The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-15
AN ART SCHOOL
 OF ARCHITECTS
PRINCIPLE OF APPLIED nv TRAIN ARCHTECTS-wHY SOMETHING oF

| Boston, September 10, 1So4-In the
 upper rooms of one of the laboratory
 buildings belonging to the Massachu-
 setts Institute of Technology, there is
 an art school, little known to the average American who is interested in
 things artistic and yet in some respects
 more nearly resembling the world-fa-
 nous Beaux Arts of Paris than any
 other such school on this side of the
 water. Still more curious, It's purpose
 is not to produce artists but to finish
 architects. The school makes no de-
 mand upon its students for the pos
 session of the so-called artistic tenn perament," but its Beaux Arts atmos- phere Is due to the serious purpose of | these architect artists and to the fact
 that they are under he supervision of instructors trained In the Beaux Arts spirit and methods. The work of the
 school Is done partly in the Technology
 studio and partly in the galleries of the neighboring Boston Museum of Fine Arts where many of the architectural casts belonging to the Institute have
 been deposited for the benefit of tour ists and other visitors to the museum as well as for the equally cosmopolitan group of students who spend their hours busily making charcoal studies of them.
 The existence Of this Tech art school, as 1t is unoffcially called, is an interesting illustration of the meaning of architecture as 1t is nowadays studied in the modern schools of technology. It is rather a new meaning on this side of the water. although, if one goes far enough back in the history of art one finds that many an important artist has
 been an architect also. The best archi- lecture has In fact always been based upon a study of the principles of sculp- ture and drawing. But in the earlier development of our own cities archi- lecture. as such. was very little consid- cred and there was small demand for anything more decorative than the work of an honest builder whose train ing was limited to the ability to con struct houses that should stand square ly and protect their owners from the Iinclemencies of the seasons. For q long time. with few exceptions our best examples of good architecture. as distinguished from the merely utilitar- ian went straight back to the colonial period when the use of simple materials simply put together produced the sev- eral distinct types of colonial houses that are now being so frequently imi- tated by modern home builders. And this same simplicity marked our public buildings. the more complicated of which were planned by architects who had had the benefit of a European training. Large and imposing struct- ures. upon which great sums of money must be expended, are a thoroughly modern development In American life,
 as are also the schools In which young
 men may learn to be architects. in the
 best sense of the word, without the ex- i pensive necessity of taking a passage for Europe
 That the architect must have the
 ability, if not the temperament. of the
 painter or sculptor seems at first glance
 rather an unnecessary requirement. As
 matter of fact however. the relation
 between them Is direct and simple.
 The architect must be an artist because
 a high degree of drawing is inseparable
 from the production of an architects
 plan of any important modern building
 and because with such a building sculp-
 tural decorations are an inevitable
 necessity. The successful architect of
 today must not only plan his building,
 and that with due regard to the science Iof ventilation and situation. but he