' 'Let him stick to his contract,' etc., pedestal. etc. And he finished up by raising his "If. however, you decide, as I think THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 294

the in a you will, to go on with our last design, figure hemicycle and supported write me so at once. I found out from it on each side with figures in low relief the contractors that they could cut the of Loyalty and Courage, with an em- stone in the winter and put up the blem of the sea flowing in front under whole pedestal, foundation and all, the Farragut. within three weeks in the Spring. So "There is no question but that this we are not more than moderately pressed would be infinitely more original and in that regard, but it is important that artistic and a far greater ornament to you should start immediately on your the city. To gain this, for his part, Mr. work modelling the reliefs, etc. There- St. Gaudens will give the modelling of fore, if you choose, you can telegraph the reliefs, a thousand to a thousand simply 'Stanford, New York.' I will five hundred dollars of work at least, leave word to have any telegram so ad- and I give up whatever commission dressed sent to the office, and I will un- comes to me as architect. The point is derstand that you mean go ahead and whether the nine hundred dollars or so will contract for the pedestal at once. necessary to cover the extra expense of

! reliefs in "Assez ! Assez c'est fini. cutting the stone can be raised - "Look up ! Hire a hall ! I have spent among the subscribers. X is out of two evenings writing this and hope it town, but I shall see him next week and will go by this week's White Star put the matter to him stronglv. steamer. "In the meantime I should like very "For you that have to read it and much to have your opinion and any the 'wealth of correspondence accom- friendly advice you would be kind panying it' all I can say is 'God pity enough to give. vou and be with you, old boy, forever.' "Believe me, "S. W. "Very resoectively yours, "October 2Oth." >"STAXFORD WHITE. "The Hon. Cisco." Here is the letter White wrote to John J. Cisco And here is White's letter to X : "57 Broadway, October 4, 1879. "My dear sir: "Dear Sir : "The statue, owing to Mr. St. Gau- "If I gave you yesterday an idea that dens' illness and the impossibility of Mr. Cisco had said anything which com- erecting it during the winter, will be promised the Committee in the slightest some six months or so behind Gov. Dix's way, it was a wrong one. He only gave calculations, and I should very much like me friendly counsel. The question was to know if, owing to the accruing of in- simply that Mr. St. Gaudens wished terest, this will not give us a few hun- very much to get away from the or- dred dollars above the two thousand dinary pedestal and to support the statue dollars for the pedestal. of Farragut by bas-reliefs of Loyalty "Should this be the case, it may en- and Courage, for which he would give able me to contract for the shell of the the models but hardly felt he could pay as have at of out his pedestal, we present designed for the cutting them of own it, at once, should Mr. St. Gaudens, in his pocket. Mr. Cisco advised me not to desire for good work, decide to take up- agitate the matter now, but said that if on himself the entire expense of cutting the pedestal was successful there prob- the bas-reliefs. But this, I feel sure, the ably would be no doubt but that the ex- subscribers will not be willing for him tra seven or eight hundred dollars to do. needed to cut the reliefs could be raised "I hardly had time to explain the facts among the subscribers. He also advised of the matter to you when I last saw me to see you, and I now beg your par- you. Mr. St. Gaudens has a strong dis- don for having troubled you about the like to the ordinary unsupported mono- matter. lithic pedestal and wishes to get away "Very respectfully yours, from it, and to that end we have put "STANFORD WHITE." INTIMATE LETTERS OF STANFORD WHITE. 295

Here, as in the first article, I will in- lettering will be entirely cut and finished sert one of the Saint-Gaudens' letters to in the shop. Send me the definite space White in order to show to some slight for the Loyalty and Courage and I'll measure the other side of the shield. commence at once. So much for that. Saint-Gaudens wrote "The last bid you have for a blue- stone pedestal of course "squashes" the Paris, November 6, '79. scotchy with the yellow bluestone that "Dear Old Hoss: was going to knock spots out of the "Go ahead with the pedestal and do bluestone, so I take it at any rate. I whatever you please about lowering or think I have a list of the subscribers that heightening the wall. I'm willing, and have not paid for the Farragut, and I give you carte blanche with all my heart. know that there is nine hundred dol- As soon as I receive the dimensions from lars worth of them. I may conclude to you, I will commence on the bas-reliefs. write to Montgomery, the Consul-Gen- I don't recollect what was finally set- eral to Switzerland, who is the secretary tled but I have the impression that I and did have that list. But you know heightened the figure a couple of inches we had kind of a diplomatic row and I after receiving your letter, giving Babb's don't relish writing to him, and I don't idea of what the figure should be, viz., count on all this. 'Not smaller than eight feet three, and "If convenient, but only if it's con- that eight feet three to eight feet five venient, I wouldn't settle on the cutting was a good height for a statue.' The of the letters, as Louis might do some of statue is now eight feet three and the that. But, if it interferes with the ar- plinth four and one-half inches more. rangement in any way whatever, don't I can reduce the plinth though to any mind. Of course, I wish to design the size you see fit. The statue is more letters also if possible. Don't settle than half finished in the big and of about cutting the figures. I might be course cannot be changed. So go ahead, able to get them cheaper but, as I said sign the contract, cut off all you please, before, that must not stand in the way put on all you please. I will pay for of the work. Don't wait to write to me the cutting the figures and take my about it if it should interfere, but go chances for the reimbursement by the ahead and contract for them. I'll be * * *" Committee. Furthermore, I will also satisfied. agree to pay whatever more than the sum the Committee have for the pedestal To continue again with White's let- the cutting of the dolphins and lettering ters, he writes may come to. That matter is now settled. "57 Broadway, New York, "As to the site, I have a great deal "December 17, 1879. more difficulty in deciding, but nozv "Dear Old Fellow : formally select the Madison Square site. "When I saw Cisco yesterday, he said For a great many reasons I prefer the he 'did not feel authorized to sign any Union Square site above the fountain, paper, as they had a contract with you "but stick to the Madison Square unless to furnish a pedestal, and, as soon as you should change your mind and vote you furnished it, they would pay you for the Union Square one too. The the money; but if Messrs. Fisher & principal objection to Madison Square is Bird would call, he would assure them the reflection from the Fifth Avenue that it would be all right. As con- Hotel. And now while I think of it, tractors, however, usually want some- the statue must be unveiled in the after- thing safer than assurances, and Fisher noon for that reason. So go for Madi- & Bird said they would feel entirely son Square. satisfied if I went your security, I forth- "If I get my models for the Loyalty with did it and inclose you a copy of and Courage done in time, and I think my engagement. As I 'ain't' got a cent, I will, I will have them at least com- and therefore run no risk, I consider it menced in the shop. The Dolphins and the most magnificent exemplification of 296 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

7 friendship 'wot ever occurred. I "About the models : The ones we want wouldn't have said anything about the first, of course, are the fish and the sea security but for this reason. In case, and the sword, as those are in the con- God forfend, you should happen to part tract. Everybody likes the fishes, so I company with this world, complications would make them like the little model might arise. So just write an order, 'better as you can.' As to the sea, do asking the treasurer of the Farragut, etc., just as you damn please, and it will be etc., whatever it is, to pay Messrs. Fisher sure to be bully. You must make it & Bird the total amount of money accu- stormy though. As for conventionalism, for the the fire as choose our difference mulated pedestal. Send away you ; paper to me, and I will stick it in our of opinion is only one of words. safe to await contingencies. "By the way, did you ever read the "I feel that I should have my tail description of the horse in the book of kicked for making you wait so long for Job? 'Hast thou given the horse your measurements to start work on the strength? Hast thou clothed his neck reliefs. How the devil you are going with thunder? Canst thou make him to get through I can't see. You will, afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of however, have been getting ahead on his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in other things, that is some consolation. the valley and rejoiceth in his strength.' "The truth is I had the thing pretty "Of course, a horse's neck is not well along when one Sunday Babb came clothed with thunder. It's all damned in, damn him, and said in his usual way nonsense. But would a realistic descrip- of springing a bomb-shell on you, 'Well, tion have gone to your guts so? if you take the rise out of the back of "I've got to stop now or I'll drop. the seat, you'll get the pedestal too heavy Loads of love to Louis and the kindest and make the figure look thin." Then, remembrances to your wife and sister- as usual, he shut UD like a clam and in-law. To thyself the hug of a bear" wouldn't say any more. Now, as I care (Signed by White's caricature.) too much for Babb's opinion, and my conscience would never have forgiven Again me if I got the pedestal too heavy, I began floundering around trying to im- "57 Broadway, New York, prove matters until McKim came along "Saturday morning, Dec. 27, 1879. and said, 'You're a damn fool. You've "Dear Old Hoss : got a good thing. Why don't you stick "This is the last I have to say about to it.' So I've stuck to it. the Farragut until I hear from you. "You will see, however, what changes "How the devil you are going to get have been made by comparing the plans through with all your work I can't see. I send you and those I left with you. Why don't you make the models for The plan of the pedestal has a flatter this half-size. I think you will be a curve, and the whole pedestal is broader damn fool if you don't get some skillful and lower. Babb approves, everybody young Frenchman, whom you can get approves, and I am consequently happy. cheap, to help you on the Randall. You I "After a heavy consultation, have would save money by it, I should think, kept the rise in the back of the seat in by having it cast in France. a modified and more subtle, hire a hall, You will, of course, notice the height form so be satisfied. for ; you'll your Farragut figures. The bas- "All I have got to say is if any Greek relief is reduced by about four inches. temple had any more parabolic, bucolic This is a little bad for the figures, but or any other olic kind of curves about it it is better for the statue, and to that tha'n this has, or if the architect had to everything should be sacrificed. I am draw them out full size, a lunatic asylum going to try another step near the side- or a hospital must have been an ad- walk and terrace up nine or ten inches, denda to an architect's office. I hope thus getting the statue as much above a you will not go into hospital trying to the eye as it is in the little 'clay understand them, old bov. * * * model. * * * IXTIMATE LETTERS OF WHITE. STANFORD 297

"I will tell you of something which strongly that the inauguration ought to will be far worse than the Fifth Avenue take place before the first of June. Still .Hotel. That is Bartholdi's huge hand what is is, and I wouldn't hurt the figure. and arm which is right opposite the But I would certainly do all in your Worth Monument. Here is an eleva- power to have the inauguration not after tion of Madison Park from Twenty- the first week in June for the figure's sixth Street to Twenty-third Street. sake as well as your own. Seward would be about nineteen feet "I have been to the site for the Far- if high, he stood up. Never you mind ; ragut at least fifty times, sometimes I it is not size but guts that tells. You think it is a bully site and sometimes I could stick the Parthenon inside a small think a better one might be found. I ring of the Grand Central Depot. Now, have gone there with lots of people, and this is all I have or will have to say about their opinions differ as much as mine the Farragut, unless it will be to answer do. There has been no need of hurrying something that you wish to know. I am about it, as we are sure of the site, and sure you will thank the Lord for it more they won't begin laying the foundations * * *" than I do. before April. I have been on the point of writing that formal application to the And last of all in this series of letters Park Commissioners twice, but both as here presented White writes times have been stopped, the last time "February 24. by your letter saying there should be "Beloved : twenty-five feet from the sidewalk to the "Bis first, pummelling afterward. I figure. This upset me, for in that site suppose you are much obliged to me for it can't be did. [ went up with tape lines the Life of Farragut. Now that you have and found that it brought the figure just sent the statue to the casters I send you in the worst place and smack into the the Life. It goes by Thursday's steamer. path. Your wife's letter, however, makes "There is another thing I wish to it all right. know about, namely, the inscription. I "I am very glad, nevertheless, that I submitted to my dad a draft of about was stirred up in my mind, for I have the one we decided on in Paris, and then come myself to the almost decided con- took it up and saw young Farragut and clusion that the Twenty-sixth Street madame. They liked it very much. But corner of Madison Park and Fifth Ave- the trouble is my dad did not like it at nue is a better place. It is more removed all. He said it would be a most difficult from the other statues and is altogether thing to do; and, thinking, until lately, a more select, quiet and distinguished that you were coming over in Mav. and place, if it is not quite so public. It is that we would have time to settle its in a sweller part of the Park, just where definite form then, I planned to invest in the aristocratic part of the Avenue be- Farragut's Life and go over it with my gins and right ooposite both Delmonico's let the Hotel dad and then him make up something and Brunswick ; and the stream of his own which we could talk over of people walking down Fifth Avenue when I will now attend would see it at once. It also would have N you appeared. to it at once in order to be ready for a more northerly light and you wouldn't any contingency. Your idea, however, is have any white reflections to dread. to draw it on the stone here and perhaps "Here is the whole plan of the Park. have Louis and an assistant cut it, is it "Here is a larger view of the end. not? Yet, what time will you have to Now, if it was put here, I do not exactly have that done? I wish you could hurry know whether it would be best to place Barbeza up. The middle of June is not him cornerwise, as line A B or parallel a fortunate time for the unveiling, not with the Avenue, as B C. I myself pre- fer B. think? because it is so warm, but because every- A What v do you Every- body will have gone out of town, and body I have asked favors the last site I am afraid it will put the members of most. I will consult Olmstead and Cisco the Committee badly out of humor. Both and Field, and. if they like it best, I Cisco and young Farragut said very will apply for it, if it is necessary, be- RECORD. 298 THE ARCHITECTURAL

fore hearing from yon. If you strongly week or ten days' after he received 'this.' I object, you must telegraph. I won't immediately thought she had. put off make the application before sixteen days. sailing a week. HOY? However, I Write at once, however. went down to the Scythia, which arrived "I will not telegraph you about the the day after your letter, and saw Miss sea, but will write you that is, unless Homer, and it took all my courage to you give reasons for my telegraphing do so, for I was sick as a dog, had a you other than the need of getting the frightful cold and a nose on me as swol- models here for the workmen to stare len as Bardolph's and as red as her own cutting them. cheeks. She was the perfect picture of "What has become of the model for loveliness and health. I only saw her the cross? I hope you have decided for a short time, as she was very well about the X 's things. Prices are go- taken care of, and one is aot to be in I the ing up like lightning, and he will, am way in such cases. But I certainly afraid, be in a frightful rage. mean some way or other to manage to "You must think me a hell of a feller get to Boston soon, not only for the to be digging pins in you all the time pleasure of seeing her, but to ask the this way. five hundred and fifty questions I wish "Now I am going to bust you in the to. All this ought to be written to your snout. What do you mean by writing wife, indeed is. Give her my best re- sister would leave abou*- Louis also. Bunce that your gards ; a week after you wrote your letter and "Ever lovingly thine." that she would arrive after about 'a (Signed by White's caricature.)

[EDITOR'S NOTE. The third and concluding installment of these letters will appear in the October issue.] NOTES AND COMMENTS ^<*^^

The Pittsburgh Civic electric and steam railroads. This the com- Commission has pub- mission gladly did. The city councils, at PRELIMINARY lished, as its first con- the request of the Mayor, authorized a com- PITTSBURGH tribution to the great mission to prepare a building code after such Plan which is to as had been recommended. At REPORT. City investigation be made for Pittsburgh, the Mayor's request, again, the commission a Preliminary Report has released to the city Mr. Freeman, that from its experts. This he may make a study of the water system. is designed to be "a complete statement of Expert study for an adequate sewer system all the factors and questions that must be has also been undertaken by the city, on the studied in making such a comprehensive plans proposed. City Plan." The three experts whom the It is impossible in a short note to sum up Commission retained were Bion J. Arnold all the recommendations contained in the re- of Chicago, John R. Freeman of Providence, port of the three experts. Presented in the and of Boston, and tersest way, they fill twenty-five pages. The what these men have to say on the subject twelve general headings, however, are the given to them, will be read with interest and following: Steam Railroads, Water Trans- respect by a great many people. The Com- portation, Electric Roads, Street Systems, mission's purpose in publishing this Prelim- Public Plans and Buildings, Water System, inary Report was to make available, for any Sewerage System, Public Control of Develop- civic body or authority, a well considered ments on Private Property, Smoke Abate- outline of the necessary investigations con- ment, Legal Problems, Financial Problems, nected with any feature of the physical de- Legislative Problems.'* velopment of Pittsburgh. In an introductory Special recommendations that are made statement, the Commission announces that with regard to the building code are of in- it will carry through to completion the en- terest to architects. Having pointed out tire work as far as its own resources permit, the exceptional difficulty of preparing a real- but that it will gladly relinquish parts of the ly good building code, the Commission urges program, which it has not already under- that the men who may be charged with that taken, to any other commission, organiza- study, should be "of large calibre, clear- tion or city authority which shows a deter- headed, with plenty of backbone, and of un- mination to carry the same to completion. questionable honesty and fairness. Defi- A most interesting paragraph then follows ciencies in technical knowledge may be regarding the amount of the program which made good by employment of proper inde- has been already taken up outside the com- pendent experts." They, then, suggest that mission. The Mayor very promptly requested the building code recommended by the Na- that the commission release to the city Mr. tional Board of Fire Underwriters be made a Arnold, that he might make studies of the basis upon which to work. They express THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. 3 the opinion that as it stands, this code is so of designs for them. One of these buildings rigid in some of its requirements as to im- is to be erected in Rolla, Mo., from an ap- pose needless burdens of cost upon builders, propriation of $50,000; another in Wau- and hence upon the community; also, that kegan, 111., from an appropriation of $"">.- there should be a broader point of view, and 000, and the third in Orange, N. J., from an more thorough going regard for questions of appropriation of $100,000. The official health. They point out that in the matter statement of the department, with reference of plumbing, most building codes are far be- to the plan which Secretary MacVeagh is hind the state of sanitary science, and im- putting into operation, notes that: "The re- pose a serious burden of wholly needless ex- quirements, 'dimensions and character of pense upon the builders. Nevertheless, they each of the types of small post-office build- think that the code suggested makes a good ings are substantially the same." The idea starting point, and they recommended that is, that from the competition of all the best invitations be sent to the National Board of architects in the country, on these compa- Fire Underwriters, the American Institute of ratively simple problems, there should be Architects, the American Society of Civil evolved a design which can become in a Engineers, the American Institute of Elec- general way a standard for post-office struc- trical Engineers, the American Society of tures of approximately the given cost in Mechanical Engineers and the American So- the section of the country represented. ciety for Testing Materials, to send repre- Secretary MacVeagh is quoted as express- sentatives to a conference at Pittsburgh, and ing the belief that the result will be a de- that these representatives decide on such parture from the monumental pile, that it is modifications of the building code recom- not necessary that every public building mended by the National Board of Fire Un- should be a young Parthenon. The smaller derwriters, as shall "permit the maximum buildings, he believes, should be less formal economies in construction and the minimum and more in harmony with their environ- flexibility of design consistent with safe and ment. The experiment, therefore, does not healthful building." They pointed out that contemplate the use of the accepted designs in doing this Pittsburgh might perform a sig- as exclusive models for small and medium nal service to the whole country. sized federal buildings. It is, rather, to be a helpful suggestion. While the design in A serious and care- each case will not be a standard exactly, it will tend to the other extreme of fully thought out plan prevent If we continue to feel, of Mr. MacVeagh to constant variation. TO IMPROVE the raise the standard of the secretary is reported to have said, PUBLIC for one of public architecture in necessity of a new design every ARCHITECTURE. the hundreds of buildings throughout the the United gtateSf j g we shall have art. awakening as it was country, inevitably poor of the architectural bound to do a great Three score leading divided into deal of interested attention. As the plan firms of the United States, have been asked to com- becomes .better known, this interest is three equal groups, for the three spreading from professional circles to the pete in the designs respectively laymen. small buildings. In his letter to these As secretary of the treasury, Mr. MacVeagh architects Mr. MacVeagh says: with that feels his responsibility for the architecture "I feel that you will agree me of architecture in the which officially represents the United States, no specimens good to exert a benefi- and he has realized the impossibility of country are better fitted one man or one office developing in a satis- cial influence upon the general development build- factory way even the various general types of our building than these post-office in that are necessary. Accordingly, he has ings of the less important classes placed often the felt the need of calling the architectural the smaller cities where they are talent of the country into consultation in most important structures in their neigh- some more thorough way than the occa- borhoods, so that they stand as examples to done 'the sional competitions make possible. Lacking of what we should like see by appropriation for such purpose, he has made cities and by the citizens themselves. of to appeal to the generosity and public spirit of "It is from this point view, appealing architects. your patriotism, your love of good architec- that I Three relatively small post-office buildings ture and your professional pride, will have been selected in three different parts extend this invitation, trusting you of one of of the country, and leading architects have feel, as I do, that the placing in been asked to compete in the preparation your buildings to represent what is best NOTES AND COMMENTS. 301 modern architecture, to raise and fix the A special correspond- quality of Government work, is an honor ent of the "Boston not to be measured by the size of the Transcript," who signs building, and that such buildings are far LONDON'S his always interesting more important than buildings of ten times ASPECT. letters H. T. P., has their cost erected in the great cities where written from London a the work of the best men crowds the long letter on the out- i streets. door art of the great "It is in this spirit, relying upon your as- city. He observes that the coronation stands sistance, that I trust you will accept this and decorations played curious pranks with invitation, and that in designing and super- the street statues. Figures long familiar, vising the construction of one of these like that of Lord Beaconsfield before the buildings you will assist in creating a type House of Parliament, disappeared entirely, which shall stand in its absolute sim- engulfed in the surrounding staging. The and justice of proportion heads of other statues peered grotesquely, plicity, dignity ( an example that will lead and foster the he says, through scaffolding. Others still development of American architecture. were protected by little enclosures, like the "There is no provision of law to enable conductor's stand at an orchestral concert, the department to compensate unsuccessful so that the statue looked as if it were about competitors. The authors of the accepted to address its fellow citizens. For the Vic- designs will be regularly retained to super- toria memorial he has only the severest- vise their buildings, and will be compen- criticism though many highly praise it. He sated according to the schedule of the condemns it as "Victorian to the core Vic- American Institute. torian in its height and in the bulk of its "It is obvious that you should not accept marbles which yet fail to make significant this invitation unless you are willing to the intrinsically insignificant; Victorian in its of the too give this work care unwarranted by its size colossal figure sitting queen, or by the compensation, since what the de- vast to suggest her as she really was, too partment wishes to obtain is not merely a dull and lifeless to transfigure her into a design from you, but the best building kind of ruling majesty; Victorian in its mar- which you are capable of producing." ble allegories of motherhood, truth and jus- tice with a due scattering among them of angelic wings." The whole memorial bears no suggestion of the queen that her people American architecture, knew, of their common life and time and - including the s k y of their real feeling toward her. Except for A scraper, finds another the fountain basin, which he admires, he bold and persuasive finds the whole conception conventional and OF champion in so artistic the execution dull and lifeless. He says: MODERN WORK. a genius as Richard Le "The memorial might have been nobly Gallienne. He says, austere and it is not. It might have been referring to New York, richly ornate and it is not. It is of the in an article in July 's: "Architecture, limbo therein dwells official art." But for with most people, is like literature, or any the great scheme of which it forms a part, other art; it is only appreciated when it be- he expresses a just admiration that scheme longs to the past, or is written in what we of the noble Mall with the Admiralty Arch call a dead language. There are not a few at one end entering upon Trafalgar Square, in, this world who are always demanding the its own long, straight course opening new Parthenon and Paradise Lost; and not from views of St. James's Park, and leading up to any real understanding of either, but merely the Victoria memorial, behind which is the because the Parthenon and Paradise Lost low, blackened front of Buckingham Palace, are old enough to be safely admired. Such which some day is to be made a worthier cannot be expected to realize the prophetic home for the rulers of Britain. Just how beauty of American architecture or to under- that fagade is to be made a proper back- stand that architecture is still growing, like ground to the huge and, as he believes, im- any other reality, and that neither Greece possible memorial is an architectural prob- nor nor Nuremburg nor Constanti- lem which the correspondent does not even nople, nor even Sir Christopher Wren, has suggest. But it is one that may be trouble- exhausted its inevitable development. The some. Speaking of the new and spacious beauty of all things is mainly in their truth avenue, it is proper to say that the corre- their character." spondent begins his letter by remarking on

10 RECOKD 302 THE ARCHITECTURAL the recent great, though belated, develop- ning scarcely concerns itself with housing ment in London of a regard for the whole, conditions, and devotes itself almost exclu- and for the cumulative effect of streets and sively to the creation of the 'city beautiful.' parks and buildings. He finds that Lon- This aspect of the subject is, perhaps, the doners and "constituted authorities" are most attractive one to the professional opening their eyes at last to the possibilities craftsman who finds scope for expressing finds in Con- his aesthetic ideals build- of such urban vistas as one iij grouping public tinental cities. He writes that there is a ings and planning wide boulevards, as well new spirit evident among the real builders as to the instinctively commercial-minded of Condon, and that "imaginative spirits in citizen who sees in these fine schemes a Britain they are not too plentiful even means of advertising his city. But they fall dare to dream of the day when it shall seem short at the very point where town planning as well as be, the imperial capital of a is most needed in America. This is a mis- great empire." fortune not because the present aims of the city planners are unworthy, and not be- cause the problems they deal with do not In a review of the require solution, but because even more vital Philadelphia City Plan- and urgent problems are neglected." He be- ning Conference, sent to lieves, however, that we are on the point of London "Municipal changing our policy. He says: "I do not ENGLISHMAN'S journal" by Thomas think there can be any doubt that the dele- COMMENTS. Adams of the Local gates at the Conference as a whole sym- Government Board, who pathized with the English attitude and ap- was a delegate to the preciated the importance of broadening the Conference, there is offered an interesting basis of American city planning to cover all criticism of American city planning. As Mr. that it means in Great Britain." Adams is a leader of the movement in Eng- Another interesting part of his letter is land, he having direct charge of the town that in which he discusses American land- planning act, his opinion of American con- scape architecture. This profession, he says, ditions will be read with respect. He says: "is more developed in America than here, it "There is a great difference between the 'city is differentiated more from pure architec- planning' movement in America and the ture as we understand it, and occupies a 'town planning' movement in this country. much higher plane in regard to intelligence Whereas 'town planning' in Britain as it is and training than the horticulturist who understood and expressed in the Town Plan- usually designs and lays out our parks. The ning Act is chiefly concerned with the landscape architect seems to have the same future control of undeveloped areas in ex- relation to the horticulturist that the or- panding towns; in America, 'city planning' dinary architect has to the builder, which has meant in the past propagation of ideas places him on some equality with the de- for creating civic centers, for improving ex- signer of buildings in all matters relating to isting means of transport and traffic routes, the planning of towns, parks and gardens. and for establishing elaborate systems of This is partly due to the greater extent to parks and playgrounds. . . . The general ob- which Americans have developed the creation ject is to rearrange conditions on areas al- of park systems as a matter of intelligent de- ready developed, rather than to establish sign, calling for the same degree of highly- preventive measures for the proper control trained professional knowledge and the same of undeveloped areas. The suburb is only qualities of artistic insight and feeling as for brought in incidentally in connection with the creation of buildings. The landscape the creating of parks, the linking up of park architect appears to have come to stay in systems, and the extending of radiating America, and to occupy no mean place as an boulevards. In brief, American city plan- adviser on questions of civic art."