the very painstaking and efficient efforts of Secretary Parker. The report of the Board recommended that the entire matter of a proposed executive secretaryship be referred to the Post-War Committee, and the convention voted accordingly.
An effort was made to take from the table a resolution offered at a former convention favoring universal military training. The motion was lost.
In the matter of war memorials, it was voted as the sense of the Institute that no undue haste be made in the matter of erecting war memorials, but that deliberation be given to such memorials to the end that architectural monstrosities be held down to the minimum. It was pointed out that France is now pursuing a similar course.
Burt L. Fenner of New York read a telegram received by him, stating that the Housing Corporation had decided to omit the author’s name when a design should be published. The convention directed that a message should be sent to Lerry K. Sherman, president of the Housing Commission at Washington, protesting against such action. It was represented that the engineers, landscape designers and architects of the country had given faithful and patriotic service during the war, and that the Institute, respectfully but firmly, maintains that the slight recognition that would be accorded them by the publication of authors’ names is their just due and is a matter of public interest.
Afternoon Session
The afternoon session was a meeting of the Post-War Committee on Architectural Practice. N. Max Dunning was in the chair.
The following address was made by Irving K. Pond, past-president:
Mr. Pond on the Status of the Architect
I am asked by the chairman to speak for a few moments to the topic (C) “The Status of the Architect: Art, Profession or Business.” If this is a question it was answered properly many decades ago for the Institute by itself. If it is a statement, the form is improper and should be: Art, profession and business; a “Trinity” and withal a “Unity”; a paradox which, in another field, the dogmas of orthodox Christianity have forced many to accept, and many others to contemplate with more or less strained acquiescence, or with no emotion whatsoever. But perhaps in the architectural field it is not a paradox, but upon analysis will prove to be a clean-cut statement of fact. Under whatever phase it may be discussed, however, I am going to regard it all in the light of the words of old Polonius, whose advice holds just as good
under post-war as it held under pre-war conditions, and it held with firm grip then: “Above all,” he says, “Above all to thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” If the architect sincerely maintains that attitude the public will soon enough recognize him in and through it, and repose confidence in him as an artist, and as a professional man who, with the ordered instinct of business, co-ordinates his powers and faculties and accomplishments to the end of a deeper and richer personal and public service. “To thine own self be true”—and let post-war committees and a complaining public—if it exists—go hang.
And if the architect be true to himself what does he mean by Art? Is it what the narrow-minded structural engineer—not the engineer in general, but the narrow-minded structural engineer—for his own immediate, selfish, commercial advancement, says it is—though down deep in his own heart he knows better—a mere ornamenting of the inherent structure with pretty, or supposedly pretty, decorations? I shall not deny—but, rather, shall insist—that architects have too frequently given the public as well as the structural engineer some show of reason for entertaining at least such a suspicion. Art means, in architecture, not the application of anything, but the presence of a guiding and directing spirit through whose intervention the problem shall be so solved that function shall be perfect while through and permeating the material mass the spiritual essence of order, appropriateness and charm shall warmly irradiate. Charm is a rare word, and its essence is all too rarely distilled into architecture. Catch and hold its fleeting beauty! Art in architecture means that the desires of the soul as well as needs of the body are fully ministered to. In this age it were perhaps better to say the needs of the soul and the desires of the body. So much, and briefly, for the art. Now for the profession.
The architect who is true to himself will be true in his professional capacity, and so cannot be untrue to the profession. (My inadvertent introduction of “and so,” just here, reminds me pleasantly of the rather anomalous position I occupy in discoursing in this august presence, even in response to an invitation, upon architectural art and professionalism. The Journal of the A. I. A. maintains and has promulgated the idea that my aesthetics, and the ethics involved therein and practiced by me throughout a long series of years, are a blight on architecture, “from which, however,” it opines; “the profession will be secure.” In spite of that bar sinister, as it were, across my professional shield, I am inclined to proceed.) What is the attitude,
An effort was made to take from the table a resolution offered at a former convention favoring universal military training. The motion was lost.
In the matter of war memorials, it was voted as the sense of the Institute that no undue haste be made in the matter of erecting war memorials, but that deliberation be given to such memorials to the end that architectural monstrosities be held down to the minimum. It was pointed out that France is now pursuing a similar course.
Burt L. Fenner of New York read a telegram received by him, stating that the Housing Corporation had decided to omit the author’s name when a design should be published. The convention directed that a message should be sent to Lerry K. Sherman, president of the Housing Commission at Washington, protesting against such action. It was represented that the engineers, landscape designers and architects of the country had given faithful and patriotic service during the war, and that the Institute, respectfully but firmly, maintains that the slight recognition that would be accorded them by the publication of authors’ names is their just due and is a matter of public interest.
Afternoon Session
The afternoon session was a meeting of the Post-War Committee on Architectural Practice. N. Max Dunning was in the chair.
The following address was made by Irving K. Pond, past-president:
Mr. Pond on the Status of the Architect
I am asked by the chairman to speak for a few moments to the topic (C) “The Status of the Architect: Art, Profession or Business.” If this is a question it was answered properly many decades ago for the Institute by itself. If it is a statement, the form is improper and should be: Art, profession and business; a “Trinity” and withal a “Unity”; a paradox which, in another field, the dogmas of orthodox Christianity have forced many to accept, and many others to contemplate with more or less strained acquiescence, or with no emotion whatsoever. But perhaps in the architectural field it is not a paradox, but upon analysis will prove to be a clean-cut statement of fact. Under whatever phase it may be discussed, however, I am going to regard it all in the light of the words of old Polonius, whose advice holds just as good
under post-war as it held under pre-war conditions, and it held with firm grip then: “Above all,” he says, “Above all to thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” If the architect sincerely maintains that attitude the public will soon enough recognize him in and through it, and repose confidence in him as an artist, and as a professional man who, with the ordered instinct of business, co-ordinates his powers and faculties and accomplishments to the end of a deeper and richer personal and public service. “To thine own self be true”—and let post-war committees and a complaining public—if it exists—go hang.
And if the architect be true to himself what does he mean by Art? Is it what the narrow-minded structural engineer—not the engineer in general, but the narrow-minded structural engineer—for his own immediate, selfish, commercial advancement, says it is—though down deep in his own heart he knows better—a mere ornamenting of the inherent structure with pretty, or supposedly pretty, decorations? I shall not deny—but, rather, shall insist—that architects have too frequently given the public as well as the structural engineer some show of reason for entertaining at least such a suspicion. Art means, in architecture, not the application of anything, but the presence of a guiding and directing spirit through whose intervention the problem shall be so solved that function shall be perfect while through and permeating the material mass the spiritual essence of order, appropriateness and charm shall warmly irradiate. Charm is a rare word, and its essence is all too rarely distilled into architecture. Catch and hold its fleeting beauty! Art in architecture means that the desires of the soul as well as needs of the body are fully ministered to. In this age it were perhaps better to say the needs of the soul and the desires of the body. So much, and briefly, for the art. Now for the profession.
The architect who is true to himself will be true in his professional capacity, and so cannot be untrue to the profession. (My inadvertent introduction of “and so,” just here, reminds me pleasantly of the rather anomalous position I occupy in discoursing in this august presence, even in response to an invitation, upon architectural art and professionalism. The Journal of the A. I. A. maintains and has promulgated the idea that my aesthetics, and the ethics involved therein and practiced by me throughout a long series of years, are a blight on architecture, “from which, however,” it opines; “the profession will be secure.” In spite of that bar sinister, as it were, across my professional shield, I am inclined to proceed.) What is the attitude,