construction-lines giving an extreme length of 700 feet and an extreme width of 350, and he has found it convenient, for reasons hereafter to be explained, to establish 211⁄2 feet as a general module of dimension in laying out his construction. The general scheme of an interior the greater part of which is to be occupied by masses of classified ores, by heavy mining appliances of all kinds, and other bulky exhibits requiring large space and considerable clear height, should provide for a wide, central, open area as little encumbered by columns as possible. Thus the preliminary consideration of this problem seemed to point directly to a study of construction. The roofing of large usage, lends dignity to modern inscriptions, for the Mining Building is included within and, by tradition, embalms the liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church. For reasons equally obvious, the other buildings, which are mainly in charge of the local architects, and which are to be placed in a region where natural conditions are intended to prevail, might receive a development much less restricted in regard to style, and, by following more romantic lines, might be more happily adjusted to their surroundings. These surroundings invite picturesqueness, freedom-qualities peculiarly grateful to American genius, which is naturally impatient of authority and discipline. But we think it will be seen that the architects of Chicago have known how to express these qualities without that license which unhappily is also American; yet with an exuberance, or even joyousness, entirely consistent with refinement of feeling, and in every way appropriate to an occasion of high national festival. Because of its intermediate position, the Electricity Building may perhaps be considered, in some respects, a transition between these two extremes of architec tural thought. At all events, in its sister building, that of Mines and Mining, which occupies a site next west of the Electricity Building, lies parallel with it, and is of nearly the same dimensions, the architect, Mr. S. S. Beman of Chicago, has made a frank departure from the pureclassic tradition, exhibiting an adaptation of form to use, of means to ends, in entire conformity with the practical spirit, without caprice, and without sacrifice of any essential quality of art. The contrast between these two buildings clearly illustrates how even the conventional forms of architecture may be so handled as to express a fundamental difference of sentiment, corresponding to the difference of occupation. Mr. Beman's plan DRAWN BY H. G. RIPLEY. SOUTH PORCH OF MINES BUILDING. spaces under similar conditions for the Pullman Company had prepared Mr. Beman to apply a valuable practical experience to the conditions here presented, the result of which was that he was enabled to roof in an area 230 feet wide by 580 feet long (60 feet inside his boundaries all around) by the use of a very light and elegant system of cantaliver trusses, supporting a longitudinal central louver with clearstory lights, and bearing upon two rows of steel columns, spaced lengthwise 642 feet on centers (or three of the modules above noted), and, transversely, 115 feet; the outer ends of these cantalivers being anchored to two corresponding rows of columns 57% feet outside of the inner rows. It would be difficult to devise a simpler, a more economical, or a more effective distribution of constructive features. The extreme height of this shed-roof is 94 feet in the center and 44 feet at the bottom of the slope. The main practical object of the building being thus happily attained, it remained for the architect to surround this center shed or nave with a system of two-storied aisles 60 feet wide, covered with a continuous louvered roof provided with clearstories for light. The conjunction of roof-slopes, where the aisles and the central nave are joined, creates a valley from which the water can be conducted in spouts carried down with the outer line of main columns. Nothing could be more workmanlike and more practical than this whole arrangement. However much or however little of decorative character may be permitted on the envelop or inclosure of a building of this sort, it cannot be elevated into the domain of architecture unless this inclosure is developed rationally from the essential conditions of structure behind it, and is in some way made expressive of its uses. Moreover, in the present case it is essential that it should be brought, as a whole, into the great architectural family of which it is to form a part, by any concession or adjustment that may be found most convenient. At the outset it would seem that the uses of the building, the comparatively coarse and rough character of the exhibit within, require a massive treatment of the exterior, and that the architectural language employed should in general be such as to express this idea, as it is capable of expressing every STATUE OF "GODDESS OF FORTUNE." sentiment, however various, desirable to be conveyed in building as a fine art. It naturally follows that the unusual distribution of the interior supports of the roof structure, 6412 feet on centers, should be expressed in the architectural scheme of the exterior on the sides by a corresponding distribution of piers, and that these piers should be made massive, as if constructed with heavy rusticated masonry laid up in marked horizontal courses. In order to give additional emphasis to these expressive buttresses of strength, the whole entablature or cornice of the building is broken around them, and they are surmounted by decorated pedestals or so cles supporting banner-staffs. Considerations of proportion give to these piers a width of 10 feet. It also follows logically that the wide bays between these great piers are divided into three segmentally arched divisions of one module each, corresponding to the spacing of the minor supports of the gallery floor; which, in its turn, compels the establishment of a horizontal paneled division in each of these arched divisions, thus forming the first- and second-story windowopenings needed for the proper illumination of the building. In all their divisions and subdivisions, therefore, these bays are developed from the structure by growth, and not forced upon it by caprice. The necessity of bringing the north and south ends of the design into a common scale of height with the court buildings, at the points where comparison is challenged between them, suggests the raising of the main cornice here to a level 11 feet higher than that established on the long fronts by structural conditions. These ends are thus converted into distinct façades of seven great bays, the two corner bays and the central bay in each becoming marked as pavilions, the former being 60 feet wide, to correspond with the width of the inclosing galleries behind them, and the latter, which, from considerations of proportion, grows into a width of 80 feet, becoming the main portal of the building. In all cases the massive and buttress-like character of the piers is insisted on, and, in order to preserve the unity of the design, each constitutes the pedestal of a bannerstaff, thus conferring the conventional holiday aspect on a sky-line which might otherwise appear too serious and severe for association with the other buildings of the group. The larger scale of the north and south fronts and their more monumental character have suggested the occupation of each of these seven bays by a great arch, those on the corner pavilions being closed with windows, and the intermediate arches being open with a two-storied loggia behind; but in the central bay the idea of the portal compels the raising of its cornice, the crowning of it with a highly decorated frontispiece in pedimental form, and a marked increase in width, height, and depth of the arch, which is not divided by the loggia of the second story. The superior height and development of this feature also seems to mask the glazed gable-end of the great roof of the central hall; which, however, may be seen in perspective 60 feet behind the line of frontage. The corner bays are furnished with visible low domical roofs supporting circular lanterns. In order to obtain a necessary amalgamation between the monumental masses which form the ends of the building and the long inferior curtain-wall with its nine bays on the east and west sides, it is found necessary in the central bay of these sides to establish a proportionate distribution of masses by repeating in it the motive of the corner bays with their higher entablature, and by crowning it with a pediment, treating the archway as a subordinate entrance or exit in the middle of the long fronts. Mr. Beman has not attempted to follow the historical styles with precision. Indeed, the logical development of his façades has necessarily conferred upon them a proper modern character. We, however, may see here the influence of the example of the great modillion cornices of the Italian palaces of the sixteenth century, and much other Italian detail of the best eras, mingled with some of the elegant license of the modern Renaissance of France; and in the treatment of the balconies of his loggia, and of the Doric order which upholds them, we may discover a return to the Rome of the Cæsars. The sculpturesque modeling of this building was executed in the ateliers of the Phillipson Decorative Company of Chicago. THE CHATELAINE OF LA TRINITÉ.1 BY HENRY B. FULLER. Author of "The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani." AURELIA WEST, on witnessing the departure of her Italian acquaintance from Flüelen, by the grandest of all the routes leading down into his own native country, had supposed herself irretrievably devoted to the Teutonic side of the Alps, and reasonably beyond the reach and influence of any other land or race. Had she not just passed within a few hundred yards of the Rütli, still flourishing greenly with the memories of mountain freedom? Was she not now within a mile or two of the birthplace of the liberator and hero of the land? Had she not beheld within the last hour the monumental rock commemorating at once the hero and his poet? Was she not now surrounded on every hand by scenery the noble grandeur of which might well match and offset even such name and fame? Aye, truly. How pitiful, then, that a wall dingily stuccoed and rudely lettered with the simple word albergo should so put the unthrift and melody of Italy before her as to wipe out completely the glorious Vierwaldstätter See, and make all Switzerland as but a thing that was not! How deplorable that the good-natured clamor of a company of untidy, uncoated young fellows playing tenpins with the ordinary sprinkling of sei and sette and otto, and no more than the usual allowance of adesso and allora, should have been equal to the canceling of the lines on Tell's own pedestal, and even able to obliterate the lofty inscription on the Mythenstein itself! To think that Schiller and William Tell, and Altdorf and the Axenstrasse and the Frohnalpstock, and other Teutonicalities innumerable, should have been bowled over and sent flying helter-skelter by the hand of an ignorant, unwashed Italian peasant! To think that one who had but to pick and choose among the multiplied magnificences of all Helvetia should, even for a single moment, experience an unreasoning impulse to forego Leman and Lucerne, Pilatus and the Jungfrau, the Tête Noire and the Gemmi, the Oberland and the Dolomites, in order to plunge headlong across the St. Gothard and make one's instant way to Como and Venice and Rome! But such is Italy. VOL. XLIV.-72. 549 |