A Civic Type of War Memorial
Proposed for the City of Boston
By M. S. Franklin
A
LREADY there has been a general movement throughout the country to cause the memorials of the present war to take on a practical value to the community, incorporating the idea of their use as community centers, or including halls for public forums and meetings, or auditoriums that will also be available for use for dramatic and musical occasions. So far, however, the structures that have been actually proposed along these lines have been exclusively for the smaller cities and towns. Boston is, perhaps, the first of the larger American cities to shape definite plans for a structure that amplifies the “Community Center” idea to truly metropolitan proportions.
The large city, of course, must have many “Community Centers scattered throughout its area, and the public school is coming into very general use for such purposes. The up-to-date American city, however, requires some large central structure which will fulfill similar purposes on the scale necessary for the large community. As this plan has been visualized in Boston it includes not only all the attributes usually found in the smaller com
munity center—of course on the larger scale—but also other elements intended to make the building the educational, recreational, and social headquarters for city and state—and the actual plan has been so developed that these uses in no way detract from the dignity and character of its memorial expression.
To consider the latter first, the central feature of the plan—forming the entrance to the great Auditorium, opening on to the communicating cross Corridor of the Allies, terminating at one end in the
Hall of the Army and at the other in the Hall of the Navy—is the Memorial Pantheon, reproduced at a smaller yet dignified scale from the Roman original, which is probably universally regarded as the most impressive and commanding architectural structure in the world. Located in this position, it would be visited and used daily by thousands of citizens, thus serving its purpose far better than could be the case with any isolated arch or any other purely memorial structure.
Opening from the Corridor of the Allies are
Copyright, 1919. The Architectural & Building Press (Inc.)
Proposed for the City of Boston
By M. S. Franklin
A
LREADY there has been a general movement throughout the country to cause the memorials of the present war to take on a practical value to the community, incorporating the idea of their use as community centers, or including halls for public forums and meetings, or auditoriums that will also be available for use for dramatic and musical occasions. So far, however, the structures that have been actually proposed along these lines have been exclusively for the smaller cities and towns. Boston is, perhaps, the first of the larger American cities to shape definite plans for a structure that amplifies the “Community Center” idea to truly metropolitan proportions.
The large city, of course, must have many “Community Centers scattered throughout its area, and the public school is coming into very general use for such purposes. The up-to-date American city, however, requires some large central structure which will fulfill similar purposes on the scale necessary for the large community. As this plan has been visualized in Boston it includes not only all the attributes usually found in the smaller com
munity center—of course on the larger scale—but also other elements intended to make the building the educational, recreational, and social headquarters for city and state—and the actual plan has been so developed that these uses in no way detract from the dignity and character of its memorial expression.
To consider the latter first, the central feature of the plan—forming the entrance to the great Auditorium, opening on to the communicating cross Corridor of the Allies, terminating at one end in the
Hall of the Army and at the other in the Hall of the Navy—is the Memorial Pantheon, reproduced at a smaller yet dignified scale from the Roman original, which is probably universally regarded as the most impressive and commanding architectural structure in the world. Located in this position, it would be visited and used daily by thousands of citizens, thus serving its purpose far better than could be the case with any isolated arch or any other purely memorial structure.
Opening from the Corridor of the Allies are
Copyright, 1919. The Architectural & Building Press (Inc.)