OCR Text |
Show 1 Sarcastic Comments of Architectural Archi-tectural Critic Who Visited Salt Lake City. PREPOSTEROUS STRUCTURE REPRESENTS EMPTINESS Tabernacle, Assembly and Other Monuments Are Mediocre in Artistic Design. The Architectural Record, published in Now York, devotes many pages of its July number to a discussion of Salt Lake architecture Its preliminary remarks re-marks are devoted to tho Mormon buildings build-ings and monuments. The article is written by Franz K. Winkler, a staff representative of the magazine. Mr. Winkler discusses all tho architecture of Salt Lake and finds much to praiso and condemn, but of the Mormon edifices edi-fices he lias this to sa3: "One could expect nothing of the architectural beginnings of a town founded as Salt Lake was founded, by immigrants poor and ifmorant and of various as well as vague architectural traditions. But the fact that the migration mi-gration was organized and theocratic made a difference. .Toe Smith had projected pro-jected and parth' built a tomplo at Nauvoo on the Mississippi before the expulsion of his sect, which was solid and pretentious, and naturally it had no interest. And while the houses of the Mormon pioneers of Salt Lake were the cheapest and hastiest shelters that could be provided early efforts were made to give tho communal building ' of the theocrae as much impressive ; ness as possible. This was all of material ma-terial not at all of design. It was rather a mistake to pretend, as I believe be-lieve was, if not is pretended, that the design was 'revealed.' Because, un-fortunatel, un-fortunatel, it was the same kind of design that would have been revealed at that time, that time being near the nadir of American architecture, to any untutored country carpenter or stone ' mason in. the United States, who had never seen a respectable piece of architecture. archi-tecture. To any tutored eye, the pretense pre-tense of revelation is a 'give away.' It had been better to give the designing design-ing to some eminent Gentile practitioner, practition-er, even if he had executed it in a spirit of hilarity." Mr. Winkler "then quoted Rud3ard Kipling's opinion, written in 1389, ridiculing ridi-culing the Mormon edifices. Few Brains to the Temple. Continuing, he savs; "In truth, there have gone as few brains to the temple as io an3 edifice extant. Even tho rude religious beginnings of a savage sav-age tribe celebrating its. god give more evidence of design, show more definite defi-nite building purpose than this preposterous prepos-terous erection, so much the more preposterous pre-posterous on account of the advanced stage of mechanical art that goes with the barkwardness of its architecture, not backwardness, but mere emptiness. The other architectural occupants of Temple Square are not. so bad. For ono thing, the3 could not be worse. For another thing, thc3' do not show that waste which almost made Kipling weep, in making mere rubbish and nonsense non-sense of huge Dlocks of over-enduring granite. For a third, the3' have practical prac-tical ends to serve, and were planned and built accordingly. No edifico which is tho most straightforward adaptation which builder could conceive ol practical prac-tical means to practical means can be vulgar altogether. Now, the temple doubtless sorves practical ends, though what the- are no Gentile is permitted to know and not. all Mormons. But plaint they arr not the 'basis of design1 de-sign1 of the absurd child's pla3' of the architecture. The huge, massive, everlasting ridiculous was conceived, saving the mark, as a 'monument,' its practical uses being not oril3 incidents, but afterthoughts. Tabernacle Contribution. "There is said to be a big hall for auditorium concealed somewhere about the premises, but the secret of its whereabouts is well kept, Nothing about the exterior tends to give it away. Tiers of single cells, an 'office building.' is what ono would surmiso from tho outside. Now the Tnbernaclo is quite the opposite in the method of its construction. Ono need not go into it r did not to be assured that it is n luirrp niirlinnc.fi room nlannorl miH built straightforward' tor tho purpose pur-pose of enabling as maii3' persons as possible to hear and see. Here is a purpose to bedn with and for this ro-liot ro-liot much thanks. The groat turtle hack of tho roof proclaims the purpose from afnr. Ono may say that that architecturalh it is neither here nor there and not worth talking about. In sooth it is not. But how attractive the mere absence of pretonsion, the abdication of architecture, if 3011 will, after the violent negation of architecture architec-ture in its big neighbor. It is in tho same class with tho big auditorium at Ocean Grove, and with mau3 another like structure, which nobody would think of criticising architectural and about which the onlv question is whether wheth-er they do fulfill their practical purposes. pur-poses. Tabernacle Without Offense. "I am told that the Tabernacle fills its particular purposo ver3r well. It is without offense. The third of the edifices edi-fices in tho enclosure is not so good aa the second and could not be as bad as tho first. The 'assembly hall,' I think tho Mormons call it, though it looks more like an administrative building. build-ing. It was built, ono imnincs, in tho luto sixties or the early seventies, when the fashion was for the Victorian Gothic of which it is a deeply misunderstood misun-derstood example, and is tho' kind of thing with which the untutored 'architect, 'archi-tect, was in those days defiling the face of nature withal from tho Atlantic to the Mississippi. "Outside the Hacrcd enclosure are the other two Mormon monumonts 'The Eaglo Gate which gives access (does it not?) to the populous villngo which formerly held in ono-story cottages cot-tages the family, literal 'propaganda' of the much propagating prophet. It is not much worse looking at or talking talk-ing about. Ilore also one recalls various vari-ous monuments in older settlements, entrances en-trances to cemeteries and such, likq. which arc no better and not very widely wide-ly different. The Pioneer Monument. "And then there is the considerably later 'Monument to Brigham Young and the Pioneers,' who surely deserved n monument for their courage in sally-iu" sally-iu" out across the unknown and deso-lato deso-lato plains infested with hostile savages, sav-ages, whatever tfiey went out into tho wildcrnoss to see or found. And the monument itself shows a considerable advance upon its predecessors, being, in point of fact, both as to its architecture architec-ture and its sculptorB, the kind of mou-umont mou-umont which, if dedicated to the soldiers sol-diers aud sailors instoad of the pioneers, pio-neers, and planted in a town eastward of the Mississippi, instead of in a city a good thousand miles to tho westward of it, would at any time during tho eight aud ninth decades of the nineteenth nine-teenth century have been pointed to with pride by the local cicerone, and rocognized by his pilgrim client as a negotiable expression of tho prevailing tashfon." |