Show ugliness to practical helpful beauty in our sur soundings roun dings our big cities which have the hardest problems of and inconvenience which usually go hand in hand are employing commissions of learned experts to tell them what they should and can do the smaller atles are follow ing suit with local art commissions and sometimes they send tor an expert the towns and all lages have local improvement associations and art cul ture clubs and they are all working in the same diorec tion all thia fuss about our town being not good eno gh asks the hard beaded business man who prides himself on his scorn for all this art tol derol de rol it was good enough for my folks before me and it s good enough lor me I 1 m making money ain t we all pretty pros berous yes but answers the culture club look at our rival down the line its got a new a beauty it s on a with trees around it and the new town ball opposite opi osite and a fine new hotel and three new stores a coming in on the square the farmers are saeng that we haven t any attractions over here and they aie going over there to do their buying I 1 wondered why that man jenkins haan hadn t been in wlad an order for three weeks growls the hard headed business man and scratches his head to aid in the laffon of ohp new idea and ao a new convert Is made to the belief that good lootus pay whether it is the good looks of the stock or of the lackage and label or of the seller or the store the building the street or the town A pleasant view gives pleasure just as surely as does a pleasant face whether the view be of canned goods or dress goods or factories or mountains and the tact must be admitted that with the american people as a whole looks have been considered less in the than almost anything else so true Is this that we even forgot what we did once know about beauty about building farmhouses that were pleasant and attractive and public buildings that were dignified and really hand some ate may have thought we did but now we are being taught how little we really understood our forefathers knew though and they set us an ex ample the excellence of wh ch we are just beginning to appreciate the founders of the republic the men of washington s time brought with them horn the old world fine aradi uon of the beautiful and an inherited instinct tor the value of simplicity they built aises still stand ing in many little towns in the old south and of new england that later generations despised but which to day have become the models for much of our best new architecture these old courthouses set in the midst of fine old trees are genuinely beautiful but it has taken us a hundred years to find it out and profit by it because we lost the traditions of the forefathers and dian didn t haqq time to go back to the old world for a new stock so we built queer ungainly things that fit and now we are finding out what Is atie matter with us that foreigners should laigh at our buildings and go 1 ome and call us barbarians the ame is true of the homes all through the and bew england the traveler finds charming old resi d e n s built from 60 to years ago he sa s they are I 1 specimens of pure old colonial architecture the one style that as really american we may agree they are pleasing we don t perhaps know why but we think it is just be caise they are old it has never occurred to us that they were not far interior to our modern turreted and other vise highly embellished residences with the corners all sl ced off and bay windows bulging from every van tage point perhaps we liked to look at the old house best as it shone white and stately through the trees but we supposed it was just a little remnant of sentiment and as such of course not to be encouraged but the fact remains that bas taken the american people nearly a hundred years to grow up to the point where they could intelligently appreciate the architect archi tec tural worth of their own inheritance the awakening is not et complete but we are learning very fast in deed an interesting example of bow we are returning to the standard our forefathers set and are doing what we can to preserve the fine traditions that were theirs Is the annapolis annapolis where the united states naval academy is is an old colonial town almost every building Is in that style two or three years ago con gress made an appropriation for a new there the matter was referred to the office of the supervising architect of the treasur which designs and builds all uncle sam s mail depots isow the supervising architect mr john knox taylor happens to be a man of discernment culture and good taste he soon saw that the only kind of a postoffice post office that would be harmonious pleasing and creditable among all those colonial houses would be one of the colonial ste at first annapolis was inclined to be disappointed we are tl ed of colonial they said why can t you give us something up to date in queen annea so mr taylor explained and discussed and went on with his colonial plans and built the charming post office a photograph of which is shown on this page quite recently a government official who was interest ed in the work of the supervising architects office and heard that was a new postoffice post office in annapolis re to washington from a visit there he at once hunted up mi laylor and in a grieved tone remarked say taylor I 1 thought you had just put up a new postoffice post office in annapolis I 1 find it we have said mr taylor and it Is naming the locality nonsense answered the official I 1 searched that neighborhood thoroughly tor one whole hour and take my oath there is not a building in it less than 5 years old D d you notice thata said the architect pointing to a photograph on the wall of his office certainly that was one of them was the answer mr taylor laughed tl at is the highest compliment I 1 have received in the ten years I 1 1 ave been in this office he said and now annapole s which by the way baa become more than reconciled to its colonial postoffice post office since it has heard the enthusiastic comments of its many aromi t ir yent visitors la to have an 10 OF THE franc rt ityl EXTRA var OF ana unsuited El example of the other thing TO recently congress ampro prated 14 for a new naval academy with this under the governments un systematic and ridiculous way of looking after its build ing operations the supervising architect had nothing to do it was therefore perhaps natural that the winning designs passed on by laymen evidently lacking in either discernment or tate should be for buildings altogether un american in style and entirely incongruous with either the purpose for which they are intended the char acter of the town and location or the traditions of the country the new naval academy is in the frer ch style very fine of its kind and done by an architect of note and trench training but it has the one fatal fault of being wholly uns bitable and suitability is the farst principle of good architecture just as it is the first prin ciple of a successful career or almost anything else in life this case of the annapolis naval academy is being much cited these days as a typical and flagrant example of what president roosevelt sought to prevent when he appointed the much discussed council of fine arts and gave it power over all executive building and park opera eions recently he incurred the wrath of congress by doing it for congress is as jealous as a spoiled child in the matter of its petty powers but he also voiced the sentiment of a vast majority of the people for it Is very evident that there has been a great popular awaken ing to the value of the art side of life and to the pressing need for federal ipford and the establishment of stand ards and methods that will help the individual comm i cities to help themselves so great in fact Is the sent ment that both the house and senate are being forced to consider bills intended to do by law what the president did by executive order turn the supervising architect s of fice of the treasury into a bureau of fine arts with super vision over the buildings and parks of all departments and add an advisory council composed comp obed of leading archi sects painters and sculptors it is even possible that congress will be forced by the public dernai d to pass such a measure tho agh there Is little do abt that they will avoid doing so it they can at least until after Pre silent roosevelt goes out of office which means till the next session instances of the need of such a bureau are especially numerous nume ious at the seat of the national government in and here again the wisdom of tore fathers ia apparent those buildings that were built in the early part of the last century are in the main dig monuments to the sincerity the intelligence and the good fast of that time more than that they were placed according acco iding to a definite and all embracing group plan that of maj I 1 enfant which has not been improved upon to this dav in later years not only was this great an 1 noble plan lost s of entirely but such architect archi tec tural and mon monstrosities were produced tor the uses of the government or the honor of national heroes as will be one of the great american jokes for generations to come Is reason to fear that the danger inders Is not past for congress is not inclined to be dictated to it swallowed the burton idea measure making expel t advice on contemplated rivers and bar bors compulsory but it did so with a wry face however the president s council of fine arts Is an accomplished fact and tor several years we have been getting beautiful ces at the rate of a hundred or more a year the new department buildings are also so far ahead of what has gone before and with all this growing sentiment and the widespread educational move ment working towards more beautiful surroundings tor the next generation hope begins that we will not only have beautiful architecture but architecture distinctly american in tl Is regard a study of the new icea the new department buildings at washington and most of the best new monumental buildings in the larger cities shows that architects have gone back for their models to the original so irce of the colonial to what Is known as the classic style in old greece and rome are found the simplest and most majestic monumental buildings evet erected they are the purest source of architectural jn that man has their spirit too Is in a large measure the spirit of our democracy dignity and strength with simplicity and it seems to have been some such idea as this that created the colonial style without forgetting the beauty and inspiration of our colonial architecture uie we have at last found time to go back to the old world to renew our nearly lost traditions the result Is a widespread revival of the classic style modified to suit changed conditions and a new and dis nationality but so fundamentally true to the amer lean spirit that we may feel at least that we are on the road to an expression of ourselves that will picture us truly to posterity |