The times., 1898-11-20
The New POstomce.

1
architectural excellence in its public
| buildings. The city is designed for the
best possible display of beautiful and
| impressive structures and the American
people, whose money pays for them.
| have a right to edifices of which they
can be proud. which will compare fa-
| vorably with any the capitals of Eu-
| rope can produce. and which will serve
as models and a means of art education
for the various communities of the
country Yet if the distinct purpose
We're to set up monstrous examples of
bad taste, awful warnings and proofs
of the extremity to which malignant
ignorance can go, a more effective sys-
tenn than that now in force and against
which American architects have pro-
tested for years, could not be devised.
Its crowning achievement. very chef
d'ouvre, is the new postofiice building
in d Street, which will soon engulf in
its fearful embrace the general and city
postoffices.
All intelligent visitors, and especially
competent architects, invariably inquire
on behoiding with starting eyeballs this
amazing pile. why Washington has her
jail in SO commanding a situation. The
first impression is that il is new moral
/! treatment for crime-the erection of
prison so horrible in its violation of
| every canon of art as TO reform the most
hardened criminal in order to escape
confinement within its walls. 1t is in
| conceivable to any rational mind that
& /. 10
| uses, but as place for the distribution
of intelligence in the form of letters and
papers. it should be made to front on
side street instead of the Avenue This
| however, is in harmony with its COM
bined architectural features, and
the only point on which there is har-
| mony. There is plausible suggestion
that ii is designed to demonstrate the
appalling consequences of the present
policy of allowing the supervising ar
chitect of the Treasury to impose
what plans he will on the public and
the necessity of having the matter open
to the competition of the architects of
America A more probable explanation
| is that the clerks. office boys and other
employees of the bureau, each made
plan. and this is the result of a COM
posite photograph of all.
This explanation is supported by the
obtrusive fact that the shocking, un-
gainly pile presents irreconcilable fea-
lures of every known style and of some
hitherto undiscovered, thus violating
the fundamental principles of the art
There are towers, battlements, donjons,
Arabesques and other fanciful adorn-
ments until now reserved for exclusive
use on churches, mosques, and other
ecclesiastical structures; arches pecu-
liar 10 prisons, oriental tombs and tow
ers that are avoided like pestilence by
| architects even in their most frenz.ed
pursuit of novelty for public buildings.
1t is the depressing effect of the mon
strous, amorphous whole that gives the
| first impression of a gloomy Bastile.
but the feeling is strengthened by the
melancholy darkness that backs the
sullen arches of the entrance That its
incongruous tower should have a clock
on which the hours cannot be read. is
a matter of course, and it is well. 1t
is impossible that any clock should be
|
| inaccurate aggregation of forbidden
| styles.
In the course of the long years in
which this building has been threat
ening the community, every day
adding a new terror, some ray of
light should have penetrated the
understanding of somebody in au-
| thority. The architect was hope
| less from the first or he could never
have attempted to perpetuate his dys-
peptic nightmare in stone: but the
| deadly work has gone on without revolt
except on the part of helpless citizens.
There is only one redeeming feature
that the materials used in its construc-
| ton have been the worst the market
| affords. To the natural cupidity of the
contractors was added the reasonable
idea that good materials would be out
of place in such a product of architec-
tural ignorance or spite. By comparison,
the Pension Building loses its eminence
as the ugliest building on the continent.