The American Architect and Building News.
Vol. XXXII.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 804.
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
MAY 23, 1891.
Summary: —
The Cathedral of St John the Divine. — The Wastefulness of Circulars. — When Circulars are of Value to Architects. — The International Congress of Hygiene. —Competition for Street Planning the Suburbs of Munich. — The Romance
of India Ink. — A Tunnel through the Pyrenees........................ 109 French Architecture. —VII........................................................................111 Emmanuel Fremiet. — VIII........................................................ 113 Letter from London.........................................................................................116 Letter from Australia...................................................................................117 Letter from Canada.........................................................................................118 Letter from Paris. .....................................................................................118 Letter from Chicago........................................................................................120 The House that Jonathan Builds............................................................121 Illustrations: —
Porch to House of Prof. Elihu Thomson, Swampscott, Mass. — House of the Same. —Portal to Chapel of the Column, S Prassede, Rome — A Little Mountain Church. — House at “Acorn Point, ” Manitou Island, Minn. — High-school Building, Arkansas City, Kansas — House at Yonkers, N. Y. Additional: House at Berlin, Prussia. — Equestrian Statue of Etienne Marcel, Paris, France — House in Gloucestershire, Eng. —New Buildings, the High Cross, Chester, Eng. — New Dutch Reformed Church, Heidelberg, Transvaal. — Cirencester Chapel. — Residential Flats, Brixton, Eng. — Selehurst, Sussex, Eng. — Completion of Façade, Church of the Holy Trinity, Cork, Ireland — The English Presbyterian
Church, Llandudno, Wales....................................................................123 Communication: —
Projections beyond the Building-line.....................................................124 Trade Surveys......................................................................................................124
THE present indications are that it will not be possible for us to assist the Trustees of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with the suggested “authoritative expression of professional opinion ” upon the merits of the four designs submitted in the final competition, for the reason that but one architect has notified us of his opinion. Either the profession is diligently studying the designs published in our issue for May 9, with a view of expressing their opinions during the coming week, or, with the single exception referred to, do not feel enough interest in the scheme or in the tribulations of the Trustees to lend them a helping hand.
AS it is now about the height of the circular season, we
hope that we may be pardoned for making some remarks in regard to the wastefulness and uselessness of the present methods of bringing building materials and processes to the attention of architects, which, if not new, are no less true for repetition. Probably few of the people who send circulars to architects have any idea of the number of other persons who are also doing the same thing. No doubt, many of the circulars are not only handsomely printed, hut interesting, and we can remember the time when, having nothing else to do, we found pleasure and profit in reading them; but for architects who have other business to attend to, it is absolutely impossible, during the building season, to look over more than a small fraction of those received, and still more impossible to file them away so that they can be found again when occasion comes for making use of some of the articles mentioned in them. Moreover, even if the trouble of filing them is taken, it often happens that the article wanted, by the time that occasion arises for using it, is no longer manufactured, or is made by different parties, so that resort to the description in the circular leads to nothing but disappointment. To take, for example, the case of the “Fire on the Hearth” stoves. We know that other architects besides ourselves, when they were first made, very highly approved the principle of their construction, and took the first opportunity of trying them. Our first trial of them was made at our own expense, as we do not like to recommend anything to our clients on purely theoretical grounds, and was quite satisfactory, so that we felt ourselves quite justified in advising strongly their adoption for warming nurseries, small school-rooms and similar places, where the combination of radiation and an abundant supply of warm, fresh air was desirable. Unfortunately, architects do not have
to recommend nursery-stoves every day, or even every month, and it soon became a good deal easier to recommend our favorite sort than to tell our clients where to get a specimen. At the address given in the circulars they were soon unknown, nor could any one at that address inform us where they were to be had. The directory was mute on the subject, and we found ourselves reduced to hunting for them among retail dealers, who occasionally possessed one or two of the stoves, which had apparently come into their hands as curiosities. In this way, by dint of a great deal of inquiring and walking about, we exhausted the available supply in the nearest city, and our next demand was satisfied by sending to a town sixteen miles away, where, as we learned after much questioning, a dealer had once been known to have had one. We secured our prize, and shortly afterward, by the merest accident, in looking for heating-apparatus of another kind, discovered the address of the firm that had succeeded to the manufacture of the object of our affection. Having thus spent so much labor in trying to buy the goods of a manufacturer who did not know how to sell them, we feel as if we had earned the right to give some hints, from the architect’s point-of-view, to other manufacturers who make a good article, and wish architects to help them in bringing it into use.
I
N the first place, let him who has a good building appliance to sell never send descriptive circulars to architects unless they are asked for. In most offices, at this season, the first work of the morning is to pitch the circulars, unopened, into the waste-basket. A good many of the class are cunningly disguised, and put in a sealed envelope like a letter, so that the person addressed will be sure to open them, but architects become pretty expert in detecting these shams without opening them, and, at most, they follow their brethren after a second’s delay, and the time and expense laid out in their preparation and transmission, as well as in collecting and destroying them, is a dead loss to all parties. It may comfort the manufacturers of such articles to know that they are no worse off than other people in this respect. We have heard of a publisher, who wished to increase the circulation of an excellent magazine. He sent out sixty thousand circulars, containing deserved praises of it, and received in response four new subscriptions. He would probably have had that number of new subscriptions in any case during the time, so that the cost of his sixty thousand circulars was practically a total loss. In a similar way some of the great seedsmen and producing florists, who spend immense sums of money in catalogues, have recently been comparing the cost of their catalogues with the profits from the sales which they make to the new customers to whom they send them, and, although a florist’s catalogue is as likely to be preserved and read by those who receive it as anything of the kind would be, the balance is often on the wrong side. The circulars sent to architects are perhaps more costly, as an average, than any others made, and the total sum laid out on them must be enormous, so that any economy that could be judiciously made would be desirable. Such an economy might be made, not only judiciously, but most advantageously, by keeping the circulars until wanted, and letting architects know, by standing advertisements in the professional journals, where to get them when they need them. The natural resort of every architect, if he has a greenhouse to build, or a hot-water apparatus to put in, or a theatre to decorate, is to look in his paper and see if there is not something new that will help him to make his work successful. If he finds something advertised that looks promising, he sends for further information, and it is then that a good circular becomes of use, while the advertiser, if he is enterprising, will send a salesman promptly to follow up the circular. We are convinced that this course would do more to facilitate the introduction of meritorious goods, and to enable architects to keep themselves familiar with improvements in building appliances than the dumping of a thousand tons of circulars a day into the mails, to be transmitted unopened, through the architects’ offices, to the papermills. However, facts are better than theories, and it would, it seems to us, be a most profitable plan for the people who sell goods through architects to keep a comparative account of the sales made through a broadcast distribution of circulars, and through judicious advertising, with the cost of each, and let other people know the results.
Vol. XXXII.
Copyright, 1891, by Ticknor & Company, Boston, Mass.
No. 804.
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston as second-class matter.
MAY 23, 1891.
Summary: —
The Cathedral of St John the Divine. — The Wastefulness of Circulars. — When Circulars are of Value to Architects. — The International Congress of Hygiene. —Competition for Street Planning the Suburbs of Munich. — The Romance
of India Ink. — A Tunnel through the Pyrenees........................ 109 French Architecture. —VII........................................................................111 Emmanuel Fremiet. — VIII........................................................ 113 Letter from London.........................................................................................116 Letter from Australia...................................................................................117 Letter from Canada.........................................................................................118 Letter from Paris. .....................................................................................118 Letter from Chicago........................................................................................120 The House that Jonathan Builds............................................................121 Illustrations: —
Porch to House of Prof. Elihu Thomson, Swampscott, Mass. — House of the Same. —Portal to Chapel of the Column, S Prassede, Rome — A Little Mountain Church. — House at “Acorn Point, ” Manitou Island, Minn. — High-school Building, Arkansas City, Kansas — House at Yonkers, N. Y. Additional: House at Berlin, Prussia. — Equestrian Statue of Etienne Marcel, Paris, France — House in Gloucestershire, Eng. —New Buildings, the High Cross, Chester, Eng. — New Dutch Reformed Church, Heidelberg, Transvaal. — Cirencester Chapel. — Residential Flats, Brixton, Eng. — Selehurst, Sussex, Eng. — Completion of Façade, Church of the Holy Trinity, Cork, Ireland — The English Presbyterian
Church, Llandudno, Wales....................................................................123 Communication: —
Projections beyond the Building-line.....................................................124 Trade Surveys......................................................................................................124
THE present indications are that it will not be possible for us to assist the Trustees of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine with the suggested “authoritative expression of professional opinion ” upon the merits of the four designs submitted in the final competition, for the reason that but one architect has notified us of his opinion. Either the profession is diligently studying the designs published in our issue for May 9, with a view of expressing their opinions during the coming week, or, with the single exception referred to, do not feel enough interest in the scheme or in the tribulations of the Trustees to lend them a helping hand.
AS it is now about the height of the circular season, we
hope that we may be pardoned for making some remarks in regard to the wastefulness and uselessness of the present methods of bringing building materials and processes to the attention of architects, which, if not new, are no less true for repetition. Probably few of the people who send circulars to architects have any idea of the number of other persons who are also doing the same thing. No doubt, many of the circulars are not only handsomely printed, hut interesting, and we can remember the time when, having nothing else to do, we found pleasure and profit in reading them; but for architects who have other business to attend to, it is absolutely impossible, during the building season, to look over more than a small fraction of those received, and still more impossible to file them away so that they can be found again when occasion comes for making use of some of the articles mentioned in them. Moreover, even if the trouble of filing them is taken, it often happens that the article wanted, by the time that occasion arises for using it, is no longer manufactured, or is made by different parties, so that resort to the description in the circular leads to nothing but disappointment. To take, for example, the case of the “Fire on the Hearth” stoves. We know that other architects besides ourselves, when they were first made, very highly approved the principle of their construction, and took the first opportunity of trying them. Our first trial of them was made at our own expense, as we do not like to recommend anything to our clients on purely theoretical grounds, and was quite satisfactory, so that we felt ourselves quite justified in advising strongly their adoption for warming nurseries, small school-rooms and similar places, where the combination of radiation and an abundant supply of warm, fresh air was desirable. Unfortunately, architects do not have
to recommend nursery-stoves every day, or even every month, and it soon became a good deal easier to recommend our favorite sort than to tell our clients where to get a specimen. At the address given in the circulars they were soon unknown, nor could any one at that address inform us where they were to be had. The directory was mute on the subject, and we found ourselves reduced to hunting for them among retail dealers, who occasionally possessed one or two of the stoves, which had apparently come into their hands as curiosities. In this way, by dint of a great deal of inquiring and walking about, we exhausted the available supply in the nearest city, and our next demand was satisfied by sending to a town sixteen miles away, where, as we learned after much questioning, a dealer had once been known to have had one. We secured our prize, and shortly afterward, by the merest accident, in looking for heating-apparatus of another kind, discovered the address of the firm that had succeeded to the manufacture of the object of our affection. Having thus spent so much labor in trying to buy the goods of a manufacturer who did not know how to sell them, we feel as if we had earned the right to give some hints, from the architect’s point-of-view, to other manufacturers who make a good article, and wish architects to help them in bringing it into use.
I
N the first place, let him who has a good building appliance to sell never send descriptive circulars to architects unless they are asked for. In most offices, at this season, the first work of the morning is to pitch the circulars, unopened, into the waste-basket. A good many of the class are cunningly disguised, and put in a sealed envelope like a letter, so that the person addressed will be sure to open them, but architects become pretty expert in detecting these shams without opening them, and, at most, they follow their brethren after a second’s delay, and the time and expense laid out in their preparation and transmission, as well as in collecting and destroying them, is a dead loss to all parties. It may comfort the manufacturers of such articles to know that they are no worse off than other people in this respect. We have heard of a publisher, who wished to increase the circulation of an excellent magazine. He sent out sixty thousand circulars, containing deserved praises of it, and received in response four new subscriptions. He would probably have had that number of new subscriptions in any case during the time, so that the cost of his sixty thousand circulars was practically a total loss. In a similar way some of the great seedsmen and producing florists, who spend immense sums of money in catalogues, have recently been comparing the cost of their catalogues with the profits from the sales which they make to the new customers to whom they send them, and, although a florist’s catalogue is as likely to be preserved and read by those who receive it as anything of the kind would be, the balance is often on the wrong side. The circulars sent to architects are perhaps more costly, as an average, than any others made, and the total sum laid out on them must be enormous, so that any economy that could be judiciously made would be desirable. Such an economy might be made, not only judiciously, but most advantageously, by keeping the circulars until wanted, and letting architects know, by standing advertisements in the professional journals, where to get them when they need them. The natural resort of every architect, if he has a greenhouse to build, or a hot-water apparatus to put in, or a theatre to decorate, is to look in his paper and see if there is not something new that will help him to make his work successful. If he finds something advertised that looks promising, he sends for further information, and it is then that a good circular becomes of use, while the advertiser, if he is enterprising, will send a salesman promptly to follow up the circular. We are convinced that this course would do more to facilitate the introduction of meritorious goods, and to enable architects to keep themselves familiar with improvements in building appliances than the dumping of a thousand tons of circulars a day into the mails, to be transmitted unopened, through the architects’ offices, to the papermills. However, facts are better than theories, and it would, it seems to us, be a most profitable plan for the people who sell goods through architects to keep a comparative account of the sales made through a broadcast distribution of circulars, and through judicious advertising, with the cost of each, and let other people know the results.