New-York tribune., 1911-10-01
Literary .Nesa's and Criticism,

tions, its hygienic requirements, and, in
short. a thousand things lying beneath
the surface of that grand panorama
which is all that the layman sees when
he comes upon the scene. Where do the
people live and where do they work.
Where do they find their recreation7
Above ell, how arc the channels of COM
munlcation to be kept free and con-
venient? 1t is with questions like these,
picturesqueness or dignity of any spe-
cifc structure, that the designer must
first Of all busy himself And, since his
task is practically always carried on In
settlement of men already long estab-
lished he must again be doubly careful
to avoid the pedantic warping Of civic
life to some highflown conception OF
civic art The author quotes a cogent
saying from one of his German col
leagues Professor Eberstadt: There is
nothing absolute in town building; you
must observe and give in everywhere"
The fruits of a great deal Of old Euro
pean practice would seem to contradict
this. Looking at masterpieces like the
Piazza of st. Marks at Venice, the
Zwinger at Dresden, the great square
before st. Peters at Rome, with Ber-
MINIS tremendous colonnade. and divers
other instances of heroic planning which
we need not cite by name, YOU not un-
naturally think Of the makers of these
!. f,,I hn ha6
at their easy disposal not only all the
time there was but all the land. all the
money, all the labor This may or may
not have been true. In any event, II is
none Of our affair. We have not at our
disposal all the land there is, any more
than we have all the time and money.
What we have to learn is the lesson of
beauty that these monuments teach and
the art of applying our lesson to more
or less arbitrary and unyielding condi-
tions The more tenacious the latter are
tn, heavier is our obligation to proceed
slowly and carefully and with q COM
mon sense feeling for humanity and its
rights. A city is a living thing. Cir
cumstances may permit us to lop off
limb here, transform a limb there, but
we must not deprive the organism Of an
ounce Of its needed blood. We must re-
spect the claims of utility and insinuate
beauty rather than stick IL on" like so
much irrelevant ornament.
These notions doubtless seem obvious
enough as we have stated them, but the
reader has only to go through Mr.. Nav
sons pages to see how hard 1t is to
make a city over. how thoughtfully the
designer must act using prosaic tudg-
ment quite as much as artistic taste.
Yet II there is one element which more
than any other may be said 20 govern in
these matters 1t is, after all, Just this
question Of taste. and Mr.. Mawson,
looking to its development among those
who would improve their cities, rightly
lays stress upon the almost talismanic
virtue Of simplicity. The designer may
go far in the way Of invention. origi-
nality He may make great play with
thoroughfares, for example, proflting by
variations of gradient, indulging in
|
scape gardener. and in many different
directions lending character TO COM
monplace situation. But only as he
holds TO ideals of simplicity. repose,
breadth dignity, is he safe These are
the traits Of work done In the past and
I'm the present that Mr.. Mawson brings
constantly to the front. lie covers
wide range. Vast open spaces in which
masonry prevails. parks and gardens,
the decorative aspects Of thoroughfares
and the questions Of traffic and circula-
ton which they involve, the placing Of a
statue or a fountain in large city and
the disposition Of all the buildings in a
little model town of the sort our modern
industrialism has latterly produced-all
these phases Of the theme he develops
with far more Of practical discussion
than we can here summarize, and with
the aid Of illustrations that by them
selves are full Of edifcation and pleas
ure. He puts before us all Of what we
may describe as the kinds" of civic art,
the grandeur Of The buildings of the
Louvre and the simple elegance Of that
famous Place at Nancy. in which the
pleached lines stretching between gates
Of miraculously wrought metal exert an