I
Since 1910 the momentum of the Imperial Age seems to have slackened a
little: at any rate, in architecture it has lost much of the original
energy which had been given to it by the success of the Chicago
Exposition. It may be, as Henry Adams hinted, that the rate of change
in the modern world has altered, so that processes which required
centuries for their consummation before the coming of the dynamo have
been accelerated into decades.
With events and buildings so close to us, it is almost impossible
to rate their relative importance; all that I can do in the present
chapter is to single out one or two of the more important threads
which, it seems to me, are bound to give the predominant color to the
fabric of our architecture. It is fairly easy to see, however, why the
imperial order has not stamped every aspect of our building: for one
thing, eclecticism has not merely persisted, but the new familiarity
that the American architect has gained with authentic European and
Asiatic work outside the province of the classic has increased the
range of eclecticism. So the baroque architecture of Spain, which
flourished so well in Mexico, and the ecclesiastical architecture of
Byzantium and Syria, have added a new charm to our motlied wardrobe:
from the first came new lessons in ornament and color, applied with
great success by Mr. Bertram Goodhue in the Panama-Pacific Exposition,
and now budding lustily in southern villas and gardens; and from
the second the architect is learning the importance of mass and
outline--the essentials in monolithic construction.
Apart from this, however, the imperial regime has been stalled by its
own weight. The cost of cutting through new streets, widening grand
avenues, and in general putting on a monumental front has put the pure
architect at a disadvantage: there is the same disparity between his
plans and the actual aims of the commercial community as there is,
quite often, between the prospectus and the actual organization of an
industry. Within the precincts of the modern city, the engineer, whose
utilitarian eye has never blinked at the necessity for profitable
enterprise, and whose interest in human beings as loads, weights,
stresses, or units pays no attention to their qualitative demands as
human beings--within these precincts, I say, the engineer has recovered
his supremacy.
Here, in fact, is the paradox of American architecture. In our suburban
houses we have frequently achieved the excellence of Forest Hills and
Bronxville; in our public buildings we tend more easily to approach the
strength and originality of Mr. Goodhue’s State Capitol for Nebraska;
in fact, never before have the individual achievements of American
architects been so rich, so varied, and so promising. In that part
of architecture which lies outside the purlieus of our commercial
system--I mean the prosperous country homes and college buildings and
churches and municipal institutions--a tradition of good building and
tactful design has been established. At this point, unfortunately, the
scope of the architect has become narrowed: the forces that create the
great majority of our buildings lie quite outside the cultivated field
in which he works. Through the mechanical reorganization of the entire
milieu, the place of architecture has become restricted; and even when
architecture takes root in some unnoticed crevice, it blooms only to be
cut down at the first “business opportunity.”
The processes which are inimical to architecture are, perhaps, seen
at their worst in the business district of the metropolis; but more
and more they tend to spread throughout the rest of the community. Mr.
Charles McKim, for example, was enthusiastic over Mr. Burnham’s design
for the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago, and predicted that
it would long be a monument to his genius. “But unfortunately,” as Mr.
Burnham’s biographer says, “unfortunately for Mr. McKim’s reputation
as a prophet, he was unappreciative of the rapid growth of Chicago,
the consequent appreciation in the value of real estate in the Loop
district, and the expansive force of a great bank. This beautiful
building is doomed to be replaced by one which will tower into the
air to the permissible height of structures in the business section
of Chicago.” The alternative to this destruction is an even more
ignominious state of preservation; such a state as the Knickerbocker
Trust Company building achieved in New York, or the old Customs
House in Boston, both of which have been smothered under irrelevant
skyscrapers. Even where economic necessity plays no distinct part,
the forms of business take precedence over the forms of humanism--as
in the Shipping Board’s York Village, where as soon as the direction
of the community planner was removed a hideous and illiterate row of
shop-fronts was erected, instead of that provided by the architect, in
spite of the fact that the difference in cost was negligible.
Unfortunately for architecture, every district of the modern city
tends to become a business district, in the sense that its development
takes place less in response to direct human needs than to the chances
and exigencies of sale. It is not merely business buildings that are
affected by the inherent instability of enterprises to which profit
and rent have become Ideal Ends: the same thing is happening to the
great mass of houses and apartments which are designed for sale.
Scarcely any element in our architecture and city planning is free
from the encroachment, direct or indirect, of business enterprise.
The old Boulevard in New York, for example, which was laid out by the
Tweed ring long before the land on either side was used for anything
but squatters’ farms, was almost totally disrupted by the building
of the first subways, and it has taken twenty years to effect even a
partial recovery. The widening of part of Park Avenue by slicing off
its central grass plot has just been accomplished, in order to relieve
traffic congestion; and it needs only a little time before underground
and overground traffic will cause the gradual reduction of our other
parkways--even those which now seem secure.
The task of noting the manifold ways in which our economic system has
affected architecture would require an essay by itself: it will be more
pertinent here, perhaps, to pay attention to the processes through
which our economic system has worked; and in particular to gauge the
results of introducing mechanical methods of production, and mechanical
forms into provinces which were once wholly occupied by handicraft.
The chief influence in eliminating the architect from the great bulk
of our building is the machine itself: in blotting out the elements of
personality and individual choice it has blotted out the architect,
who inherited these qualities from the carpenter-builder. Mr. H. G.
Wells, in The New Macchiavelli, described Altiora and Oscar Bailey as
having the temperament that would cut down trees and put sanitary glass
lamp-shades in their stead; and this animus has gone pretty far in both
building and city planning, for the reason that lamp-shades may be
manufactured quickly for sale, and trees cannot. It is time, perhaps,
that we isolated the machine and examined its workings. What is the
basis of our machine-ritual, and what place has it in relation to the
good life?