New-York tribune., 1920-02-08
HOUSE AT SYOssET. L. /.
(Delano & Aldrich, architects)


motifs plastered on without any con-
structive justification. Our architects
were taken captive by "bits" which they
had sketched with JOY abroad, and some.
times they behaved as though these bits
would by themselves help out design
But all the time architectural taste was
rapidly developing in this country and
IN the growing solidarity of the profess
sion which was one of its chief sources
the work of the league was a powerful
factor. Year by year its exhibitions
registered progress. In them one saw
reflected, as we have indicated, the sue
cessive triumphs of our renaissance.
/ 1t is hard to resist here the tempta.
ton to enlarge upon this whole subject
and to trace something of the renais-
sance in question. But we are inter
ested more particularly in the leagues
exhibitions as exhibitions. They re-
mained rigidly architectural for long
time. Then they came more and more
to represent the allied arts. Sculpture
and painting, more especially in their
decorative aspects, figured in the ex-
hibitions as their practitioners figured
in the league membership. Little by
LITTLE all manner of new things ap-
peared upon the walls. 1t WAS, we
think in an exhibition held in the old
Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, near Thirty
fifth Street though here we speak
under correction-t that We were first
made aware of what we have some
times vcntured to describe as the
league Indulgence in frou-frou. Be
sides drawings of buildings there were
textiles and book plates to be seen. 1t
was little amusing and little alarm
ing. In some of those exhibitions or
the new decorative" regime it looked
as though American architecture
thought to find artistic salvation by
the process Of those English aesthetics
who believed they had achieved it when
they had tied a pink ribbon to the
handle of a brass coal scuttle. 1t would
be idle to deny that the error of which
we speak had not persisted and done
harm to the exhibitions of the league
Indeed, some of these in very recent
years have been organized as though
for some Bohemian pageant. The gal
leries at the Fine Arts Building have
been transmogriied into the semblance
Of an Italian garden or some sumptu-
Gus Turkish bath. Architecture in the
n1J e l.
league has been smothered in the frou-
frou aforesaid. But here an important
point is to be noted. Though the
league exhibitions had taken too dec
oratlve turn, the leagues member
ship had been going on all these years
doing outside the substantial work
that had been making American archi-
lecture over; and even behind the mis-
taken pageantry Of the shows the evil
dences we're present, for those who
cared to search, of a rich architectural
life. The exhibitions, as though in
spite of themselves, continued to pro-
vide an index to the current state Of
American building. One great reason
why the late disaster is to be deplored
IS that the exhibition just destroyed
marked, we understand, a certain re-
versal Of the specious policy at which
we have glanced. The league had
given full opportunity to decorative
painting and sculpture, and it had done
everything possible to illustrate it's
present wise resolution to associate
architecture and the really living
crafts on an equal footing. One of its
important features was series Of
rooms designed by architectural mem
Ders of the league and fully decorated
and furnished as in an actual house.
But mere frou-frou had this year been
kept IN subordination. 1t was, follow
ing the war, peculiarly admirable as
aertlon of the leagues true function.
The Show That
Was Destroyed
The exhibition that went up in
iames left record behind it almost
rs eloquent as the thing itself. The
galleries contained quantities Of pho
tographs from completed work and
many of these are reproduced in the
illustrated catalogue. They constitute,
tangibly enough, the annual architect