The San Francisco call., 1906-06-21
PERMANENT ARCHITECTURE.

Many times the question has been asked, ''Will
this age OF steam and steel leave to the remote
future such evidences Of its existence and accom-
pshments as past ages have sent down to us in
The Pyramids. the Acropolis and the Colosseum y
The tooth OF time gnaws slowly. The climate OF
Egypt IS especially friendly to stone structures and
so we have the Pyramids and the Sphynx. and the
great monoliths and the hieroglyphic Inscriptions
remaining to this day in testimony of the arts
known to people whose mummies have lasted
like their monuments So, climate has made slow
inroads on the ancient architecture Of PALMYRA.
Baabec, Rome and Athens. Vast buildings are
thrown over and colossi lie prone but all the cen
turtles and the storms and suns that have passed
over them have not obliterated them nor DESTROYED
their testimony to the arts and crafts known bv
men before history held pen to record the rise
and fall of nations
Man built then, in the path of the storm and
faced the cOnvusions of nature the heaving of the
earth and the buffetng of the air as he does now.
These things have not changed, but they are not
the most constant agents in the destruction of the
monuments OF mans existence and evidences of his
genius. The unceasing destroyers are moisture
and frost and the sun acting with them. When
one OF the great monoliths called Cleopatra S
Needles was brought out of Egypt and set up in
Central Park, New York moisture and frost at
tackled it, aiding the potency of the sun. and its
inscriptions began TO fall and fade One year il.
the humid air OF New York gnawed it deeper than
had thirty centuries in Egypt
The colossi, the Sphynx, the Pyramids were
the highest and final accomplishment in construc-
ton OF the men OF that age. They were the
supreme effort What preceded them passed away
and Is part OF the dust of the desert or OF the
soil that produces lents and berseem
The worlds greatest fire, that ragged in San
Francisco from April 18th to the 2Ist, following
the severest earthquake ever known here, fur
nished certain tests that may be studied for an
answer TO the question about the remote survival
OF the structural works of this age In those four
days elemental agencies destructive to construc-
tion in concentrated form and fury did the work of
1orty centuries of normal energy. The buildings
that survived that siege of heat and stress cared
Tor and kept up are capable of resisting the normal
and constant forces of nature for the next 1000
years. 1t IS no idle speculation that in the year
5000 such buildings may be sheltering their
tenants, and their elevators may be carving a
stream of business men, who will tell the stranger
that this IS OF the relics that survived the fire
of 1000"
By reason of its elevation and its charms of archi-
lecture the Claus Spreckels building the home OF
The Call, IS the most noticeable of these struc-
lures that are to be the autocthons of the new
city 1t IS extreme illustration of the survival
OF the httest in architecture. With footing only
75 teet square and rising 325 feet it was as little
damaged by the earthquake as one of the giant
sequoas 1000 years old would have been. Then
came the fire, simply the destructive elements OF
nature used in quick combustion instead of slow
and, after 1t ragged in savage assault still the gal
liant and graceful column crowned with its capital
and dome, stood, the captain OF the ruins, plumb.
lofty and stalwart In every picture of the old city
this building feature. Now in the millions
Of pictures of the ruins it dominates all. 1t has
crowded out OF focus the pictures of the Colos-
seum the leaning Tower of Pisa and the cathedrals
of Cologne and Milan. 1t is architecture defvine
time and fire; construction over which the cen
turies will pass like watch in the night and evi-
dence that the supreme constructive work of this
. time is to survive the ages