The New York herald., 1922-02-12

In the skyscraping line it is much
too soon to jump to the conclusion
that we have passed the peak. To
eclipse the height of the Woolworth
Building seems to be beyond anybody's
purse just at present, but height is
not everything, as the success of the
Cunard Building demonstrates; but
the fact that we are still thinking of
skyscrapers is shown by the Helmle
and Corbett studies of the evolution
of the envelope" of a great building
as defined by the present law. Their
interpretations of the American con-
cession to the ancient lights" system
Of London are distinctly provocative.
In regard to war memorials the re-
suits are not altogether reassuring.
The Liberty Memorial at Kansas City,
designed by II. Van B. Magonigle, may
be as wonderful as it certainly is
snowy, but conservative New Workers
who view these plans for it will
doubtless feel we'll satisfied to have
Kansas City rather than New York
try it out. Unless the drawings do it
gross injustice, it seems to Rave too
many Of the specious and temporary
allurements of the structures we are
in the habit of erecting for worlds
fairs. TIE same suspicious apply to
the studies for the Nebraska State
Capitol by Bertram G. Goodhue, which
is certainly going to make Nebraskans
stare. Easier to contemplate is the
Hardness Memorial at Yale, designed
IaYnaG la,
lection of dormitories topped by a
Gothic tower ought to improve with
age, and already looks marvelously
Old World in the photographs. To
look "Old World however, is not the
highest ideal l like to hold out to
American designers.
The country residences we are pro-
ducing seem to be quite UP to the for
tunes-said to be prodigious--of those
who possess them. They conform, as
rule, to high standards of taste for
the millionaire who chooses his archi-
tect in haste and repents in leisure is
not so prevalent as he used to be-
The only thing possible to be urged
against them is that they are new
and there is even now a group of ear
nest thinkers who say that that is not
against but for them. Surely they are
not doing any better millionaire resi-
dences anywhere in the world than
here.
Occasionally they are upon so vast
scale that staid persons who have
read Gibbon and know that everything
declines and falls. IL you give it time
are frightened at them. The f. r..
Stotesbury villa near Philadelphia is
one such. Sympathetic we'll wishers to
millionaires-and there are more of
them surviving in this age of democ-
racy than you think-cannot drive
thoughts of the complete wreckage of
Hadrian's villa and the comparatively
short term of It's splendor, from their
minds, when contemplating the gran
deurs with which a simple citizen of
the United States has seen fit to sur
round himself. However. they all hope
for the best.
The landscapists, too. are artists we
may be proud of. and they are en-
gineering many fine gardens that will
survive, doubtless, to. be written of
in books generation hence. The
planned" villages, however, which be-
gin to dot the map. are like the war
memorials. not wholly satisfactory. 1t
Is curious thing that carte blanche is
never the best carte for the architect
The villages that have been made. so
far overnight. by very good brains are
nevertheless somewhat spotty. The
cute houses lack cohesion. One of the
less pretentious architectural exploits
that appears in the photo to have come
off well is the st. Patrick School and
Convent. designed by Helmle e. Cor
bett. II seems to be a pleasing struc-
ture in itself and also to sit we'll upon
its little hill.