Show I MODERN i r i tJt S JhTh TfcYTSYTrr FAIR ARCHITECTS Richnnl Vatson Gilder Tlirorrs the Weight of His Influence in Favor or sv Firm of Women Architects Who Inc Made IMsms For Five Million Dollars Worth oC cnc mont Buildings Architecture is a paying profession Usurped by men in which the world thinks the gentler sex would succeed However members of the feminine gender seem to think otherwise for they are loth to adopt its chances Who could plan a commodious dwelling dwell-ing house better than a woman Who should know the conveniences of pantry pan-try stairways closets etc more thoroughly than the one whose knowledge knowl-edge has to keep the establishment in running order Who more efficiently than a housewife should plan the I essentials of good housewifery That IIiIj MISS ANON in the present time a man does more competently comprehend these things is due to training more than inheritance inheri-tance or intuition The difficulty has been that until the last two years little inducement in the way of practical training has been offered of-fered for girls The advantages for architectural perfection have all been given to the men Even the opening of such a department at the School of Applied Design was a supply to create a demand and the small class of five women who joined were persuaded into it Men who had so long dominated the profession laughed at the feminine spurt as they termed it Their experience ex-perience went to show that women designed de-signed beautiful buildings that were not in the least practicable Therefore There-fore when the class opened the architects archi-tects who were elected as tutors said that the girls would be given the benefit bene-fit of practical work Now the men are looking with some degree of admiration upon the work already accomplished by these very women Miss Hands and Miss Gan non who have an office in New York are trying to bring themselves more quickly into prominence by solving the tenementhouse problem Mr Richard Watson Gilder of The Century has taken both young women with him on investigating tours through the slum districts Iliss Hands and Miss Gan non have talked to tenementhouse keepers and secured their views on necessary improvements They have also taken counsel with the College MISS HANDS Settlement women who after long battling are bamiliar with the grossest defects of the present tenementhouse system Through each garnered experience ex-perience Ihis feminine firm of architects archi-tects hopes to erect a tenement 25x100 leet where families can be healthfully loused When I saw them yesterday they were elated over their work Their newly completed plans give light air and separation for every family is fireproof and inexpensive Could any man do better than that they queried quer-ied If these two young girlsfor they are only 18 and 20 yearsof agehave their designs accepted it will mean an order for 5000000 investment of money in tenements which of course will secure their future It will also prove that women have succeeded in still another art and industry This will not be the first approved work of these clever girls The Florence Flor-ence sanitarium in San Francisco is of their planning Twa dwelling houses in ML Vernon two more in Staten island one at Jamaica L I and the Rockaway Hunt club have been finished fin-ished while three < churches and a California Cali-fornia millionaires home await their plans for construction This record > i 1 ii I seems sufficiently bright to encourage other women in studying architecture as a profession Miss Mercer of Pennsylvania is another an-other promising young architect The splendid womans building at the coming com-ing Interstate exposition in Atlanta Ga will bear testimony to her talent Miss Belden and Miss Hayden are reckoned among a few others whose successes seem to prophesy a golden future As a measure of equality theses these-s n aspirants have gained the notice of their haughty brethren by each having been invitedl to join the Sketch clubof New York and enter the com petition at the Beaux Arts in Paris The cost of a cours of study in architecture is small Two seasons at 5oO each complete the work with six months in elementary drawing Then it is wiser to into go an architects of lice for a year of work to gain actual experience that the hospital gives for a student JOCELYN DAVIES |