the rest of the time, their display managers are chiefly concerned with the problem of lowering the window ceilings and reducing the depths.
New York, however, does provide one exquisite example of vertical treatment of the show window, but not by a retailer, and not on Fifth Avenue. On Madison Avenue stands the newly erected building occupied by Cheney Brothers. Here the windows extend up to the level of the third floor in a front of glass expanse broken only by handsomely designed metal framing. Inside the store, what would have been the second floor — European, first floor — is built as a mezzanine in ornamental metalwork. To the native eye these two-story windows of the Cheney front are daring innovations and, being architecturally beautiful, serve as permanent advertising of the Cheney business. But it is to be noted that the Cheney window displays are consistently showings of yardage, the one class of merchandise to which extreme height of display is adapted. These manufacturers applied to their specially designed windows the basic principles of retail display, by building the vertical lines of their window “compositions, ” as the phrase goes now, into the permanent front and insuring height ample for drapes lofty enough to crane the neck. But — again the American safe anchorage at the level of natural vision — the majority of the wrought metal fixtures used for their drapes rise no higher than 6 or 7 feet from the window floor.
I have dwelt upon the Cheney windows and the manner of their utilization because they are pretty nearly the last word in American window architec
FIVE STORY GLASS FRONT, WITH SHOW WINDOWS BE TWEEN PILASTERS, WERTHEIM DEPARTMENT STORE,
BERLIN GERMANY — A. MESSEL, ARCHITECT
THE VERTICAL WINDOW FRONTAGE OF CHENEY BROTHERS STORE, NEW YORK, LENDS ITSELF TO EFFECTIVE DRAPING
BY NIGHT AS WELL AS DAY
Photo by Gillies
Photo by Van Anda
New York, however, does provide one exquisite example of vertical treatment of the show window, but not by a retailer, and not on Fifth Avenue. On Madison Avenue stands the newly erected building occupied by Cheney Brothers. Here the windows extend up to the level of the third floor in a front of glass expanse broken only by handsomely designed metal framing. Inside the store, what would have been the second floor — European, first floor — is built as a mezzanine in ornamental metalwork. To the native eye these two-story windows of the Cheney front are daring innovations and, being architecturally beautiful, serve as permanent advertising of the Cheney business. But it is to be noted that the Cheney window displays are consistently showings of yardage, the one class of merchandise to which extreme height of display is adapted. These manufacturers applied to their specially designed windows the basic principles of retail display, by building the vertical lines of their window “compositions, ” as the phrase goes now, into the permanent front and insuring height ample for drapes lofty enough to crane the neck. But — again the American safe anchorage at the level of natural vision — the majority of the wrought metal fixtures used for their drapes rise no higher than 6 or 7 feet from the window floor.
I have dwelt upon the Cheney windows and the manner of their utilization because they are pretty nearly the last word in American window architec
FIVE STORY GLASS FRONT, WITH SHOW WINDOWS BE TWEEN PILASTERS, WERTHEIM DEPARTMENT STORE,
BERLIN GERMANY — A. MESSEL, ARCHITECT
THE VERTICAL WINDOW FRONTAGE OF CHENEY BROTHERS STORE, NEW YORK, LENDS ITSELF TO EFFECTIVE DRAPING
BY NIGHT AS WELL AS DAY
Photo by Gillies
Photo by Van Anda