From where we stood we could get a good view of those green columns in
the Tower of Jewels, occasionally criticised as being too atmospheric to
give the sense of support. "Those columns were colored by Guerin to get
an effect of contrast. That shade was one of the first of the shades he
experimented with. He tried it out on the sashes in Machinery Hall. The
French landscape painters used it a good deal in outdoor scenes, on
trellises, for example. It made a pleasing effect against the deeper
tones of the grass and foliage. The notion that it isn't suited to
columns seems to me unwarranted. As a matter of fact, there are several
kinds of green stone that have often been successfully used for columns
in architecture, like malachite and Connemara marble. The Bank of
Montreal has some magnificent Connemara columns. Of course, the use up
there is theatrical, exactly as Guerin intended it to be. People seem to
forget that Guerin got his earlier training as a scene painter. He was
recognized as one of the greatest scene painters of his time. He
deliberately undertook to make this Exposition a great spectacle, and he
ought to be judged according to what he tried to do. It seems to me that
his success was astonishing. He created a picture that was spectacular
without being garish or cheap and that harmonized with the dignity and
the splendor of the architecture. One explanation of his success lies in
his being so fond of the Orient, where the architects have worked in
color as far back as we can go. Every chance he makes a trip to the
Orient and he comes back with a lot of Oriental canvases that he has
painted there. Only a lover of the Orient would have dared to put that
orange color on the domes. See what a velvety look he got, almost
wax-like. He was careful not to apply, in most instances, more than one
coat of paint. He wanted it to sink in and to become weathered. He knew
that nature was the greatest of all artists, always trying to remove the
shiny appearance of newness and to give seasoning."
As we looked up toward the center of the South Garden the white globes
on the French lamp posts caught the architect's eye. "Don't you remember
how cheap they looked on the first days?" he said. "The trouble was that
they were too white. They seemed cold and raw. So they were sprayed with
a liquid celluloid to soften them into their present ivory hue. The
change shows how important detail is, and how carefully Guerin's
department has worked. While the construction was going on there was one
remark that often used to be heard, 'It will never be noticed,' and a
most foolish remark it was. It showed that the people who made it were
lacking in imagination. Millions of eyes have been watching the details
of this Exposition and very little has escaped notice."
A great crowd was pouring out of the afternoon concert in Festival Hall.
The architect, as he looked on, remarked: "It's like being in Paris,
isn't it? Or, perhaps, it's more like being in a lovely old French
provincial city, where the theater is the chief architectural monument.
It's hard for me to understand why the French have encouraged that kind
of architecture for their theaters and opera houses. It seems so
unrelated to sound, which ought to give the clue to the building. The
use of the word festival here is a little old-fashioned and misleading.
It doesn't mean what we usually consider festivity. It is essentially a
concert hall, and the architecture ought to suggest concentration of
sound by being built in a way that shall make such concentration
inevitable. But this kind of building is obviously related to
dissipation of sound. No wonder the acoustics turned out bad and the
interior had to be remodeled."