Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-01-21
NO TALL BUILDINGS WANTED.
Berlin Authorities Forbid Construction
of Skvscrapers.

The German government will not consider
any American idea as to the construction OF
buildings in her cities and only recently re-
fused petition from the Central Associa-
ton of German Industrials, which asked
that the present building laws be so far re-
Taxed as to allow steel framed buildings OF
more than twenty-five meters (72.1S feet
in height to be erected Mr.. Frank H
Mason, United States consul general at
Berlin, Germany, in sending this report to
the State Department says that the minis
tries are opposed to any system of building
which will lead to an increase in the num-
Der of large buildings divided into a great
number of small apartments or tenements,
which are leased to families of working
people, with the result that a great number
of persons of both sexes and all ages are
huddled together under conditions which
are necessarily SubVerSlVe of normal family
life and prejudical to public morals.
Buildings so high as to be beyond the
level of the present water supply could not
be made clean and sanitary.
Any important increase in height beyond
the present limit would put the upper
stories of the buildings beyond the protec-
ton of the fire department as al present
equipped and organized. Whatever might
be the ma terial interests involved saws Mr.
Mason, the ministries held themselves
bound to consider and protect not only the
architectural unity and beauty of the city,
but the health and the moral and physical
safety of the people, all of which would, in
their opinion, be compromised by the pro-
posed innovation.
with this result" says Mr. Mason "thc
authors of the petition by no means
satisfied and have replied that they had not
proposed to carry buildings in Berlin to the
excessive heights which are common in the
United States, and that had the desired per-
mission been granted, it would have been
provided by careful and competent engi-
neering that all the requirements of fire
protection, water supply and every sanitary
necessity should be carefully and complete
ly met. Moreover, in regard to resistance
to confiagratton, at Baltimore high steel
framed buildings, which offer least food for
a fire, fully indicated their superior safety
and We're left standing like monuments
amid the wide waste of the ruins of four
and five story blocks built of stone and
brick in the ordinary way.
THUS the discussion stands at nresent
and it does not appear likely that the min
istries, fortified as they are by considera-
tons of municipal beauty and public health
and safety, will recede from their present
position. 1t is difficult to persuade Ger
man conservatism, In so important a mat
ter as the architectural construction of
cities, with arguments drawn from expert
ence in a country which like our own has
paid during the past twenty-five years an
average annual tribute of S125 900 600 tc
the scourge of fire, and which for the losses
of the current year 1904 must pay nearly OF
quite double that sum. However little OF
our annual holocaust the 'skyscraper' NAV
be responsible for, the fact that it is dis.
tinctfvely American type of construction
will not recommend it to European munich.
palities.'