The American Architect and Building News,
VOL. XXXIV.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 833
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
December 12, 1891.
Summary: —
The Back Issues of the American Architect out of Print. — Bromide Enlargements for Framing. — The Attempt to influence Congressional Action in the Matter of the Design of Public Buildings. —Dangers of using Natural Gas. — The New York Building Law. — New Building Laws for Glasgow,
Scotland. —The Sanitary Provision on the New War Ships. 157
Italian Architecture. — V. ................................................................................159 Architect, Owner and Builder Before the Law. —XII............................................ 162 Architectural Shades and Shadows. — XIV...................................164 Theatrical Architecture. — V... .........................................................166
The Planning and Construction of American Frame Houses............ 168 Illustrations: —
The Tower of Madison Square Garden, New York, N. Y. — Study for the Equitable Life Assurance Building, Seattle, Wash. — St. Georgeʼs Church and Parish Buildings, St. Louis, Mo. — Architectural Shades and Shadows. Plate VI. — The Commencement Hall, Princeton College, Princeton, N. J.
Additional: Tomb at Constantinople. — Elevations and Section of the Same. —Villa Paulick on the Attersee, Austria. — House in Berlin, Prussia. — Design for an Academy of Fine Arts. — Side Elevation and Section of the Same. — St. Fede, Como. — Bishop’s Throne, St. Maria in Trastevere, Rome. — Design for a Library. — Church of St. Mary the Virgin,
East Grinstead, Eng. — The Priory, Cartmel...............................170
Communications: —
Iron and Steel Skeleton-frames. —Architectural Scholarships.
— Taking care of the American Architect Plates..........................170 Notes and Clippings...............................................................................................172 Trade Surveys.............................................................................................................172
THE Heliotype Printing Company, to whose good-will towards this publication our subscribers are in no small
degree indebted for favors which they cannot detect, has been able partially to resume its interrupted business with unexpected promptness and the first work it has undertaken has been the replacing of the plates omitted from our issue for November 28. These illustrations will be found included with the plates of this issue, but dated and numbered as of two weeks ago so that our subscribers can easily sort them out and assign them to their proper place.
THE most impressive evidence of the late disaster is not the charred walls and floors but the vacant bins and shelves
where used-to he stored the stock of “back issues” and bound volumes. These have all disappeared and we can no longer fill orders. All issues of the American Architect of date earlier than this year are definitely and finally out of print. A portion of this year’s stock, however, has been saved, and we advise our readers to examine their files for this year and try to replace missing numbers at once.
ALTHOUGH there is no longer any back stock to draw from, most of our negatives have been left uninjured, and consequently, we can at any time reprint plates that have been published since 1880. If at any time an architect desires, for framing, an enlarged “solar print” or “bromide enlargement” of any domestic subject published as a gelatine print, we can supply him with such print at moderate cost.
TITHE Secretary of the American Institute of Architects reminds members of the duties mentioned in the resolution
adopted by the recent Convention, under which all persons connected with the Institute, including, we presume, all architects, are to consider themselves charged with the office of explaining to the members of Congress for their several districts or States, the propriety and importance of having the Government buildings designed and supervised by various architects, in the same way as private structures. It is acknowledged that Government buildings cost more per cubic foot, than private buildings of the same sort, and it is by no means the case, as is often asserted, that the Government work is better and more solidly done than private work. On the
contrary, it is notorious that political influence has secured the use of a good deal of material in buildings for the Government which is worse than doubtful, and will, sooner or later, cause immense losses to the public treasury; while any architect can see at a glance faults in workmanship in some of the post-offices and custom-houses constructed within the past twenty-five years, even excluding the tottering ruin at Chicago, which would not he tolerated in a structure for a private owner. In one word, the public pays more than any private proprietor for the plans of its buildings, and gets them worse designed; it pays more for having them superintended, and is obliged to accept work which would never be passed by a private architect; it pays more to its contractors, for the same result than any private architect would allow his client to pay, and gets, instead of the first-class workmanship and materials which it supposes it had contracted for, defective stone, the refuse of the quarries, cement which private architects have rejected and, in general, work of a character which can hardly be described, but which is never seen in private buildings of similar pretension. The officers of the Government have endured this so long, mainly because the whole business of planning and executing buildings is so technical that they could not appreciate the facts. There is probably no attempt now to use the Supervising Architect’s office as a political machine, and Congressmen of all parties might be relied upon to join in an effort to promote the interests of the people in their building affairs, if they were shown how great are the evils of the present system, and a feasible plan were proposed to them for reforming it, or substituting a better one. The task of doing both these things should properly fall on the architects of the country, who understand the matter best; and they may be perfectly fearless in explaining their ideas to the people who have it in their power to put them in force. It will not require much argument to convince a Representative that it would be for the credit of the nation to get for its public buildings the best designs of architects who have little to learn from any in the world, especially if buildings executed in pursuance of those designs would be much cheaper, and infinitely better built, than the products of the Government “planfactory”; but most members of Congress know little of the means of getting the sort of design referred to, and fear, with reason, that they would make a hopeless bungle of any attempt to accomplish such a result by their own unaided powers. It is for meeting this difficulty that the preparation of a bill by a committee of the Institute is so desirable. A proposition by a non-professional member of Congress to open Government architectural work to competition would infallibly be met by the assertion that this had been tried, and the better class of architects would have nothing to do with the competitions, while those who did compete, and were successful, brought scandal on the Government by their misunderstandings and complaints. There would be a good deal of truth in this, and it is evident that the best and only possible way of forestalling such objections, is to have whatever measure is to be laid before Congress embody a plan of competition endorsed by the representatives of the Institute as containing the provisions necessary to secure the participation of the best architects. Our own opinion is that the members of the Government, as well as the public, and the profession, would be better satisfied to have competition for public work restricted to architects of known standing; and that an excellent preliminary step would be to establish a body of “Government Architects, ” consisting of architects selected by recommendation and examination, much as members of the Institute now are. The appointment, which should be open to all who should pass the proper tests before a professional commission, sitting on behalf of the Government, would be a purely honorary one, but it should carry with it the exclusive right of competing for Government work. Such a system as this, which is not very different from that pursued with so much success in France and Germany, while it secured the public interest by guaranteeing the character and skill of every architect who could by any possibility win a competition, would have the additional advantage of giving an official recognition and endorsement of professional merit which would be valuable to those who had earned it, and would help greatly in promoting the dignity and development of the architectural art, while it would cost the Government nothing.
VOL. XXXIV.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 833
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
December 12, 1891.
Summary: —
The Back Issues of the American Architect out of Print. — Bromide Enlargements for Framing. — The Attempt to influence Congressional Action in the Matter of the Design of Public Buildings. —Dangers of using Natural Gas. — The New York Building Law. — New Building Laws for Glasgow,
Scotland. —The Sanitary Provision on the New War Ships. 157
Italian Architecture. — V. ................................................................................159 Architect, Owner and Builder Before the Law. —XII............................................ 162 Architectural Shades and Shadows. — XIV...................................164 Theatrical Architecture. — V... .........................................................166
The Planning and Construction of American Frame Houses............ 168 Illustrations: —
The Tower of Madison Square Garden, New York, N. Y. — Study for the Equitable Life Assurance Building, Seattle, Wash. — St. Georgeʼs Church and Parish Buildings, St. Louis, Mo. — Architectural Shades and Shadows. Plate VI. — The Commencement Hall, Princeton College, Princeton, N. J.
Additional: Tomb at Constantinople. — Elevations and Section of the Same. —Villa Paulick on the Attersee, Austria. — House in Berlin, Prussia. — Design for an Academy of Fine Arts. — Side Elevation and Section of the Same. — St. Fede, Como. — Bishop’s Throne, St. Maria in Trastevere, Rome. — Design for a Library. — Church of St. Mary the Virgin,
East Grinstead, Eng. — The Priory, Cartmel...............................170
Communications: —
Iron and Steel Skeleton-frames. —Architectural Scholarships.
— Taking care of the American Architect Plates..........................170 Notes and Clippings...............................................................................................172 Trade Surveys.............................................................................................................172
THE Heliotype Printing Company, to whose good-will towards this publication our subscribers are in no small
degree indebted for favors which they cannot detect, has been able partially to resume its interrupted business with unexpected promptness and the first work it has undertaken has been the replacing of the plates omitted from our issue for November 28. These illustrations will be found included with the plates of this issue, but dated and numbered as of two weeks ago so that our subscribers can easily sort them out and assign them to their proper place.
THE most impressive evidence of the late disaster is not the charred walls and floors but the vacant bins and shelves
where used-to he stored the stock of “back issues” and bound volumes. These have all disappeared and we can no longer fill orders. All issues of the American Architect of date earlier than this year are definitely and finally out of print. A portion of this year’s stock, however, has been saved, and we advise our readers to examine their files for this year and try to replace missing numbers at once.
ALTHOUGH there is no longer any back stock to draw from, most of our negatives have been left uninjured, and consequently, we can at any time reprint plates that have been published since 1880. If at any time an architect desires, for framing, an enlarged “solar print” or “bromide enlargement” of any domestic subject published as a gelatine print, we can supply him with such print at moderate cost.
TITHE Secretary of the American Institute of Architects reminds members of the duties mentioned in the resolution
adopted by the recent Convention, under which all persons connected with the Institute, including, we presume, all architects, are to consider themselves charged with the office of explaining to the members of Congress for their several districts or States, the propriety and importance of having the Government buildings designed and supervised by various architects, in the same way as private structures. It is acknowledged that Government buildings cost more per cubic foot, than private buildings of the same sort, and it is by no means the case, as is often asserted, that the Government work is better and more solidly done than private work. On the
contrary, it is notorious that political influence has secured the use of a good deal of material in buildings for the Government which is worse than doubtful, and will, sooner or later, cause immense losses to the public treasury; while any architect can see at a glance faults in workmanship in some of the post-offices and custom-houses constructed within the past twenty-five years, even excluding the tottering ruin at Chicago, which would not he tolerated in a structure for a private owner. In one word, the public pays more than any private proprietor for the plans of its buildings, and gets them worse designed; it pays more for having them superintended, and is obliged to accept work which would never be passed by a private architect; it pays more to its contractors, for the same result than any private architect would allow his client to pay, and gets, instead of the first-class workmanship and materials which it supposes it had contracted for, defective stone, the refuse of the quarries, cement which private architects have rejected and, in general, work of a character which can hardly be described, but which is never seen in private buildings of similar pretension. The officers of the Government have endured this so long, mainly because the whole business of planning and executing buildings is so technical that they could not appreciate the facts. There is probably no attempt now to use the Supervising Architect’s office as a political machine, and Congressmen of all parties might be relied upon to join in an effort to promote the interests of the people in their building affairs, if they were shown how great are the evils of the present system, and a feasible plan were proposed to them for reforming it, or substituting a better one. The task of doing both these things should properly fall on the architects of the country, who understand the matter best; and they may be perfectly fearless in explaining their ideas to the people who have it in their power to put them in force. It will not require much argument to convince a Representative that it would be for the credit of the nation to get for its public buildings the best designs of architects who have little to learn from any in the world, especially if buildings executed in pursuance of those designs would be much cheaper, and infinitely better built, than the products of the Government “planfactory”; but most members of Congress know little of the means of getting the sort of design referred to, and fear, with reason, that they would make a hopeless bungle of any attempt to accomplish such a result by their own unaided powers. It is for meeting this difficulty that the preparation of a bill by a committee of the Institute is so desirable. A proposition by a non-professional member of Congress to open Government architectural work to competition would infallibly be met by the assertion that this had been tried, and the better class of architects would have nothing to do with the competitions, while those who did compete, and were successful, brought scandal on the Government by their misunderstandings and complaints. There would be a good deal of truth in this, and it is evident that the best and only possible way of forestalling such objections, is to have whatever measure is to be laid before Congress embody a plan of competition endorsed by the representatives of the Institute as containing the provisions necessary to secure the participation of the best architects. Our own opinion is that the members of the Government, as well as the public, and the profession, would be better satisfied to have competition for public work restricted to architects of known standing; and that an excellent preliminary step would be to establish a body of “Government Architects, ” consisting of architects selected by recommendation and examination, much as members of the Institute now are. The appointment, which should be open to all who should pass the proper tests before a professional commission, sitting on behalf of the Government, would be a purely honorary one, but it should carry with it the exclusive right of competing for Government work. Such a system as this, which is not very different from that pursued with so much success in France and Germany, while it secured the public interest by guaranteeing the character and skill of every architect who could by any possibility win a competition, would have the additional advantage of giving an official recognition and endorsement of professional merit which would be valuable to those who had earned it, and would help greatly in promoting the dignity and development of the architectural art, while it would cost the Government nothing.