will be remembered in the United

1901 States as the year marking the birth

of commercial empire. With the advent of the billion-dollar steel trust and other vast combinations effected upon the basis of community of interest, organization for artistic ends has likewise taken a step forward.

This was especially exemplified in the spectacle presented by the Pan-American Exposition. Instead of an architectural display, illustrating diverse and scattered ideas, a central theme was adhered to and a unit was produced, in which the executive ability of Mr. John M. Carrère, Chairman of the Board of Architects, was ever visible, if not always in full control.

It showed a notable advance in art discipline, and if no new reputations were made, some were enhanced. Moreover, it gave an opportunity to

tall hives of industry which distinguish American cities from all others.

As an electrical tower this would have been easy; and even if an attempt had been made to symbolize the thundering cataract ten miles. away, generating all the power used at the Exposition, a more meaning treatment was easily attainable. We are possibly too sentimental, and gladly admit that, as the climax to an organic spectacle, it does its work well, and is by all means the best single contribution to the Fair.

"Like Trilby, the Pan-American poses for the altogether;' whether in every detail so successfully as Du Maurier's immortal mixture of Irish and French loveliness, let others tell."Carleton Sprague.

before a larger audience than they had hitherto enjoyed.

"Expositions are the time-keepers of progress. They record the world's advancement; they stimulate the energy, enterprise and intellect of the people and quicken human genius." -William Mc Kinley.

ON

N the other hand, with such a theme as the strengthening of the ties between the people of North America and those of South America in the presence of the harnessing of Niagara, the project might have been more sympathetically treated.

Mr. John Gaylen Howard's exquisitely studied tower dominates the composition completely, when the back is turned upon the more monumental triumphal bridge, and in scale, mass and detail it is very correct; but how far short it falls as an interpretation of the occasion! It does not recall the Spanish-American style adopted by the Board of Architects out of compliment to our Latin visitors, nor does it grasp the opportunity to portray the aspiring commercial purpose of the Exposition, as it might have, by recalling those

tinct achievement, though only of generalship and one in which the most notable progress was shown in the work of the new recruits commanded by an electrician and a decorator. The lack of real sentiment was not without excep tions; the sculpture now and again interpreted the occasion, while a sprinkling of eagles, stars and American shields showed a feeble and assumed desire to "nationalize" the architecture.

Electrical illumination has here wrought its greatest triumph, its most splendid effects, and has reached a development that has put it high among the spectacular arts."-The World's Work.

IN an address to the students of Cornell Uni

versity, President Schurman said, "In art, in literature, in scholarship, in science we are a long way behind Europe." At the Pan-American our art is for the first time independently exhibited, and many will agree that it is not without distinction and promise. The architecture, however, is lacking in expression, literary quality and scholarship, while scientifically, no triumph like the Pont Alexander III at Paris or the two new

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art-palaces proclaims a new era in construction and civic embellishment. A broad and intelligently written article in the July number of the Architectural Review says: "One seeks in vain for a focus for some one thing masterful and dominant," and again, referring to the colorscheme, which shows more daring than knowledge of color-construction, says: "It is foredoomed to failure and can be only productive of a harlequinade." While we do not esteem it a success, yet we feel that it was an improvement over the glare at Chicago. We agree with the writer fully when he analyzes the anti-climax back of the electrical tower, and speaks of it as "the most interesting part of the grounds," but feel that it was a mistake to have carried an arcade across the approaches to the Midway and the Stadium, where the heaviest traffic of the entire Exposition takes place.

In all fairness, in comparing national attainments, we must not forget that the thrifty people of Glasgow have also produced an Exposition since that of Paris, and one amazing in its architectural absurdities. We may not yet rank with the French, but we are their only competitors.

While the "Pan-American" will not serve the double purpose of a temporary display, planned to leave in its wake the permanent opening up and embellishment of a finished city, as the last at Paris did, yet it had one quality in which it rivaled all its predecessors. The "Rainbow City," whatever its shortcomings, brought all art-workers into closer communication, and created an entente cordiale among them which will be of invaluable advantage in all future undertakings.

"The best way to raise any one is to join with him in an effort whereby both you and he are raised by helping each other."-Theodore Roosevelt.

WE

The Awakening

E all know the man of regular habits, the methodical man (not the one who is always drunk at nine o'clock in the evening, but the other one) the self-made man, born of poor but honest parents, who rises early and works late, who is modest and generous, and has never had a vacation, and tells all about it in "helpful talks to young men." We all know him. He is the man in control. He is the man who scorned art and music; and yet, he was the man who produced the Buffalo Exhibition, and is going to produce a still greater spectacle at St. Louis. And why? Because "Old Scrooge" has had an awakening.

The commercial value of beauty seemed to

have possibilities, but, lo and behold! the PanAmerican, as an investment, proved a rank failure, and yet St. Louis is undaunted.

Is it possible business men are being swayed by civic pride and art? Is it to be believed that the man of millions is going to stop making money?

No; this is too sudden.

It only means that he is going to try to get a little enjoyment out of life, for he has discovered that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever."

Having recovered from his surprise, he is about to amaze the world with the wholesale opportunities he is about to make for our architects. He knows that in whatever he undertakes he can "dive deeper and come up dryer than any other person on the face of the earth," and he is not going to waste any time in obtaining his new desire.

Who is the best architect?" "What is the right way to begin?" and "Who is an authority on the subject?" These are the questions being asked all over the country. As yet the answer is uncertain. He has long been acquainted with the plan-factory man who understands a realestate proposition, and can run up a twenty-story office building and equip it within the shortest time and with the least loss of interest on the investment; but he realizes that this is not the man to design his home or the building he may present to his fellow townsmen as a monument to himself. He now wishes to be remembered as something more than a hustler, and hence art strikes root.

"It should never be forgotten that the art of a country is not only the measure of the value of its well-being, but, above all, of its intelligence as well."-Otto Wagner.

THE

The Temporary Period Has Passed 'HE haphazard, temporary and experimental period has passed. We are beginning to build permanently.

We have begun to realize the value of expression and character, and, notwithstanding the amusement caused by seeing the new buildings of some of our universities masquerading in the obsolete, ill-fitting, made-over garbs of the Middle Ages, the birth and growth of American architecture is being watched with great interest from abroad. The distinguished English critic, Frederic Harrison, on his return from a recent visit to this country, wrote: "America is making violent efforts to evolve a national architecture, but as yet it has produced little but miscellaneous imitations of European types and some wonderful constructive devices."

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Every architectural form was produced by construction, and has gradually become an art form."-Otto Wagner.

WE

Character

E regret that we cannot quote Prof. L. W. Miller's forceful words on the subject of copying; but his plea is, that to copy outward styles, to reproduce ornament that recalls either the ignorance, luxury, corruption or vice of the past, is to trifle with history.

He is right; for the life of to-day is the history of to-morrow; and if our architects produce affectations, posterity will put us down as unworthy of our opportunities, and in the meantime centres of learning sailing under false colors retard progress.

To be sure, some of the loftiest ideals are finding voice in such structures as the Low Library of Columbia University, which, though far from being either modern or indigenous, is yet a finished design dignified by great restraint and exquisite simplicity. The influence of such a building is uplifting, notwithstanding its lack of local pertinence and character, and may well be singled out as an example of our best work up to the present time.

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Out of

biographical cyclopedias of the great men in various activities of American life, beginning with the first settlement of the country. 2,605 who are named as having gained distinction, only 283 were foreign-born.

After giving a very interesting table showing the countries these citizens came from, over half Anglo-Saxon (194 having been born in England, Ireland or Scotland), he concludes by referring to the New Hall of Fame on University Heights, New York, and says: To make this Hall of Fame thoroughly national, it has been determined that none but native-born Americans shall be eligible candidates for tablets. The rule seems unnecessary, for History herself has already enacted this law of limitation." And again: "If they measure the greatness of the foreignborn by the same standards that were used to judge the native-born, whom shall they find? Beyond question, Hamilton and Ericsson are each worthy of a tablet among the immortals,' etc., etc. A monument to the achievement of America's foreign-born will, by the very meagreness of the inscribed tablets, be transformed into only another monument to the glory of the native American stock."

Such being the case, and now that we have educated architects, and even a few thinking architects, is it not likewise reasonable to expect American traits to dominate our architecture? No one deplores the evil influence of the École des Beaux Arts more than its own graduates, who themselves are seldom guilty of the more florid work which for a time must misinterpret the character of many an institution.

"We are at that dramatic moment in our national life wherein we tremble evenly between decay and evolution, and our architecture, with strange fidelity, reflects this equipoise."-Louis H. Sullivan.

Criticism

in America," in which he shows that, "notwithstanding the varied and continuous stream of immigration which has poured into the United States in the last century and a half, native-born Americans continue to dominate in thought and action." He says: "The foreign observer, with one eye on the statistics of American immigration and the other eye on the history of the Old-World civilization, replies that America is a vast potpourri of foreign elements-a nation, great, perhaps, in a material sense, but yet without national character, spirit or unity."

To prove the shallowness of this point of view, he made a census, using the most recent

Coolidge, Jr., of Boston, Mr. Louis Sullivan, of Chicago, within the profession itself, and with such good critics as Messrs. Caffin, Schuyler, Baxter, Sturgis and others contributing regularly to the best magazines, contemporary building is coming in for its just share of criticism, and the time is not distant when architecture may become a subject for as keen discussion on the part of laymen as the latest book or opera. Indeed, it is to be hoped that a writer will yet come who will lead popular opinion, making it his object to draw a sharp line of demarcation between deception and devotion as expressed in contemporaneous architecture.