Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-02-29
BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE.
The New and Happy Dutch Way With


and Leiden are dull. with the tmptt-
ness Of cities out of which all vitality
las cone. The Hague has semi
rural Cambridee-like charm (Which
VAS probably the secret Of NntiUys
liking for IL. Rotterdam and Amster-
dam ate rich and noHrishing CONNER
cial cities seats OF the money power
as they used to say IN Kansas aud ln
ciaoataiiy Of the arts 4 is able 10
assemble because it can buy Unless
the %anacfer has the mania far fHu
stt0s that strange ana grieyOus All
fiction of most Americans travelling
in EuTopc-he goes 10 Holland not
for tho town but for the country.
The larger cities become Us convent
ences. and he is fain 10 sOcthe his
neglect OF them with the conviction
that commercial city is CONNER
cial city from the Mississippi, even
To the Meuse and the Rhine. FhGs
assured, when he visits them he hunts
oct more or less tedious antiquities
ana loses his way, but not his sense
of dirt and smell, in labyrintnine
slams. The business quartei-the
quarter where The work of thus day,
in the summer of 1911, il done-he
heeds not, even though lie be q stu
dent OF municipal betterment That
a business street in Amsterdam or in
Rotterdam, a new building here and
there in Utrecht or even In half
Dutch. half-German half-Walloon and
half-French Liege-to make a double
bull-has a visible suggestion for tile
like streets in his own cities, is usual
~ the last of his notions. Yet to the
Il,
he has exhausted the rest Of the town,
they have Il very clear suggestion.
They are nearer. perhaps. 10 the solV
ing Of the problem of an agreeable
ana serviceahle commercial architec-
ture than are all our mueh-vannted
slSFscrapers.
Moreover, the precious Eeoie des
Beanx- Arts and its children have had
nothing Tor next 10 nothing IL do
with this solution OF the problem. As
we know in America, the architecture
Al offspring OF the Seine can build us
townhouses and country houses that
give pleasure to the eye and pleasure
TO the dweller therein and that seem
only a little foreign to American skies
ana ways. It can also design as agree
ably almost any building that is to
serve the purposes of pleasure and
that should have an attractive hint OF
subdued and harmonized ostentation.
The ways of the BeauxArts. however,
do not too readily adapt themselves
TO the ways of purely commercial
buildings. 1t is doubtful too, wheth-
or the ventures into the pseudo-classic
columns and pediments are an al
together happy solution of the prob
lens of commercial architecture in
New York. or Boston. or Chicago.
There were grain merchants at Athens
sorry extortioners who anticipated
modern "corners'-and perhaps they
did business between columns There
were money changers al Rome, who
doubtless called their loans. m the
shade of ornate pediments Yet Some
how the pediment-end bank and the
columned Office building seem rath-
or ineongru0us for the money
power and the captains OF in
dustrv of United States oil
1911. They give much thought, 1t
is true to tie arts and the dealers
in sure things therein when they are
filing their picture galleries. but they
do not glance often with their con-
noisseurs eyes at the buildings where
in they accumulate the means TO these
purchases. Here end there in Cniea-
go and in New York the architect has
groped for an Individual and an Ameri-
can solution of a problem that may
often enlist his artistry and imagna-
ton. He has not often found it,
There are no "skyscrapers" in Am
sterdam or Rotterdam or Liege; but
there are commercial buildings Of
many stories. divided into many Of
fees, standing conspicuously on main
thoroughfares, as their kind do IN
America. Since they are tenanted
from top to bottom and since tas ]
am todd Offices in them are in keen
demand, they evidently serve convent
emily the business purposes fog which
they were intended At the same time
almost every one of them gives pleas
ure TO the merely observing eye has
it's air of aesthetic individuality and
distinction. The essential quality 81
this distinction is a eontented simple
ity. The Netherlands or the German
architects who have designed these
buildings nave cheerfully resigned
themselves 20 straight lines, TO plane
SOl1GEPS,
and here the Individual talent has
it's play-the straight lines are not
hard: the bare surfaces are not slar-
ing: and the proportions Of the whole
are very adroitly harmoHized. Up and
up &c these buildings in their mar
row rectangles of stone or brick, often
unrrimmed with any ornament. ana
thus they provide the abundant light
necessary in Il north where CLOUDS
hover and darkness comes early Tor
seven months Of the year Yet the
length of these windows and the skill
full adjustment of them and the stone
surfaces save them altogether from the
besetting suggestion in 50 MANY Of
flee buildings in America of boxes OF
steer and masonry. punched with holes.
In Amsterdam, in Rotterdam and In
lieee. Office buildings really rise oil
their own motion, so 10 say, and not
because Of the specified requirements.
They also turn TO the public eye
surface that has 4 sober dignity, reti~
cence and harmony. The German
architects. they say in Holland. set