As we turned from the Avenue of Progress toward the Court of the Ages
the architect said: "The workmen about here call this inner court 'Pink
Alley,' not a bad name for it, though its real name is the Court of
Mines. Throughout the Exposition Guerin shows that he is very fond of
pink, probably on account of its warmth. He has been criticised for
using it so much on the imitation Travertine for the reason that there
is no stone of exactly this color. And yet there is pink marble. But
even if there weren't any pink stone in the world, Guerin would be
justified in his use of the color for purely decorative purposes, just
as he was justified in using it on his four towers."
Inside the Court of the Ages the architect drew a long breath.
"In this court we architects feel puzzled. We think we can read new
architectural forms like a book, and find that they are saying things
repeated down the ages. But we can't read much here. In that lovely
round arch there are hints of Gothic, and yet it is not a Gothic arch.
Throughout the treatment there are echoes of the Spanish, and yet the
treatment is not Spanish. The more one studies the conception and the
workmanship the more striking it grows in originality and daring.
Mullgardt has succeeded in putting into architecture the spirit that
inspired Langdon Smith's poem 'Evolution,' beginning 'When you were a
tadpole and I was a fish.' In the chaotic feeling that the court gives
there is a subtle suggestiveness. The whole evolution of man is
intimated here from the time when he lived among the seaweed and the
fish and the lobsters and the turtles and the crabs. Even the straight
vertical lines used in the design suggest the dripping of water. When
you study the meaning of the conception you find an excuse for Aitken in
flinging his mighty fountain into the center of all this architectural
iridescence. He caught the philosophy of Mullgardt without catching the
lightness and gaiety of the execution. In that fountain he has brought
out the pagan conception of the sun, and he has used the notion that the
sun threw off the earth in a molten mass to steam and cool down here and
to bring forth those competitions between human beings that reveal the
working of the elemental passions. Aitken is material and hard, where
Mullgardt is delicate and fine. How subtly Mullgardt has interwoven the
feeling of spirituality with all the animal forces in man. That tower
alone is a masterpiece. I know of no tower just like it in the world.
From every side it is interesting. And at night it is particularly
impressive from the Marina."
The architect went on to explain something of the court's history. "When
Mullgardt started to work out his plans he must have had in mind the
transitional character of an exposition. He knew that he could afford to
try an experiment that might have been impracticable if the court had
been intended for permanency. He evidently was determined to cast
tradition to the winds and to strike out for himself."
"I should think most architects would like to work in that way."
"The usual process is very different. As soon as an architect decides to
design a building. he first chooses a certain type of architecture; then
he saturates his mind with designs that have already been done along
that line. Out of the mass of suggestions that he receives he is lucky
if he evolves something more or less new. Often he merely re-echoes or
he actually reproduces something that he is fond of or that has happened
to catch his fancy. The chances are that Mullgardt will go down into
history for his daring here. It isn't often that a man takes a big
biological conception and works it out in architecture with such
picturesqueness. It's never intrusive and yet it's there, plain enough
for anyone to see who looks close. It represented a magnificent
opportunity and Mullgardt was big enough to get away with it."
Then the architect told me the human story behind all this beauty as we
wandered back into the center of the court and stood there. "Notice the
incline," he said, "from the entrances? It reminds me that Mullgardt had
originally intended to have the floor of the court like a sunken garden.
And remember that the name expresses the original idea. The Court of
Abundance, that it is wrongly called, would have applied much better to
the Court of Four Seasons. Well, after the notion came to Mullgardt to
suggest in the court the development of man from the life of the sea to
his present state as a thinking being, less physical than spiritual, he
planned to build a court that should be the center of the pageants for
the Exposition, where art should have its living representation in the
form of processions and of plays, some of them written for the purpose.
In the sunken garden there should be plenty of room for the actors to
move about, using it as a stage. There should also be room for the
sculptured caldron that was to be an architectural feature and that
later developed into Aitken's massive evolutionary fountain. For the
base of the tower there was designed a gorgeous semi-circular staircase,
which was to serve as an entrance for the actors. Around the court there
was to run an ornamental balcony, covered with a great canopy in red and
gold, making an effect of Oriental magnificence. The people were to
watch the spectacles from the balcony and from between the arches. In
addition to the main tower, very like the present tower, but to contain
a great pipe organ, there were to be two others, in the corner at right
angles, to be called echo towers. The music of the organ was to be
transmitted to the echo towers by wires and the echoes were to serve as
a sort of accompaniment. The effect, if it had been managed right, would
have been stunning."
"Mullgardt has kept the spirit of the pageant in his court," I said.
"Just as it is it would make an ideal setting, particularly for pageant
with music, opera, for example."
"Of course," said the architect. "But the music ought not to come as it
does now, from a band. It ought to come from the orchestra. Violins
belong there. Put brass never!"
"Well, what happened to the pageant scheme?"
"Oh, when Mullgardt showed the preliminary sketches it was ruled out as
too expensive. Then he removed the balcony and the staircase and, in
place of the staircase, he introduced a cascade, keeping the rest of the
court as it had been before. His idea was to use the water in the
cascade only in a suggestive way. It was to be almost completely hidden
by vines, after the manner of Shasta Falls, and to symbolize the
mysterious appearance and disappearance of water that came from - one
didn't know where. But that scheme was rejected, too, as too expensive.
However, Mullgardt accepted the situation. He was so interested that he
worked out himself many of the details that most architects would have
left to subordinates. He really cared enough to make the whole effect as
close to perfection as he could. Everything he did he had a reason for
doing. Not one thing here did he use gratuitously. He evidently doesn't
agree with the idea that, in architecture, beauty is its own excuse for
being; he wants to make it useful, too."
Then I was initiated into the details of the workmanship. "Observe how
the ideas in the structure of the walls of the court are carried on in
the ornamental details and in the tower." The primitive man and
primitive woman repeated in a row along the upper edge had been finely
conceived and executed by Albert Weinert. And the nobility of outline in
the tower was sustained by the three pieces of sculpture in front made
by Chester Beach. That top figure some people believed to be Buddhistic
in feeling. But it belonged to no particular religion. It stood for the
Spirit of Intelligence. The ornamentation on the head was not an
aureole, as bad been reported, but a wreath of laurel, symbolic of
success. The group beneath was mediaeval, depicting mankind struggling
for the light, expressed in the torches, through those conflicts that so
pitifully came out of the aspirations of the soul, expressed in
religion. The lowest group showed humanity in its elemental condition,
related to the animal, close to the beasts. So, to be followed in
sequence, the groups ought to be studied from the lowest to the highest,
and then the eyes should be able to catch the meaning of the lovely
ornamentation, crowning the tower, the petals of the lily, emblem of
spirituality, the arrow-like spires above expressing the aspirations of
the soul.
On the sides of the tower the symbolism was consistently maintained, war
and religion marking the progress of man toward the state indicated by
the single figure of The Thinker.
"And, speaking of the soul," the architect went on, "Observe these great
clusters of lights that illuminate this court and the approach on the
other side of the tower. They look like stars, don't they? And the
intention evidently is to use them for their star-like character. But
there is history behind them. They are like the monstrance used in the
Catholic Church, to hold the sacred host, the wafer that is accepted by
the faithful as the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Since the sixteenth
century it has been used by the church, a beautiful emblem, made of gold
and designed to suggest the prayer of the sun, the Spirit of God in
radiance. Its use here helps to give the court its ecclesiastical
character."
As we made our way toward the Marina we noted how much the court gained
by its general freedom from color. In the colonnade, to be sure, Guerin
had been particularly successful with the shade of blue. But he would
have done better if he had omitted the color, in fact all color, from
the niches in the tower.
Viewed from the Marina, the entrance to the court proved to be a vision
of loveliness. There was only one intrusive note to jar the harmony, the
coarse sea figure by Sherry Fry, presumably Neptune's, Daughter,
standing in the center, with a great fish at her feet, plainly out of
place here, in spite of the court's celebration of the sea as the source
of human life.