Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-04
READY FOR THE BALL
Pension Office a Bower OF
Great Beauty.
FINISHING TOUCHES
ELABORATE SCHEME OF DEcoRA-
TON NEVER EXCELLED. -
Palms and Towering Plants by the
Thousand--Hows to Get Into
-.t .i+!lifi 10 fJJ ffff .34s-.1.4fst , ?; 10
s1,H the Structure. r-rg F.

The decorations for the great ball at the
pension office tonight are complete save
for scores of workmen busily engaged
placing the last and most Derishahle of
the Towering plants in position. Tonight
President Roosevelt will for the first time
have chance to view from the rose
EMPOWERED box at the east end of the
great hall the result of a weeks labor
by the best artists in the country, q tri-
umph of genius and beautiful effects that
will make the inaugural bah of 1903 mem
orable in the history of presidential in
augurations.
The hall must be viewed as whole Cor
a full appreciation Of the effect that has
been aimed at and achieved for, beautiful
as are the individual decorations they are
all but a part of the general plan that
can be best described as a Venetian gar
den under the blue, arching sky of the
tropics and flooded with a mild yet re-
sistless radiance that even tropic moor-
light is pOWerlesS to equal.
Perhaps the best view of the whole han
is to be had from the floor below and in
front of the Presidents box Washing
tonians are familiar with the interior ar
rangement of the great pension office court.
Therefore. it will be necessary only to
explain how the architectural features of
the building have been made to lend them
selves to the open-air garden effect that
has been produced The greet pillars in
the center of the floor arise from forests
of palms and smaller towering plants so
that each in itself is a work of art com
bining color and fragrance with cool
greenery. Each is almost like great CoSin.
THAN column with the capital droo BED
down collar-wise from the top to the base,
but touched from the cold regularity of
marble into the vivid living green of actual
foliage.
Around the walls the smaller columns
supporting the first balcony are the main
subjects of decoration The columns them
hay erp1l ,i,,,t
ivory background
In the arch between each column on the
ground floor swings a ball of flowers and
foliage plants illuminated from within bv
tiny incandescent lights. Each ball is
linked to the adjacent columns by floral
garlands and the spring of each arch from
the top of the columns is filled with roses
and foliage plants. Thus down each of tho
long sides of the court there is solid bank
of green and gold, mingled with half-hid-
den lights and dashes of color against an
old ivory backgrour d. Above the ground
floor arches and between them and the bal
cony on the second floor runs the main line
Of Illumination, a double row of electric
globes partly screened by the foliage and
yet illuminating the floor and making a
solid path of light down each side of the
hall, focusing ct one end on the great &C.
tagonal band stand, itself a work Of beauty.
set in palms and Towering plants and at
the other end leading up in two bands of
brilliant I'ght to the Pres dents box, massed
in American Beauty roses.
Base of Green and Bloom.
Thus one has an idea of an almost solid
base of green and bloom. topped with a
ripping path of light and serving as a
basis for the higher and lighter lines of
decoration. FroEn this base rise the lighter
columns of the first balcony outlined
against vivid red background and above
these is the second balcony topped with
white sculptured columns backed by green
yew trees. and beyond and above these
still the remoter walls and roof of the
lofty court arched in with blue the tint of
evening sky. and lighted from above and
below so to give almost the impression
of a brilliant garden open to the real
heavens. Such in brief is the impression
given by general glance at the arrange
ment of the hall, lower bank of flowers
crowned with shimmering light, and above
it successive reaches of color. each more
airy than the line below, and ending in the
blue vault of the sky itself
The first balcony is in itself a work of
art. The railing is hidden in a wall of
green pine branches, above which each
column springs from a base of palms and
ferns The spring of each arch is treated
somewhat as on the ground floor with a
cluster of incandescent lights dimmed by
foliage and flowers. But inside the balcony
is the main effect, which serves as a foil for
everything else on that floor The ceiling
and a deep frieze against the inner wall is
hung with brilliant red, behind which are
hidden lights illuminating the whole and
bringing the outer columns and their deco
rations into sharp relief.
The Upper Tiers.
Rising above the main balcony comes the
second, forming the third tier Of the great