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GOLDEN DOORWAY, TRANSPORTATION BUILDING.

ADLER & SULLIVAN, ARCHITECTS.

VOL. XLIV.-94.

JOHN J. BOYLE, SCULPTOR.

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DRAWN BY H. D. NICHOLS. FIGURE OF BRAKEMAN, TRANSPORTATION BUILDING.

in each case. The architect uses his conventional historic forms as the poet uses his conventional historic words; both forms and words have come down to us, modified and enriched by the generations of mankind through which they have passed, and for this reason there is often a deeper significance in them than is patent to the multitude. Architectural formulas, in their various developments through centuries of usage, have become symbols of the genius of nations; no architect can adapt them intelligently and successfully to his work unless his mind has been saturated with these inner meanings, and unless he has learned to respect the language which he uses. The harmonious combination which he may be able to make of these

forms, and his applications of them to his composition, may be simply correct, because free from errors of architectural grammar or rhetoric; or they may be brilliant, because they are also original without caprice; surprising without evidence of effort; poetic, because of his inner light. The degrees of success range from correctness to brilliancy, and the varieties are infinite.

Now the work of Adler & Sullivan in this Transportation Building is widely different from that which they would have produced had they been placed under those restrictions which, for the reasons stated, were voluntarily and properly assumed by the architects of the Court. The former were free to use any language of form fitted to express the purposes of their building, and they were under no other limitations than those furnished by minds educated and trained in art. In endeavoring to show, therefore, how their work took shape, we shall, in this as in other cases,- carefully avoiding the attitude of criticism, which would be premature and improper,-proceed not as if the methods of development were exact and positive in a scientific sense, and recognizing that there cannot be any single, final, and only possible solution to a problem of art. No true artist ever wrote Q. E. D. under his project.

The general plan and method of accommodation being accepted, we are now in position to see how they will affect the architectural expression of the interior. We imagine the architects reasoning as follows:

It is our purpose to confer upon an object of utility an expression of fitness and beautyto utter truth, not only with correctness, but with the grace of poetic diction. In the first place, therefore, let us inclose the structure which we have developed with a wall having merely functions of usefulness. In piercing this wall for the necessary windows, let us make one large opening to correspond with each of the 32-foot bays established by our module of dimension; but let us not make these openings so wide as to narrow the piers between them and thus to convert what we intend to be a wall into a colonnade or arcade. Let us preserve the idea of a wall-surface by keeping our piers wide, and by finishing our openings with arches so that the spandrel surfaces between may be added to the area of repose. But in making the window-openings high enough for the practical purpose of lighting the interior, we have left only a narrow and weak wall-surface over them. In order to remedy this defect, and to bring our wall to a height which will not be low when compared with that of our neighbors, we venture to build it 10 feet higher than is constructionally necessary, so that it shall reach a total height of 53 feet, thus forming a screen to mask the aisle-roofs behind. Now,

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for the necessary protection and shadow to the plain surface of our wall, let us place upon it a boldly overhanging coping. To give dignity and apparent stability to the closure which we are considering, we then find it necessary to make our wall thick and massive, and these qualities must be illustrated in the treatment of the jambs of our openings. If the jambs are cut through at right angles, we shall make an inadequate and ineffective use of this quality of thickness or massiveness of wall; on the other hand, we shall increase the apparent depth of wall, and draw attention to it, by splaying the jambs with a series of right-angled returns, thus engendering in each opening a nest of diminishing arches, and, as it were, easing off the wall-surface at these points, as was done by the Romanesque and Gothic builders. We have already arranged that our long front shall be thirty bays long, and our end fronts eight bays long. But one of these bays must occur in the center of each front for the sake of the entrances; this will leave a half-bay at the corners. The result of this is that we have a wider pier at the ends, and by this simple device give a natural pause to the succession of arches on each front at the corners, without resorting for this purpose to the conventional end-pavilions, for which our plan does not offer sufficient

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excuse.

But the frontage which our wall-surface has thus developed, though entirely reasonable, is low, monotonous, and mechanical in its effect. The first difficulty, in its relation to the architectural composition as a whole, we may readily remedy by exaggerating the height of our central nave, so that, from ordinary points of view, it shall be seen to disengage itself well from the ridges of the aisle-roofs which encompass it, and thus form a part of the exterior architecture. To each bay of the upper part of the clearstory, thus elevated, we give two arches, corresponding in character to the single arch in the façade, though properly smaller in scale, and, by the same reasoning, we find it essential to raise these clearstory walls higher than the eaves of the nave-roof, and to crown them with a second overhanging coping.

We have thus designed a series of wall-surfaces in what seems to us a perfectly logical manner, but, as yet, with no projections whatever to break their monotony,- no pilasters, no string-courses, no base, no moldings of any sort, and no cornice, in the usual sense,-only a blank flat wall, pierced with deep arched openings, and protected by a boldly overhanging coping, square and uncompromising.

Now shall we make a concession to convention, and attempt to illustrate structure and use symbolically by applying projecting architectural features to our flat wall-surfaces after

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academical fashion and according to Renaissance motives, thereby saying what we have to say in diplomatic language, as it were, using forms which have obtained dignity and significance because of their association with the history of civilization, of which, indeed, they are a part; or rather shall we make this flat wallsurface itself the basis of expression, avoiding words and phrases of Latin origin, and, as was done by the Saracens in the Alhambra, who worked, as we are now working, in a plastic substance, which invited molding beneath the surface rather than carving above the surface -shall we decorate these flat surfaces with repeating superficial patterns? By the latter process we may, where we require, make our planes of construction beautiful without losing

DRAWN BY A. BRENNAN.

BIT OF ORNAMENT, TRANSPORTATION BUILDING.

any of the advantages of simplicity and repose, which we are striving to secure by following rational methods. In treatments of this sort the example of Oriental nations is full of instruction, and we know the rich results obtained in this manner, not only by the Moors of Spain, but by Mohammedan art in the mosques at Cairo, and by Indian art in the tombs of Agra. We shall thus get architectural effects of light and shade, not by delicate playing with the complicated shadows and half-lights of pilasters, porticos, and molded entablatures, as in classic art, nor by the bolder chiaroscuro obtained by the buttresses, panels, and corbel-tables of medieval art, but by breaking the broadly staring sunlight on our smooth wall-surfaces with the broad black shadows of our coping, with the sharper and finer shade-lines obtained by recessing the window-reveals in a series of narrow planes, and with the regular spotted effects resulting from our spaces of superficial arabesque or fretwork. These wall-surfaces also invite a treatment by contrasts of color in masses or diapers, after the Oriental manner, thus giving opportunity for effects of festivity, which, however, need not derogate from the massiveness and breadth which seem most consistent with the fundamental character of our building.

It is a recognized principle of composition. that a mass may be simplified, or even impoverished, for the sake of emphasizing by contrast a certain highly decorated point of interest. This principle seems especially applicable to our present case, because the purposes of our building do not call for an embellishment which would be appropriate in the zenana of an Indian palace, or in the tomb of an Oriental princess. The architectural virtue to be exercised in our case is self-denial rather than generosity. In the mass of our façades, therefore, we should use our facile means of decoration with great prudence, doing no more than may be necessary to make our wall respected as a work of art.

The west or rear side of our building will be completely occupied and masked by annexes; the north and south ends are so situated as

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to make the necessary entrances at these points very subordinate: but the center of the east front, toward the Lagoon and opposite the west center of the Liberal Arts Building, must be the main portal of our design. This feature, therefore, may very properly constitute that point of architectural emphasis of which we have spoken, and to which the rest of this façade must be little more than a preparation or foil. The most majestic feature in the best art of the Mogul emperors, as in the closure of the great mosque at Delhi, or in the Taj-Mehal at Agra, is the porch. It is a flat, squaretopped, projecting wall-face, pierced with a lofty pointed arch, forming the opening of

doorway. We may cover the entire superficial area of this pavilion with a delicate embroidery of arabesques and bas-reliefs - its fronts, its returns, its recessed archways, the wallscreen which closes the opening at the back, the face and soffit of its coping, its impost, and its stylobate. We will make the whole fretted mass splendid with gilding, so that this main entrance shall be known as the "Golden Doorway." The pavilion interrupts and discontinues every horizontal line in the edifice, so that we must depend upon a sparse echo of this embroidery on our long wall-faces to bring the composition together and to secure its unity of effect. We will therefore content ourselves

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a deep square niche, and profusely decorated with borders and spandrel panels of arabesque, and with inscriptions in inlay and superficial sculpture. It has no cornice, and frequently is finished with a parapet of lacework. Instructed by a study of these Oriental masterpieces, we may adjust them to our present use with but few modifications. The rigid, square, projecting mass, with its great arched opening, the profuse superficial decoration, and even the light characteristic kiosks or pagodas which accompanied the original, may all be reproduced here; but in order to amalgamate the whole with the work which we have already developed, it must finish with a similar bold overhanging brow, the arch must be low and round, that it may occupy a proportionate space in the face of our pavilion, and its opening must diminish inward in a succession of lessening arches in the Romanesque manner (Romanesque and Saracenic art having a common parentage at Byzantium), until the opening is reduced to dimensions practicable for a

with its use on the piers at the point where our arches spring, and on the under side of the coping. Practically the rest is left in repose to offset the splendor of the center. But in order to give a degree of movement to the hard square outlines of the pavilion, and to secure somewhat of a pyramidal effect, we support it on each side with terraces and balconies on a level with the impost of the arch, and accessible by outside stairs, and on each terrace we build a light kiosk against the pavilion in the manner of the Mogul architects. By this somewhat playful device we hope to secure for our building an aspect of festivity more appropriate to the place and occasion than would be obtained if we were content to leave its lines all severely adjusted to rational conditions of design. In like manner, and with the same object of conferring points of interest on the long plain line of frontage, we may venture to open four small exit doors, two on each side of the central portal, with decorated architraves, and flanked by pedestals against the adjoining piers

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