The American architect
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL. CXXVWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1924NUMBER 2438 The MODERN BUILDING is a MACHINE
BY BASSETT JONES *
Mostly Historical
DAVEY exhibited the first electric light
before the Royal Society in 1802. Edison
produced the first successful incandescent lamp in 1879.
The first electric generator consisting of a disc of copper revolving near a permanent magnet was built by Farraday in 1831. The first generator that, at very low efficiency, developed sufficient electrical power to be of use was built by Gramme in 1871. So recently as 1887, at his little shop in Yonkers, Rudolph Eickemeyer designed and built the first electric motors and generators of the form almost universally used today.
The first central station for the generation, distribution and sale of electric power on a very small scale was built in 1882.
From 1882 to the present day, forty-two years, less than the time span of a single generation, the electrical industry, including the manufacture of electrical apparatus and central stations, has grown from an embryo to be the second in scale in this age (or, is it century? ) of industries. The electrical industry furnishes the principal power and the apparatus used to make and apply this power for the motivation of other industries and of the mechanical equipment of buildings.
At the present time the amount spent annually in this country for electrical material in buildings, exclusive of central stations and industrial plants, is from two hundred million to three hundred million dollars, or roughly 5 per cent of the total annual building budget. More than this, the modern intensive erection of buildings in city groups has a direct effect on the whole of the electrical industry in that central stations of vast
capacity are built to supply the electrical power required to operate such buildings. The need of economic rapid transportation between such cities and the handling of the enormous traffic at city terminals have led directly to railroad electrification. Therefore, the building industry has become an important outlet for the electrical industry.
Within this short period the electrical equipment of buildings has increased from a mere matter of bell wiring until, today, practically every branch of the electrical industry is drawn upon to supply the apparatus and material required for the electrification of a single structure.
Similarly, about fifty years ago, our sole sanitary comforts consisted of a more or less shallow excavation over which was supported a seat of wood in which a hole was cut and rudely shaped. Only in the seventies of the last century were cast iron bowls with crude flushing arrangements introduced. Within the period of our own memory the fixed bathtub was considered a sign of unholy self-indulgence, and sermons were preached against such wanton waste and luxury. The tin tub kept under the bed and a ready pitcher of cold water typified the gentleman’s toilet. Such hot water as was needed for the Saturday night scrub was heated on the crude kitchen stove. To make a social visit on this evening of steam, soap and slops was forbidden by custom.
On a chill Winter evening our grandparents huddled about the kitchen stove — commonly the sole source of heat in the. house — or, in a hermetically sealed room, gathered about the open fire of hickory logs or the grate of smoky cannel coal, and read by the crude sperm candle, the whale oil lamp or, very recently, by the flickering and air-destroying gas flame. On such nights the act of preparing for bed in unheated rooms
was a self-torture to be performed as rapidly as* Meyer, Strong & Jones, Inc., Consulting Engineers, New York.
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL. CXXVWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1924NUMBER 2438 The MODERN BUILDING is a MACHINE
BY BASSETT JONES *
Mostly Historical
DAVEY exhibited the first electric light
before the Royal Society in 1802. Edison
produced the first successful incandescent lamp in 1879.
The first electric generator consisting of a disc of copper revolving near a permanent magnet was built by Farraday in 1831. The first generator that, at very low efficiency, developed sufficient electrical power to be of use was built by Gramme in 1871. So recently as 1887, at his little shop in Yonkers, Rudolph Eickemeyer designed and built the first electric motors and generators of the form almost universally used today.
The first central station for the generation, distribution and sale of electric power on a very small scale was built in 1882.
From 1882 to the present day, forty-two years, less than the time span of a single generation, the electrical industry, including the manufacture of electrical apparatus and central stations, has grown from an embryo to be the second in scale in this age (or, is it century? ) of industries. The electrical industry furnishes the principal power and the apparatus used to make and apply this power for the motivation of other industries and of the mechanical equipment of buildings.
At the present time the amount spent annually in this country for electrical material in buildings, exclusive of central stations and industrial plants, is from two hundred million to three hundred million dollars, or roughly 5 per cent of the total annual building budget. More than this, the modern intensive erection of buildings in city groups has a direct effect on the whole of the electrical industry in that central stations of vast
capacity are built to supply the electrical power required to operate such buildings. The need of economic rapid transportation between such cities and the handling of the enormous traffic at city terminals have led directly to railroad electrification. Therefore, the building industry has become an important outlet for the electrical industry.
Within this short period the electrical equipment of buildings has increased from a mere matter of bell wiring until, today, practically every branch of the electrical industry is drawn upon to supply the apparatus and material required for the electrification of a single structure.
Similarly, about fifty years ago, our sole sanitary comforts consisted of a more or less shallow excavation over which was supported a seat of wood in which a hole was cut and rudely shaped. Only in the seventies of the last century were cast iron bowls with crude flushing arrangements introduced. Within the period of our own memory the fixed bathtub was considered a sign of unholy self-indulgence, and sermons were preached against such wanton waste and luxury. The tin tub kept under the bed and a ready pitcher of cold water typified the gentleman’s toilet. Such hot water as was needed for the Saturday night scrub was heated on the crude kitchen stove. To make a social visit on this evening of steam, soap and slops was forbidden by custom.
On a chill Winter evening our grandparents huddled about the kitchen stove — commonly the sole source of heat in the. house — or, in a hermetically sealed room, gathered about the open fire of hickory logs or the grate of smoky cannel coal, and read by the crude sperm candle, the whale oil lamp or, very recently, by the flickering and air-destroying gas flame. On such nights the act of preparing for bed in unheated rooms
was a self-torture to be performed as rapidly as* Meyer, Strong & Jones, Inc., Consulting Engineers, New York.