I do not mean the picturesque and gabled construction which on our own
country-side has been restored to prosperity, though not to efficiency,
by Americans travelling with money and motor-cars. I mean the
uncompromising grand hotel--Majestic, Palace, Métropole, Royal,
Splendide, Victoria, Belle Vue, Ritz, Savoy, Windsor, Continental, and
supereminently Grand--which was perhaps first invented and compiled in
Northumberland Avenue, and has now spread with its thousand windows and
balconies over the entire world. I mean the hotel which is invariably
referred to in daily newspapers as a “huge modern caravanserai.” This
hotel cannot be judged in a town. In a town, unless it possesses a
river-front or a sea-esplanade, the eye never gets higher than its
second storey, and as a spectacle the hotel resolves itself usually into
a row of shops (for the sale of uselessness), with a large square hole
in the middle manned by laced officials who die after a career devoted
exclusively to the opening and shutting of glazed double-doors.
To be fairly judged, the grand hotel must be seen alone on a landscape
as vast as itself. The best country in which to see it is therefore
Switzerland. True, the Riviera is regularly fringed with grand hotels
from Toulon to the other side of San Remo; but there they are so closely
packed as to interfere with each other’s impressiveness, and as a
rule they are at too low an altitude. In Switzerland they occur in all
conceivable and inconceivable situations. The official guide of the
Swiss Society of Hotel Keepers gives us photographs of over eight
hundred grand hotels, and it is by no means complete; in fact, some of
the grandest consider themselves too grand to be in it, pictorially.
Just as Germany is the land of pundits and aniline dyes, France of
revolutions, England of beautiful women, and Scotland of sixpences, so
is Switzerland the land of huge modern caravanserais.
You may put Snowdon on the top of Ben Nevis and climb up the height
of the total by the aid of railways, funiculars, racks and pinions,
diligences and sledges; and when nothing but your own feet will take you
any farther, you will see, in Switzerland, a grand hotel, magically and
incredibly raised aloft in the mountains; solitary--no town, no houses,
nothing but this hotel hemmed in on all sides by snowy crags, and made
impregnable by precipices and treacherous snow and ice. I always imagine
that at the next great re-drawing of the map of Europe, when the lesser
nationalities are to disappear, the Switzers will take armed refuge in
their farthest grand hotels, and there defy the mandates of the Concert.
For the hotel, no matter how remote it be, lacks nothing that is
mentioned in the dictionary of comfort. Beyond its walls your life is
not worth twelve hours’ purchase. You would not die of hunger, because
you would perish of cold. At best you might hit on some peasant’s
cottage in which the standards of existence had not changed for a
century. But once pass within the portals of the grand hotel, and you
become the spoiled darling of an intricate organisation that laughts
at mountains, avalanches, and frost. You are surrounded by luxuries
surpassing even the luxuries off ered by the huge modern caravanserais
of London. (For example, I believe that no London caravanserai was,
until quite lately, steam-heated throughout.) You have the temperature
of the South, or of the North, by turning a handle, and the light
of suns at midnight. You have the restaurants of Piccadilly and the
tea-rooms of St. James’s Street. You eat to the music of wild artistes
in red uniforms. You are amused by conjurers, bridge-drives, and
cotillons. You can read the periodical literature of the world while
reclining on upholstery from the most expensive houses in
Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. You have a post-office, a
telegraph-office, and a telephone; pianos, pianolas, and musical-boxes.
You go up to bed in a lift, and come down again to lunch in one. You
need only ring a bell, and a specially trained man in clothes more
glittering than yours will answer you softly in any language you please,
and do anything you want except carry you bodily.. . . And on the other
side of a pane of glass is the white peak, the virgin glacier, twenty
degrees of frost, starvation, death--and Nature as obdurate as she
was ten thousand years ago. Within the grand hotel civilisation is so
powerful that it governs the very colour of your necktie of an evening.
Without it, cut off from it, in those mountains you would be fighting
your fellows for existence according to the codes of primitive humanity.
Put your nose against the dark window, after dinner, while the band is
soothing your digestion with a waltz, and in the distance you may see a
greenish light. It is a star. And a little below it you may see a yellow
light glimmering. It is another grand hotel, by day generally invisible,
another eyrie _de luxe_.
You go home and calmly say that you have been staying at the Grand Hotel
Blank. But does it ever occur to you to wonder how it was all done?
Does it ever occur to you that orchestras, lampshades, fresh eggs,
fresh fish, vanilla ices, champagne, and cut flowers do not grow on
snow-wreathed crags? You have not been staying in a hotel, but in a
miracle of seven storeys. In the sub-basement lie the wines. In the
basement women are for ever washing linen and men for ever cooking. On
the ground-floor all is eating and drinking and rhythm. Then come
five storeys of slumber; and above that the attics where the tips are
divided.
In judging the hotel on the landscape, you must thus imaginatively
realise what it is and what it means.
*****
The eye needs to be trained before it can look seeingly at a grand hotel
and disengage its beauty from the mists and distortions which prejudice
has created. This age (like any other age, for the matter of that)
has so little confidence in itself that it cannot believe that it
has created anything beautiful. It is incapable of conceiving that an
insurance office may be beautiful. It is convinced, with the late Sir
William Harcourt, that New Scotland Yard is a monstrosity. It talks
of the cost, not of the beauty, of the Piccadilly Hotel. No doubt the
Romans, who were nevertheless a sound artistic race of the second rank,
talked of the cost (in slaves) of their aqueducts, and would have been
puzzled could they have seen us staring at the imperfect remains of the
said aqueducts as interesting works of art. The notion that a hotel,
even the most comfortable, is anything but a blot on the landscape,
has probably never yet occurred to a single one of the thousands of
dilettanti who wander restlessly over the face of Europe admiring
architecture and scenery. Hotels as visual objects are condemned
offhand, without leave to appeal, unheard, or rather unseen--I mean
really _unseen_.
For several weeks, once, I passed daily in the vicinity of a huge modern
caravanserai, which stood by itself on a mountain side in Switzerland;
and my attitude towards that hotel was as abusive and violent as
Ruskin’s towards railways. And then one evening, early, in the middle
dusk, I came across it unexpectedly, when I was not prepared for it: it
took me unawares and suddenly conquered me. I saw it in the mass,
rising in an immense, irregular rectangle out of a floor of snow and a
background of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What
I saw was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, as one organism
and entity. Only its eight floors were indicated by illuminated windows,
and behind those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense of
its lifts continually ascending and descending. The apparition was
impressive, poetic, almost overwhelming. It was of a piece with the
mountains. It had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It was indubitably and
movingly ground of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What I saw
was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, as one organism and
entity. Only its eight floors were indicated by illuminated windows, and
behind those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense of its lifts
continually ascending and descending. The apparition was impressive,
poetic, almost overwhelming. It was of a piece with the mountains. It
had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It was indubitably and movingly
beautiful. My eye had been opened; the training had been begun.
I expected, naturally, that the next morning I should see the hotel
again in its original ugliness. But no! My view of it had been
permanently altered. I had glimpsed the secret of the true manner of
seeing a grand hotel. A grand hotel must be seen grandiosely--that is to
say, it must be seen with a large sweep of the eye, and from a distance,
and while the eye is upon its form the brain must appreciate its moral
significance; for the one explains the other. You do not examine Mont
Blanc or an oil painting by Turner with a microscope, and you must
not look at a grand hotel as you would look at a marble fountain or a
miniature.
Since the crepuscular hour above described, I have learnt to observe
sympathetically the physiognomy of grand hotels, and I have discovered
a new source of æsthetic pleasure. I remember on a morning in autumn,
standing on a suspension bridge over the Dordogne and gazing at a feudal
castle perched on a pre-feudal crag. I could not decide whether the
feudal castle or the suspension bridge was the more romantic fact (for I
am so constituted as to see the phenomena of the nineteenth century
with the vision of the twenty-third), but the feudal castle, silhouetted
against the flank of a great hill that shimmered in the sunshine, had
an extraordinary beauty--moral as well as physical, possibly more moral
than physical. As architecture it could not compare with the Parthenon
or New Scotland Yard. But it was far from ugly, and it had an exquisite
rightness in the landscape. I understood that it had been put precisely
there because that was the unique place for it. And I understood
that its turrets and windows and roofs and walls had been constructed
precisely as they were constructed because a whole series of complicated
ends had to be attained which could have been attained in no other
way. Here was a simple result of an unaffected human activity which had
endeavoured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, while succeeding,
had succeeded also in producing a work of art that gave pleasure to a
mind entirely unfeudal. A feudal castle on a crag as impossible to
climb as to descend is, and always was, exotic, artificial, and
against nature--like every effort of man!--but it does, and always did,
contribute to the happiness of peoples.
Similarly I remember, on a morning in winter, standing on a wild
country, road, gazing at another castle perched on a pre-feudal crag.
But this castle was about fifteen times as big as the former one, and
the crag had its earthy foot in a lake about a mile below. The scale
of everything was terrifically larger. Still, the two castles, seen at
proportionate distances, bore a strange, disconcerting, resemblance the
one to the other. The architecture of the second, as of the first, would
not compare with the Parthenon or New Scotland Yard. But it was not
ugly. And assuredly it had an exquisite rightness in the landscape. I
understood, far better than in the former instance, that it had been put
precisely where it was, because no other spot would have been so suited
to its purposes; its geographical relation to the sun and the lake and
the mountains had been perfectly adjusted. I understood profoundly the
meaning of all those rows of windows and all those balconies facing the
south and southeast. I understood profoundly the intention of the great
glazed box at the base of the castle. I could read the words that the
wreath of smoke from behind the turreted roof was writing on the slate
of the sky, and those words were “_Chauffage central_” From the façades
I could construct the plan and arrangement of the interior of the
castle. I could instantly decide which of its two hundred chambers were
the costliest, and which would be the last to be occupied and the first
to be left. I could feel the valves of its heart rising and falling.
Here was the simple result of an unaffected human activity, which had
endeavoured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, while succeeding,
had succeeded also in giving pleasure to a mind representative of the
twenty-third century. A grand hotel on a crag as impossible to climb
as to descend is, and always will be, exotic, artificial, and against
nature--like every effort of man! Why should a man want to leave that
pancake, England, and reside for weeks at a time in dizzy altitudes
in order to stare at mountains and propel himself over snow and ice
by means of skis, skates, sledges, and other unnatural dodges? No one
knows. But the ultimate sequel, gathered up and symbolised in the grand
hotel, contributes to the happiness of peoples and gives joy to the eye
that is not afflicted with moral cataract.
And I am under no compulsion to confine myself to Switzerland. I do not
object to go to the other extreme and flit to the Sahara. Who that from
afar off in the Algerian desert has seen the white tower of the Royal
Hotel at Biskra, oasis of a hundred thousand palm-trees and twenty
grand hotels, will deny either its moral or its physical beauty in that
tremendously beautiful landscape?
Conceivably, the judgment against hotel architecture was fatally biassed
in its origin by the horrible libels pictured on hotel notepapers.
*****
In estimating the architecture of hotels, it must be borne in mind that
they constitute the sole genuine contribution made by the modern epoch
to the real history of architecture. The last previous contribution took
the shape of railway stations, which, until the erection of the Lyons
and the Orleans stations in Paris--about seventy years after the birth
of stations--were almost without exception desolate failures. It will
not be seriously argued, I suppose, that the first twenty years of grand
hotels have added as much ugliness to the world’s stock of ugliness
as the first twenty years of railway stations. If there exists a
grand hotel as direfully squalid as King’s Cross Station (palace of an
undertaking with a capital of over sixty millions sterling) I should
like to see it. Hotel architecture is the outcome of a new feature in
the activity of society, and this fact must be taken into account. When
a new grand hotel takes a page of a daily paper to announce itself as
the “last word” of hotels--what it means is, roughly, the “first word,”
as distinguished from inarticulate babbling.
Of course it is based on strictly utilitarian principles--and rightly.
Even when the grand hotel blossoms into rich ornamentation, the aim is
not beauty, but the attracting of clients. And the practical conditions,
the shackles of utility, in which the architecture of hotels has to
evolve, are extremely severe and galling. In the end this will probably
lead to a finer form of beauty than would otherwise have been achieved.
In the first place a grand hotel, especially when it is situated “on the
landscape,” can have only one authentic face, and to this face the
other three must be sacrificed. Already many hotels advertise that every
bedroom without exception looks south, or at any rate looks direct at
whatever prospect the visitors have come to look at. This means that
the hotel must have length without depth--that it must be a sort of vast
wall pierced with windows. Further, the democratic quality of the social
microcosm of a hotel necessitates an external monotony of detail.
In general, all the rooms on each floor must resemble each other,
possessing the same advantages. If one has a balcony, all must have
balconies. There must be no sacrificing of the amenities of a room here
and there to demands of variety or balance in the elevation. Again, the
hotel must be relatively lofty--not because of lack of space, but to
facilitate a complex service. The kitchens of Buckingham Palace may be
a quarter of a mile from the dining-room, and people will say, “How
wonderful!” But if a pot of tea had to be carried a quarter of a mile
in a grand hotel, from the kitchen to a bedroom, people would say, “How
absurd!” or, “How stewed!” The “layer” system of architecture is from
all points of view indispensable to the grand hotel, and its scenic
disadvantages must be met by the exercise of ingenuity. There are
other problems confronting the hotel architecture, such as the fitting
together of very large public rooms with very small private rooms, and
the obligation to minimise externally a whole vital department of the
hotel (the kitchens, etc.); and I conceive that these problems are
perhaps not the least exasperating.
From the utilitarian standpoint the architect of hotels has
unquestionably succeeded. The latest hotels are admirably planned; and
a good plan cannot result in an elevation entirely bad. One might say,
indeed, that a good plan implies an elevation good in, at any rate,
elementals. Save that bedrooms are seldom sound-proof, and that they are
nearly always too long for their breadth (the reason is obvious), not
much fault can be found with the practical features of the newest hotel
architecture. In essential matters hotel architecture is good. You may
dissolve in ecstasy before the façade of the Chateau de Chambord; but
it is certainly the whited sepulchre of sacrificed comfort, health, and
practicability. There also, but from a different and a less defensible
cause, and to a different and not a better end, the importance of the
main front rides roughly over numerous other considerations. In skilful
planning no architecture of any period equals ours; and ours is the
architecture of grand hotels.
The beholder, before abruptly condemning that uniformity of feature
which is the chief characteristic of the hotel on the landscape, must
reflect that this is the natural outer expression of the spirit
and needs of the hotel, and that it neither can be nor ought to be
disguised. It is of the very essence of the building. It may be very
slightly relieved by the employment of certain devices of grouping--as
some architects in the United States have shown--but it must remain
patent and paramount; and the ultimate beauty of more advanced styles
will undoubtedly spring from it and, in a minor degree, from the other
inner conditions to which I have referred. And even when the ultimate
beauty has been accomplished the same thing will come to pass as has
always come to pass in the gradual progress of schools of architecture.
The pendulum will swing too far, and the best critics of those future
days will point to the primitive erections of the early twentieth
century and affirm that there has been a decadence since then, and that
if the virtue of architecture is to be maintained inspiration must be
sought by returning to the first models, when men did not consciously
think of beauty, but produced beauty unawares!
It was ever thus.
The salvation of hotel architecture, up to this present, is that the
grand hotel on the landscape, in nineteen cases out of twenty, is
remuneratively occupied only during some three or four months in the
year. Which means that the annual interest on capital expenditure must
be earned in that brief period. Which in turn means that architects
have no money to squander on ornament in an age notorious for its bad
ornament. If the architect of the grand hotel were as little disturbed
by the question of dividends as Francis the First was in creating his
Chambord and other marvels, the consequences might have been offensive
even to the sympathetic eye.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the hotel architect may flatter himself that
he has suddenly given architecture to a country which had none. This
is a highly curious phenomenon. “Next door” to the grand hotel which
so surprised me in the twilight is another human habitation, fairly
representative of all the non-hotel architecture on the Swiss
countryside. It is quaint, and it would not hurt a fly. But surely
the grand hotel is man’s more fitting answer to the challenge of the
mountains?