Light as an incorporeal element of urban landscape plays a significant role in the city activities during the night as well as the formation of the citys nightscape. Urban lighting in developed countries is considered as an interdisciplinary knowledge of the technical, engineering, humanities and art fields, which calls for joint co-operation among specialists. The formation and quality of social interaction and have been a popular topic, widely discussed in the civil societies. Since urban lighting is a special effort to facilitate the survival of urban social life, it is necessary to pay more attention to this issue, as the developed countries have benefited from its potentials. The current study argues that urban lighting has undergone dramatic changes since the arrival of the new era internationally. BBased on the formation aims and the citizens’s role as the target audiences, it can be divided into four categories: 1) Functional- Supplying light 2) Decorating and symbolizing 3) Creating artworks 4) Creating artistic texts In addition the role of citizens from the consumers and passive spectator has been changed to the producers, actors and active users. Thus, it can be concluded that the potentials of urban lighting have been promoted from a merely functional to an interactive art that is capable to satisfy social interactions which one of the main goals of urbanization. This paper is mainly focused to draw the attentions of managers, specialists and artists of the country to this new area. this may lead to make the advantages of the available potentials. Considering the global experiences it may also lead to the improvement of urban night landscape qualities by the application of the aesthetic and artistic approaches and renovation of the disconnected social relations and interactions arisen from the modern era. it may also give an insight to the healing the landscape system of our cities.
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[Note: ==== first Section IV Title Page ====]
THE MAGIC OF AMERICA SECTION IV - THE INDIVIDUAL BATTLE
SECTION I - THE EMPIRIAL BATTLE SECTION II - THE FEDERAL BATTLE SECTION III - THE MUNICIPAL BATTLE SECTION IV - THE INDIVIDUAL BATTLE
GRIFFIN & NICHOLLS CHICAGO - SYDNEY - MELBOURNE
TOWN PLANNING & ARCHITECTURE CANNOT BE PRACTICED SEPARATELY
W.B. GRIFFIN 1946 ESTES AVENUE CHICAGO 26 ILLINOIS
[Note: ==== second Section IV Title Page ====]
THE MAGIC OF AMERICA
SECTION IV
THE INDIVIDUAL BATTLE
[Note: ==== Beginning of first page of the Table of Contents ====]
THE MAGIC OF AMERICA Page
VOL. IV. THE INDIVIDUAL BATTLE
FRONTISPIECE . WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN No. 1. STATE NORMAL SCHOOL GROUNDS . WISCONSIN 1 PLANT LIST 4 THE GREENHOUSE 10 WHETHER AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA . Walter Burley Griffin 12 WILDER BARN illustration lacking 11 DWELLING . RALPH D. GRIFFIN 13 DWELLING . RALPH D. GRIFFIN . INTERIORS 14 IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION ON LOT 18 KNITLOCK DWELLING ON THE ROCKY TERRACES OF CASTLECRAG 17 CLIFF DWELLING . KNITLOCK 19 No. 2. OWN HOUSE . TRIER CENTER 21 THE HOUSE . AN ELEMENT IN A GARDEN SCHEME . Walter Burley Griffin 23 RIVERBANK DWELLING 25 LIST . GRIFFIN'S SUBDIVISIONS & TOWN PLANS 26 DWELLING . ROCK CREST . MASON CITY 30 THE NATURAL HOUSE . Walter Burley Griffin 27 DWELLING . J.B. FRANKE . CLASSIC 35 LOUIS SULLIVAN . GRIFFIN HIS SUCCESSOR 37 PYRMONT INCINERATOR . CONFIRMING A NEW ARCHITECTURAL PERIOD 40 LAND PLANNING 42[Note: ==== Beginning of second page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 3. COMSTOCK HALF STORY DWELLING . SECOND STORY PLAN 45a COMSTOCK SECTION & FIRST STORY PLAN 45b WHEN MICHIGAN MARRIED THE FAIR ILLINOIS 47 lacking in typescript TRIER CENTER NEIGHBORHOOD . PLAN 48 TRIER CENTER . Walter Burley Griffin 50 MODEL OF TRIER CENTER 53 TRIER CENTER NEIGHBORHOOD . WINNETKA . ILLINOIS . Walter Burley Griffin 56 DWELLING . TRIER CENTER 57 FOUR HOUSES TO A BLOCK 59 FOUR HOUSES TO A BLOCK . ALTERNATE SCHEMES 60 A PLEA FOR LIBERTY . Walter Burley Griffin 62 THE INDIVIDUAL 63 FURNITURE . CARPETS . RADIATOR SCREENS . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst . MURAL DECORATION . Niedecken 65 BUILDING FOR NATURE . Walter Burley Griffin 66 FLAT BUILDING . Walter Burley Griffin 69 OFFICE BUILDING . MELBOURNE . Walter Burley Griffin 73 TEMPLE OF MUSIC . Walter Burley Griffin 75[Note: ==== Beginning of third page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 4. HALF STORY DWELLING . WILLIAM F. TEMPEL 77 NATIONAL BANK . MINNESOTA . Louis H. Sullivan 79 LEGEND OF THE CANON Canyon. Jeremiah Mahony 81 HILLSIDE HALF-STORY BUILDING 83 CHILDHOOD OF WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN 84 ESTELLE GRIFFIN . WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN'S MOTHER 85 DWELLING . DUDLEY WALKER 88 BIOGRAPHY 90 GREAT GRANDMOTHER LOVEJOY 92 GRANDFATHER AUGUSTUS PERKINS, M.D. 92 MARION MAHONY . self portrait 92 MARY LOVEJOY PERKINS called Star of the West and her GREAT GRAND DAUGHTER . ELEANOR PERKINS 96 UNCLE LESLIE PERKINS 99 AUNT MYRA PERKINS illustration lacking 99 MOTHER CLARA PERKINS MAHONY 99 SISTER GEORGINE Miniature by Marion Mahony illustration lacking 99 reference on 102 (typescript) BROTHER GERALD & HIS WIFE CLARA 102[Note: ==== Beginning of fourth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 5. CLASSIC FORM IN THE AMERICAN PERIOD DWELLING . F. PALMA MARSHALL 105 COLOR . Marion Mahony Griffin 107 FORM . TEXTURE . COLOR . Walter Burley Griffin 108 EVEN THE TINIEST BUILDING PERFECT . Benjamin Bayless . Evanston 109 MINOR BUILDINGS TRUE TO FORM OF THE GROUP . DOG KENNEL 112 VOLLAND OFFICE . CHICAGO 114 INTERLOCKING SQUARES 116 INTERLOCKING SQUARES . PLAN . ELEVATION . SECTION 118 No. 6. SOLID ROCK HOUSE . KENILWORTH . ILLINOIS 121 MY HAREM . JEREMIAH MAHONY 123 AMBERG DWELLING . DECATUR . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst 125 DWELLING . D.M. AMBERG . GRAND RAPIDS . MICHIGAN . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst 126 AMBERG . LIVING ROOM LOOKING TOWARD DINING ROOM 127 AMBERG . DINING ROOM 129 127 AMBERG . FROM LIVING TO BED ROOMS 129 AMBERG . MORNING ROOM FIREPLACE 129 MALE & FEMALE CREATED HE THEM . Marion Mahony Griffin 130 HUBBARD WOODS AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 130b AMBERG . PLANS 132 DWELLING . 3 STORIES . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst 135[Note: ==== Beginning of fifth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 7. DWELLING & GARAGE A UNIT . MR. SLOAN . ELMHURST 139 A TEACHER'S FIRST TEACHER . IN IRELAND . JEREMIAH MAHONY . CHICAGO SCHOOL PRINCIPAL 141 DWELLING . HALF STORY . CORNER FENESTRATION . CLASSIC 144 THINKING 145 DWELLING . IN THE RAVINES . ROMANTIC 147 HOUSE OF CUBES . BEYOND THE CONTROL OF THE FOLK SOUL 151 MARION MAHONY & ECHO SIMMONS 154 UNITY CHURCH . EVANSTON . ILLINOIS . Marion Mahony Architect 158 UNITY CHURCH . PULPIT . MURAL by Marion Mahony 161 UNITY CHURCH . PLAN 161 UNITY CHURCH . SOCIAL HALL 164 No. 8. TWO DWELLINGS . HURD COMSTOCK . EVANSTON . ILLINOIS 171 LETTER TO MR. LIPPMANN 172 DIAGRAM . THREEFOLD COMMONWEALTH 174 ARCHITECTURE 176 COMSTOCK 2 STORY HOUSE 178 LIVING ROOM . STORY & A HALF . OF THE OTHER COMSTOCK HOUSE 178 DWELLING . MR. HOLLISTER . CALIFORNIA 181 182 (typescript) DWELLING . B.J. RICKER . GRINNELL . IOWA 185 PLAYGROUNDS FOR THE CHILDREN 186 RIDGE QUADRANGLES . CHICAGO . PROPER PLANNING GAINS 3 PARKS 187 2 BLOCKS AGAIN BUT A LESS INTENSIVE DEVELOPMENT 190[Note: ==== Beginning of sixth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 9. TWO FLAT BUILDING 194 TOTALITARIANISM VERSUS WHAT 195 ENTRANCE GATES TO MUELLER GROUP 197 DWELLING . ROBERT MUELLER . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst Architects 200 GROUNDS . ROBERT MUELLER 202 ENGINEERING IS THE BASIS OF ARCHITECTURE . Walter Burley Griffin 204 LIVING ROOM . ROBERT MUELLER 205 DWELLING . ADOLPH MUELLER . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst Architects 207 ADOLPH MUELLER . LIVING ROOM 210 ADOLPH MUELLER . GARAGE 212 TURN ABOUT OF STUB END STREET 214 THE JAPANESE TYPE 215 No. 10. DWELLING . HARRY E. GUNN . CHICAGO 217 THE INTERIOR . COVE LIGHTING FOR RESIDENCES 219 THE INTERIOR 219 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH . Jeremiah Mahony 220 TWO SOURCES OF WEALTH . LAND & ABILITIES 222 DRAWING LESSONS by BERTHA NICHOLLS 224 WITH THE FAIRIES 229 FEEDING THE HERONS illustration lacking 228 BRINGING FISH TO THE HERONS 230 AS DELICATE AS A SPIDER'S WEB 233 THE MOON CHILD . ANNETTE 236 PANDORA'S BOX 238 WELCOME HOME TO THIS BUSH OF THINE . by 6 year old WANDA 241[Note: ==== Beginning of seventh page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 11. STINSON MEMORIAL LIBRARY . ANNA . ILLINOIS 243 THE LIBRARY . Jeremiah Mahony 244 LIBERTY & EQUITY . Walter Burley Griffin 247 AMERICAN BOURGEOISIE ALL INCLUSIVE 249 MARION MAHONY 251 DWELLING . C.H. WILLS . DETROIT . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst 254 DWELLING . C.H. WILLS . DETROIT . PLAN 257 DWELLING . C.H. WILLS . DETROIT . INTERIOR 260 OFFICE OF WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN IN THE ATTIC OF THE MONROE BUILDING CHICAGO 262 No. 12. CONCRETE DWELLING . ROOF VERANDA 270 THE CENTURY PLANT . Jeremiah Mahony 271 AMERICA'S METHOD OF CONQUEST . THROUGH EQUITY 272 WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN 273 3 GIRL GRADUATES M.I.T. 1894 MARION MAHONY . HARRIET GALLUP . SARA HALL 273 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF XANTHIPPE 274 UNIT HOUSE 277 EMORY HILLS GROUND PLAN 277 DWELLING . F.L. MOORE Morse? . STILL CLASSIC BUT FREE 282 DWELLING . SYDNEY . ROMANTIC 284 CLARK MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN . GRINNELL . IOWA 290 CLARK MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN . WORKING DRAWINGS 291[Note: ==== Beginning of eighth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 13. ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN . DWELLING . J.G. MELSON 295 ROCK CHEST & ROCK GLEN . A VALLEY DEVELOPMENT 298 [Note: 297 (typescript)] GENERAL PLAN FOR ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN . MASON CITY 300 NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY . GROUNDS PLAN 304 METHOD OF DESIGN . Marion Mahony Griffin 306 NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY . ELEVATIONS & SECTIONS 308 No. 14. BLYTHE DWELLING . ROCK GLEN 311 ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN 313 FIREPLACE IN TILE & MOSAIC . J.E. BLYTHE 314 SUNSHINE IN THE HOME . Walter Burley Griffin 315 LEETON . NEW SOUTH WALES . A HILL DEVELOPMENT 319 CIVILIZATION & ITS FURNITURE . Walter Burley Griffin 320 STONE DWELLING . ITS LOCATION ON LOT 325 FROM CHICAGO TO THE ANTIPODES 326 No. 15. HOLAHAN DWELLING . ROCK GLEN . MASON CITY 330 UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES . Walter Burley Griffin 332 DWELLING . MR. RULE . ROCK GLEN 334 UNITING TWO POLES 337 TREES . Marion Mahony Griffin 340 FOURNESS i.e., Four-ness MATERIALIZED 340 A. WARMTH . HEAT . SPHERES 340 B. C. LIGHT . GAS . TRIANGLES 341 D. SOUND . LIQUID . CRESCENTS 342 F. MAGNETISM . SOLID . POLYGONAL 343 G. LIFE . THE TREE 344 H. THE TREE 346[Note: ==== Beginning of ninth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 16. CLUB HOUSE . LUCKNOW . INDIA 347 PLAN SUBMITTED BY CHICAGO PLAN COMMISSION . 1940 349 PLAN SUBMITTED BY WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN . 1914 351 BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF QUARTER SECTION 352 KEY TO PLAN 353 SYNOPSIS 354 PALAIS PICTURES . MELBOURNE 352 355 (typescript) INDUSTRIAL FUNCTIONS 357 INCINERATOR 358 DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS 360 BOY'S CLUB . PERTH 361 DWELLING 364 FAMILY UNITS 365 COMMUNICATION 366 MINIMUM COST HOUSE . KNITLOCK 367 ONE ROOM HOUSE . KNITLOCK 369 ECONOMIC REVIEW OF GRIFFIN PLAN . by Robert Anderson Pope 372 …………….[Note: ==== Beginning of tenth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 17. DWELLING . H.M. MESS . WINNETKA . ILLINOIS 374 ARCHITECTURE INCOMPLETE WITHOUT TOWN PLANNING 375 376 (typescript) A COMPARISON BY LIEUTENANT CARRARA 381 INTERIORS OF THE CAPITOL THEATRE 382 INTERIORS OF THE CAFE AUSTRALIA . BANQUET HALL 383 INTERIORS OF THE CAFE AUSTRALIA . AFTERNOON TEA ROOM 383 INTERIORS OF THE CAFE AUSTRALIA . DAPHNE 383 AUSTRALIA'S STRANGE LIFE . STERCULIA TREE 385 AUSTRALIA'S STRANGE LIFE . KOALA . TEDDY BEAR 385 1913 AND THE WORLD TURNED UP SIDE DOWN 386 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD 389 No. 18. TOWN PLANNING BEGINS WITH ONE LOT 392 MAN'S EVOLUTION 393 KNITLOCK DWELLING . S.R. SALTER . MELBOURNE illustration lacking 402 KNITLOCK DWELLING . VAUGHAN GRIFFITHS Griffin . HEIDELBERG illustration lacking 402 SEGMENTAL ARCHITECTURE . Walter Burley Griffin 403 KNITLOCK DWELLING . W.R. PALING 2 story building on hillside 404 LIVING ROOM 404 IMITATION OF GRIFFIN'S KNITLOCK WITHOUT ITS STRUCTURE 407 SANDSTONE TERRACES FROM SYDNEY TO PORT STEPHENS 394b ARCHITECTURE FITS NATURE 396b TERRACED HOME AT HEAD OF VALLEY 398b[Note: ==== Beginning of eleventh page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 19. SCHEMATIC PLAN FOR CHICAGO 417 HOW TO BRING HEALTH TO CHICAGO . SYNOPSIS 419 THEATRE 420 No. 20. ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP 425 ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP illustration lacking 423 POLITICAL & ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM 425 ROTUNDA . SMALL SHOPS . ENGINEERING BATTERY illustration lacking 426 UNIVERSAL EMPLOYMENT ATTAINED BY FREEING ENTERPRISE 427 MUNICIPAL BUILDING 428a EMPLOYMENT A WORLD ISSUE 428b STORAGE PAVILION 429 INCINERATOR 431 ABILITIES ORGAN 433 ECONOMIC ORGAN 433 No. 21. NEWS PAPER PRESS & OFFICES 434 COMMUNICATION WATER - RIVERS & LAKE 436 COMMUNICATION AIR 438 CLOCK TOWER . ENGINEERING BUILDING . ART GALLERY . MERCHANDISE illustration lacking 437 CALUMET illustration lacking 439 CALUMET HARBOR 440 POSTAL TOWER 441 No. 22. ADMINISTRATION CENTER . DIAGRAM 444 ADMINISTRATIVE & CULTURAL CENTER 445 OFFICE BUILDING 446 OPERA HOUSE 448[Note: ==== Beginning of twelfth page of the Table of Contents ====]
No. 23. OFFICE BUILDING . ERIC M. NICHOLLS . ARCHITECT 450 RETAIL TRADE AND OFFICE BUILDING 451 INCINERATOR 453 No. 24. RESTAURANT 455 INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURE 456 INDUSTRIAL BUILDING 457 No. 25. CLUB HOUSE . NILES . MICHIGAN 459a COMMUNITY CENTERS 459b MUNICIPAL HALL . BALCONY 460 THEATER . WHOLE WALL STEPPED COVES FOR COLORED LAMPS illustration lacking 463 No. 26. DWELLING . SOUTHERN STATE . G.B. COOLEY . LOUISIANA 464 DOMESTIC OCCUPATION 465 DWELLING . SOUTHERN CLIMATE . MR. PRATTEN 467 INCINERATOR & PARK MUSIC PAVILION 469 No 27. DWELLING . F.B. CARTER . EVANSTON . ILLINOIS 471 NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY PROBLEM 472 BOUNDARY SHOPS WITH OR WITHOUT DWELLINGS ABOVE 473 ART GALLERY . INDIRECT DAY AND NIGHT LIGHTING illustration lacking 475 DWELLING . HENRY FORD 480 DWELLING . ROBERT MUELLER 482 FURNITURE . RUGS . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst & MURAL PAINTING . NIEDECKEN 484 MINIMUM COST DWELLING . STONE 486 No. 28. HILLTOP HOTEL 489 ENVIRONING HILLY DISTRICTS 490 HILLTOP DWELLING . MR. FELSTEAD 491 HILLSIDE DWELLING . MR. BLYTHE 492 RAVINE DWELLING . CASTLECRAG 494[Note: ==== Section IV Frontispiece (table of contents) ====]
FRONTISPIECE . WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [Frontispiece-2] ====]
Caption
Walter Burley Griffin - who raced through his 20th century incarnation creating designs, architectural and town planning, in most of the departments of today's communities so that at least they might be recorded in the others and so accessible to creative thinkers of the profession of Town Planning & Architecture - out of the blue.
In both these fields he was functioning before he left high school.
The first city plan he laid down was for a Chinese client for China. The underlying principles were clearly established here - the laws of distribution and occupation.
Just so in his brother's home was the continuous second story sill line laid down so generally followed by the Chicago School of Architecture perhaps under the influence of the Japanese prints brought to their exhibit in Chicago's Columbian Exposition in the last decade of the 19th century, when Spiritual influences were concentrating to transform rational thinking (which had been necessary to bring about the individualizing of men) into creative thinking which would give them freedom in the true sense of the word, as opposed to license.
This "caption" is found in the New-York Historical Society copy, but not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 1 (table of contents) ====]
No. 1. STATE NORMAL SCHOOL GROUNDS . WISCONSIN [Note: The plan is for the Northern Illinois State Normal School in DeKalb, Illinois (now Northern Illinois University). References in the literature can also be found to plans for the Wisconsin State Normal School in Milwaukee (now University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and the State Normal School in Charleston, Illinois (now Eastern Illinois University).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [1-2] / 1 (typescript) ====]
A NEW HISTORICAL PERIOD
The word "Introduction" is crossed out.A new historical period which ended the renaissance of the Greek period, a solar cycle of 5000 years, began with the turn of the 20th century. It differs essentially from past periods in that human beings are no longer under the domination of a folk soul.
Louis Sullivan was the founder in America of modern architecture and has had perhaps more influence in Europe than in America, at least an architecture no longer under the domination of ancient forms; but with the private ownership of land, which unfortunately succeeded Federal control in the United States, the development of architecture was stymied until the profession of community planning, which alone could give architecture a free chance in post-feudal times, was established by Walter Burley Griffin and the University of Illinois. This has still dragged because only by a unified control of considerable areas of ground could much town planning, and therefore architecture, blossom.
The growth of modern architecture still awaits the removal of the poison of private ownership of land. This can be brought about wholesomely only when the Threefold organization is effected. This is at present expressed, though scarcely on its feet, in the United Nations with its Security (political) Organ, properly a police Organization whose only function is to maintain Equity - like the policeman on the street corner - and second its Economic Organ and third its Social (or Abilities) Organ.
The collection and allocation of the land values, though required by the Political Organ, would be in the hands of the Social Organ, and would be used to enable every citizen to develop his own abilities to the maximum throughout his life, facilities for this provided for him from birth to death.
Griffin was enabled to develop modern architecture largely though the considerable areas owned by his clients or himself. Naturally these opportunities enabled his work to have sufficient character to influence
This page is not in the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 2 ====]
a body and a soul and a spirit. They all need to be fed. Feed only the body and the other two thirds of him the citizen?, the human being? die. He becomes only body, not an animal but a beast. We see this in Europe now. In earlier civilization the overlords lived in close centers. The people, farmers, spent their days in the broad surrounding open spaces. The ancient type of city was properly planned for its time and has great beauty and magnificence. In our industrial civilization only the overlords can afford to live in the wide open spaces. The citizens, the workers, are packed into the cities, great space but solidly packed, slums and nothing but slums, but the wealthy can escape from their more expensive slum districts.
Now the problem of putting Chicago to rights in the matter of residential requirements was solved in the 2nd decade of this century in a competition fostered by the Chicago architects. The solution could be applied to any part of the city as well as to all the outlying districts which have been settled and are still to be settled during the succeeding decades. Nothing has been done correctly because the man who solved the problem went to the antipodes where he died. One other architect has put forth this same plan except that he has used only the suggested economy of the street arrangement and squeezed out all the open spaces to add more streets and more congestion. This plan has been published in the news papers recently. It would be a crime to use it. But why not use the original plan. I can think of no reason except that each architect feels that he should respect in others what he demands for himself, claiming that what he designs belongs to him. So they continue to grope around for some other answer and nothing else is the answer. So a professional vice is holding up the carrying into effect of this vital work and slumdom continues to be universal in all the residential districts of Chicago. For a residential district which does not provide direct access from homes to open spaces without the crossing of thoroughfares
The text ends at this point. The two pages above do not appear in the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 3 ====]
CAPTION
At about this time Bailey's Liberty Hyde Bailey's? volumes on plants were published. He Griffin devoured them and what he read the remembered. Twenty years later, in Australia, when he found a flower described in Bailey's he could name it.
One of his basic works there was training the citizenry not to destroy nature. Though younger than Frank Lloyd Wright he was practicing architecture while Wright was still in Sullivan's office, and when he entered into partnership with Wright the work immediately reflected his Griffin's influence. Wright himself called my attention to this fact.
This "caption" may apply to either the illustration on page 1 (table of contents), "State Normal School Grounds" or page 10 (table of contents), "The Greenhouse."[Note: ==== Beginning of page 4 ====]
LIST of PLANTS . NORMAL SCHOOL
Name Common Name Quant. Size Acer daisy carpumwierii Cut-leaf Maple 1. 8'10" Acer plantanoides Norway Maple 2. 8'10" Acer rubrum Red Mapl 6. 6'8" [Note: 8' 8"?] Acer Saccharinum Sugar Maple 18. [Note: illegible] Aesculus glabra Buckeye 5. 6'8" Alnis incana Speckled Alder [Note: 120.?] 5'6" Amelanchier Canadensis June berry 10. 2'3" Amorpha canenscens Lead plant 8. 2'3" Amorpha fruticosa Lead plant 26. 3'4" Ampelopsis quinquefolia Virginia Creeper 12. 3'4" Aralia thunbergii Japanese barberry 100. 1' 1 1/2" Aralia vulgaris Common barberry 75. 2'3" Betula alba fastigiata Upright White Birch 2. 6'8" Betula lenta Sweet Birch 8. 6'8" Betula [Note: lutea?] Yellow Birch 3. 6'8" Betula nigra Red Birch 8. 6'8" Betula papyrearacea Canoe Birch 40. 6'8" Betula populifolia Am. White Birch 10. 6'8" Calycanthus Carolina Allspice 12. 2'3" Caragana arborescens Siberian Pea 22. 2'3" Carpinus Caroliniana Hornbeam 15. 4'5" Carya porcina Pignut hickory 12. 3'4" Catalpa speciosa Hardy catalpa 4. 10'12" Ceanothus Americana New Jersey Tea 20. 2'2" Celastrus orixa Bittersweet 15. 6'8" Celastrus scandens Bittersweet 10. 6'8" Celtis occidentalis Hackberry 5. 4'5" Cephalanthus occidentalis Button ball 90. 3'4" Cenis canadensis Red bud 20. 4'6"[Note: ==== Beginning of page 5 ====]
Quant. Size [Note: Chionanthus virginicus?] White Fringe [Note: 5?] [Note: illegible] Cethra alnifolia White alder 50. 3'4" Colutea arborescens Bladder Senna 20. [Note: 3'?] 3″ Cornus alba Siberian dogwood 80. 3'4" Cornus alba aurea Siberian dogwood 30. 3' [Note: 4"?] Cornus candidissima dogwood 10. 8'4" Cornus stolonifera Osier 75. 3'4" Cornus florida Flowering dogwood 60. 3'4" Cornus florida rubra Flowering dogwood 20. 2'3" Cornus mascula Cornelian Cherry 10. 2'3" Cornus sericea Silky dogwood 55. 2'3" Cornus alternifolia Dogwood 20. 2'3" Cornus paniculata Hazel 175. 1 1/2' 2" Corylus Americanus Hazel 175. 1 1/2' 2" Corylus avellana Filbert 70. 1 1/2' 3" Cotoneaster Cotoneaster 10. 2'3" Cratagus coccinea Scarlet thorn 25. 3'4" Cratagus Crus-galli Cockspur thorn 50. 2'3" Cratagus tomentosain variety Thorn 45. 2'3" Diervilla candida White Weigela 8. 2'3" Diospyros Virginiana Persimmon 6. 4'6" Elaeagnus augustafolia Russian Olive 25. 2'3" Elaeagnus argentia Silver thorn 45. 2'3" Elaeagnus longipes Japanese oleaster 25. 2'3" Eonymus altus Spindle tree 15. 2'3" Eonymus Americanus Spindle tree 25. 2'3" Eonymus atropurpureus Spindle tree 75. 2'3" Eonymus nanus Dwarf Spindle tree 30. 2'3" Eonymus radicans Creeping Spindle tree 3 Fagus ferruginea American Beech 10. 2'3"[Note: ==== Beginning of page 6 ====]
Quant. Size Forsythia Fortuneii Golden bell [Note: 15?] [Note: 2' 3"?] Forsythia intermedia Golden bell 15. 2'3" Forsythia suspensa Golden bell 40. 2'3" Fraxinus Americana White Ash 20. 10'10" Fraxinus quadrangulata Blue Ash 15. [Note: 6'8"?] Ginkgo biloba Maidenhair tree 2. [Note: 6'8"?] Gleditsia triacanthos Honey Locust 8. 4'6" Gymnocladus Canadensis Ky. Coffee tree 12. 4'6" Hippophae rhamnoides Sea buckthorn 35. 1 1/2' 2" Hydrangea paniculata Hydrangea 20. 2'3" Hydrangea pubescens Hydrangea 35. 2'3" Hydrangea tarvida Hydrangea 35. 2'3" Ilex verticillata Winterberry 240. 1'2" Juniperus communis Native juniper 30. 2'3" Juniperus sabina procumbens. Trailing juniper 35. 1'2" Juniperus Virginiana Red Cedar 80. 2'3" Juglans cinera Butternut 20. 4'5" Laryx Europeae Larch 25. 3'4" Ligustrum vulgare Privet 200. 2'3" Lindera benzoin Spicebush 50. 3'4" Liquidanber stryaciflua Liquid amber 12. 4'5" Liriodendren Tulipifera Tulip Tree 40. [Note: 4'6"?] Lonicera Alberta Bush honeysuckle 15. 2'3" Lonicera Morowii Bush honeysuckle 25. 1 1/2' 2" Lonicera fragrantissima Bush honeysuckle 100. 2'3" Lonicera Tartarica High bush honeysuckle 35. 1'3" Lycium Barbarica Box thorn 50. 2'3" Maclura aurantiaca Osage orange 40. 2'3" Magnolia Soulangeana Chinese Magnolia 2. 2'3" Menispermum Canadense Moonseed 2. 2'3" Morus alba latifolia Russian Mulberry 30. 6'8" Morus rubra Native Mulberry 10. 6'8"[Note: ==== Beginning of page 7 ====]
Quant. Size Negunda aceroides Box elder 20. 8'10" Nyasa sylvatica Pepperidge 15. 4'6" Ostrya Virgiana Ironwood 25. 1'4" Philadelphus coronarius Mock Orange 55. [Note: 3'4"?] Philadelphus grandiflorus Mock Orange 50. 3'4" Philadelphus dianthiflorus Mock Orange 30. 2'3" Platanus occidentalis Sycamore 60. 4'10" Picea alba White spruce 10. 2'3" Picea excelsa Norway spruce 15. 2'3" Picea pungens Rocky Mt. spruce 10. 2'3" Picea pungens blue Rocky Mt. spruce 5. 2'3" Pinus Mughus Dwarf pine 20. [Note: 2' 3"?] Pinus strobus White pine 45. 2'3" Pinus sylvestris Scotch pine 75. 2'3" Populus Bolleana Siberian Poplar 5. 6'8" Populus nigra pyramidalis Lombardy Poplar 1. 16'10" Populus monolifera Cottonwood 15. 10'10" Populus tremuloides Aspen 25. 8'10" Prunus Americana Wild Plus 20. 5'7" Prunus Bessayi Sand Cherry 45. 2'3" Prunus Pissardi Purple Plum 1. 4'5" Prunus serotina Black Cherry 20. 4'6" Prunus Virginiana Bird Cherry 25. 4'6" Ptelia trifoliata Water ash 10. 3'4" Pyrus coronaria Wild crab 35. 4'6" Pyrus Sieboldii Wild crab 10. 2'3" Pyrus sorbus Americanus Mountain ash 25. 6'8" Quercus alba White oak 50. 4'6" Quercus coccinea Scarlet oak 20. 4'6" Quercus palustris Pin oak 20. 4'6" Quercus macrocarpa Bur oak 10. 10'6" Quercus primus Chestnut oak 2. 4'6"[Note: ==== Beginning of page 8 ====]
Quant. Size Rhamnus frangula Buckthorn 20. 2'3" Rhamnus cathartious Buckthorn 280. 3'4" Rhodotypus kerrioides White Kerria 15. 2'3" Rhus aromation Sumach [Note: Sumac] 25. 1'3" Rhus copallina Sumach [Note: Sumac] 20. 3'4" Rhus cotinus Sumach [Note: Sumac] 45. 2'3" Rhus glabra Sumach [Note: Sumac] 45. 3'4" Rhus glabra laciniata Sumach [Note: Sumac] 10. 1 1/2' 2" Rhus typhina Sumach [Note: Sumac] 30. 4'6" Ribes floridum Flowering currant 40. 3'4" Ribes cynosbati gooseberries 30. 1 1/2' 4" Ribes oxycanthos gooseberries 30. 1 1/2' 4" Robinia Pseud-acacia Yellow locust 5. 6'8" Robinia viscosa Clammy locust 15. 3'4" Rosa humidis Wild rose 60. 2'3" Rosa rubiginosa Sweet briar 15. 2'3" Rosa rugosa Ramanas rose 35. 1 1/2' 2" Rosa Wichusaiana Trailing rose 25. 4'6" Rubus odoratus Flowering raspberry 150. 2'3" Rubus strigitus Rubus Canadensis Raspberries 75. 2'3" Rubus villosus Salix alba vitelinaamentiaca. White Willow 25. 6'8" Salix vitellina White Willow 35. 6'8" Salix candida Sage willow 40. 3'4" Salix petoliaris Rosemary willow 73. 4'5" Sambucus Canadensis Native elder 50. 2'3" Sambucus nigra Black elder 20. 2'3" Sambucus nigra laciniata Cutleaf Black Elder 20. 2'3" Sambucus racemosus Red-berried elder 120. 2'3" Sassafras oficinal Buffalo berry[Note: Sassafras?] 15 3'6" Sheperdia argentea Buffalo berry 15. 3'4"[Note: ==== Beginning of page 9 ====]
Quant. Size Spiraea Bumalda Spiraea Anthony Waterer Spiraea 40. 1' Spiraea opulifolia Nine bark 175. 2'3" Spiraea prunifolia Bridal wreath 20. 2'3" Spiraea sorbifolia Spiraea 48. 2'3" Spiraea Van Houtteii Spiraea 30. 2'3" Symphoricarpus racemosus Snow berry 270. 2'3" Symphoricarpus vulgaris Indian currant 40. 2'3" Syringa Persica Persian Lilac 40. 2'3" Syringa Persica alba Persian Lilac 10. 2'3" Tamarix gallica Tamarisk 20. [Note: (illegible)'4"] Taxodium distichum Bald cyprus 12. 4'6" Thuya occidentalis Arbor Vitae 125. 2'3" Thuya pyramidalis Arbor Vitae 4. 6'8" Tilia Americana Basswood 3. 6'8" Tsuga Canadensis Hemlock 60. 2'3" Ulmus Americana White Elm 32. 8'10" Ulmus fulva Slippery Elm 12. 8'10" Ulmus Montana Wych Elm 2. 8'10" Ulmus Racemosus Cork Elm 10. 8'10" Vaccinum (varieties) Huckleberries 40. 2'3" Viburnum dentatum Arrow wood 15. 2'3" Viburnum lantana Watfering tree 200. 2'3" Viburnum lentago Nannyberry 50. 2'3" Viburnum molle Glossy viburnum 25. 2'3" Viburnum prunifolium Glossy viburnum 100. 2'3" Viburnum opulis High bush cranberry 100. 2'3" Viburnum tomentosum plicatum. Japanese snowball 16. 2'3" Viburnum vitis palmata Wild grape 10. 2'3" Vitis (in variety) Wild grape 45. 2'3" Xanthroxylum Americanum Prickly ash 45. 4'6"[Note: ==== Beginning of page 10 (table of contents) ====]
THE GREENHOUSE [Note: The structure is presumably for the Northern Illinois State Normal School (now Northern Illinois University).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 11 (table of contents) ====]
WILDER BARN [Note: This illustration is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy. The blank page for the illustration has been scanned from the New-York Historical Society copy. Related images can be found in the National Library of Australia's "Pictures Catalogue" under "Advanced Search" (http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/picturescatalogue?mode=advanced).]
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WHETHER AMERICA OR AUSTRALIA - Walter Burley Griffin
Of course the new type will differ as radically from English, Scotch or Welsh or Irish prototypes as climate, temperament and social conditions are divergent.
Cottages in Britain are pretty in their very pettiness and fit naturally into little isolated villages. Here dwellings must be congregated in enormous colonies.
The old standard was that of individual effort, or handicraft, crudity and inefficiency. The new is of cooperative effort, machinery precision and economy. The former provided physical protection to the human animal. The latter must afford, in the home, comfort and facilities for sedentary pursuits and the nourishing of intellectual growth.
So might an infinitude of parallels be drawn, all pointing to the foolishness of attempting to bind ourselves with the very shackles that determined the old styles, which is the very thing we do when we look to precedent for our inspirations.
In a sentence, the conditions and the environment require an intelligent appreciation.
To produce a modern style we must first master the possibilities and comprehend the reasonable limitations of our new and complicated constructive media. Whereas of old the architect need merely be familiar with the economies of simple masonry and carpentry, today it is a question of the science of engineering, and then not only static, but embracing equipment and distributive systems that are dynamic. Only the student inducted into engineering, versed in the technique, is in a position to apply and develop in architecture those basic laws that govern our intuitions of time and space, or line, mass and proportion which apply to the eye just as to the ear do those of rhythm and harmony in music.
Now, would you venture to indicate how a national type of architectural art could be evolved for Australia?
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DWELLING . RALPH D. GRIFFIN [Note: The New-York Historical Society copy has three images on this page: two photographs showing exterior views and one architectural rendering of floor plans. The house is in Edwardsville, Illinois.]
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DWELLING . RALPH D. GRIFFIN . INTERIORS [Note: The New-York Historical Society copy has two photographs showing interior views on this page. These images are on the verso of page 13.]
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CAPTION
In one of his very early jobs - that of his brother's dwelling in Edwardsville, near St. Louis, Griffin introduced a quite new type of dwelling. Here already the second story continuous sill line was established.
This again was not a merely superficial but basic architecture which lies in the plan primarily and not purely in superficialities. Griffin was a conserver of space.
In our cold climates where heat for winter has to be supplied he did not simply install a basement under the whole house only a small part of which was needed for the heating systems of that time but leaving about half the basement for such uses dropped some of the living quarters to the ground level. In this case the living room thus became a story and a half high. Down half a dozen steps from this level and one was in the billiard room. There was still plenty of space for the heating apparatus.
A half story up from the living room were the dining room and the library which thus became a balcony of the Living Room. A story above these are the bed rooms.
In this as in most of his buildings he laid out a landscape and planting plan. The location of the dwellings by no means followed the rule of thumb of the usual methods of placing the house on the lot. Many advantages were won in this way.
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Continued from page 12?Music is a parallel art in that it appeals to primitive instinct, and is independent of representation of ideas, of literature. Music is, so far, the one great art that has been developed in modern times, because it had kept pace with science, as that has clarified the phenomena of sound, and with the mechanical progress that has opened new avenues of musical expression.
Modern science and mechanics offer fully as great advantages to architecture, which have only to be recognized in order properly to apply the Australian motto to this even more important necessary and universal art.
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KNITLOCK DWELLING ON THE ROCKY TERRACES OF CASTLECRAG [Note: The New-York Historical Society caption to this illustration adds to the title, "Only the garage on the street level . W.B.G." The structure is the Mower House (Casa Bonita).]
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IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION ON LOT
Our thoughts to be moral must conform to cosmic laws. We must not think personally where causes are cosmic. All forms in matter or thinking derive from the chemical ether which is the manifesting force as compared with the spiritualizing forces of warmth and light.
It is the central region of America that is ruled by the chemical ether whose basic manifestation is liquidity with the centralizing force of gravity forming spheres - that great Mississippi Valley - and there we find the founders of creative thinking in the arts, the modernists, Lois Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan in the dance, George Bernard George Grey Barnard? in sculpture, Leo Masters Edgar Lee Masters? in poetry, Louis Sullivan in architecture, Walter Burley Griffin in Ground planning - town planning or whatever you choose to call it, and so on. Though all new movements derive from one individual, since ideas arise in a human mind, when that has happened the way is open to all humanity to carry on and develop the work. The foundation has been laid. Louis Sullivan laid the foundation of modern architecture. His influence was felt as early in Europe as in America and even more powerfully there in the early decades. Personal vanities and claims obstructed it here, especially the widely [publicized] supplied from similar passage at III.10.175) braggadocio of one who did little but talked much.
The necessity of preserving the life of the Earth is a prime duty in every field of life, in every occupation, and taking maximum advantage of its gifts is the task of the designer.
The power of a conscientious consideration of all the elements of a problem was brought home to me when I saw the revolution in methods and results that took place when landscape was made a part of architecture. It meant not only a broadening of the view but a positiveness of action arising from the firm foundation of definite facts determining the general scheme before taking up details of internal requirements. Landscape architecture does not mean gardening as an afterthought to a building but means a consideration of the external
The text on this and the following pages is very similar to that found in Section III, No. 10., pages 175, 179, and 172 (above). In the New-York Historical Society copy the first paragraph does not end with the last sentence here ("Personal vanities . . .") but with "The successors vary in degree of creative power but they are not founders. Those who try to lay claims are obstructers." The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy. In the New-York Historical Society copy the text on this page ends with the third paragraph ("The necessity of preserving . . . . the task of the designer."). The succeeding paragraph and the text on pages [20] and [20-2] are only in the Art Institute of Chicago copy for Section IV, No. 1.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 19 (table of contents) ====]
CLIFF DWELLING . KNITLOCK [Note: The structure is the Creswick House (House of Seven Lanterns).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [20] ====]
elements before starting to plan or to build. Not only natural conditions but the character of the surrounding buildings have sometimes to be taken advantage of, sometimes to be overcome. And we must consider not the mere personal point but must look to the advantage to everyone affected, for it is curiously true that a thing to be a real and permanent advantage to one must be an advantage to everyone, just as in the animal or man a sound organ is of vital importance to all the organs. When society in an organism, and the individual can benefit only from what is of benefit to all since all are interdependent as root, branch, leaf and blossom of tree.
My first object lesson was the case of a house the working drawings of which had been completed, and accepted by the owner and the contract let, when it was first subjected to the criticism from this fundamental standpoint, when Griffin entered into partnership with the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The lot was one next to a two-story flat building with its porch built close to the sidewalk line. Across the street from the flat building was a beautiful park. The house criticized was being set back on the lot as if shrinking from an ugly thing of which it was afraid, leaving the greater part of the grounds to the front, allowing the other building to look over it destroying its privacy and shutting off from the client the delightful view opposite, the home garden dominated by this ugly building.
A knowledge of the conditions of the surroundings led to the flat criticism that although the design was charming it was not the right answer, this was not the proper plan for the location, words which meant nothing to the designer who was only an architect, to whom town planning was a closed book. Griffin suggested that the living rooms be elevated above the eyes of the passer-by lifting the basement out of the ground, and that the house instead of being a parallelogram should be ell shaped, and that the whole building be brought forward alongside the flat building and so acting as a screen
The last two paragraphs on this page have been crossed out in pencil.[Note: ==== Beginning of page [20-2] ====]
around the whole house giving it a real dignity worthy of the discipline he had been under with Mr. Sullivan.
While this was going on I was told to make sketches for an abstract 2 story 3 bed-room house which I did. This gave me an experience of why the Chinese tipped up the overhanging eaves though expressed in modern scientific terms of forces of gravity instead of demons - a reality in whatever terms expressed. I guess I was never a conformist. Any Anyway? it was a cruciform plan. Later on when I had left the office and Griffin was in partnership there an amazing thing happened. He told me one day several years later of his first experience there. A residential job had come into the office and the two men went into a competition for it. He mentioned the name of the client and I was wide-eyed thinking he was going to say he won it. Why otherwise should a man be telling me about it. But he said he lost, and I laughed and told him that house had been built exactly in accordance with my design - that first one. It was a revolutionary design, abandoning the universal parallelogram, T shaped, and center reception entrance hall dropped to ground level. His losing in that competition was doubtless a unique experience in that office. His revolutionizing of the work in that office was first expressed in the Frank W. Thomas House.
Later this architect went abroad. He asked me to take over the office for him. I refused. But after he had gone Mr. Herman von Holst who had taken over asked me to join him so I did on a definite arrangement that I should have control of the designing, that suited him. When the absent architect didn't bother to answer anything that was sent over to him the relations were broken and I entered into a partnership with von Holst and Fyfe. For that period I had great fun designing.
While the construction of the home of Henry Ford was being carried on, presentation sketches were made for Mr. C.H. Wills. At this period I too followed the Japanese feeling. It was not till a short time afterward, when I entered Griffin's office, that I realized the difference.
The William A. Storrer Catalog Number (3rd edition, 2002) for the Thomas House is S.067.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 21 (table of contents) ====]
No. 2. OWN HOUSE . TRIER CENTER [Note: Trier Center was located in Winnetka, Illinois.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 22 ====]
CAPTION
In this case also Griffin built a basement for furnace and storage under the Living Room only. The other half of the living floor - dining room, kitchen and veranda, were built solid on the ground, proper construction installed to prevent seepage of moisture. Turning to the west on entering one enters this suite.
A half flight of steps to the right takes one to the lofty living room with its perforated screen frieze above window and door head height encircling three sides of the Living Room and forming the window screen for the bed rooms.
A half flight from the Living Room takes one to the music balcony on which level are the bed rooms and bath room.
A truly creative achievement as perfect as those of the Greeks or Goths.
This is a minimum cost house. It has corner fenestration but beautiful instead of the teeth knocked out which has so widely followed this type of construction which substitutes tensile for compressive members so universal before. This with all its ornament is as cheap as the usual barren examples as was proved in the incinerator in Sydney, Australia, where the whole wall is highly ornamented.
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THE HOUSE . AN ELEMENT IN A GARDEN SCHEME
The design herewith illustrated is an example of the kind of improvement projected for a neighborhood group of houses being planned for the 9 acre rectangular plot of land lying just West of the New Trier High School Community Center in Winnetka, Illinois. This house is one of the group to be started at the break of Spring that will comprise the first installment of a series of 36 small fireproof cottages that represent an attempt to demonstrate some of the advantages of recently developed practical and esthetic principles for the layout of small home groups.
Among the advantages, besides the generally recognized saving in wholesale building operation, especially for fireproof structures are:- Greater utilization of the ground and openness of view, first through clustering together and thus concentrating the public thoroughfare and service functions of the house to leave wider, freer ground space for private use and preservation of the rural character; secondly, by arranging the clusters with respect to each other to give vistas from all principal rooms extending over at least two unobstructed lots in each direction; thirdly, in the combination and composition of units of simplest forms, single little houses, into picturesque or formal designs, using connecting walls and hedges with tree and shrub backgrounds to help convert each house, that alone would be an unmitigated box, into an appropriate link of a rambling, cozy, private community home of separate wings, bays and pavilions, such as might constitute the dream of the useless overgrown Castle in Spain toward which each of us is so often selfishly and aristocratically inclined.
The site of this one isolated house unit that will mark the starting point terminates an extension of Alles Road eastward to a small circular park which will effect this road's diversion to the north and also form the northern terminal of Bertling Lane that is
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to run southward to a similar circle planting screening its south entrance from Winnetka Avenue.
Located focally this house can take on a somewhat more decorative and special character than is intended for the remaining ones. In its function of a high Studio Living Room, it is afforded some distinction, and perforated concrete geometric tracery for the frieze windows of opalescent color glass for this room, and the conservatory as well, gives the single motive that is utilized to characterize the whole design. Not only outside is the characterization intended but inside also in fireplace, sideboard and grilles, rendered possible through the elimination of wood trim or fixtures, wood being used only for movable or portable appurtenances.
Perhaps thus a cottage with only two bedrooms may be able to dispense with any want of a maid's room and the responsibility of a household organization. At any rate, the office organization in Chicago in which both members of this household are involved is considered enough to absorb all available energy in that direction. And it is now becoming the conviction of many others that conservation of freedom must lead to the simplest house units and construction with retinues the smallest compatible with the size of the family, a standard simpler by far than prevalent types and perhaps approximating the completely tile-outfitted lunch rooms that serve the cleanest food with the least help and at the lowest price and the greatest profit.
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RIVERBANK DWELLING
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CAPTION
Griffin's Subdivisions and Town Plans have been used as initials in Volume II - The Federal Battle - They include -
Four Family Summer Resort . Decatur
Emory Hills
Ridge Quadrangles
Wilder Group . Elmhurst
Illinois State Normal School Grounds
Rogers Park Subdivision
Town of Harvey
Rock Crest & Rock Glen
Newton Center . Chicago Sydney University Campus
Sydney University Campus
Newman College Acres . Melbourne University
Castlecrag
Covecrag
Castlecove
All India Exposition
Lucknow University Extension Area
World Fellowship Center . New Hampshire
Hill Crystals . Texas
Mount Eagle Estate . Heidelberg . Victoria Australia
Leeton . Irrigation Town . New South Wales . Australia
Griffith . Capital of Irrigation District . New South Wales. Australia
Tuggeranong . Arsenal City . Federal Territory . Australia
Port Stephens . New South Wales . Australia
Canberra . Australia
In the New-York Historical Society copy this page appears as page 20 in No. 1 of Section IV. There "Allen Ravines" is added to "Four Family Summer Resort . Decatur", "Chicago" to "Ridge Quadrangles", and "Subdivision . Province of Agra & Oudh" to "Lucknow . University Extension Area."[Note: ==== Beginning of page 27 ====]
THE NATURAL HOUSE . Walter Burley Griffin
When we have become satiated with precepts and principles, and examples illustrative thereof, architectural or indeed pertaining to art in general, we are ripe for an appreciation of the real thing which exists not because of these essentials but through and constrained by them.
They are not what makes art fresh, invigorating, inspiring; they do not endow it with character. Art principles are analogous to scientific principles, they tell much of the body, the husk of the thing but they balk at the life, yet it is with the introduction of life that the thing becomes real and natural.
With nature and art as with human nature the absorbing feature is the heart - the soul. We are attracted by an ideal behind, the perception of which is, perhaps, subconscious but at any rate there, and our enjoyment is measured by the keenness of the perception. It is the case of the yellow primrose.
Say we call this aesthetic intuition or feeling, because it is independent of the intellect in the same way that we know ethical feeling, that of right and wrong, to be. A higher than mortal development may show a continuity in the fields of physical and meta-physical observation but for the present we must admit ignorance of the relationship and it is nothing less than presumption in the analytical art critic to content himself with picking flaws and extolling conformation to his own rules, unless his own preconceptions, through his absorption in these details, become as totally oblivious to the presence or absence of life as he is incapable of producing the beautiful himself.
A resort to taste however is not at all implied unless that of an absolutely free and open commune with nature is meant; for ordinarily taste is a more or less self conscious emanation from inward, or a creature of habit reducible to one's own or another's previous
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sanction, the reverse of susceptibility to the spirit of nature or man's translation of that spirit - art.
Whatever it is that takes hold of us when we are stirred by the storm, solaced by the serenity of calm, awed by the grandeur of the mountain, whatever it is that influences us in nature's various moods, that, or some phase or it, the artist must have when he expresses himself in a poem, a painting, a symphony or a house, and that, if he has succeeded in expressing himself, is what the witness will feel unless he is fenced about with custom, self-sufficing learning or with prejudice.
Is it a coincidence then that art has been in history the handmaiden of religion? Not when we realize the intimate relationship as to source and manner of conception. And so has the architect preached as long as his religion remained heart-felt and heart-enacted, rather than authority inspired and authority enacted. And so was his art then the highest expression of the "sermon in stones."
Now if this were an exposition of art what has been said would be the climax but to connect it with The Natural House is only to pass from general to particular.
To begin with, such an understanding of art establishes the necessary conditions of its teaching and practice. Only for the youngest then can that education rest on authority. No rules, no doctrines, can be accepted after maturity until tested by the inward initiative or creative force, the idealistic feeling that we have been talking about.
As with the spirit of a New Testament in the heart, the Decalogue may safely be forgotten (though history seems to show that in undeveloped periods before the dawn of democracy, the latter is useful); thus to affirm that sincerity, thoroughness, restraint, etc., etc., are essentials, or to learn the necessity of regard for consistency of scale and motif, for grace of proportion, for the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 29 ====]
degrees of variety in unity, repetition and contrast; or to imbibe the 33 aphorisms of John Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture or the dicta of any seer, is to deal laboriously with the numerous observations of the mind-resultant, one soul attitude, the receptive susceptible one toward nature.
Alone familiarity with these observations and deductions may beget talent, the faculty for the simulation of art; but if from the attributes we are finally led to the sources of power we are no farther than we might have been at the outset had we sought nature direct.
When, however, whether deductively or inductively, the intimacy with nature and love or creatures' spirit have been acquired, technical proficiency (knowledge of the tools and materials and facility in their use) will govern and limit the translation and perpetuation of her impressions.
To recognize a work of art then do not proceed to try it by the formulae of the teachers with whom you happen to have been thrown for art, again like religion, is too vital a feature of human experience to be dependent for its comprehension on the word of mouth of man from generation to generation or to be withheld from a large part if the world through chance failure to meet its teacher.
Forget these limitations of the mind, become unconscious of self for the time being as when in contact with nature's own handiwork and if under these circumstances no similar message is received the art is wanting though no defect in principle can be detected.
Now a house in so far as it is artistic differs from other artistic expression nowise but in the media used. The same ideal, the same sort of feeling must be behind its conception and, in recognizing this, perhaps we will look for more in the architecture and be less exacting of the architect. We can be satisfied with little conformation to our own views as well as with less
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 30 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . ROCK CREST . MASON CITY [Note: The caption in the New-York Historical Society copy inserts the name [Joshua G.] "Melson" into the title.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 31 ====]
CAPTION
The half story scheme so frequently used by Griffin is not conspicuously apparent in the elevations for the formality of the design is never sacrificed, so this economical and space saving method though so frequently used by him has rarely been used by the profession.
This method enabled him to make good use also of differences of levels of the grounds. It was never permitted to interfere with the dignity of the exterior.
And roofs became accessible and useful terraces.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 32a ====]
Continued from page 29comprehensive statement of his reasons which it may tax his wits to concoct.
Just as soon as the love of the work is dispelled and the designer begins to produce listlessly or mechanically, however carefully, the possibilities of the production are destroyed, there is no life in it. The builder of the natural house requires from the outset a degree of relief from exactions and distractions, a freedom of action which he rarely gets.
Here is a condition that chiefly accounts for the all but total absence from this field of art (otherwise the broadest and most influential of all) of true creative artists. In other branches of art generally popular judgment, however perverted and unjust it is, is at least withheld for the result but here it is imposed in restriction at the initiative through a false assumption of conflicting interests. Once let the judgment of the people be shifted to finished creations and the choice of design based strictly thereon, house designing will invite serious, profound effort which it needs and merits to instill into it the intuition which the very word "create" implies.
Perhaps apology is here due for the foregoing under the caption of "The Natural House." It is apparently and possibly really a digression but, were it granted without question, a plea for or discussion of, "The Natural House" would be almost superfluous.
Punctuation in this last sentence follows that of the New-York Historical Society copy.What the house could indeed be, having been produced naturally, is a sequel which need only be touched upon.
Being natural it is a reflection in the first place to a greater or less extent of the spirit of the nation, the people, that builds it, of that specific variety of human nature I mean, not its status in erudition.
Houses in the past, the world over it seems, have been better generally when regulated primarily by the ways and means at hand
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 32b ====]
[Note: Supplied title: Exterior View and Plan of Villa, with Court [/] Residence of Mr. S.R. Salter, Glyndebourne Av., Malvern, Vic. [Victoria] This illustration does not appear in the table of contents.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [32b-2] ====]
[Note: Supplied title: Unidentified structure This illustration appears on the verso of page 32b. It is not listed in the table of contents.]
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rather than by purely architectural aspiration, simply because when serious attempt at architecture has been made it has not meant art but learning, cleverness, talent or ignorant striving for these. Hence for comparison of results the general conclusion has been that in houses practical considerations should govern, that house building, furniture building, should be striven for rather than house and furniture architecture.
Of course use of the most available materials and methods of construction applying them to the problem in hand in the most obvious and seemingly straightforward way cannot fail to partake of a limited feeling of the designer for his work, but, a deeper insight, a desire for the utmost attainable, is apt to manifest itself independently of local brands or crudely developed productions.
It is in "in" crossed out in N-YHS lazy neglect of an opportunity not to reach for an ideal which will be held by apparent limitations only after every effort to overcome them has been exhausted. Thus the Natural House will never glory in crudities nor in simplicity, nor in directions "per se" but only as these tend to an end by which alone they can be judged and which alone is the life of the house. When we come to this ideal, though, we will be sure that it, in the house, is the ideal of the domestic life for which it stands. If that ideal is tranquility to the extent of exclusiveness or hospitality to all the lengths of festivity or of any of the gradations between, it must be that particular one to which it must adapt itself which should appear to us.
For our part possibly the restful, the peaceful but statically vigorous character appeals most strongly as I believe it does to the most of the peoples when the country itself is mild in aspect, the climate erratic though temperate. On the other hand where nature in the low tropics seems more restful and unambitious it may be assumed that man and his habitation partakes of the unambitious, and while the dwellings of the Tyrolese I fancy reflect the rugged mountaineers
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as well as the tumultuous environment.
To be natural is to be true and unaffected and when thus submissive to nature's will, if you will, man contributes a consistent integral, organic part as the result of his effort.
Nature demands a unity in her ideal which embraces human nature and its expressions as well as all animals, vegetables and inanimate creations and requires of each a contribution that shall fit into the great harmony.
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DWELLING . J.B. FRANKE . CLASSIC [Note: A caption on the drawing gives the location as Fort Wayne, Indiana]
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CAPTION
Though essentially classic, Griffin's architecture manifested in a wide range of form and feeling - from the rich and ornate as in the mansion shown here or in the simple but ornamental treatment of Own House (p1) page 21 above? or in the clean cut simplicity of Mr. Marshal's F. Palma Marshall's? house (p23) page 105 below?.
This "caption" is not in the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 37 ====]
LOUIS SULLIVAN . GRIFFIN HIS SUCCESSOR
Mr. Griffin says:- "Louis Sullivan probably broke away from the old traditions when he left the Beaux Arts, if not before. He made his first declaration, presented his thesis, in 1884 when he read his "Inspiration" before an assembly of brother craftsmen. Since that time he has been the recognized leader in the effort of the best and brightest among the profession to "draw the thing as he sees it for the God of things as they are," though it was not until 1893 that a broad, illuminating and progressive conception of his art was forced upon the attention of the world by his Transportation Building with its polychromatic doorway at the Columbian Exposition.
The public is at last realizing the logic of the principles for which Mr. Sullivan labored and which the best among those of lesser years and fresh enthusiasm have sought to develop. It does not mean that a discovery has been made and old principles in form and ethics turned topsy turvy. It does mean that a majority of those who believe that "form should follow function" and that "Progress should go before precedent" have good ground for so believing. The principle is being worked out by architects everywhere. Vitally active, and sanely pursued in the Middle West of the United States, it is also the inspiring motive on its Western border, and on the continent from Finland to Buda-Pest i.e., Budapest. It is the source of the most interesting architectural work.
Even among the conventional and the traditional its logic appeals and draws. It is the basis of thought as it will be of action of men whose talent and sane discrimination guide them in their professional work."
Mr. Griffin, Mr. Sullivan's successor in creative thinking, in these fields awakened the community to the necessity of considering simultaneously the problem of building and environment near and far. It now becomes clear that these cannot be practiced as separate professions, architect or town planner, but only as one indivisible profession - landscape architecture. It is time our Universities woke up to this fact and made one subject of these for united they
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stand and divided they fail.
Canberra - the only modern city in the world - Alpha & Omega
There is an error which derives from our present day habit of being satisfied with rational thinking which starts from a premise and follows a straight line to a conclusion. This method of thinking leaves out all the multifarious facts that do not fall into that straight line. This method of thinking is or can be purely mechanical and is the idol of our time. More living thinking follows curves, sometimes very devious curves, for it takes note of facts and does not rest satisfied with theories. Facts lie outside of reason. The Gods do not use that method of thinking.
Creative thinking goes direct to totalities and works from wholes to particulars. The Greeks conceived the totality of nature - earth, water, air, fire, its four conditions of matter brought into existence by the formative forces revealed recently in the smashing of matter in the resorts retorts? revealing astounding forces. The Greeks expressed their inspiration in the fourness i.e., four-ness of their temples.
Every true revolutionary is a creative thinker, not a destroyer but a builder. Thus the French revolution was not a revolution but an upheaval substituting one control for another. The same is true of Bolshevism in Russia and so with most community upheavals. There was however in France someone who had a creative imagination when he cried out for liberty, equity, fraternity. But the vision faded. No one did anything about it. The concept of humanity as having three functions was never translated into deeds. So we continue to have totalitarian governments and continue to have upheavals in our communities but nowhere yet the revolution of transforming our communities from the totalitarianism form to a threefold form to meet these three needs of humanity. Yet it is axiomatic that if an entity has three functions to fulfill it must have three organs to fulfill them. This revolution calls for no upheaval, merely constructive deeds.
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So with Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Town Planning is a most unfortunate title for one lot is as important as a city) a simultaneous consideration of all the elements is requisite, is essential. In modern times, say since the 15th century, Griffin was the creative thinker in this field. As a boy in school he laid down the basic principles of occupation & distribution. Shortly after graduation he laid down a town plan for a Chinese client Wong Kai Kah (1860-1906)? of a city an addition to Shanghai? to be built in China.
It was not long before the opportunity he had been waiting for presented itself - Australia was calling for designs for their Federal Capital city. He won the prize and was made Federal Director of Design & Construction of Canberra. When after six years he resigned a law was passed that no deviation from the plan could be made except by an act of Parliament. Since a city is a thing that grows through the decades and centuries Griffin never expected to see more than a small part in actual execution but, since governments don't have to pay interest on the money they expend, Canberra is now one of the sights of the world the roads of a whole city and its suburbs laid out and constructed on the ground the whole of which can be seen from the neighboring heights, and the citizens are saying that through that great conception of Mr. Griffin's the soul of Australia is developing.
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PYRMONT INCINERATOR . CONFIRMING A NEW ARCHITECTURAL PERIOD [Note: The incinerator was located in Sydney.]
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CAPTION
INCINERATOR
That beauty does not necessarily increase the cost of a building is well illustrated not only in Own House but on a grand scale in the Pyrmont Incinerator of Sydney, Australia where the whole surface of building and chimney is highly ornamented. The tile units are larger than bricks and the building a large one so that the rich and varied ornamentation representing the four ethers - warmth circular, - light triangular - sound crescent - and magnetism square - entailed no increase of cost over brick.
The resultant building holds its own in this period with Egyptian, Greek and Gothic.
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LAND PLANNING
That land planning was the essence or Griffin's profession, even the land planning of a single lot, is illustrated in Volume III, The Federal Battle, where photographs of his community plans form the Initials for its 24 chapters. The full flowering of his work came in the last year of his life which was spent in India with which country America should be closely bound through mutual (individual not imperial) interests. Each has much to gain from the other whereas Europe will doubtless have to stand apart for a long time to come.
We must realize that architecture and community planning are inseparable and that, for all the great genius of Sullivan, the school which grew from his inspiration died aborning so to speak until Griffin united community planning with it. The Chicago school died not only because of the cancer sore in it - one Frank Lloyd Wright? who originated very little but spent most of his time claiming everything and swiping everything even using an Australian George A. Taylor? who contacted him on a trip through America and thenceforth forwarded to him what he could get hold of of Griffin's work as for instance an imitation knitlock house in California and solid floor on the ground which immediately began to leak and had to be done all over again. The square tiles of the walls had no structural raison d'etre. Purely another case of "I want to be the lion too."
The development of individuals as well as of the arts, especially Architecture, depends on the structure of the community and so long as private ownership of land continues the community can have no structure. We can't even get a quarter section of Chicago to prove that through its treatment the community can become a healthy, happy organism with no child delinquency.
Unfortunately from some points of view, Griffin's appointment as Director of Design and Construction of Canberra took us to Australia before this revolutionary design, Own House, Trier Center, could be carried into effect.
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This was in 1913. Griffin was already in Australia when the working drawings N-YHS handwritten addition: "of one of the dwellings - Own House . Trier Center - were being made. I handed the plans to the engineer in our office, a fine engineer he was too, to work out the structural steel. He came to me presently saying scornfully that building couldn't be built, it had no stamina, couldn't take the horizontal stresses. You will notice that it has two pairs of heavy piers. The rest of the house is two bays, all windows, the glass house par excellence. The concrete piers terminate either end of the stair passages. I replied - "Do you mean to tell me those great heavy piers can't hold up that little house?" "But," he said, "there is no weight in the corners to take up the horizontal stresses." "But surely," said I, "it is possible by engineering means to take up such stresses by tension members as well as by compression members." He returned to his desk and tied the bays into the piers. This is an interesting instance of the basic difference between the engineer and the architect. The engineer thinks in terms of the past - "It isn't done." The architect thinks in terms of the future - "It has to be done."
There is an inclination in our mechanical minded communities to give the credit in the building of the first skyscraper, the Auditorium Building, on a swamp, by the firm of Adler & Sullivan to Adler, the engineer. Quite false. If Adler had refused to solve the problem for his design he N-YHS handwritten addition: "Sullivan" would have solved it himself - a skyscraper with no foundation to stand on too it was, built on a swamp, on a raft N-YHS handwritten addition: ", the precursor of Wright's Japan building.
In this - Our Own House - widely publicized at the time, is the prototype of the glass office building which came before the public a quarter of a century later. A creative concept once attained grows and spreads. It is a seed planted.
The house is germinal in other ways, a half story house. It antedated present methods of heating but why waste a whole story on furnace and fuel. So the basement is limited to the area of the
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living room which is a story and a half N-YHS handwritten addition: "high" above it. The perforated concrete tracery frieze around the living room continues around the whole house forming the entire fenestration of the bed rooms making them secluded even when the windows back of them are open. This form of wall is not expensive, the pattern, repeated, brings the cost to that of a normal wall but in feeling it is exquisite. We have an instance in an incinerator building in Australia where the whole outer wall is ornament in rich variety to illustrate the 4 ethers, the formative forces - warmth, light, sound and life (or magnetism) - and it cost no more to build than an ordinary brick building. The structural units are larger than bricks making the erection economical - the Pyrmont Incinerator.
In the Griffin house, solid on the ground, advantageous in every respect, are conservatory, dining room and kitchen. Up a half a story, the lofty studio living room; the hall of the bedrooms a half story above forming a balcony for the assembly room. Here piano and orchestra can play leaving the floor space clear for dance and other entertainment.
This house closes the vista as you enter Trier Center by Alles Street. The connection with Bertling Lane is a circular safety park which could be treated as shown with a pool or with a fountain for dog, horse and man.
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No. 3. COMSTOCK HALF STORY DWELLING . SECOND STORY PLAN [Note: The illustration entitled "COMSTOCK SECTION & FIRST STORY PLAN," separately listed in the table of contents as being on page 45b, is part of this illustration. The structure is Hurd Comstock House I in Evanston, Illinois.]
Pages 46 and 47 are missing from both the New-York Historical Society and Art Institute of Chicago copies. Page 47 is listed in the table of contents as containing "When Michigan Married the Fair Illinois" by Jeremiah Mahony, MMG's father.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 48 (table of contents) ====]
TRIER CENTER NEIGHBORHOOD . PLAN [Note: Trier Center was located in Winnetka, Illinois.]
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CAPTION N-YHS handwritten addition: "Trier Center"
By means of co-terminating restrictions in the title deeds it is possible to maintain the community ideal of this development so long as this particular community wishes starting with permanent buildings and garden settings completed in all cases and with families who desire the open and co-operative treatment of the garden area we may feel assured that these possibilities will be developed to their utmost. No outbuildings are to be allowed outside restricted court garden limits indicated in the original plan. Hedges and wire fences will be the reliance for separating the private gardens so far as isolation is desired by any families. The low walls indicating the demarcation between private garden and public forecourts are part of the original construction and an important factor in unifying the treatment of the thoroughfare spaces and bringing down in height the connecting with the earth of the building features of the whole garden scheme.
The street leading into the tract from the west and the lane leading through it are formally set off by the terminal public parks and the approaches from each direction are closed by buildings which will be correspondingly accentuated in their architectural relationship with the remaining houses, as in the case of the first one of the herewith illustrated. Such necessary accessories as light fixtures will be made appropriate garden elements, a possibility exemplified in the stone lanterns of Japan.
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TRIER CENTER . Walter Burley Griffin
In the effort to make our communities attractive the most important element is the home of the average man on the average lot and its placing in relation to the natural scenery. All other structures, however impressive in themselves, are incidental to the aggregate multitude of homes and have small effect comparatively.
The very littleness and multiplicity of the units of this character that go to make up the effect necessitates the greatest care in keeping each modestly unobtrusive in itself and in doing all it can to avert the disaster of monotonous staccato repetition of self-sufficient pettiness on the one hand or, on the other, the confusion from rival efforts of each to distract the attention from the others and to attract it to itself after the manner of the old-time hackman hackney carriage driver of rival hotels at the station or the vulgar, intermittent flashing signs of a "Great White Way."
Subordination - The types of individual detached structures that will make the country suburb restful must tend toward subordinating itself to the fullest extent possible to the native beauty and verdure which its invasion on other terms utterly destroys. Here is a case where a block frontage made up of wood and glade of especial attractiveness has previously been undisturbed and where this house is the first step in an attempt to preserve the natural characteristics of these features without reducing the proportion of building to grounds that real estate conditions in the community require, since the buildings are being erected for the market.
Local conditions demanding a high basement rendered reasonable a high-capped terrace connection for the proposed structures, helping to tie them into one group as well as to mitigate the otherwise emphatic height of each structure.
Material - A single material and treatment will serve to further tie them together and as the material which needs least paraphernalia of protective features or connective expedients the one nearest and
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most resembling Nature's solid rock, of itself withstanding the storm and capable of supporting a bower of vine, shrub and flower, monolithic concrete has been adopted.
For satisfactory design in this material, as in any other, the possibilities of its nature must be sought directly and developed accordingly with consistency avoiding irrelevancies and superfluities. Concrete may be assumed to demand a simple way of construction, with repeated use of the same molds and with large masses contrasting with plastic decorative elements.
Walls accentuated with projecting overhanging vine garden features and a concrete roof that will support grass and flower plots are made the most of as a roof terrace garden surrounding a second story veranda helping to afford to that necessary contrivance the maximum enjoyment by day, in its airy station looking out in the four directions and catching the slightest breeze, and of rest at night in isolation and privacy from the remainder of the house as well as from the grounds.
Similarly, the elevated veranda of the house to the south, next to be built, will be immediately accessible from the entrance for day use and privately from the bedrooms for the purpose of outdoor sleeping compartment, though in other respects and plans it will be as radically different as the respective sites - the first in the open and the second in the woods.
Arrangements - In the house illustrated, the rooms are on one floor, giving the advantage of a flat for ease of housekeeping. The Stairway and hall are so grouped N-YHS substitutes "arranged" as to give independence of access to the various departments - living rooms, kitchen, sleeping quarters. The whole of a flat roof is utilized. The stairway is so placed as to make the roof accessible from out of doors or from any of the departments below without passing through any other, while by the shifting of one hall door between the two casings provided for it, one important isolated room can be transformed from a retired bedroom into a
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reception room, library or office at the entrance. By a somewhat similar change at the rear hall a maid's room can be made to accommodate part of the family. These varied adaptations are especially important for investment houses where exact family requirements can least of all be specified.
Interest Aroused - That there is no lack of keen interest and delight in a straightforward attempt at the solution of an architectural problem is evidenced by the procession of people who come to visit any such building in the course of its construction, individuals frequently returning week after week to watch its various stages of progress; and also by the warm affection and watchful care of occupants after completion. It seems also to be the fact that such a house built for sale can be disposed of with facility. The residences are sometimes sold long before completion, while still crude for lack of all those features which add so much to the grace of a finished structure.
The unfortunate conception that we can give style to our buildings by copying motives developed in former times has had a most deadening influence on our builders and has resulted in buildings so lacking in interest that we have curiously been led to believe that our people are lacking in appreciation of art. The contrary is the case. The refusal of people to be interested in the meaningless, borrowed trappings of former civilizations in an effort to pretend quality and culture shows accuracy of judgment and a true sense or the beautiful, for art consists only in doing well what needs to be done.
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MODEL OF TRIER CENTER
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No.2
For this Trier Center group a whole series of new and charming types of minimum cost houses dropped from Griffin's pencil but unfortunately his call to Australia prevented them from being carried into execution. They all gave more to the client than the routine cheap houses and all were beautiful and had individual character.
The interior parks were not needed here for Trier Center is adjacent to the school group of open grounds and play fields of the Trier Center school group. So the area can afford to be completely a housing scheme the alternated setting forward and back of the houses giving open view in the 4 directions. Here the revolution in house design becomes impressive, every dwelling being unique and lovely as a little temple.
In endless variety minimum cost dwellings were turned out by Walter Burley Griffin always with perfection of form and planting of grounds. Corner fenestration was initiated, installed and widely used by him but never with the barrenness which makes that type so generally used now look like folks with their front teeth knocked out.
The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy. There is no page 55 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy. The New-York Historical Society copy has no additional text at this point either.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 56 ====]
TRIER CENTER . Winnetka . Illinois
The site is flat with only a sprinkling of trees except in the Northwest quarter on which there is a dense growth of young oaks and ash with one Indian trailmark swamp white oak. There are, however, acres of wild roses as attractive with their red stems and fruit in the winter as with their flowers and leaves in the summer, and there have been planted this spring some ten thousand trees, shrubs and vines of species characteristically interesting in the wintertime, to be used in setting off the buildings as rapidly as completed.
The neighborhood takes its name from the elaborate development the past year of the adjacent New Trier High school into a complete domestic social center for the entire township where in quadrangular grouping, with a park and garden setting, besides the play grounds and game fields, are provided restaurant, auditorium, theatre, gymnasia and natatorium, additional to the full educational equipment, recognizing a new function which our public school buildings have begun to assume to make them count for the older members of the family as well as the children.
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DWELLING . TRIER CENTER [Note: The print caption beneath the illustration reads (in part): "First House Designed for Trier Center".]
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CAPTION
This house is one of a series of thirty-five small fireproof cottages that represent an attempt to demonstrate some of the advantages of recently developed practical and esthetic principles for the layout of small home groups.
Among these advantages, besides the generally saving in wholesale building operation, especially for fireproof structures, are: Greater utilization of the ground and openness of view, first through clustering together and thus concentrating the public thoroughfare and service functions of the house to leave wider, freer ground space for private use and preservation of the rural character; secondly, by arranging the clusters with respect to each other to give vistas from all principal rooms extending over at least two unobstructed lots in each direction; thirdly, in the combination and composition of units of simplest form, single little houses, into picturesque or formal designs, using connecting walls and hedges with tree and shrub backgrounds to help convert each house that alone would be an unmitigated box into an appropriate link of a rambling, cozy, private community home of separated wings, bays and pavilions, such as might constitute the dream of the useless overgrown Castle in Spain toward which each of us is so often selfishly and aristocratically inclined.
In this unit house we have a large assembly room serving for living and dining. The floor is solid on the ground. The veranda is on the roof. The plan shows an extension of the same type with bed room and bath added to the veranda on the roof which is partly open garden and partly roofed with a desk at the window sill height.
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That there may be no loss and may be much gain in abandoning the so-called artistic method and rationally accepting conditions and scheming treatment in accordance, was interestingly illustrated in the first typical group plan I saw worked out - in arrangement of four houses to a block the one arrangement by Frank Lloyd Wright leaving practically the whole of the yards to the street frontage, giving no privacy and necessitating long drives and walks for access to the houses. The disadvantage of such an arrangement was recently again brought to mind while passing through Victoria British Columbia, when a friend stated that she could not be induced to build her home in a district considered to be the most attractive in the city and supposedly ideally laid out but where, as she expressed it, all your living was in the eye of the public.
FOUR HOUSES TO A BLOCK . HOUSES IN CENTER
As we go further from a metropolis we may have larger acreage, say 4 allotments to a block. At one time this problem was set for a group of architects to consider as a generalization. One, thinking entirely from the picture point of view, established as a type the placing of the houses back in the center of the block. That there may be no loss but much gain in abandoning the so-called idealistic method and rationally accepting conditions and scheming treatment in accordance can be shown by a comparison.
With the houses grouped in the center, practically the whole of the yards are opened to the street giving no privacy and necessitating long drives and walks for access to the houses. Thinking bearing N-YHS substitutes: "Bringing to bear" an appreciation of outdoor conditions led Griffin to a reversal of this four house scheme, building on the corners instead of the center of the blocks. You will see the advantage of looking at the problem not simply as an architect but as landscape architect. For the architectural effect we still get at each street intersection, and where it will be much more effective for the occupants themselves as well as for community effect, for a consciousness of humanity adds greatly to the interest of
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FOUR HOUSES TO A BLOCK . ALTERNATE SCHEMES
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nature if constructive and not destructive, man's hand supplementing and enriching nature.
No private roadways are necessary for access, saving expense and adding space for gardens and playgrounds. The temptation for men and children to cut across the corners of the lot is eliminated. By placing the service quarters next the street the desirable outlooks are reserved for the living rooms of the house, none of the private space being required for service quarters which are amply provided with light and air from the public streets. The living rooms thus look upon a private stretch unintersected by roadway, an effective park for use in common if so desired or, if subdivided by hedges, according utter privacy for each family while still maintaining the quite parklike character and offering opportunity for the play of the young people away from the danger and distractions of the street. Since both house and nature are three dimensional, the feeling of spaciousness is their prime requisite.
Special conditions may, of course, call for variations of this arrangement.
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A PLEA FOR LIBERTY . Walter Burley Griffin
To improve our conditions requires change. The question is, what changes in our methods will open the doors to the greatest and most rapid progress?
In reviewing European communities we find the greatest progress in architecture, the nearest approach to solution of domestic requirements is found in that community which has fewest governmental restrictions.
If an architect is to solve a problem, he must be free to break away from established methods. Architects should therefore be responsible for their work and that responsibility should not be shifted.
Especially inefficient is the removing of that responsibility to a Board by which system it is impossible to locate responsibility. Experience shows that an architect who attempts to do a model house is seriously hampered and usually totally prevented from carrying out such work, because the very fact that it is different means that it will not be passed by the authorities in control. This consequence is the very essence of the system of governmental restriction of building, since bodies politically constituted can lay down rules only by reference to and in accordance with what has been done and is the custom to do.
We find, therefore, that we are compelled to build residences that are too large, too cumbersome, and too expensive.
The net result when individual family accommodation cannot be provided at cost within means of those to be provided, is that these are overcrowded in the accommodation allowed.
The real problem of course is not concerned with better housing which is beyond the means of the people concerned, but with making opportunity for sufficient means for these people to have proper housing. As long as the land owners can raise the rent to correspond with the improvement of any locality, there is small advantage to be derived from our efforts.
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THE INDIVIDUAL
Americans have smashed the atom as President Thomas Jefferson smashed the power of governments by creating a new type, and President Andrew Jackson smashed the bureaucracy. Their i.e., Americans' tasks today are to construct and their field as individuals is the world. What the Gods have given us we are under obligation to share with humanity, with the world. It is for us to free humanity for we alone are free human beings. Only individuals can do this for the Christ broke up all peoples and races giving the individual spirit, the Ego, the Light, to every man in the world. Democracy is as important as the smashing of the atom. Unless democracy is applied to humanity as a whole the power released in the atom will become demonic and destroy humanity. Only in America has it been experienced. In democracy N-YHS adds: "found only in the United States" the Spirit of the Human is released as in Atom-smashing the Spirit of Matter is released.
In this physical experiment the 20th century has fulfilled its basic task with the dual law - that of up and down, inside and outside, force and form - where, in the realm of manifestation, you can't have one without the other. The reality of matter is form and nothing else. The smashing of the atomic form frees the spiritual forces of matter. They are not things that can be weighed and measured except in terms of force. Thus do the Orient and the Occident meet.
The reason why America won the war and will win the peace is because the strength and power of the individual is recognized and given full play. The first step was to escape from the rest of the world - the Eastern world, the Asiatic continent of which Europe is but a state and to establish a community organization in which no individual nor group had power over another, a community whose basic principle is EQUITY. There are many lovely and wonderful people elsewhere in the world but they are helpless. Migration to America frees their spiritual forces. That is the magic of the United States. The founders of the Congressional System smashed the political atom which holds the rest of humanity in bondage.
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The immediate task of Americans now is to go out individually to every part of the world - emigrate instead of immigrate the watchword - and break down the bondage of individuals everywhere. It is a difficult but not impossible task. It is the task of pathfinders. The following tale is the story of one such American. He found individuals wherever he went who leaped to help him blaze the way in this bitter battle against the Powers.
Similar text, under the title "Democracy," is found in Section I, No. 1., pages 5-6.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 65 (table of contents) ====]
FURNITURE . CARPETS . RADIATOR SCREENS . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst MURAL DECORATION . Niedecken [Note: The title for the New-York Historical Society illustration adds "Draperies" (between Carpets and Radiator Screens) and "and Glass" (after Radiator Screens). The structure is the Irving House, Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois.]
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BUILDING FOR NATURE . Walter Burley Griffin
BUILDING RECORDS LIFE
Buildings are the most subtle, accurate and enduring records of life - hence their problems are the problems of life and not problems of form;- but through the forms and material of buildings we can gain an insight into the life of the past. In many cases that is now our only approach and, where archeology and history have afforded a check, I like to believe that buildings convey the most truth of the mental and spiritual states of various peoples and times. In the aggregate the architecture of a people certainly represents the greatest amount of human effort applied to the realization of purely human ideals.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE LIFELESS
In our own times, of which we have of course the most complete history, the decadence, almost atrophy, of the art of architecture since the Middle Ages in Europe points to some analysis of life as necessary to the formulation of the problems of building. Roman history offers the only parallel to such loss of the creative instincts and the substitution of imitation and ostentation for sincerity and invention. Those times were sordid and prepared the doom of Western civilization. With similar failure in our architectural expression for over 400 years it may be worth our while to consider why our ideals are lacking constructive results in the one art that is based on common and general impulse.
The great significance of the architecture of our times is that it is not only for the man in the street but necessarily by and of the average man. Alone amongst the arts, Architecture denies to the genius of the man ahead of his time the very forms, colors, notes or words with which to express his ideals or to blaze a path for the masses. The masses must painfully grope out their own uncertain way. Even the artisan has little chance to put on the extra touch or express his feeling in his work because he is limited to the market
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which only a mass popularity will afford for economic mass production. We cannot get away from the fact that we are immersed in a democratic and economic age, democratic probably because economic.
LIFE DOMINATED BY SCIENCE
For 300 years intellectual curiosity has absorbed the best part of man's energy. The results of scientific investigation have been so progressively startling that we have become more and more mentally conceited, individually detached from the world as a creation, from our own sub-conscious minds, from the common universal mind and from religion and art in which the emotions play as great a part as the intellect.
Robbed of the aggressive and inquisitive independent intellect the cults of religion and art have deteriorated to timid routine sanctioned by orders and precedents and controlled by rules and regulations, and relying on these sanctions and rules for the economic support of the scientific and practical man who is not interested in the intangible or the unproven.
The dwindling of creative architecture and the deprivation of new beauties on the earth for so many years is not the worst side of the picture, for there has been active destruction going on - not only in the inevitable breaking up of old idols but in the wanton despoliation of nature. Nature has come to be regarded primarily as a field of economic exploitation, and its beauty considered only in the few cases where this beauty can be exploited profitably.
In a world dominated by individual curiosity, success and arrogance the marvels of inorganic and organic creation are being ruthlessly converted into transitory expedients of personal aggrandizement and physical stimuli and the upshot of such a process must be a quarried world of rank weeds and domestic pests on the one hand and, on the other hand, a few useful but diseased, dependent, degenerate plants and animals tamed and cowed.
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THE ADVANTAGE OF SCIENCE
It must be admitted that the modern age has been useful, if it can provide the foundation for a freer life for succeeding generations. The scope for imagination is a hundred-fold greater than at any time in history. A squad of men with mechanical equipment can perform feats of construction in a year worthy of centuries with legions of workers before. If, as has been stated, our average man, woman and child now have at their disposal physical force equal to some twenty slaves then, as compared with former civilizations based on six serf power to one free man, our powers for self expression are in the aggregate six times or 120 times as great for destruction or construction.
SHORTCOMINGS OF SCIENCE
What a pity that the monument to this power, so far, exists in our cities all alike dirty, monotonous, disorderly and desolate, with their conscious pretensions and reiteration of the commonplace and the lifeless forms of antiquity. I hope and believe we are not satisfied with this as the final product of science. The great scientists themselves have about come to the end of their pursuit of matter, in the elusive electron most intelligibly characterized in a citation by Henri Poincare as the "Hole in the ether." Just as geographical discovery has now been thrown back onto archeology so, I anticipate, will the pioneering spirits that have evolved physical science turn back, perhaps by way of psychological experiments, to the great mental substratum of mankind which underlies the individual conscious intellect.
There is certainly sufficient evidence of the unconscious mind to satisfy the most inductive and empirical experimenter and, considering the completeness with which the whole of mankind has been converted by the pioneers of science in three centuries, a wider awakening to the disused powers of the universal mind need not take long.
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FLAT BUILDING . Walter Burley Griffin [Note: This structure is similar to -- but not the same as -- "Study for a group of houses, Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago" in the National Library of Australia's Eric Milton Nicholls Collection (nla.pic-vn3603884a-s662).]
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The people of today are uneasy, straining at their limitations, whether or not they realize that those restrictions are self-imposed on their natural activities. Satisfaction dependent on external stimuli, such as movies, jazz, speedways and acrobatics, is bound to be short lived; these betray a craving for emotional satisfaction which can never be attained except through feelings in sympathy with rather than opposed to practical needs and experience.
REVERSION TO FULLER LIFE
Such satisfaction can be found through social consciousness on the one hand and aesthetic appreciation on the other. The present hectic state can only bring about quick exhaustion but it contains a certain spontaneity and so much less hypocrisy than the intellectual, puritanical pretension of only a few years back that it may betoken the turning point from a purely intellectual outlook and timid repression back to a broader psychological and emotional contact with life. After passive simian curiosity has been satisfied in the pioneers of thought, and after economic strain on the underlying humanity has been eased by the expedients of practical followers of science then, when the physical senses have become calloused to excitement, more and more men will be turning their attention inward to the possibilities of co-operation between the head and the heart in social service and creative effort.
The scientific beliefs of our intellectual philosophy, which have failed to develop an organic communal life, have been inconsistent or fundamentally in conflict with an enduring civilization. We have come to recognize an external natural order of things which we see, hear, touch, smell and taste and consider real, but such a world of isolated, individual intellect supplies no place for instinctive ideals or desires such as justice or beauty; and if the supernatural or divine world once conceived by us to support those ideals
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has lost its reality we must find something else that will. Perhaps the pioneers who have for some years been exploring the complexities and conditions for the full-rounded, healthy working of the human mind or soul may be evolving a practical religion compatible with modern objective science taking into account, without the prop of external agencies, mankind's vast subjective activities, desires and needs.
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
I submit some simple equations to indicate basic elements in our problems of life. The factors are indicated by wide general terms instead of a, b and x and are arranged in three columns under the respective generalizations of ethic, economic and aesthetic. A tangible category for social relationships might be as follows for these three columns:-
a (Ethic) b (Intellectual)(Economic) x (Aesthetic) COMMON(emotions) INDIVIDUAL(concepts) OBJECTIVE(satisfaction) Instinct Senses Existence Nature Man Life Peoples Persons Society Society Science Institutions Public Institutions Private Institutions State Public Needs Private Effort Commodity Land Labor Wealth The Unconscious The Conscious The Imaginative Love Justice Religion Responsibility Industry Art Instinct Oral Sense Harmony Visual Sense Pattern, Beauty Memory Literature Memory and Action Drama Memory and Sound Poetry Memory and Sight Painting Memory and Touch Sculpture Time Technique Music Space Technique ArchitectureIt is hardly possible to boil life down into twenty or two hundred formulae that might pop into one's head, but it is astonishing how the lack of differentiation between, or the omission of, one or the other of these simple factors has left such unsolved equations in fundamental human problems that we have failed to attain a happier objective.
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NATURAL LIFE BEFORE ARCHITECTURAL GROWTH
It is but natural for each of us to rank high in importance the particular field of work on which he happens to be employed. It is also right, and necessary to his self-respect, to make it possible that all the multifarious duties in the world be discharged. In the measure that a man speaks truthfully he conveys his own perspective of the universe with the things in his foreground looming largest.
However, as already pointed out, architecture is an inescapable expression and revelation of and to all mankind, and one's relation to it is an index of his individuality. It is therefore really important to the fundamental self-respect of everyone of us to study life from the perspective point of the architect. In the future as sure as fate our purposes, our strength, our insincerities, our foibles will be an open book in the remains or ruins of our buildings. The record is not only qualitative but quantitative as the last resultant of all our physical powers.
Up to the present day - to attempt to discuss this subject without illustrations would be a waste of time but we all witness now so many miles of pictures weekly that it is unnecessary to portray the fact - the monotony of the modern environment is not merely here but everywhere. The isolated relics of earlier art as well as the unique variations in races of men and genera of plants and animals are being obliterated in the ubiquitous standardized product of our building art. It is significant that not until the modern intellectual age of renaissance did we hear much of anything about architects, and it is not to the architects that we go to learn architecture now, even in the schools where the cult is taught, but ultimately to the unidentified origin back in the naive, subconscious creative periods when art was not in conflict with the surrounding natural world nor a reflex of internal strife.
There is no page 72 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy. The New-York Historical Society copy has no additional text at this point either.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 73 (table of contents) ====]
OFFICE BUILDING . MELBOURNE . Walter Burley Griffin [Note: The structure is the Leonard-Kanevsky Mercantile Building.]
There is no page 74 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy. The New-York Historical Society copy has no additional text at this point either.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 75 (table of contents) ====]
TEMPLE OF MUSIC . Walter Burley Griffin
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CAPTION
This structure illustrates Griffin's freedom from the domination of the past and his genius for economy.
The revolution in Frank Lloyd Wright's designs with the coming in of Griffin did not end with the Frank W. Thomas house which was lifted up out of the ground. I myself realized later that Wright was quick on the uptake. The Isidore Heller house which was on the boards when I entered like the William H. Winslow house was the old colonial plan. In a bit of free time I designed a house for my family in Hubbard Woods where we children had grown up. It was a long narrow oblong with an octagonal room flanking on either side near the front. The next Wright house was that plan - the Joseph and Helen Husser House - but two squares instead of the octagons. I thought nothing of that till years later Wright began his publications claiming all the young Chicago Architects as his disciples, which was far from the truth. I would grant that what one likes one can use - as on the growth of Gothic - but cannot claim.
The William A. Storrer Catalog Numbers (3rd edition, 2002) for the Wright buildings are: Thomas House - S.067; Heller House - S.038; Winslow House - S.024; Husser House - S.046.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 76 ====]
Continued from page 71BACK TO NATURE
The definite idea of architecture to my mind lies in the organic, systematic way of creation that nature shows in fitting an infinite variety of means to as many ends with perfection of form for every function - to recall Louis Sullivan's alliteration:- "Form follows Function."
Communion with primeval nature is the common school for future architects that it was in the beginning of civilization when everywhere in every race and every climate anonymous architects expressed fitness and beauty in their constructions.
Nowhere in the modern world have the conditions set a more attractive problem for the architect than in the wooded rock ledges of the headlands of Sydney Harbor - a nice problem, for the factors are definitely clear-cut and simple socially, economically and aesthetically:- a million people free to exercise their own judgment, economically able to provide themselves with fully equipped and appointed substantial homes with a beautiful, easily worked stone and underlying their sites and all other building materials indigenous, and all skill and equipment, handy, and the most, beautiful outlook possible to imagine complete to start with.
The aesthetic requirements are modesty to the extent of subordination of structural features to the striking characteristics of the forested cliffs, using the stone and level coursing uniform with them that will accomplish this, and a diminutive scale of one story that can accord with the diminutiveness of natural forms without breaking with the established habits and accepted type plans. After a hundred years during which every alternative has been introduced from every corner of the earth this natural formula is now being tried out at Castlecrag in Sydney Harbor.
Similar ideas and expressions occur in "Architecture in Another 50 Years" in Section III, No. 4., page 53ff.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 77 (table of contents) ====]
No. 4. HALF STORY DWELLING . WILLIAM F. TEMPEL [Note: The structure may be the Tempel House in Winnetka, Illinois.]
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CAPTION
The elimination of external walls as walls in dwellings and other buildings and substituting piers and grouped fenestration came about after Griffin entered into partnership with Frank Lloyd Wright.
This dwelling of Mr. William F. Tempel has this formality. In this case the living room is on the ground level and thus becomes a story and a half high and the dining room becomes a balcony of the living room. It is hard to express in words the elegance and openness of such an arrangement. Even a small house can become impressively spacious.
Griffin completely solved the problem of a floor built solidly on the ground by embedding 2″ by 1 1/2″ floor joists in an asphalt pavement and laying the floor boards directly on this asphalt.
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Caption
Griffin in his early work - American - was really classic though strictly 20th Century, no imitation of the older Classic style, but formal and balanced.
When handling the lovely valleys of Castlecrag his works were often romantic, as indeed were the Capitol Theatre and the Cafe Australia of Melbourne.
In India he became what a 20th Century man should be - a free individual no longer under the control of the Folk Soul - and his work there covered a wide range of designs, continually creating new styles so to speak - as Mr. Talbot Faulkner Hamlin of the Columbia University said - "uniquely original."
NATIONAL BANK . MINNESOTA . Louis H. Sullivan [Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy this illustration appears at the bottom of the page. The caption further identifies the bank as the "National Farmers' Bank of Owatonna." Below the illustration is the typewritten comment, "The clean horizontal line was established by Sullivan [/] before F.L. Wright was out of his office".]
In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not. Otherwise the texts of the two copies are comparable.[Note: ==== Beginning of page [80] ====]
[Supplied title: Wilder Garage? There is no page 80 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy. The New-York Historical Society copy has a blank page 80 with only the handwritten words "Wilder Garage ?" at the bottom. This illustration is not listed in the tables of contents of either the New-York or Chicago copies. Related images can be found in the National Library of Australia's "Pictures Catalogue" under "Advanced Search" (http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/picturescatalogue?mode=advanced).]
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LEGEND OF THE CANONCanyon - Jeremiah Mahony
Where the sunset's golden gleamings On the rocky highlands rest; 'Neath the moon-light's silver beamings Of the distant, dreamy West, Once there roamed an Indian lover With his fawn-eyed Indian fair - Lover blythe as mountain rover, Maiden rich in flowing hair.
But the sleep that knows no waking Chilled the gentle maiden's breast, And the Brave, all hope forsaking, Laid her in the hill to rest - Laid her where the mind may wander Far o'er slopes and ledges steep, And the mind on billows ponders, ponders - Billows grand, but locked in sleep.
Then the brave's bold eye was darkened, And his hand forgot the bow; Naught to human speech he harkened; Naught but sorrow would he know. Frozen was his heart of gladness As the summits capped with snow; Dark his soul with sullen sadness As their cavern depths below.
But the Great Good Spirit sought him - Sought him in his speechless grief, And, in kindly promise, brought him Matchless comfort and relief. "Come", he said, "and see thy dearest - See her in her spirit home; Toward the southland - 'tis the nearest - We shall Journey; hither come!"
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And they went the Spirit leading - Speeding with unmeasured force;- Neither hill nor valley heeding, On, straight onward, was their course:- With the whirlwind's footstep striding, By the smooth and rock-cut ledge, Hills with earthquake's plow dividing - Plow-share sharp as lightning's edge.
Such their way through hill and valley, Cold and narrow, dark and steep, Sped the rock-embosomed valley Cut a thousand fathoms deep. Carving, piercing, cutting through Toward the drowsy southern shore The Spirit formed the mystic furrow, And told its sides to meet no more.
But the Spirit good, all knowing, Feared lest man's unresting race, By the mystic pathway going, Should near the spirit-hunter's chase. 'Twas then he gave the torrents headway:- A thousand thousand streams were poured; 'Twas then adown its narrow headway That first the Colorado roared.
And still the diamond drops are speeding Down a million rippling rills, The headlong rushing cascades feeding From liquid hoard of snow-clad hills. And still the voices of the river Within the canon's canyon'sdepths are heard In echoing sounds to speak forever At the bidding of His word.
Jeremiah Mahony was MMG's father.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 83 (table of contents) ====]
HILLSIDE HALF-STORY BUILDING
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CHILDHOOD - Walter Burley Griffin
The first vivid picture of a personality inflexible, indomitable, is a baby boy following his mother about the garden patting the flowers as he went. All his life it hurt him to have flowers picked, hurt him as it does others to see a bird's wing broken, an absorbing love that enabled him to recognize new flowers in the field that he had read about in encyclopedias years before, the absorbing interest that develops the absolute memory. This memory in later years enabled him, in a new country with a different monetary system and utterly different prices of materials (after one day and night spent with a contractor going over prices of all building materials), to go on the witness stand quite ready to answer any questions with definite statements as to current prices.
As a little boy in school, teased and bullied by bigger boys, he decided that if he cried when they hurt him it would amuse them to keep up their torments so he never cried no matter what they did. They soon quit bothering him. In manhood no one could disturb his equanimity. I have seen him go through torments that have driven other men into rages of fury with blood-shot eyes, that have thrown them quite off their balance; but they never got under his skin, they never disturbed the sweetness of his disposition, they were never to wear him out as he could have been worn if he had allowed his emotions to be roused.
When eleven years of age he received a pamphlet from the U.S. Government doubtless intended for his father. It was one of Henry George's. He read it and decided on the first book he would draw from the library. A year later, for in those days children couldn't draw books till they were twelve, he drew out George's Social Science. The problems of humanity then became his problems and with the thorough grounding of one of the masters of Economics he looked at life with the clear eyes of one building on firm foundations, distinguishing between man-made and God-made things. Possibly this early contact with
Henry George (1839-1897) was an American land reformer and economist who advocated a single tax on the value of land in his 1879 book "Progress and Poverty."[Note: ==== Beginning of page 85 (table of contents) ====]
ESTELLE GRIFFIN . WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN'S MOTHER
There is no page 86 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy. The New-York Historical Society copy has no additional text at this point either.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 87 ====]
Continued from page 85a clear conception of the way of attaining great ends with simple means may have been a determining factor in the conscious life of this youth awakening a powerful will which on the whole is not yet a part of the conscious life of human beings. So great may be the influence of the opening of a spiritual door to a youthful mind. So great may be the service of the adult to the juvenile.
A tow-headed, blue eyed suburban child whose boyhood life was redeemed somewhat by the fact that the suburb Maywood and Elmhurst, Illinois was not very extensive in those days making possible long walks in the open fields, occasionally to the river banks, though thoroughly conventional and timid parents forbad swimming. A child's instinctive recognition of its rights and of the necessity of independence in certain realms brought a fair number of plunges in the river swimming pools.
Interest early turned to building and the first work executed was the lantern on the roof of his father's barn. From the very first as shown in his first real job - Mr. Thomas E. Wilder's barn - his creative capacity satisfied with nothing short of perfection was masterly and had a dominating and revolutionary effect on the work of the office of Frank Lloyd Wright with whom he entered into partnership in the early days of that office, as illustrated by the dwelling of Mr. Little in Oak Park and the Larkin Building in Detroit Buffalo. His fertility in design in architecture as in town planning has not been matched by anything since the days of Louis Sullivan who broke the ice for creative work in modern times.
While still in the grades the key scheme for the city plan was worked out. His clear insight probing to fundamentals led him straight to the basic solution of the double problem of communication and occupation the simultaneous consideration of which like all unities has for so many centuries eluded the mind of man. So long do we humans shuffle along on the surface of the earth and fail to enter the spiritual kingdom where problems are solved. Not so our young dreamer of dreams.
The William A. Storrer Catalog Numbers (3rd edition, 2002) for the Wright buildings are: Frank W. and Mary Little (Little-Clarke) Residence - S.070 and Larkin Company Administration Building - S.093.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 88 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . DUDLEY WALKER [Note: The illustration in the in New-York Historical Society copy indicates the dwelling was located in Emory Hills, Wheaton, Illinois.]
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Today we are being told that we should determine our aim in life and, satisfied that it is what we will to have and bending our whole being to it, nothing in creation can prevent our attaining our end. Evidently holding that simple faith, though in those early days with no conscious analysis of it, at 20 years of age a sturdy young man went to his state University and demanded a course in Town Planning. No University in the world gave such a course. But pioneer days were not a thing of the long past in Illinois and there were still stalwarts, and the spirit of adventure remained in the spirit of the old as well as in the blood of the young. They told him that if he found six others who would take such a course they would create it for him. He found three others and the course of Town Planning was established in the University of Illinois at Champaign to be followed in the next quarter of a century - after the Australian Federal Capital adventure - by the establishment of courses in Town Planning in many Universities in many countries. Unfortunately the field is still largely controlled by land speculators.
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BIOGRAPHY
Illustration - Great Grandmother's Miniature - 1901, New England Illustration - Mother's child portrait - Illinois.
The text regarding illustrations is crossed out in the New-York Historical Society copy.Grandmother Perkins migrated to the Mississippi valley where she was called the Queen of the West in the early days of Illinois.
Father came with his mother and father to Illinois from Cork, Ireland, when still a small boy.
We children could well be called typical Americans, on the one side dating back close to the Mayflower, to present day immigrants on the other. Father and Mother met in the great fertile Mississippi Valley.
In the following Mother jotted down notes of early days.
Illustration - Drawing of my Grandmother and her Great Grandchild, Eleanor, drawn by Eleanor's Mother, Lucy Fitch Perkins.
The text regarding the illustration is crossed out in both the New-York Historical Society and Art Institute of Chicago copies.Notes jotted down by my mother - Clara Hamilton Mahony.
What a strange combination of circumstances it was over a hundred years ago that brought together that little colony from New England, England, the South, Canada and the West Indies and planted them in Tazewell County, Illinois, in a spot on its great prairies of waving grass far from any river, sea-cost or mountains to charm the eye or to give promise of a great city rising out of that ocean of grass.
In the canal boat that carried its precious load of venturesome dreamers were the young doctor, Augustus Perkins, and his bride, Mary, the English scholar, the Kentucky Colonel, the dashing young teacher Colonel James with his wife and beautiful daughter and young son, Quaker Wilson and his wife, Doctor's brother and wife, a German tinner, two sea captains with families, a banker and, in a short time members of father's and mother's families and other interesting people. On that boat was also a young peasant girl quiet and watchful who on the boat's stopping ran to the wharf and was going to get off when the captain told her this was Ashton. "Ashton," she said, "I thought it was Corpus Christi and here it is this damned place."
The members of that colony were of the sterling kind, educated,
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refined and of course courageous and with all the elements that make for success. They had their dreams. They divided the land off into lots, parks, and located public buildings all on paper - all a fizzle, but hardly a family that did not make its mark in the history of Illinois. Four or five died millionaires - not made in Tremont though, and in law and statesmanship many became distinguished. Tremont became the county seat so the brilliant men of the county, like our great Abraham Lincoln, Judge DavidDavis, Stephen A. Douglas and others were often entertained by our good people though they could not claim them as residents. My Mother told me that when the court was in session she often from our house on the hill could hear the men in the court house roar with laughter at the stories they were telling at two or three o'clock in the morning. All know of Lincoln's gift of story telling and my father could almost match him.
The ladies were noted for their refinement, intellect and good cooking. Folks from the neighboring cities flocked to our town when an entertainment was given for they gave us credit for knowing how to entertain after the grand manner. Let me describe one of the banquets. Daniel Webster was reported on his way West and that he would stop in Tremont. All went to work. The Town Hall must be decorated. One of the residents was an East Indian sea captain. He had silks and tapestries that he kindly lent and the ladies used them in decorating. All that had cut glass or silver lent it. At one end of the table the Captain's solid silver set that had been presented by grateful passengers for carrying them through a terrible storm safely, and at the other end another set of the same kind - tray, teapot, sugar bowl, etc. The ladies saw to it that the tables were loaded with tempting food and they were dressed in silks and satins that they had brought to the wilderness in their chests.
It was a brilliant affair but the most memorable speech was made by old captain Wybray. I must give you a short sketch of him. He ran
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 92 (table of contents) ====]
GRANDFATHER AUGUSTUS PERKINS, M.D.
GREAT GRANDMOTHER LOVEJOY
MARION MAHONY . self portrait
In the New-York Historical Society copy the illustrations are arranged somewhat differently from the order listed in the table of contents.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 93 ====]
away from his home in England and hid in a ship. He rose step by step until he became captain. He was unlettered but a born poet. It was a great treat when his family received letters from him to hear them. Often there would be pages in rhyme. At the banquet when he went to welcome Webster with his little wife on his arm - he was a big man - his words were something of this description. "I have been around the world several times, I have bowed before kings and queens on their thrones, but never with the heart thrill that Love felt in shaking the hand of our illustrious Daniel Webster." Webster was one of my Mother's MMG's grandmother's heroes. Father MMG's grandfather hurt her keenly once. When she had been extolling him father said - "but he never paid your father the hundred he owed him." Father had to humbly beg her pardon.
One summer father sent her East to visit old friends and relatives and while visiting at Mr. Webster's his niece said wouldn't you like a lock of Uncle Daniel's hair? He was writing at his desk when his niece went back of him and cut quite a generous lock. While that was happening as he probably had heard what she had said he wrote mother a little note sending his regards to grandfather, etc. On coming home mother found so many wanted "just a few hairs" that she would have no lock left so with the note she had it framed and gave it to her eldest grandson, Dwight H. Perkins. (That and one from Lincoln are still treasured by the family. Another from Lincoln was stolen from the walls of grandson Leslie's living room.)
Mr. Lincoln was a frequent visitor at our house and my mother he admired and honored. When he was made president he remembered his friends of old Tremont. Mr. David Davis of Bloomington who was a frequent guest at Tremont he made a judge of the Supreme Bench Court. John Albert Jones, who used to walk five or ten miles before breakfast and drank from ten to fifteen cups of tea at the parties, he made judge of the Court of Claims, my father, Brigade Surgeon in the Civil War.
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As these pages are written just for my own family I think here is a good place to speak of father. The beautiful picture of Dr. MacLure in Bonny Brier Bush stories has been thought of by some as an impossibility in fact. The author was asked to answer the question. He said - "It has been my good fortune to know your country doctors, not one of them without faults but who each one of them might have sat for my hero."
Father from a little boy seemed cut out for a doctor. He was born in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and Mother in Sanbornton. Grandfather Lovejoy was its richest man, had his 25 wagons plodding the roads to Boston and lived in the finest mansion in Sanbornton. He failed, went to Toronto when father and mother were married and from there joined the colony that went West to Illinois. Grandfather put what was left of his fortune into a beautiful farm on Rock River. Father is happily described by Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham, one of the early woman suffragists and friend of Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony, who in her book called "Life in Prairie Land," said he was another Dr. MacLure. I loved my father dearly and never dreamed anyone could speak of him disrespectfully so I was indignant when a mother, after hours of agony, was reported as saying - "Some say mean things of you but no one could equal you when a woman is in travail."
He often traveled sixty or seventy miles to see a patient and in those days they had no nurses and often no woman to help and father would be gone for days and days. For many years he was the only doctor so he attended the birth of most of the little ones. In all his thirty and more years he never lost a mother or a child. A physician told him that was a most remarkable record, that he should have kept a record. He never kept any kind of books and when he did send in a bill being obliged to pay his own bills, often he would get one back equaling his for vegetables they had put in the back of his buggy, which he never asked for and took for granted were presents, especially as he had one
Eliza Farnham's "Life in Prairie Land" was published in New York in 1846 by Harper and Brothers.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 95 ====]
of the finest gardens in the country.
He was the life of every gathering and the amusement of the young folks when he danced as he kept perfect time and danced on his toes. His horse he always petted and would talk to it. If he fell asleep the horse would always stop when it came to the gate of a place where somebody had been sick, father would open his eyes, look and say - "Nobody sick here now Pomp, go along," and the horse would move on. I used to love to drive over the country with him, and sometimes he would say - "Daughter we shall probably take dinner here and they will possibly have a simple meal, just bacon swimming in fat and boiled potatoes, but eat as though you enjoyed it." Our home was very pretty, built on the top of a hill opposite the square where the red brick courthouse stood. It had circular walks, latticed porches, pretty garden - and now not a vestige of its former self left except the great hard maple trees that father planted when he built. The old court house that should have been converted into a Hall or Library was torn down.
The little town of Tremont had its churches and schools. Generally one resident minister but the pulpits were often filled by the ministers of different cities. Of course the Episcopal Church had to be visited whenever it had members that wished confirmation. I will speak of two I knew. Bishop Chase the founder of Jubilee College in or near Bloomington used to come and confirm and to christen. (My brother Leslie graduated from there.) He was gifted but an arbitrary old soul. Once I heard mother say that when he read in the service, "I am the Lord of Hosts," you always felt that was what he considered himself. Bishop Whitehouse was a highly educated polished scholar who, I always felt, must have had a touch of the snob in him or his children would not have been such snobs, but they may have inherited from someone further back. One of has sons came one day into old Dr. Davis' office for attention. The doctor was one of our ablest physicians but a very blunt man and some temper. This day his office, as usual during office hours, was
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MARY LOVEJOY PERKINS called Star of the West and her GREAT GRAND DAUGHTER . ELEANOR PERKINS
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lined with patients sitting in chairs against the walls, when young Whitehouse came in and stepped up to his desk and said he wished him to prescribe. "Take a seat," said the doctor pointing to an empty seat at the end of the long line. He went but in a moment wriggled up to the desk, leaned over and said, "I don't believe you know who I am. I am Bishop Whitehouse's son." "Damnit, take two seats then." He slunk back.
In writing of Tremont one must not forget the old Col. James if only to give me a chance to express my gratitude. He left Tremont in its early days and settled in Chicago. Successful in business he had a lovely home. Many remember his grandson, Louis James, who quite distinguished himself on the stage. Col. James' handsome daughter Elizabeth married Thompson Flint who came to Chicago and made his millions in grain here. His wife and mother were always closest friends.
But the glory of Tremont is a thing of the past. Captain Wybray's lovely home you would not recognize. Of course there are splendid farms about the town, neat and nice but the charm where? A word of the grand old sea captain. His home a large white mansion in the center of noble trees was noted for its hospitality and refinement. His son, Lawrence Wybray married my beautiful Aunt Sophia and they and the family lived there with the Captain and his dear little wife - a home where all the scattered family could congregate. Two of his sons settled in New Orleans, his lovely daughter Georgine married a rising New Englander who came out West a young man and met his fate and made his fortune finally settling South on a large plantation - sugar. Here I wish I could put in words what I owe that loved couple. During the Civil War as my father was sent to Virginia as Brigade Surgeon, I applied and was assigned to one of Chicago's public schools. Every weekend I was made welcome in their lovely home. I remember one Monday morning a fierce storm was raging but I dressed and started out to get a car on State Street. Standing in the middle of the tracks he stood all muffled up directing the street-car men. At that time he was Superintendent of
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the street-car lines - I heard a voice - "Go back Clara, I'll see that you get to the school." He never considered himself when he could do anything for a friend.
A bride of one of Tremont's rich deserters who had heard him talk of Tremont's glories visited the place and when she failed to find anything interesting she said, "Show me that pear tree that bore pears, the finest that ever grew. It was found with one pear and that tasteless. She had her opinion!
The text contains no end quotes for the quotation in the paragraph above.A few character sketches:- A tinner was a German and of course a skilled workman. He made furniture also and though I'm 84 years old, next to my 200 year old mahogany table that crossed the ocean in 1700 something, went through two fires and still has the same hinges and castors and is a thing of rare beauty, a table the tinner made for me is still one of the strongest best made articles I have. Father went in to his shop one morning and he the tinner said to him, "Doctor isn't hell all confuse?" "I suppose it is," said father. "Well then my wife is hell for she is all confuse."
One of the colony was a graceful, handsome, witty, entertaining young man who married a lady very plain but who knew most of everything on every subject of anyone I ever know. She would have made a good Secretary of State. Her husband said she deserved no credit for she couldn't forget.
There were five of us children. Mary died when an infant, two other girls and two boys. Of course it was very difficult to get help though father as he went all over the country had better chances than most. But he helped mightily when work piled too high. Sunday was our heaviest day. Father came in laughing one morning and told us about a little red headed boy calling to him over the hedge, - "Say Doctor do you like Sundays?" and father to please him said, "No." "Nor I nuther," said the boy, "and I don't see why the Lord took the longest day for Sunday."
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UNCLE LESLIE PERKINS [Note: This illustration does not appear to in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
MOTHER CLARA PERKINS MAHONY
AUNT MYRA PERKINS
The pictures of Clara and Myra appear on this page in reverse order from their listing in the table of contents. The miniature of Sister Georgine, listed in the table of contents for this page, appears to have been intended for page 102 (below).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 100 ====]
Many tied their wagons around father's yard, went to church and knew they would be invited to dinner. Father was a fine provider and mother a tip top cook. "I would drive fifteen miles to get a piece of your lemon pie," we heard, and I myself still think they were the best I ever tasted.
My father after his long drives and anxious hours of nursing would come into his home and say, "Mary a strong drop of tea please," which Mother would quickly make ready in one of his pretty little tea pots. My brother Leslie had a blooded pup which was the pride of his life. Also it was a winter of bitter cold. I shall never forget the morning I was called by my father to hurry down stairs if I wanted to see my little sister. He declared I didn't touch the stops. Father took Mother in her breakfast and told her what he had just read in Leslie's journal - "This has been the darndest week for accidents I ever heard of. Father broke his teapot, my dog Don froze to death and Mother had a baby!"
Illustration - Aunt Myra Perkins - Uncle Leslie Perkins
See the illustrations on page 99.My sister became a very fine performer on the piano. Added to her lovely self, that attracted the young people but that annoyed father so he wrote in big letters "Short calls make long friends" and hung it on the mantle. First night two young gents came in and at just midnight they jumped and blew out the lights and rushed out. There was much good cheer and good feeling but much work, but no one of us ever heard our mother speak angrily or even impatiently, and we were no models. She hadn't father's sense of humor, still she amused us at times describing some caller. I remember a lank washed out young girl sitting by the stove waiting for father to put up a prescription and mother, who was all politeness asked after her father. "Father is dead, he died of fever." "And your mother?" "Oh she is dead too. Died of him I guess."
But I was to tell of the Bloomington dance. They took their finery and wore home suits. When they returned the next day where their log house had been was a pile of ashes. Father had a fine medical library
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and surgical instruments. It was a very serious loss to him, even if he had the means, which he had not, to buy more he could not get them in a new country. All Mother's wedding gifts, her entire wardrobe, nothing, nothing left. The town people thought an old codger who used to tramp about the country was burned as they saw bones of a skeleton, but it was a skeleton father had in his study. Dear old Quaker Wilson took Mother in and treated her so lovingly, and father was always cheerful and knew that, with patience, comforts and a home would come again.
They had a fine Lyceum for several of the colony could act well, so with gatherings here and there, sleighing parties, dances and plays they had many memorable times. The little town grew but since the Civil war but few are left that have any legends to tell of the early days. One left and went to New York leaving his family six millions, another had a great sugar plantation in Louisiana on the Byou Bayou Teche, a region made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
After the house burning Quaker Wilson and his wife took us into their home and their loving care and tenderness could never be forgotten. All the able-bodied men went to work to build a log cabin and the ladies to sewing articles for the doctor's wife Mary. Soon Hamlet, one of father's brothers, came with his bride who though called plain would outshine any young beauty by her grace, intelligence and charm of manner. Aunt Margaret in her happiness saw everything in a rosy light. She wrote to her husband's brother, Judge Hamilton Perkins of Concord, New Hampshire, of her romantic life on the Prairie describing herself as reclining on a couch with crimson covering, and other matters in the same glowing colors which caused Uncle Hamilton to say when he later on received a letter from Mother - "Now we shall get facts as here is a letter from Mary." I dare say he learned the truth about things but it would be cheerful, full of hope but facts. He would be able to picture the couch as boards on boxes and covered with turkey red.
"Lyceum" - The Lyceum movement, named after Aristotle's school in Athens, was an early form of adult education which flourished before the American Civil War. The movement came to include not only professional lecturers but also local debates, discussions, and talent productions.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 102 (table of contents) ====]
SISTER GEORGINE Miniature by Marion Mahony [Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy there is a caption for this illustration, but the illustration itself is lacking.]
BROTHER GERALD & HIS WIFE CLARA [Note: The caption in the New-York Historical Society copy adds, "in Their Elkhart Home".]
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Men used to say that neither horse nor water would ever be the cause of Hamilton Perkins' death he was such a superb rider and swimmer. Little they knew. Uncle Hamilton went into the lumber business up by the Falls of St. Anthony. His house was built on a high place overlooking the falls. The winter had been severe and in order to prevent serious trouble the ice had to be broken. None of the men would risk it so Uncle went to work and soon the great piece he was working on moved and as he stood erect with his arms folded across his chest it quickly moved on by his home from the windows of which his wife and three children saw him carried over the falls.
Years later our Quaker friends, the Wilsons were murdered in their Winnetka home, and as far as I know the murderer is still living unmolested and undisturbed. Mrs. Sawyer, another Tremont character, believed in feeding people so all her life she rose at two or three o'clock and cooked so she could have pies, cakes, meat and hot bread for breakfast. Her son and a young girl she raised used to scrap in the yard and she would raise the window and exclaim, "Abail Buss and Sara Ann ain't ye ashamed of yourselves!"
The Platt family had a large family of girls all very intelligent but of delicate health. The two eldest were addicted to walking in their sleep. Julia would rise, go out, do all her chores and commence getting breakfast when Uncle Nathan who married the eldest sister would hear her and awaken her. The traveling ministers and lecturers often stayed with us while they remained and one night Rev. L. read us a sonnet of John Milton's. Not long after Angeline had gone to her bed her mother called to father and said, "Augustus, Angeline is sitting up in bed and talking a steady stream. Father when he reached her said, "She is talking in her sleep and is repeating verbatim Milton's sonnet that Mr. L. read. She had never read it nor heard it before and could not repeat any of it when awakened.
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Of course some of the colony had some means with them and soon homes appeared but most started in log cabins. Whenever an adjoining town had a dance or a good time all the neighboring towns would endeavor to send representatives. Bloomington, Pekin and Peoria were busy towns. Bloomington reported it was to have a dance so many of the villagers planned to go and among them father and mother. Mother was called Queen of the West and when she was arrayed in her yellow satin which set off her marble white skin, black hair and stately figure she looked it every inch.
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No. 5. CLASSIC FORM IN THE AMERICAN PERIOD DWELLING . F. PALMA MARSHALL [Note: A caption on the drawing identifies the structure as being in Kenilworth, Illinois.]
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CAPTION
Whereas Griffin's work from the first - even a garage as Mr. Thomas E.Wilder's - had character and charm, Frank Lloyd Wright's work had no charm till after he had been in Louis Sullivan's office. Griffin had established the 2nd Story horizontal sill line, he and others perhaps under the influence of the Japanese prints of the Columbia Exposition which waked up America to the beauty of the oriental arts.
In this Marshall dwelling the lofty central dining room with its clerestory windows gives a feeling of elegance, and its projecting roof gives shade to a portion of the flat roof and to the roof veranda.
One might say this is a flat roof house in its simplest terms. Its very formality makes it not only dignified but beautiful.
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COLOR
I had an interesting experience. I stood in a doorway in the bright sun, my shadow sharply cast on my light carpet as was also the jamb of the doorway. Presently my attention was arrested by a surprising thing that happened every time the shadow of my arm came near to the shadow of the door jamb. A big lump almost the size of my fist swelled up on my arm's shadow and reached out till it joined the jamb's shadow. On closer inspection I saw that there was also a smaller lump reaching out from the larger shadow toward that of my arm. I have in only one case found a material scientist who would give any serious attention to this fact or who would offer an explanation of it though all of them are familiar with the fact of osmosis where one liquid is drawn toward another. Too interested in their theory to pay any attention to facts. In astronomical observations of the transit of Venus the scientists have made the same observations but brushed them aside hoping for better luck next time. It was again a case of darkness attracting darkness - darkness the beginning of matter, the creator of liquidity, exhibits the phenomenon of attraction. For a fascinating exposition of this phenomenon I refer you to the 6th lecture of Dr. Rudolf Steiner's series on light.
Both the table of contents and the New-York Historical Society text indicate that this paragraph was written by Marion Mahony Griffin. Similar text is found in Section III, No. 14., pages 254c-254d.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 108 ====]
FORM . TEXTURE . COLOR . Walter Burley Griffin
First of all it is necessary to understand that all superficial characteristics should be the natural consequence of underlying structural requirements. Honesty is quite as basic a necessity in architecture as in other fields of life. We find here as everywhere that spiritual qualities precede material expression and real and permanent beauties can result only on such a foundation. Thus, to attain beautiful results in architecture there must be no superficial requirements but purely rational ones and the whole effort of the architect must be bent toward the accomplishment of three things:- An absolute solution of the problem resulting from due consideration of all the elements which have any bearing on it; an honest use of materials in accordance with their nature, and perfection of form.
The first of these, a solution of the problem, we have been discussing in the previous lessons. The second point is the honest use of materials.
There is no necessity nor is it tolerable that any material used in a structure should be made in imitation of any other material. Sham, wherever found, is intensely disagreeable and savors of those class distinctions we find in undemocratic communities which classify human beings on purely superficial qualifications. All materials in nature are beautiful, and structures will be beautiful if materials are used frankly and treated according to their natural characteristics, and we find, in fact, an infinite variety of perfect structures where it is as impossible to say that one is more beautiful than another as it is to say that one landscape is more beautiful than another, and these structures may be of any material, whether it be the unbaked mud of Adobe structures of some of the Indian peoples or whether they be of bamboo or stone. The ugliness arises only when we try to twist one material into imitation of another as of wood cut or painted to represent bricks or concrete shaped to imitate stone or any of the other innumerable subterfuges so commonly made use of
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EVEN THE TINIEST BUILDING PERFECT . Benjamin Bayless . Evanston
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Caption
One year in the office of D. Dwight H. Perkins MMG's cousin getting out at that time the working drawings of Steinway Hall, with the whole drafting force lending me a hand to put me through my paces, gave me a sound foundation in that field
At the end of that year with a drop in the pressure of office work I was dropped and went into the office of F.L. Frank Lloyd Wright whose 1st and, with one exception, only office building was just under construction.
The William H. Winslow house was also under construction which dwelling like the dwellings of most of the Chicago School of Architecture adopted the sill line of the 2nd story windows as a dominating factor in the design. A rendered drawing of one of Robert C. Spencer's houses was pinned up on Wright's office wall. The Winslow plan was Old Colonial.
The William A. Storrer Catalog Numbers (3rd edition, 2002) for the Winslow house is S.024. This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 111 ====]
in our own time.
The third requirement is perfection of form.
We use this term "perfect" in the same way as in speaking of a crystal, that is, the shape should be simple enough to be comprehensible and should be complete. This is as necessary in anything that presents itself to the eye as harmony is to whatever presents itself to the ear if it is to separate itself from chaos and appeal to our consciousness as a creation, a structure, a thing - in architecture, a building.
Here, as in all the works of man, to have a thing attractive it must emphasize the fact that it is the work of an intelligent creature who has done his work in joy and affection in the full expression of his capacities.
We will discuss and consider the honest use of materials.
We find the natural building materials most generally used for the shelter of human beings have been stone and wood, but to those from very early times have been added artificial materials, brick, tile and concrete. These are quite distinct in their characteristics and nothing but disadvantage arises from the attempt to make them imitate stone. These artificial materials contrast sharply in their characteristics, the brick and tile because of the burning necessary in their manufacture must be in small pieces usually much smaller than stone as ordinarily obtained from the quarries. Concrete, on the other hand, has no such restriction and lends itself to massive structure with large unbroken surfaces. When so used it becomes very impressive and quite as beautiful as any other material. In fact, the possibilities in the use of concrete have barely been touched for there is no limitation of the materials with which it can be made so that its surface effects can vary from the greyish tones of the cement itself to any of the colors of the material with which the cement is mixed, which may be anything from sand to sparkling quartz or exquisite
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MINOR BUILDINGS TRUE TO FORM OF THE GROUP . DOG KENNEL [Note: On the verso is an inscription which reads: "Even a dog kennel had to have the style & perfection of the house[?]".]
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marble or jewels themselves if there were no restriction of expenditure. Just so, brick if used in accordance to its nature will give any of an infinite variety of results both in texture and in color.
In this country scarcely more than two kinds of brick are known but in Europe we find a great range both in size, shape and color in this material, and the last decade or two in the United States have developed bricks whose surfaces vary from smooth polished to soft rich surfaces obtained by cutting the bricks with wire and of great range of color from lovely greys through soft or glowing buff or yellow tones to various shades of reds and even of purples. These bricks, with their natural variation in color, give surfaces as lovely and rich as velvet or tapestry.
In addition to these main structural elements there are others which are by nature surfacing materials and may be used either for protection or for finish - such stone as can be out in thin layers, as marbles, which may be used either for flooring materials or for the surfacing of walls, exterior or interior, or that form a very serviceable material for making tight air spaces and if properly handled giving a very beautiful surface.
Wallpaper, our commonly used cheap substitute for tapestries would better be discarded altogether as far richer effects can be obtained at less cost by omitting the third hard smooth coat of plaster and making the 2nd coat of sufficiently coarse material to give an interesting texture to the wall. Without any further treatment, if properly done, this gives very lovely grey tone. On this surface any color scheme desired can be obtained by the use of transparent stains. We can obtain a glowing or velvety tone with a depth and richness not to be attained with any other material except that of woven fabrics.
Wood is not a proper structural material since by nature it is bound to change in size and form whatever precautions may be taken in its seasoning. It is, however, a very beautiful material for surface decoration and can therefore be used to advantage in thin
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VOLLAND OFFICE . CHICAGO [Note: The New-York Historical Society copy has two illustrations on this page.]
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strips or in broad surfaces which can be obtained by the process of veneering, here, the movement can be entirely overcome and by the use of our modern tools, the machines, we can get broad surfaces showing to full advantage the lovely texture, color and graining of an infinite variety of woods.
To bring out to perfection, we should not use complicated forms or thick coating materials such as paint. The finish that is given wood should be only such as is required to preserve it and keep it clean. When used for external work, since it is impossible under the circumstances of the weather to keep highly finished surfaces, the most satisfactory method is to use the wood rough as it comes from the saw instead of the paint dressed surfaces so common at present which have to be painted. These rough surfaces can be simply stained by materials which will penetrate enough to act as preservative of the wood yet do not conceal the character of the wood itself. Such stains can be the tones of the wood itself deepened only enough to prevent unpleasant results which might arise from the soiling of very light colored woods. So treated wood members used in the trimming of a house as for window frames and sashes and eaves and barge boards are far richer in their effect than any less frank use of the material can possibly be. In the interior, protected as it is from the weather, wood can be used for certain members where it may be desirable to use an easily worked material or where lightness is necessary as in the trim about windows and doors, for doors themselves and for furniture whether built in or movable, the most charming effect being gained by the use of the same wood and same finish throughout the house or at least throughout a suite of rooms as the living rooms or the bed rooms, and the most beautiful effects will be obtained not by the high hard polishes but by the most transparent stains, just sufficient to emphasize the natural grained wood, rubbed down with just enough wax to keep dirt from penetrating the wood. This method gives a soft surface scarcely distinguishable from the unfinished wood itself.
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INTERLOCKING SQUARES [Note: The structure may be a bungalow designed for William F. Tempel. Identification is based on a picture from the Eric Milton Nicholls Collection found in the National Library of Australia's "Pictures Catalogue" under "Advanced Search" (http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/picturescatalogue?mode=advanced).]
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The determination of what materials shall be used in any structure is settled by several facts, all of which will be affected by the location of the building, for the expense of any one of these materials is largely determined by the locality which in one case may mean that wood is more expensive than any other material as is almost the case in Australia at the present time or may mean that stone will be less expensive than brick. Quite aside from the matter of expenditure it is usually desirable that local materials should be used as most harmonious results, especially for the community, will naturally arise from this method and whatever material is used should be considered for both exterior and interior purposes as the simplicity and harmony and quality of a building is largely determined by the use of the same material wherever appropriate both outside and inside. No other one thing will go so far toward giving a feeling of finish and unity to a building as this.
Glass is another material used for quite special purposes and its characteristics can well be taken advantage of for the increasing of the charm of our homes.
For a long time the staining of glass appeared to be a lost art as the colors obtained by modern processes were raw and garish. We have found, however, that this resulted from what has been termed too great perfection in its manufacture, since the richness can now be obtained by the introduction of what were considered impurities.
It is hard to describe the lovely effects which can be obtained by a proper use or colored glass since so far as I know there is none to be seen in some countries and the matter of scale in all the elements of a building is of vital importance and the subdivision of the glass in windows and doors often goes a long way towards giving a home that feeling of domesticity which is necessary if it is to meet its requirements. These points will affect and hold all the occupants, especially the children whose whole attitude towards life is bound
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INTERLOCKING SQUARES PLAN . ELEVATION . SECTION [Note: The structure may be a bungalow designed for William F. Tempel. Identification is based on a picture from the Eric Milton Nicholls Collection found in the National Library of Australia's "Pictures Catalogue" under "Advanced Search" (http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/picturescatalogue?mode=advanced).]
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to be deeply affected by the home atmosphere. Here again, if we study the natural character of the material we find we need not go to any great expense to get charming effects for glass, though difficult to cut in curved forms, is easily broken in straight lines. We should not, therefore, make attempts to paint pictures with colored glass but should use geometric motives or purely decorative forms.
We come finally to the extreme surfacing material which is color itself which, if it is to be used in such a way as not to obscure the qualities of the surfaces on which it is used, should be applied not in the form of thick paints but in pure transparent stains. These may be water mixtures or oil mixtures, but should not be mixed with the dense materials such as whiting which is almost universally used by our present decorators.
As to color itself, not even this should be looked upon as a matter of personal taste and whim. The proper colors to use in interior decoration is quite as such a matter of mathematics as is sound and form. In decorating the interiors of our homes we should recognize that both eye and mind and spirit have definite requirements which will be met only if we conform to the natural laws of color. Human beings are not creatures made to burrow in the dark but light is necessary, both for health and happiness, and this should guide our use of colors in the interior in order that our homes may approximate outdoors in the meeting of these requirements as closely as possible. In other words we want to bring light into our homes.
A glance at the spectrum will show us that the most luminous part of it is not to be found on either end but in the center. Out of darkness we come gradually into intense light and on again into darkness. The blue, violet and indigo rays tend toward obscurity as well as the deep red end of the spectrum and although with direct light such as we get from the sun itself there is still a certain luminosity in these terminal colors of the spectrum yet we will find that from reflected surfaces we can get a feeling of luminosity only by the use of the
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central colors, therefore, the violets and indigos and reds are debarred from use in interiors and we find that wherever they are used there has been an attempt to overcome this fact by using them mixed with white which results in pasty, sickly tints which should never be used at all in decoration. Neither is it possible to get that feeling of luminosity by one color only. Experiments in decoration of high ceilings have been made which show that an effect of brilliant white can be obtained by painting a ceiling in narrow strips of a succession of colors constantly repeated, and we know that in light itself a union of all the colors of the spectrum result in white. Our rooms should therefore be arranged to make the use of 2 or more colors in a room. In fact, a color scheme can hardly be called a scheme unless it contains 3 tones just as 3 tones are required to form a chord in music. To show the difficulty in the use of words in describing colors I need only say that it sounds as if we were very limited in our choice of colors when we can use only the yellow or its mergings into the red through the orange on the one side and into the greens which are its combination with the blue on the other side but, in fact, the tones so composed are infinite in their variety though they can generally be classified under the one term, russet. It sounds very crude and ugly if we say a room is to be decorated in red, yellow and green; but a mere change of names to russet, gold and olive is sufficient to make one realize that such a combination may be very beautiful.
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No. 6. SOLID ROCK HOUSE . KENILWORTH . ILLINOIS [Note: The New-York Historical Society copy has two illustrations on this page. The top image is a photograph of the Tempel House. A "Solid Rock House" has been associated with the names of William F. Tempel (Winnetka), Frank Palma [Marshall?] (Winnetka or Kenilworth), and E.L. Springer (Kenilworth).]
There is no page 122 in either the New-York Historical Society or Art Institute of Chicago copies.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 123 ====]
MY HAREM - Jeremiah Mahony
A harem of beauties I boast. Most excellent, dutiful wives; Each fancies she pleases me most, Nor disputes with her sisters, nor strives. They are learned and witty and wise; On my good and my pleasure they dote: But they never break family ties To wrangle in public nor vote.
At a word their soft breasts they unfold And yield to my spirit's embrace; Yet when o'er her charms I grow cold. Contented each sinks in her place. They fire me, they melt me, they find Where the fountains of feeling are hid, And the shackles of passion unbind; Yet they hush at the drop of my lid.
They tell me the wonderful tales Of Persia and Araby blest; One speaks of Europe's fair vales, And one of the virginal West. Hot love talk one brings from the South, Drunk with the sun's ardent beams; And folk-lore one has in her mouth, From the Northland's magnificent dreams.
Every week a new, beautiful form On my harem's retreat I enfold. To the new love I'm never less warm - Toward the old love I never grow cold; Yet censure I scorn and defy, And in virtue's calm eyes dare to look; No Morman Mormon nor Turkman am I - Each beauty I boast is a book.
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When the soft, fleecy hours of the day Have rounded the evening's dim height, And silently wended their way To the folds of the shepherdess Night, In the darkness my lamp makes a breach By its conquering glances I look For eloquence sweeter then speech To the page of my favorite book.
Like a gem in the heart of the rock Is my room in the bosom of night; And thousands of fantasies flock To bask in my lamp's steady light; And the souls of today and of yore That sipped at the Helicon brook Besprinkle with wit's sparkling ore The page of my favorite book.
Remote from the twang of the harps. Paradiso's fair fields I would rove; Secure from all quavers and sharps, And, clasping the volume I love, I would roam all alone far away To some silent and soul-hiding nook And drown dull eternity's day In the depths of my favorite book.
And if to inferno I stray - My wasted and erring life's meed - My pains will in peace melt away If I'm only permitted to read. Shut off from the garrulous ghost, From the preaching and lecturing spook, I'll dwell on the Stygian coast And solace my soul with a book.
Jeremiah Mahony was MMG's father.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 125 (table of contents) ====]
AMBERG DWELLING . DECATUR error for "Grand Rapids" . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst [Note: The caption to the illustration identifies this residence as being in Grand Rapids, Michigan.]
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DWELLING. D.M. AMBERG . GRAND RAPIDS . MICHIGAN MARION M. GRIFFIN & HERMAN von HOLST . ARCHITECTS
In designing this house advantage was taken of the natural topography. A good many residences in that part of Grand Rapids are located on top of a high embankment which rises up from a number of the streets. The Amberg house being located on the corner lot and with such an embankment gave the opportunity to build practically a one story house as viewed from the street leaving the driveway to go under the house on the street level. The total height from the sidewalk level to the highest floor is one story. By varying the height of the floors between the living room and the rest of the house we get added height in the large living room which makes it possible to get a very attractive scheme of ceiling lighting.
The main entrance from both sidewalk and driveway comes directly under the dining room. Two-thirds of a flight of stairs brings one to the level of the living room, morning room, living porch and hallway, giving access to the small outdoor flight of steps to the garden located in the inner angle of the lot, making it unnecessary to cross the driveway in order to reach this sunken garden. Five steps above the living room level are the dining room, service pantry and kitchen. This leaves the space below the service quarters entirely out of the ground so that the servants' bedrooms could be provided with full windows which would take away any feeling of being in basement rooms. It also leaves the servants' quarters in an "L" by themselves with direct entrance from the driveway.
By raising the floor of the bedrooms to the same height as that of the dining room the feeling of seclusion to the sleeping quarters is obtained and the window sills are lifted so high above the level of the lot at the top of the terrace that no one can look directly into the rooms even from that level.
The placing of the main bedroom at the end of the lot gives it the beautiful outlook to the south over the sunken garden. By carrying the
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AMBERG . LIVING ROOM LOOKING TOWARD THE DINING ROOM [Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy there are two images: the top with the caption "Dining Room" (and listed as being on page 129) and the bottom with the title given above. In addition, there is a general caption, "Amberg Dwelling [/] & Furniture . M.M. & von H."]
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drive through and bringing it out on the side street the garage is kept low so that the outlook from the west windows will be over the roof of the garage thus not shutting out the sunset view.
The sewing room as well as the card room is placed on the ground floor off the driveway, both of these rooms being entirely out of the ground with an outlook over the garden.
The color scheme of the house is red, brown and yellow, the brick being a reddish brown astrachan astrakhan? brick, the stone trimmings a portage red sandstone. The exterior plaster has a yellowish tint, the tile harmonizes with the general tones. The roof is of tile and copper with a brown quarry tile. The interior woodwork is all plain sawed oak with a light brown stain harmonizing with the tone of the brick which has been carried into the inside of the house in the living room and the morning room fireplaces.
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FROM LIVING ROOM TO BEDROOMS
MORNING ROOM FIREPLACE
The illustration, "AMBERG . DINING ROOM," listed as being on this page appears on page 127.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 130a ====]
MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM. - Marion Mahony Griffin
Her father was an Irish poet, journalist and educator; her mother the most democratic of human beings, a mother who never dreamed of dictating to her children and a rambunctious five they were. I quote from a New Year's greeting she sent to her friends:- "A word to that faithful company of co-workers who made my life one continual delight. (her teachers) Their high ideals, their unvarying steadfastness to duty, caused one of our head supervisors to say, 'this institution could be left without a head for a year and yet maintain its standard.' I always knew I was simply a good organizer and an appreciative onlooker of the superb good work you did. And reference should be made here to our able and efficient engineer who told one of the force that he had 'been with us seventeen years and had never had a disagreeable word spoken to him.' Ever ready to do and to watch after all the physical comforts, we were able to maintain an "even temper" as long as the air was fresh and the temperature even. Good-bye to the Christmas Holidays and a ring into the New Year."
Marion, the second born child, was a fragile thing that Mother had to keep out doors, ill as soon as she was brought into the house. Father was from Cork. Mother was of New England blood dating back almost to its beginnings. Father emigrated from Ireland when a boy. He was a Catholic, Mother a Unitarian - the only two logical positions as father said. On the death of her "his" crossed out father our father took the gold from his pocket and had it made into a napkin ring for Jerome and a finger ring for me, the only grandchildren yet born.
A kindly fate in the form of the Chicago fire drove them out, with the two babes in a clothes basket, to dwell for a decade (when fire burned their house to the ground and sent them back to Chicago) in the loveliest spot you can imagine, beyond suburbia - four houses and no others within a mile in any direction. Our home was at the head of a lovely ravine. A half mile walk through the beautiful forest to the
See also MMG's reminiscences in Section III, No. 5., page 67ff.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 130b (table of contents) ====]
HUBBARD WOODS AT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN [Note: The New-York Historical Society copy has two images of the same map: the first (somewhat altered) captioned "Preserving the Natural Beauty Is [/] What Should Have Been Done"; the second, "Present Subdivision . Road in Ravine."]
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east took us to the shores of Lake Michigan with bluff 50 feet high and a wide sandy beach, to the west, half a mile through scrub to the marvelous Skokie, head waters of the Chicago River, stretching for endless miles.
Such a wonderful place for children to develop, God's university. All the wonders of the wilderness and yet so convenient to the city that both father and mother slipped into the city for their daily work. Town planning would make such things possible for all children, just a little foresight. We children were safeguarded by a grand Irish housekeeper, and educated by that greatest of teachers - Mother Nature - and in her loveliest mood.
And in the lap of nature she grew well and wiry. When city guests came out for the week end she was called upon to exhibit her tree-climbing feats. Gathered on the veranda they watched her, barefooted, climb monkey fashion the tree just in front of the house, branchless well above the top of the two story house. And they teased the boys because they couldn't do it.
When school age came they thought nothing of the mile walk to the village school at Winnetka. Always that was supplemented by the outdoor life. In the early spring gathering hepaticas from under the very snow, on to fall with its wild hickory huts, black walnuts and butternuts and hazelnuts; and the berries - raspberries, black berries, blue berries June berries and wild grapes and crab apples and on in the winter snow, wintergreen berries. And then always the marvel of the lake! the joys and delights in the summer, the ice hills and caverns piled up in the winter and, when a storm was on, the walks through the woods with father and mother to the top of the bluff to watch the grandeur of the waves piling up over the sands and battering and foaming up the bluff itself. Did ever children have such joys.
And then spontaneous combustion and the house was burned to the
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AMBERG . PLANS
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ground in the middle of the night - "A magnificent bonfire," Mother said; and the family moved into the city. The grandfather's rings were about the only things saved from the blaze. In the city Marion carried on with her tomboyish ways; in the winter hitching her sled onto the passing wagons, etc., though so shy of human beings even when well along in her teens that she would walk around the block to avoid greeting an acquaintance seen approaching in the distance. Then Aunt Myra - her great pal during all the years of this saint's life — took her home to Tremont for a year with the maternal grand-parents, the stately grandmother carrying on the household duties, the grandfather, who had never lost a baby, lying on his deathbed though the nine year old child was entirely unconscious of this fact.
There while Aunt Myra went to the surrounding districts on her horse Lucy, and to the neighboring towns giving piano lessons, the wee girl went to school and managed so to ingratiate herself to her teacher that they became lifelong correspondents in spite of the fact that she told a lie to her when asked if she was chewing gum. Miss Fenner instead of reproving her reprimanded the other pupils for leading this little girl to this act. I never forgot it (though I can't to this day see how she managed to make out a case against them) but in later years appreciated her pedagogical talent. I had the habit that year of telling lies - when Aunt Myra asked me if I had brushed my teeth or Grandma asked if I had been sliding in the ice - wearing out my shoes and so forbidden.
Many years after when I spoke to Aunt Myra about it as contrasted with my truthful disposition, she said, "Yes why did you do it?" My present philosophical analysis is that I was quite consciously rebellious of this to my mind quite unwarranted assumption of authority on their part, especially in things that Mother would never have dreamed of opposing - but mostly just a general stand against authority.
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These instances stand out so vividly that, together with my estimation of my own character, I am inclined to consider them very important from a pedagogical point of view. I've helped many a mother to realize that it is folly to expect morals in young children and bad pedagogy to emphasize them.
With grandfather gone I was no longer of importance in grandmother's home, to run errands in emergencies since Aunty's work took her far afield (though I was never conscious of my usefulness while I was there. I think now it would have been wholesome for me to have known. Children appreciate and respond to a consciousness of responsibility.) So I returned home again where the only outdoor playground was the streets except for a pocket handkerchief back yard where many circus tricks were performed. But one day as I was approaching my twelfth year Mother called me up onto the little entrance porch and suggested that I was getting to be too big a girl to romp in the streets. My soul was filled with astonishment and rage. I think I gave her no more worry on that score but I still played hop scotch even after I became a teacher much to the amazement and delight of the school children.
Then my Father's death - Angina Pectoris - the youngest of the five children, Leslie, only four years old - and the whole burden, though I fancy it never occurred to mother in the light of a burden - but the whole responsibility in every field on her alone, economic, domestic, educational, social - and how full she filled them all and her loneliness without her beloved only on the rarest of occasions becoming visible to the rest of us. Once she said to me - "When I am crossing a street in the midst of traffic I think - 'Jere Jeremiah is beside me and will look out for me.'" And it was a lucky thing he did for she was a holy terror in the midst of high speed traffic. In her seventies she would cross the main thoroughfares with dignity at a quiet pace utterly oblivious while drivers and motorists cursed and swore but did not touch her.
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DWELLING . 3 STORIES . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst
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Father was adored by all who knew him. In Hubbard Woods the neighbor across the street, James Chisholm, a journalist, his wife a singer, worshiped the ground he walked on. These two were as likely to drop in on each other at 2AM as any other time of day - their wives quite uncomplaining. In the wee hours it never occurred to father to abstain from waking mother, as he was turning in, to read her his latest poem or dilate on a bright idea.
For some time he was principal of one of Chicago's schools. His teachers adored him. One night not long after his death Mrs. Ella Flagg Young? came in with a box which she handed to Mother. Mother said, "It feels as if it were filled with gold," - took it to the beautiful old mahogany table - such a vivid picture in my mind - opened it and in truth it was filled with gold - a shining thousand dollars to give all the thrills of a miser to one who was furthest possible from being one, collected by the teachers who knew and loved them both, as an expression of their affection.
Father was one who acted on conviction of the human individual's power. When the time came for the selection of a school superintendent he determined that his old school teacher, Mr. Howland, should be the one chosen. He threw articles into all the news papers till - "such was the pressure of public opinion" - Mr. Howland was selected for the position. He and Mrs. Ella Flagg Young were the only great and worthy ones who have held that position in Chicago. Mrs. Young, interestingly enough, when thrown out of her position by a political mayor catering to job seekers who resented a woman's holding so remunerative a position, was reinstated through the uproar of "public opinion," this time the women of Chicago who in the midst of the turmoil had received the franchise. The women succeeded in this though all the men were saying - "If she's out she's out. It isn't possible to get her back. What you women should do is to decide on someone else who will suit you and concentrate on him." But the women had determined to put Mrs. Young back and they did.
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Public opinion in truth! Then politicians cut their Gordian knot by creating another office, giving it equal pay with the superintendency and putting a man in it. With the franchise in their hands the women could throw out the Mayor and he knew it.
Father had the reputation of being the best slinger of the King's English in the city. And friends have told me of how he would sit quietly of an evening and then suddenly take the floor and the whole group would be aflame. Oh! these Irish! One of his poems - My Harem - written to his books was published shortly before and was almost identical with a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Father wrote him about it saying if the dates had been reversed he, the unknown of the two, would certainly have been suspected of plagiarism. He received a very pleasant reply commenting on the frequency of such occurrencies and that it wasn't the first time it had happened to him, Mr. Holmes. You see things do come out of the blue if one has access to it. No rational thinker can accept the idea of chance. A creative idea when once conceived is imprinted on the others and is accessible to imaginative, though not to rational, thinkers.
During those early days in Chicago Mrs. Young was the principle of the school all the children attended. On her return from the country school Marion was placed by her in a 5th grade room with instructions to Miss Jones to pass her on to 6th grade if possible. The year would end in a month. The class was reviewing and Miss Jones pushed her through. On Father's death the only just 4 year old Leslie was put in first grade (there were no kindergartens in those days) and made his grades regularly. When the five Jerome, Marion, Gerald, Georgine, Leslie were through the teachers said - "Thank God that's the last of the Mahonys." Mrs. Young expected them to make all Jere's Jeremiah's children shine. She also, the year after Mother was thrown on her own, coached her for the principal's exam which she passed, to which position Mother was eminently fitted and in which she became one of the leaders in all the progressive movements of the Chicago
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schools. The year after Father's death Grandmother and Aunt Myra, Mother's idolized sister, came to live with us and from that time formed an integral part of the family.
But let the pendulum swing for a moment to the Antipodes to glimpse the childhood of the earth and man's early days on solid earth after his long periods of evolution in the spiritual realms and in the gradually solidifying solar system.
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No. 7. DWELLING & GARAGE A UNIT . MR. SLOAN . ELMHURST [Note: The structure is the Sloane House.]
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Caption
Door and window head height is maintained throughout by a picture rail used to conceal electric lamps for direct and indirect lighting throughout.
Neither the client nor the electric people could believe that the indirect method would be as cheap as the direct so the client of the first home where this method was installed had both methods installed. The indirect proved the cheaper so Griffin didn't have to go through this with future clients. He thus established indirect lighting in the community.
Economy, convenience & elegance gained by having garage a part of the building.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 141 ====]
A TEACHER'S FIRST TEACHER - Jeremiah Mahony in Ireland
I
If knowledge is treasure so priceless, how grateful, How heartily grateful to whom should we be - Possessing a trifle or owing a pateful, Who gave us its mystical alphabet key? At the Cross of Clarine, does the school-house still nestle, O'er its eaves do the ivy and jasmine twine, Where first my young wits were commanded to wrestle With letters, by masterly Connor O'Brien?
II
Now Conner was versed in all kinds of philosophy - In the Par of Exchange, Tret and Tare, Loss and Gain; Like a fox without cover, he'd flee from the Cross if he E'er met a point that he failed to explain. "In Voster abstruse, conic sections and fluxions, In the scope of the angle, the stretch of the line, I will marshal the mind to surprising deductions For a half crown a quarter!" cried Connor O'Brien.
"Tare and Tret" was an arithmetic rule used to calculate net weight (tare) and the allowance (tret) deducted for the wear or damage to goods in transit. "Voster" - Elias Voster wrote a text on arithmetic in the late eighteenth century.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 142 ====]
III
When, awkward, polysyllabic and burley, With prefix and suffix and tough knotty root, Would stand in the way like a highwayman surly, Upsetting the class from the head to the foot, Our general skillful would make a divergence Nor bother his brains to pronounce or define - His tactics were equal to any emergency - "'Tis Latin; we'll pass it!" quoth Connor O'Brien.
IV
In summer, the hedge made a line for our classes: But the cottage would shield us from winter's keen ire. Then peat sods made seats for the boys and the lasses, Till our cushions were claimed to replenish the fire; And well the lads knew what to take from their gardens To Connor, whose wink was a token and sign That "conduct of merit" had won "three first pardons" For crimes 'gainst the statutes of Connor O'Brien.
V
His only assistant, his wife, gentle Alice, Would softly glide in from the little back room To dash from our lips bitter woe's brimming chalice By averting a flogging's well merited doom. Tho' loud was his bawling, the keen little varlet i.e., rogue, rascal Well knew in her arms was immunity's shrine; At her word, he was saved - tho' his crime was as scarlet - From the counterfeit wrath of good Connor O'Brien.
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VI
In the school of the world many "errors" are counted And laid to my charge for the mischief I've done - For duties neglected and tasks ne'er surmounted - And the score grows apace with the rounds of the sun. To the pedagogue Justice account I must render And thank him for punishment swift and condign; But there ne'er will appear an unselfish defender Like Alice, the wife of poor Connor O'Brien.
VII
A score of short years like the lamp of Aladdin Has brought great extremes to my wandering view: Lo! buildings magnificent! yet, friends, we had in The old rude force that we miss in the new. A little more force and a little less training Might give us the oak tree instead of the vine; In gracefulness losing, in sturdiness gaining, Like urchins that studied with Connor O'Brien.
VIII
In high pressure school-rooms, with every appliance And cunning device to check nature's desires; Where the intellect's drill kills the heart's self-reliance And the bodies are moved by the pulling of wires Where minds are like fruit that is cutting and drying; Where mills theoretic grind crushingly fine; 'Mid frightful good order, I catch myself sighing For the turbulent kingdom of Connor O'Brien.
Jeremiah Mahony was MMG's father. The table of contents and the New-York Historical Society copy add to the title line "Chicago school principal".[Note: ==== Beginning of page 144 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . HALF STORY . CORNER FENESTRATION . CLASSIC [Note: On the verso of the backing of this illustration is written: "It was W.B.G. who originated & spread [/] the dignity & and [sic] restfulness of [/] the horizontal line from East [/] to West coast [sic] in the U.S. [/] At the same time eliminating [/] the waste of space in basements [/] by using the half story as unit[.]"]
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THINKING
One of the greatest schools for thinking is one's friendships. The fact that Aunt Myra lived with us during the years after Father's death meant that we all had a second Mother and a wonderful bosom friend. A pianist and teacher, she too was a natural educator and took lessons of all the great pianists who came to Chicago in those days. So she was among those who developed a system of pedagogy in music which rapidly brought the music of the United States up to a high standard. This gave me an opportunity to see, through my own experience, how important it is for us now to take the schools out of the hands of the political organization - as important as it was a while back to take it out of the control of the church. For when I had completed my school work including the university and was ready to start practicing the arts as a profession I found I knew nothing, could do nothing. It was the custom in those days to teach drawing in the schools but not music so, since one could get the drawing for nothing, the parents accepted it as sufficient whereas with music when a child was not getting satisfactory instruction they would dismiss the teacher and put him in other hands. The drawing therefore like everything else in public schools dropped into a deadly routine of no educational value.
When I discovered the consequences in myself I went back, as opportunity offered, to various schools in Boston and Chicago and demanded the kind of work I required, interesting the teachers and creating quite a sensation among the students. Madame and Monsieur Pape were the teachers in Boston and when at the end of a quarter I had to leave for home and expressed my gratitude to them for all they had done for me, Mme. Madame wept and said I was the only student who had ever expressed any thanks though they took so much pains for them. "But," she said, "you certainly got a lot out of your quarter," and I certainly was grateful to them for it. But I had to get what I needed. I found afterwards that there was a privately run school in Chicago in the hands of an old High
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School classmate of mine, Miss Church, and was thrilled to see what interesting work she was doing and what fine creative results she was getting from her pupils. So from my own experience I was able to check what I got from other sources later - that one of the most urgent necessities for establishing a true democracy was the complete separation of the educational system from the political. Only through such a step shall we be enabled to allow creative ability to develop in our young people. As was to be expected Miss Church's enterprise did not last long for at present a private school is a business, and will be until we have established an Abilities Organization to take over, and stands a small chance of being able to continue to exist in competition with government run business. It was run out of existence quite as definitely, though not so self-consciously, as the privately and efficiently run buses were run off the streets in Australia, by increasing and increasing and increasing the taxation on them. We have a chance occasionally to see such instances but how many such undertakings are killed, thwarted, or prevented from ever starting, we have no way of measuring.
I have good reason to be thankful to Aunt Myra for her continued interest in my musical education in spite of the fact that I had no special talent in that direction. For through her I became acquainted with music and even achieved a foundation which, after an interim of many years of no practice, enabled me (when the need came for me to forget myself) to practice Beethoven and other composers with sufficient satisfaction to myself to be a great and lasting healing of the soul. We learn that just as the life body (which we have in common with the plants) is a light organization, so is the soul body, builder of the nerve system, a sound organization, thus great creative powers lie in the pulling into shape of the astral body.
This enabled me to appreciate the importance of opening the doors of these realms of creative experience to all young people. I lost that close companionship with my Aunt through her death before my
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DWELLING . IN THE RAVINES . ROMANTIC [Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration mentions "the spectacular ravines of Sydney." The structure is a perspective for Scheme Three of the David Pratten House.]
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marriage, but never have I lost the feeling of the continued closeness of the relationship. In later years I learned through my own experiences, which are the only basis of knowledge, that this non-material realm is a real world as varied and rich as the material world. Reason tells us it must be as it is the causal world, and the smashed atom has informed us that it is the force world. Later I learned this through perceptions which could be checked by the perceptions of others with the same exactitude as the observations of facts in the material realm. But before we had learned to make a conscious entrance into this causal realm it had been amply proved to us that the sort of things which happened to us at critical moments in our eventful lives could not be accounted for by chance. Anyway the belief in chance is contrary to reason and no truly scientific thinker can accept such an absurdity. So, even before we could be conscious of the methods of this world beyond the boundaries of our nineteenth century type of consciousness, we realized that help was being given to us by beings who were concerning themselves with what we were doing and we interpreted it as coming from loved ones who had crossed over into the realm of consciousness of which we had not yet become directly aware. And it is not mediumship nor spiritualism as generally conceived that we are speaking of.
As the baby period passed, Mother took her roistering family back to Hubbard Woods for each summer long vacation. There was a bit of an adventurer, Mr. Merriles, who had started building houses West of the tracks and then, I suppose in the pinch of some depression (such an absurdity these depressions) had left them in all their various stages of completion. For years we just chose the best one of them still left and camped therein for the two months. They were gradually disposed of the best one each year being occupied the next year, so we passed down the line, but always so long as there was a roof, a floor and a few walls, it suited us perfectly. We bothered with no furniture.
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Mattresses on the floor were luxury enough and when extra guests arrived a blanket on the floor was perfectly satisfactory to the family. There must have been some sort of cooking arrangement though I have no recollection of it, so little was cooking a part of our life, except that when we went out early in the morning for the day's adventure Mother always had one cooked dish.
No one ever had more wonderful holidays than we. As we started on the trail, sometimes we would be joined by neighbors or sometimes by city folk who came out for a lark. Always there was the hope that we would live there again and I wept when the allotment next to ours with a sweet bit of the head of a ravine was sold to be built on. And Mrs. West, one of the original four families, watched with her heart in her throat the cutting down of trees, only a few at first, but she told me that others were dying and she was sure it was in consequence of the loss of their companions. She sensed the interrelationship of plant life whose United Ego dwells in the center of the Earth, this living Earth. Bio-dynamic agriculture is proving that natural plant groups are interdependent entities. This despoliation was slow then but rapid afterwards. Here again is one of the instances where if the United States had been a true democracy, with the Abilities Organ established, this whole wonderful ravine district extending from Winnetka miles north through Lake Forest would today, for all its intense occupation, be as beautiful as then giving the citizenry itself every advantage (more than they have under this system of despoliation) and retaining accessibility for all to its loveliness. This is being proved at Castlecrag for here in Hubbard Woods too the lower levels of the valleys themselves and the whole foreshores of the lake could have been retained in a park system in all its pristine grace and majesty. There can be such open beautiful spaces even in the most intensely occupied suburban districts as was proved by Mr. Griffin in the competition inaugurated by the City Club in Chicago shortly before his departure for Australia, in the Newton Center quarter section
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subdivision.
During the first year in High School a lifelong friendship began. Among some 40 pupils in the room one young country girl made herself decidedly conspicuous by her free and easy and chatty way with the teacher. I sat quite across the room from her but had spoken to her once whereupon a pal of the moment with scorn in her voice practically instructed me to have nothing to do with that girl. My answer was to pick up my book and march over to sit down with Anna to ask her some question in grammar for she had shown herself to be clever in her studies. She was a natural gypsy - pretty and sparkling - whereas I, although I cared nothing for conventions, was in those days quiet and reserved. But the bonds between us are as close today as they were in our girlhood. My childhood had been in the country too so my thinking was not so cramped as that of the city child.
Another lifelong friend from those high school days, in contrast to the sparkling gypsy, was Katherine, a dainty strawberry blond. A considerable part of my spare time after my return from Tech Boston Tech, later renamed MIT was spent in the study of French in that charming and very active French group in her home whose activities consummated in the establishment of the French Theatre in Chicago. This pursuit of French was my initiation in acting for where one is remote from the possibility of hearing a language this participating in drama is an especially good way to learn. Also a different language if really used is a fine training of the thinking powers and this being a thinking language was a most helpful supplement to my native will language, the English, where the verb comes early in the sentence. It was many years before I added German, a feeling language, to my quota whereas every child should have such a trinity in command by the time he is 12 "nine" erased years old for during those early years when the power for acquiring vocabulary is so amazing, a child can learn three languages as easily as one. His health will not be diminished but improved by this through the balancing of
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HOUSE OF CUBES . BEYOND THE CONTROL OF THE FOLK SOUL [Note: The caption in the New-York Historical Society copy inserts the word "India" between the two phrases of the title. The structure is the house of Narain Singh, treasurer of Benares University.]
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in him of the will, thinking and feeling forces.
That I never became an accomplished linguist in French was evidenced by the astonishment of Mlle. Favard when one evening several of us took a train journey together and Mlle. Favard continually expressed astonishment and delight in the remarks I made saying:- "Why, everything she says is interesting!" Apparently her conversations with me in French had never given her the slightest hint of any such personal qualities.
Mrs. Mary J. Wilmarth coached me in French preparing me for my exams for Tech. Her naughty daughter Anna told her I had failed in French and Mrs. Wilmarth was taking the blame on herself when at last grasping the situation I told her I had passed. It was this young friend, Anna Wilmarth, who put me through the University. The only return I was ever able to make was earnestness in my work. This Anna Wilmarth was Mrs. Ickes who for many years was a Congressman in the Illinois Legislature and who resigned her position later to go to Washington with Mr. Harold J. Ickes when he became a member of Mr. Roosevelt's cabinet - Minister Secretary of for the Interior. For years she had spent her holidays in the desert of New Mexico, studying and writing of the Indian customs. She didn't do her work from the outside but became an intimate friend of the Indians and was admitted to very secret ceremonies. She learned to know the reality of their different way of thinking and never spoke of them in the light manner so customary with the rational thinkers. Her book should be a help toward making Americans willing to listen without prejudice to those who can show us how, in full consciousness, to add to our rational thinking this other method of thinking which the primitive peoples use intuitively. When we have done that our community can begin to function creatively in free will as nature beings, no longer children who quite properly have to be guided during their immaturity.
I made a dash at the drama while at Tech by joining the French
Anna Ickes (1873-1935), social reformer and Illinois legislator, was the daughter of Mary J. Wilmarth (1837-1919), a reformer and suffragist, and the wife of Harold L. Ickes, an activist and New Deal political figure. She wrote "Mesa Land: The History and Romance of the American Southwest" (1933) and "He-Who-Always-Wins and Other Navajo Campfire Stories" (1934). Mrs. Ickes died in an auto accident in New Mexico.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 153 ====]
Club. I was the only girl in the club so when we gave a public performance I was cast as the countess in one of the two plays. Although at graduation I was voted as the handsomest man in my class, I was completely outrivaled in personal beauty by the countess in the other play, a blond youth who became startlingly beautiful in his feminine array. I had objected when our costumer, the teacher in painting, had instructed me to wear corsets. I said I never did wear them. He said if all the rest of the men could wear corsets I could too. I accepted his logic but laced only moderately whereas the ballet dancers pulled their corsets so tight they could scarcely swallow a mouthful of water on the night of the performance. I assumed a man's name on the program so went before the audience as a man among men. Through this innocent deception I won a great reputation for "Gerald Morse" as an actor. My play was put on first. My maid, the only other woman in the cast, was taken by a man and I learned afterwards of the many compliments:- the wonderful way in which I did a woman's role, how I put on my gloves just like a woman, and so on. But it worked a hardship on my blond rival because when he spoke his first words the audience roared with laughter, his masculinity being completely revealed in his voice.
Of my outstanding early friendships, one was Echo Simmons living with the Davises in Hubbard Woods, and a constant companion during the last years of those holidays which ended only with the finish of high school work and my start in the university in Boston in the course of architecture. Echo had come down from Minneapolis Minnesota in a calico gown. There would be no shock in such a procedure today but in those days, as with so many things, it simply wasn't done. Early in our acquaintance Echo walked in the 20 miles to our home in Chicago and as she entered, as cheerily as if she had dropped in from around the block, she called our - "Are there any errands I can do for you Mrs. Mahony?" Her affections were as vital as her body.
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MARION MAHONY & ECHO SIMMONS
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As I look back now I realize that all along the line the friends were sent to me by my guiding angel to break down the barriers of an individuality that had a natural preference for isolation. This step is the requisite after we have attained individualization in order that our Ego may reverse from concentration within our skin to an expansion in spirit till it includes humanity.
Echo would sit on a stile waiting for hours till I came along on the family jaunt for the day to the woods or the lakeshore. There was, through my life, a succession of these lovers, my husband being probably the outstanding exception for apparently it was my task to do this service for him which my friends were doing for me. During our teens Echo and I read and discussed Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin and such like, absorbing the scientific fundaments of our time as is essential for any people in any time. Thus later one will have established a foundation from which to leap to the science of the future if fear doesn't prevent his taking it. The great service rendered by these nineteenth century thinkers was to establish in the minds of Western peoples the reality of evolution. That their interpretation of facts was topsy-turvy was a detail that could be put to rights by the thinking that was appropriate to the 20th century. Anyone who wishes to understand what is meant by such a statement should read "Man and Animal" by Dr. Hermann Poppelbaum to glimpse the reversal of Ernst Haeckel's tree of evolution, and Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth's "Four Ethers" "Etheric Formative Forces in Cosmos, Earth, and Man"? for the 20th century correction and supplementing of the physical sciences.
A week or two after my arrival at Boston Tech a niece of the Lucy Stone Blackwell women's rights pioneer said to me - the only Westerner among these Boston girls - "I don't see that you are so different from other folk." I laughed and asked her if she had expected to see me with a feather in my hair. She laughed back and said that probably was about what she had expected. The girls were of markedly different types and connections and views but a group of us when graduating started a Round
"Stile" - a step or set of steps for passing over a fence or wall but forming a barrier to livestock.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 156 ====]
Robin letter which has been going around the world for some forty five years now (for we scattered even to the far antipodes) and is still going strong. It has maintained a close and intimate friendship supplemented only occasionally by transient meetings and itself has always been an extremely interesting document of the lives of these typical American doers. Far apart from each other in their spheres and interests and points of view yet with the closest ties of affection, this one little unit can well make clear the absurdity of the hope so frequently expressed in these days that the solution of our social problems will come about through human beings becoming more alike. They are due to become more and more unlike as individuals though the differences of races ceased with the coming of the Christ who was "the light" and gave that light to every man who comes into the world. Since then there has been no difference between races except physical differences which are disappearing.
In the University another friend of the same name as mine, Marion, a most beautiful girl of the Edward Burne-Jones type tackled the stronghold of a higher classmate. The first attack was in the dressing room and the conversation that was so absorbing that we both forgot and missed the classes at which we were due. So for the succeeding years the two Marions discussed the philosophies of the Western peoples, Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" and so on. A picture of myself was brought to my ears through a friend of Marion's who caught sight of me getting in a street car with a big drafting board and tee square with - "I saw your picturesque friend getting on the car with her big drafting board utterly unselfconscious though all eyes were turned on her." It took the journey to the antipodes in later years to shake the fixed concepts of the northern, the continental, hemisphere and to melt to the fluid of the southern hemisphere these bare bones of science with which our people rest so satisfied these days.
In all these many and varied friendships it was usually they who were the
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initiators. This does not mean that I did not have a very great affection for these wonderful friends, but my shyness perhaps in self-expression never broke down except once. With that man of mine it seemed that I was possessed. It was as if a demon took hold and shaped me to its whim. Indeed years before a friend in the office had said the surmises were that I must have been disappointed in love because I took my work so earnestly. I was devoted to my work and indeed throughout my life have been convinced that work is the one great satisfaction for human beings which means that those women who have not grown up to take a life's work seriously as our men do are being deprived of life's greatest continuous satisfaction. But when I encountered Walter Burley Griffin I was first swept off my feet by my delight in his achievements in my profession, then through a common bond of interests in nature and intellectual pursuits and then with the man himself. It was by no means a case of love at first sight but it was a madness when it struck.
The many years were packed full of every joy and every anguish till that demon who sat on my shoulder seemed to have run his gamut of possibilities in work and play together and finally through that curious conflict of interests, perhaps best expressed as a warfare of philosophies, Nietzsche was a bone of contention between us, this man who like Kant would prove one thing on one page and its opposite on the next, masters of reason both of them going insane, makes a god of it, it leaves one with no ground to stand on, for anything that can be proved can be disproved. The only basis for knowledge is perception, checkable perception. Not till the battle had been fought out to a finish was it possible to realize that the close companionship of marriage is the best training ground for that demon - the Ego - which presently finds it cannot continue to endure submission to any of the external worlds - neither that of the environment itself, nor that of the physical body in which it has incarnated - these two realms of law; nor to that other external world, the chaotic world of its soul. And with a wrench from
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UNITY CHURCH . EVANSTON . ILLINOIS . Marion Mahony . Architect [Note: The illustration is of the Church of All Souls.]
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all its customs and habits and conventions and emotions, it frees itself from all these bondages. Then can the companionship be resumed on apparently the same old terms but really a completely new thing for each has found that through this battle, really with one's own self, one has developed faculties which open the way to perception in a new world where one is no longer a slave to anything external to his real self, his own Ego, but can make contact with the formative forces which make it possible for him to be the master of himself, of his thinking, feeling and willing. He finds that life is no longer filled with problems impossible of solution; that he no longer has to grant that he can have knowledge only in limited fields but that if he will take the pains he can gain the means of solving all the problems of his time. This is of course a necessity for the people of each period if the evolution of humanity is to be a real thing.
In 1930 at the end of that character testing decade of one's forties fifties?which followed the seven year battle over Canberra, I threw up my hands and ran away, this time to America. My parting words to Walt were - "Well now you are a free man." His to me - "I'm a perfect damn fool."
In 1931 I wrote (from the United States to Australia) - In his cycle on the Threshold of the Spiritual World, Rudolf Steiner says:- "In love when one really loves a person there exists in the depths of his being a terrible antipathy to that person. The antipathy is there if the love is real love."
This is the only statement I have ever heard anyone make that seemed to me true and significant except one that Emily Bronte made in which she said that if she really loved a man she would hate him as she hated herself. I myself as you may remember have said that it was absurd to look upon the marital relationship, if it were based on love, as having any relation to friendship, that it was more like that of enemies. I have told Clarmyra MMG's niece that one should not choose a mate as a friend but as an opponent, an opportunity worthy of her mettle. This statement of Steiner's would seem to imply that love - that there was
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such a thing as real love - and that it was based on a spiritual reality, perhaps a need that could be met only by interdependence (This is our old quarrel isn't it) a need of course not connected with physical needs. reading follows N-YHS copy
In 1932 - Dear Edith, You ask, "Can it be Marion that he doesn't understand? Is it that he really has not seen?" In a way that is the case. He won't see and what he won't see he can't see.
You didn't quite get the point in regard to anger as you will see when you read the lecture. One should boil with anger. There must be anger. It is the fire that Prometheus brought down to mankind. It is the divine force that makes possible the balanced development of the Ego which is necessary for its continued existence. One can and should make better and better use of that force and should learn to transmute it into better judgments for the solution of life's riddles. Rudolf Steiner says that without the molding force of anger through which the Ego becomes richer and richer, the Ego reaches a point where it begins to weaken and disintegrate and that is the point where I think Walter stands.
I sometimes think Walter lacks the capacity for anger. I could suggest a trap to set for him to test out this point but I do not believe in testing human beings. But this is what Steiner says. He says that there are people who say they make a sacrifice in not being angry, but they can't sacrifice what they haven't got. The anger must exist. He says that one can over and over again transmute anger into judgment but the anger must exist or it can't be transmuted. That with this work of the Ego in transmuting anger it develops the qualities that are necessary for its perfection and permanence. That with this there comes a tranquility of soul and a power, but without this interplay it becomes cold and hard.
Once, the first year we were in Australia, Walter was angry - or shocked - when one of his backers on becoming a member of the Legislative assembly (a permanent office like the House of Lords in England) said he
"Edith" might be Edith Williams, the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society of Australia, who met the Griffins in 1929.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 161 (table of contents) ====]
UNITY CHURCH . PULPIT . MURAL by Marion Mahony [Note: The illustration is of the Church of All Souls.]
UNITY CHURCH . PLAN [Note: The illustration is of the Church of All Souls.]
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couldn't back him further in the Federal Capital issue. That has always been a great comfort to me and I have tried since to convince myself that at times since then he was angry because it seemed to me gruesome, not human, never to be angry. But he never has been and has looked upon that as a sign of his perfection as compared to myself. Just as when I said that I could see in myself the capacity to do any or all evil things and felt that that was the basis of a capacity for sympathy with humans in general, he looked at me with shocked eyes as an evil thing feeling that his lack of any such perception in himself was another basis of his perfection. But Steiner says in his lecture on the Mystery of Death - "No self knowledge is true unless it discloses to the depth where the tendency to all possible wrong-doing dwells in us. This tendency is implanted in us in order that we may grasp spiritual life with the Consciousness soul."
I quite realize that this characteristic of Walter's has been a very valuable one in the frightful struggle he has had in his profession in Australia and that perhaps the Angels have safeguarded him for that great work but I feel very sure that the time has now come when his problem is life and not architecture and that he should shake up this perfectly clean consciousness of his and be able to see himself and others in truth and reality. To Walter all human beings, except this wife, are exactly like himself, perfect, and he never gets outside of himself in his estimate of them. This he looks upon as a virtue but it is really an incapacity to see the truth.
And in 1932 - Well Walter Burley, that's that. Your truly human letter speaking to me as a fellow being crossed mine telling you I was coming home. You wrote to me that you hated my letters and I wrote you that I hated yours. The synchronization is the satisfactory part of it. I jolly well would have deserved a cessation of communication on your part and you would equally have deserved finding me back on your hands unrepentant. Thanks for the distinction on freedom. It is a comfort to
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know from words out of your own mouth that you do not think Steiner upholds Nietzsche's concept that freedom consists in not doing what your wife wants you to do. This letter is not being written in solemnity but in lightness of heart. Marion Mahony Griffin
In the early professional days I was profoundly influenced by the Single Tax of Henry George and only many years later realized that this concept of freeing natural resources from absolute ownership of individuals needed to be supplemented with a realization that also they must not be owned by the community, the State. Ownership is a very different thing from the right to use. It is for the State to see to it that equity is maintained in the use of land. Its function is also to safeguard the land - nature - for the future not only for men but for all God's creatures. We must not continue our killing of the Earth.
In later years as member of the Single Tax Association in Melbourne with their group established in a city building of their own through the enterprise of Griffin, we witnessed the illuminating spectacle of the difference in feeling between the American and the Britisher. One of the finest thinkers and the most successful teacher of the Single Tax I have ever known, Mr. Renwick, debated one evening with an opponent who made just one point and kept returning to it throughout the evening and it was a pathetic spectacle to see Mr. Renwick and all his convictions go down under this onslaught for he had a son who had been killed in the war. The one point was that with the Single Tax established the Empire could not continue to exist and Mr. Renwick could see this and could not tolerate the idea and in a soul battle taking place before our eyes that night the Empire won. Mr. Renwick never recovered from that defeat of his higher self played out on the stage of his soul. He died not long after.
A conspicuous friend of the years in my native land was Mother's friend, James Vila Blake, the minister of the Unitarian Church. He was a man who could not be intimidated into refraining from saying what he
Henry George (1839-1897) was an American land reformer and economist who advocated a single tax on the value of land in his 1879 book "Progress and Poverty." James Vila Blake (1842-1925) was a minister at All Souls and wrote the covenant which was accepted by that church and other Unitarian congregations.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 164 (table of contents) ====]
UNITY CHURCH . SOCIAL HALL [Note: The illustration is of the Church of All Souls.]
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thought on community affairs by the members of his congregation on whose corns he might be stepping, so ultimately he left his Chicago church and for many years continued his preaching in Evanston making no charge to the little group who gathered around him. They finally felt they were in a position to contribute to his support but he suggested that they use the funds to build a little church. I had by that time graduated from Boston Tech in Architecture and had had some years of practical training in office work. He suggested me as architect to which they agreed but they also selected a board of directors. This is one of the stupid methods general in our community which arises from the misplacing of the democratic ideal for in neither Economic nor Ability realms can democracy be applied. Decisions made by a majority vote in such matters cannot be correct. They are compromises. Such points as costs limitations would of course be established to begin with.
The privilege of the choice of the architect in this case was properly granted to Mr. Blake since he desired to make that decision. He was in a true sense their leader and they were under obligations to him. He had had experience with my capacity as an artist, and beauty was one of the requirements of his religion; and he knew my qualifications. The board as usual, especially as it contained an architect, took pride and satisfaction in continual obstruction. Indeed how else can a board feel that it is fulfilling its function.
I had yielded on various points one requiring a complete new design. They had turned down my first which Mr. Blake realized later was a pity. The design was an octagonal motif and an unprejudiced solution of the problem. The second design was more conventional. Mr. Blake once asked me if I couldn't yield on this point or that point but I told him that if I yielded on the points they were making it would mean a total destruction of beauty in the building. Finally they suggested that we go with them to inspect a certain chapel, which we did. As we went around the building Mr. Blake kept saying - "But why have you brought us here? I couldn't preach a sermon in such a place as this."
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And so on. As he and I went home together I said to Mr. Blake, "Did you notice the height of this wall?" "Yes." "Well that is the dimension they were requiring of me." "You don't say so." "And did you notice this and that?" "Yes." "Well that is what they were requiring of me." "Do you mean," he said, "they wanted you to duplicate that building?" "Yes," I said, "that's what they wanted." "You don't say so," said he. From that time on he stood absolutely by me, and the board had to accept those decisions. It was he who said that Marion would have a hard time if she married a man who was not honest. My destiny proved that that was not a discipline required of me in this incarnation.
FATHERLAND - James Vila Blake
To thee, O Fatherland, bond of our heart and hand, From love deep, pure and strong rolls our high song. May all thy pathways be highways of Liberty, And Justice, thron'd in thee, reign ages long!
And Thou, O God of Right, the Lord, whose arm of might In storm and battle roar, our fathers bore - Thou mad'st their children strong to break the chains of wrong, Till rang the Freeman's song, from shore to shore.
Free as our rivers flow, pure as our breezes blow, Strong as our mountains stand, be our broad land! Bright home of Liberty, high hopes of all the free - Our love thy watch-tow'r be, Dear Fatherland!
Then came the exodus to Australia and the separation from all those friends with whom one grows up and with whom one works, especially in a profession such as architecture, with bonds of interest and enthusiasm and an interplay of ability and skill and inspiration weaving a web of rich pattern and glowing colors, too many the names of these
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to record and one of the sad things of life that a quarter of a century of worldwide separation leaves no way open in this incarnation. But over there in the Antipodes the weaving of a new web was begun and, fortunately, no matter how great an antipathy one may have to a system utterly different from that to which one has been accustomed, parliamentary versus congressional, this does not at all diminish the closeness of the contact with many wonderful individuals nor does it affect the strength and beauty of the bonds made with them. Enemies we had not known before, but from now on we were surrounded by bitter enemies as well as beloved friends for the senor's Walter Burley Griffin's work put him up against the whole British Empire, against all the financial interests, against the big business interests of Melbourne and Sydney, and against the Bureaucracy. Now indeed I was bound to the work.
On that biggest of the islands of the South Seas, wonderful friends found me tied though I was to the office and the drafting board all through the years. In Melbourne Lillian Hamilton Moore and Mrs. Paling and their various groups of friends where the questions of war and democracy were discussed without prejudice throughout the duration of the 1st World War. Another lifelong friend was young Adela Pankhurst, still in her teens who, in that first year of the war published her book "Put Up The Sword" so full of valuable historical information. Though it was banned during the war I had it on my shelves where it was always accessible. She herself was one of that trinity including Cardinal Archbishop Daniel Mannix and Walter Burley Griffin which really saved Australia from conscription, a very different thing in Parliamentary communities than in Congressional communities. She was a real orator with unlimited vitality. We spent a lot of time trying to convert her from communism, really but another form of dictatorship, bureaucratic dictatorship. Later her own experience converted her. But still she did not realize that the Parliamentary form is completely bureaucratic.
In Sydney so many friends and so wonderful, now moving toward a common center from which one could grasp the earth and humanity as a totality. The first step toward this center was the putting into my hands by a Quaker (who had been in charge of relief in Russia at the
Adela Pankhurst (Walsh) (1885-1961) was the daughter of the British suffragist Emmeline and a sister of two of the movement's leaders, Sylvia and Christabel. Estranged from her family, Adela moved to Australia in 1914.[Note: ==== Beginning of page [168-2] ====]
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end of the 1st World War - the only man at first that the Russians would admit from the outside world even for such a purpose) a book which changed me completely from a pessimist to an optimist, the Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner which led to my joining some time later the Society founded by him - the only Christian occultism for all other occult movements are Asiatic. Rosicrucianism was Christian but has turned to the East. Before then I had been saying what a pity the Lord, who had created the wonderful beauty of stone and bush and animal, had made the fatal mistake of creating man who devoted all his energies to destroying these beauties. But now I grasped this reversal of things and realized that, instead of man's standing at the top of a tree of evolution through these kingdoms, they had all, mineral and vegetable and animal, derived through the eons from him. Surely there was some more constructive, creative work he should be undertaking now. From this standpoint it was possible to attain a basic purpose for life. "Then," as Albert Steffen says, "One's enthusiasm for the SHAPING OF DESTINY gains more and more the upper hand over every other desire."
Two years later Mr. and Mrs. Edith? Williams came into the Castlecrag community and through them we joined the Anthroposophic Society, delving into the realm of man's wisdom. This opened up the real way to make friends with the children whose lives are being parched by the arid teaching of our present communities. Parents began sending their children to me when they asked those "impossible questions." Even 5 year old Glyn Nicholls? who didn't like to do anything for anybody caught and enjoyed the idea when I said, "But we are friends - friends do things for each other. I do things for you and you do things for me," and so he did.
And Miss Lute Drummond, later the General Secretary of the Society in Australia, to me like a twin sister of Mr. Griffin's, a master in her profession of music as he was in his, and like him utterly beyond the boundaries personally, nationally or racially in her thinking and feeling and work (willing). She was indeed laying the foundation for the building
Albert Steffen (1884-1963), Swiss novelist and dramatist, was a leading anthroposophical writer. Ruth Janet (Lute) Drummond (1879-1949) was an operatic coach and general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Australia from 1935 to 1948.[Note: ==== Beginning of page [169-2] ====]
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up of a true civilization in Australia through music, as Apollo had done through the regions of eastern and central Europe many centuries ago, that civilization which ended with the close of the 15th century A.D. Around her gather the young folk of Australia all through the day and far into the night, whom she takes and molds one after another into geniuses, sending them off to Europe for experience and to be brought before the public. In this group gathered naturally most marked and outstanding individualities. As this differentiation comes about through facilities for each one's developing his particular abilities to the maximum, a most important task will be for human beings to be able to tolerate each other. The ultimate will be their fitting together in a rich and varied pattern to build up that Being-Humanity, Christ incarnated.
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No. 8. TWO DWELLINGS . HURD COMSTOCK . EVANSTON . ILLINOIS [Note: The New-York Historical Society copy has 2 illustrations on this page.]
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Dear Mr. Walter? Lippmann,
16 February 1945
Since my return from Australia you are the only American I have heard correctly state the essential of the American constitution - the separation of the Executive from the Legislative (The Chicago Sun, 15 February 1945.) May I quote your article in a book I am writing on what an American learns in Australia.
Among the larger units there are just two countries which have honest governments - America which makes democracy possible and Russia which is frankly a bureaucratic government. If found undesirable it can be altered. The other European countries are parading in the guise of democracies but in fact give the people no chance at all.
I hope you can find time to read the enclosed Congressional versus Parliamentary Government. I hope that you dwell on these points continually as the future of the world depends on understanding these differences. An illustration of how helpless the people and their representatives are is the story of Winston Churchill. Though I do not know the facts in this instance our repeated experience of similar things makes me sure this is just what happened. It is typical. If India now forming does not contemplate selection of president directly by the people the confusion of Europe will be hers. The last sentence is handwritten and inserted into the text.
In the early days of the war Churchill, feeling America's support might hang on the handling of India, sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India. He must have authorized something that he would agree to if India would. Cripps arrived and the Indians did agree to the suggestion but 2 days later the cable came saying - "It can't be done." Now how could that happen! Well this is how that sort of thing does happen repeatedly. Churchill was Prime Minister. He had not yet been initiated to toe the mark as Ramsay MacDonald the Labor Leader had been previously. He thought he held a position of authority.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) was a newspaper columnist and author and one of the most widely read political commentators of his time.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 173 ====]
However some Civil Servant had to type out the stuff he had sent Cripps. This secretary's first allegiance would not be to the Prime Minister but to his superior Civil Servants so he passed the information on. Thereupon an official (permanent of course) came to Churchill and said - "But Mr. Churchill that can't be done." So Churchill knew he must either pass that message to Cripps or have the government thrown out of office, and a new election. He can perhaps be excused for not being honest as M. Raymond Poincare (who after all was President) had been in the previous war, and successfully as it happened in that one case, where he defied the whole Masonic Organization and got a Catholic - Foche Ferdinand Foch - to accept the leadership or the army on his terms. (I could tell you that tale in detail if you wanted to use it.) But Churchill toed the line feeling I suppose the importance at the moment and the risks in the change in the party control in Parliament. So he toed the line.
Yours sincerely, Mrs. Walter Burley Griffin
Enclosed a - Comparison of Congressional & Parliamentary Government.
The Cripps mission is referred to in Section II, No. 16., p.254 (above), and the Poincare story is told in more detail in Section II, No. 19., pp. 312-314 (above).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 174 ====]
DIAGRAM . THREEFOLD COMMONWEALTH
THREEFOLDCOMMONWEALTH SON HOLY SPIRIT FATHER UNITED STATES ASIA EUROPE [Note: a drawing of a heart] [Note: a drawing of an infinity symbol] [Note: a drawing of a five-pointed star] FEELING THINKING WILL HEART SWASTIKA STAR 1st 3rd 2nd SOUL SPIRIT BODY HEART HEAD & NERVES STOMACH Circulation Pure Thinking Digestion . Assimilation EQUITY FRATERNITY LIBERTY ScientificMoralsThe balance PurposefulEffect precedes cause IntellectualCan't come to decisions ORGANIZATIONS POLITICAL ECONOMIC ABILITIES DEMOCRATIC MUTUALITY HIERARCHICAL RIGHTS . EQUITY PLANNED ECONOMY CAPITALIST IndividualismContinual use required AltruismDivision of LaborBuying & Selling MaterialismHording Equality Efficiency Freedom Preservation of NatureNo private ownershipLabor can't be boughtor sold Allocation of CapitalControl of MoneyFunctionsmutual exchange Rational thinkingIndividual AbilitiesCan't achieve answers, eachuses abilities in his ownway EDUCATION SAFEGUARDINGTHE EARTH JURISPRUDENCE Fraternal Co-operative Individualistic AMERICA INDIA EUROPE SCIENCE &Can co-operate to MUTUALITYsolve social problems INTELLECTUALITYCan't solve problemsCan't find answersCan't come to decisions At the bottom of the page is a drawing of an inverted equilateral triangle, inscribed within a circle, with drawings of a heart, the infinity symbol, and a five-pointed star at the angles. This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy. In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 175 ====]
Caption
The present world emergency brings into the clear that the United Nations can best function by taking as a first step co-operation between America and India for Europe is incapable of making decisions since she is still bound to physical concepts - the impulses of the body. She is willful, uncontrolled by feeling or thinking, highly intellectual but lacking in moral or economic fundaments.
The soundest way to avoid another World War would be a swift co-operation between the extremes - the orient and the occident whose mutual advantage would not tend toward imperialism but toward true democracy, mutual advantage.
America is already established on a moral concept - equity - and India would be glad to co-operate in the economic realm with America working toward a planned economy not bureaucratically controlled.
Willful Europe, thoroughly materialistic and bureaucratically controlled will be slow in adjusting herself to a World Organization.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 176 ====]
ARCHITECTURE - Walter Burley Griffin
In every department of human progress there have been long periods of groping effort, a certain amount of human accomplishment largely attributed to inspiration and a consequent vanity in those supposed to be inspired, and hero worship by the rest, a large amount of imitation on the part of others but no steady progression in the field till finally the underlying principles begin to become apparent, the laws are investigated, the whole is brought with in the scope of the intelligence. Then the accomplishments in this particular line go ahead with leaps and bounds till we gaze with amazement at the results.
We have illustrations of this in music. Human beings in all stages of development have taken satisfaction in music as distinguished from noise but the development of this wonderful field was very slow till the law - a purely mathematical one - of the conservation of rhythm - was understood. When we learned that noise resulted from the interference of sound waves with each other and the consequent destruction of sound and that the sounds that we derived pleasure from were such combinations as reinforced each other so that they went on to infinity, immediately there began a development of the art of music which is one of the miracles of the present time. A hundred years has done what all the thousand of years preceding did not begin to do. There is a great moral lesson in this. Let us try to learn this fundamental lesson and in whatever we are doing search out the controlling law.
Music is a time art measured by rhythm. To satisfy the human soul these units must be preserved and must be so used as to reinforce each other, for destruction is painful to us but evidences of continuity are a joy and inspiration. Architecture is a space art. Let us search out its basic law. Is it not the conservation of space. As in music we rejoice in being made conscious of time, one of the great fundamental elements in our present creation, and in
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being made aware of infinity through the preservation of rhythm, as in architecture and landscape architecture which are but interdependent elements of one field, we rejoice in being made conscious of space and can be satisfied only when the space units we use reinforce each other and a feeling of spaciousness is obtained. In a building or in a community a huddle and a clutter of unrelated units is as distressing as a harsh sound.
Let us illustrate this principle so simple yet so vital, capable of so many and so varied results. The first problem in this field is that of the smallest unit in our life today, one family. We take it in its simplest distinct form. We must concentrate our attention on present requirements and conditions for the family lives in a community amply able from its industrial development to provide effective shelter and comfortable living, though from its wasteful handling of community earnings individuals must use utmost economy in their family life. We will illustrate simply the point we are making of the conservation of space. Every family requires provision for the entire isolation of its individual members. This is provided in the bedrooms which should be directly accessible without passing through any other room and all of which should have direct access to the bathroom. Similarly the working quarters should be isolated, and so concentrated as to save as many steps as possible and, for the same economy of labor, in closest possible connection with the dining room. Apart from these private needs the quarters to be used in common should be so arranged as to help each out in as many ways as possible, for increasing floor space, for giving feeling of openness, for charming vistas. Where utmost economy is necessary we can still get a good sized living room by using the floor space that would be required for a small living room and a small dining room as one room, for in fact while a family is using a dining room the living room is empty and vice verse. With a little more leeway,
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COMSTOCK 2 STORY HOUSE [Note: The structure is the Hurd Comstock House II.]
LIVING ROOM . STORY & A HALF . OF THE OTHER COMSTOCK HOUSE [Note: The structure is the Hurd Comstock House I.]
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putting the two rooms together in the form of an L adds a little bit of mystery. With a house a bit larger a half story level scheme given opportunity for a large living room with high ceiling which its greater proportions prevent being inharmonious, with dining room and perhaps library opening out from the higher level giving at the same time seclusion to these rooms and a delightful feeling of openness to the whole. This arrangement is very economical and a very convenient one giving practically the advantages of both a two-story and a one story house, and making possible a variation in the heights of the ceiling of those of various sizes eliminating the unpleasant proportions that sometimes arise from carrying through the same level from large rooms to small rooms, and at the same time getting the feeling of openness and distance, an in addition an emphasis as pleasing in building as in any art.
From the single house we will go to the problem that arises when we have two families to consider. Advantages to each can be gained if they work together. A striking example of the feeling of spaciousness to be gained by intelligent use of the space at one's command is given by walking down one of the streets of Evanston where the lots and houses of approximately the same size are all placed at the same distance from the other, the only idea being to get the most out of one's own lot no matter what the consequences to the neighbor. As a consequence they all look crowded and cramped for yard space, till we come to two houses that were built at the same time with the intention of making a bit of music, instead or noise. Here in spite of the fact that the size of the lots and houses is the same, we suddenly feel that there is ample space for garden and setting, and all because the two houses have thrown their open space together, and have located themselves on the further sides of their respective lots. This means of course that an architectural problem must be solved, so that the living rooms of each house may have equally desirable exposures, but there is no difficulty about
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[Note: Supplied title: Unidentified structure This illustration is located at this point in the text in the New-York Historical Society copy. The illustration is not listed in the tables of contents of either the Art Institute of Chicago or the New-York Historical Society copies. The structure is identified as Langi Flats (Toorak (Melbourne), Victoria) in a picture from the Eric Milton Nicholls Collection from the National Library of Australia's "Pictures Catalogue" under "Advanced Search" (http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/picturescatalogue?mode=advanced); the drawing is also similar to the John Gauler (Chicago) and William S. Orth Houses (Winnetka, Illinois).]
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Caption
The alternative, according to the location and garden space of the adjacent houses on either side , is to place the pair of houses close together as possible eliminating the garden space between them and reversing the location of the porch of one to make an effective unit of the pair.
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Continued from page 179this if one is but willing to take the pains. It means of course that the one house cannot as a rule be a duplicate of the other. With this arrangement each house has an open space to look out on twice the size of what it has with the other method. The manner of solving this problem varies with the size of the lots, and the nature of the buildings to be erected, but there is always an advantage to be gained by working together.
Allen Ravines Decatur, Illinois was the pleasant problem of a piece of property owned by a family the Mueller family of brothers who, with their wives and children, wanted cottages for their summer outings, and decided to build on this charmingly picturesque bit of woodland. Each family by this arrangement has its own cabin secluded to be built so as to destroy as little as possible of the wild beauty and so as to get as great a view as possible of the river with trails leading to each cabin from the large building nearer the main road which serves for accommodation house and entertainment quarters for the whole group. Here is the common garage and caretaker's home in connection with which is the farm for raising vegetables, fruit, etc., for the whole group.
Next is the small suburban group far enough out from the city center to make land values low enough to use for garden farming - a group of five farms Emory group, Wheaton, Illinois with buildings so placed as to bring service portions together making it possible to emphasize the park-like effect of the whole.
We are able now to make some comparisons that will in a rather surprising way illustrate the main point we are making. As in the time art, the bringing together of sounds does not constitute the making of music, so in Town planning the sub-division of space into units cannot be considered as anything but noise, and is not Town Planning at all until these units have all been brought together into harmonious relation to each other, and this law of conservation of space has been observed as in music the sound wave must be conserved. Some illustrations will make this clear.
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DWELLING . MR. HOLLISTER . CALIFORNIA [Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society copy reads in part, "W.B.G. the Iniator Initiator in Structure & Form Spread These Harmonies from New York to California". This illustration is not listed in the table of contents. M. Maldre and P. Kruty “Walter Burley Griffin in America” (1996) p. 37 refer to a John Dickinson House built in Hollister, California.]
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Ridge Quadrangles Evanston, Illinois is a really startling example of what a little geometry will do. I shall not blame anyone who refuses to believe what I say because we ourselves could not believe our eyes till we measured and counted over and over again. However we have had similar evidence so often that we are beginning to take it as a matter of course that the more reckless we are in insisting on our ideals the more economical is the result in terms of cold cash. In other words it is only when we work for ideal ends that we achieve practical results. When brought into the office it had been laid out as shown by the small scale drawing. The alley so unnecessary in a residence district had been left out. It was the intention to build two-family apartments on all the 50 foot lots. The long axis of the houses was placed parallel to the street and the houses staggered giving light and outlook on 3 or 4 directions instead of the usual 2. By substituting domestic ways for one thoroughfare and somewhat diminishing the depth of lots one acre parks in the smaller blocks and a five acre park in the larger block were obtained. The increased value given to all the lots would probably build a comfortable club house.
In contrast with this residence subdivision on perfectly flat land is the one at Grinnell Iowa where the somewhat rolling ground of the town as a whole becomes ravine like in character. This again offers a striking illustration of the impractical nature of the so-called practical ways of doing things which method, fixing the attention on a few immediate issues fails to see beyond its nose and, curiously enough, fails in consequence to accomplish even the ends it is centered on. Another illustration of the fact that a part cannot be right unless the whole is right, the health of the parts being dependent on the health of the whole. The real estate man having decided that the rectangular method of sub-division is the one which gives him the best results and being a thoroughly practical man, continued the straight streets across this property, and had actually sold
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several lots before he realized the difficulty he was getting into, for when it came to putting in service, as sewers bumping up hill and down dale with the streets it became evident that it was prohibitively expensive as the pipes for the higher lots would have to be lowered to the lowest point or there would be backing up of the sewage in the lower houses. So the problem was brought to a technical man for solution. By making the streets follow the bottom of the ravines these difficulties and extravagances were entirely overcome. By recognition of the nature of the location which made it essentially a residence district the waste of alleys and unnecessarily wide pavements was eliminated. When the lots were laid out it was found that instead of 57 lots half of 75' frontage and half of 50' there were 66, that is 9 more and all but two of them having the larger frontage of 75', the average depth being the same as in the previous arrangement. That is there was an increase of 30% in the salable frontage which, taking the prices previously set increased the profits of the sale by $15,000. In addition all the houses were located on the higher land, none in the hole, and the whole took on the look of a park and became in consequence the most attractive district in the town.
And so it goes. In Vanderhoof, British Columbia, Canada, desiring to squeeze the last penny of profit out of the sale of lots first ignoring and afterward respecting the nature of the ground, they were laying out the streets with narrow blocks, cutting the property to pieces with cross streets necessitating steep gardens in numerous cases and with no park space. In these days such niggardliness is not to be tolerated even if the profits are to be increased but again that was not the case.
By placing the civic center and municipal centers so that they could be reached directly by a system of radiating streets following the ravines many of the gross cross? streets became entirely unnecessary,
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easy gradients were obtained everywhere, the depths of the blocks were increased till almost without exception all the blocks had interior parks, while at the same time the private allotments were increased from 130' to 150' in depth, and when the count of lots was made there were still as many as before. So naturally the clients would have no objection to the advantages to be offered to buyers, nor to the economies in road construction.
Out of another purely real estate proposition on the flat range lands of Idalia, Florida, without losing any lots, we squeezed in for the benefit of the community a central park, a civic center with ample grounds, circular gateway park and open vistas down several of the streets, across the widest expanse of the river. We go from this to a problem that is frequently before our big municipal centers, the Quarter Section.
A very similar essay on "Architecture" will be found in Section II, No. 23., pages 374-381.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 185 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . B.J. RICKER . GRINNELL . IOWA [Note: The illustration's placement here is based in part on the location indicated in the New-York Historical Society typescript. There page 185a is followed by 185b. On page 185b the last paragraph of page 185a is repeated (except for the last three words, "the Quarter Section"), and the illustration is placed at the bottom of the page. Here the repeated paragraph is not reproduced, and the illustration keeps the pagination listed in the table of contents.]
In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 186 ====]
PLAYGROUNDS FOR THE CHILDREN
If the civilization of a people can be measured by the happiness of its children, all of its children, and the opportunities opened to them for full development of all their faculties, physical, mental and spiritual, then very low indeed does the civilization of our people fall when measured by this standard.
The religion of democracy requires that the opportunities for complete development shall be open on even terms to all human beings born into this earthly sphere. The basis essential for accomplishing this is that natural resources - made by no man therefore no man's property - should be open to the use of all. In a society based on this simple justice all children would find ample facilities for such constant contact with nature as to assure them physical health, mental stimulus and moral enlightenment.
Failing in this, the least we can do is to provide all children with access to open spaces for the play which is a vital necessity for their development; especially when we find that such playgrounds can be provided without any increased expenditure at all.
The accompanying are illustrations of two methods of subdivisions of city property, one the generally accepted method providing no playground space at all except the streets, and the other providing such playground space. The slight modification as shown in this illustration gives playground space in direct connection with every home, five acres in the interior of the large block and one acre in each of the smaller blocks. This increase in common playground space is obtained by modification of the street system which leaves the same number of allotments on which are the same number of houses of the same dimensions, and slightly diminishing the depth of the allotments.
In this subdivision there is ample provision for thorough traffic in the exterior roads. The domestic uses to which the property is put renders the cross road unnecessary for rapid traffic and becomes
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RIDGE QUADRANGLES . CHICAGO . PROPER PLANNING GAINS 3 PARKS [Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration adds to the end of the title "W.B.G." The Ridge Quadrangles were located in Evanston, Illinois.]
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CAPTION
In these 2 Chicago blocks one street was eliminated. For the eliminated thoroughfare there was substituted a T shape of lanes eliminating interior thoroughfares and establishing 3 interior park playgrounds.
In the resubdivision there are the same number of allotments. The children do not have to cross any dangerous roads to reach play grounds or school.
Buildings ordinarily have outlook on only two sides. With preplanning they can have outlook on all four sides
This page is from the second copy of the Art Institute of Chicago's typescript (AIC2).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 189 ====]
Continued from page 186purely a menace to the children, an expense in useless pavement, a nuisance in barrenness and dust.
The rearrangement, recognizing the domestic character of the district, while keeping the opposite building lines the full 60' apart to maintain as much openness as in the case of the wider street, reduces the width of pavement to that required by the service of a domestic community. By placing the buildings crosswise instead of lengthwise and staggering them, instead of getting light on only the two narrow sides of the building, we get light, ventilation and outlook from at least three and usually four sides of the residence, giving every lot, through this openness, the appearance and advantages of greater size.
This arrangement places the playgrounds under the eye of every mother, and no street has to be crossed by the children in reaching it. Since these playgrounds have no street frontage and have not increased the lengths of the streets and service systems, these playgrounds have cost nothing and the money saved by the decreased pavement required can be used for the development and upkeep of these parks.
One of these lots can well be used for a community House for the use of the whole neighborhood giving facilities for reading, music, drama, dancing.
When we realize that such advantages can be gained in our communities with no increased expenditure our neglect to provide our community with lungs becomes inexcusable.
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2 BLOCKS AGAIN BUT A LESS INTENSIVE DEVELOPMENT [Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration adds to the end of the title "W.B.G." A caption on the drawing reads (in part): "T. Edward Wilder - Elmhurst Illinois".]
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CAPTION
In a smaller town the shorter block which was a stub-end street is eliminated, doing away with one thoroughfare. The subdivision is in larger lots appropriate to this less crowded district in an outlying town.
The interior space becomes useful as play space for young and old, with no fixed building line every house can have outlook in all directions.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 192 ====]
So far these things seem so apparent, so inevitable that we wonder why they haven't always been done. Their not having been done simply goes to show that human beings amble through life without bothering to think. What we usually dub thinking in an off hand way is purely an automatic process. Indeed even highly developed reasoning may become automatic. But here we are not considering ordinary thinking but creative thinking, thinking which diverges from the straight beaten paths into curves, devious, surprising, charming; thinking that calls for action and consummation in deeds. We must learn to think in terms of the future.
But now we meet with magic. Nature is so full of magic that one wonders how men can be so hum-drum. But it is only because man standing as he does outside of nature can choose either way, the stupid or the inspired. Here it was that I was awakened to the magic that can lie in town planning if it escapes from the boundaries of what is being done.
The plan as originally brought to Mr. Griffin for co-operative development for 200 families in 100 two family buildings had, to be sure, eliminated the wasteful alley giving that much additional living outdoor space. A common heating plant for the group was also incorporated which facilitated other community services. An equipment duct extended continuously through the basements of the buildings involving no additional excavation, obviating not only street pipes but all stubs and connections, accessible throughout, conservative of heat and preventing of all leakage of other forms of energy or deterioration of the pipes.
Griffin gave one look at it and handed it over to me with instructions to carry the center street only half way and there put a transverse street across the property, reducing the widths of these streets since they were no longer thoroughfares, and to make the lots 100 feet deep. I did so and found there had sprung up three interior parks, seven acres in all. I counted the number of houses, now
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staggered instead of all on one building line and found there were the same number, including the clubhouse, as in the original plan which had no park space nor but a tiny alley like strip if you reduced the lot depths to 100 feet. Thinking I must have counted wrong I added them again. The same answer. I presented it to Mr. Griffin expressing my astonishment but there was no surprise there. It was, "Yes of course." It took no more than that to make me accept immediately when it was later presented to me, the fact that the Spirits of Mathematics are the great primeval creative Spirits - the Elohim.
The site of Ridge Quadrangles Evanston, Illinois is a sylvan plane plain? with oak forest extending across one of those sand spit bars that mark the former existence of the lake or sea over the Chicago district, in this case some 20 feet above the general level about it.
The scheme is co-operative in just the same way and to the same extent as is the ordinary apartment building of ten or a dozen stories sandwiched into the turmoil of the city itself. But in addition to these ordinary co-operative advantages of heat, light and water and care are those of its own recreation grounds and club house and smokeless service plant. The clubhouse in which all householders have a joint interest is a country club and family club available the year around and in within a few steps of each of the 1,000 community population.
We see how unnecessary is the deadly routine of the usual thing done for here again, though the houses are of the same size as those in the original with the outlook on only two sides, here every house has outlook on three sides and most of them on four sides, to say nothing of the park views for all, and recreational space as well as the quiet and safety achieved by getting rid of one thoroughfare; and its entrances shut of off? by intersectional park circles with their plantings and reflecting pools.
"Elohim" is a Hebrew word that expresses the concept of divinity (or divinities) or powerful beings.[Note: ==== Beginning of page [193-3] ====]
[Note: Supplied title: F.E. Compton . Glencoe . Illinois . Garage and Barn This illustration is not listed in the table of contents. Its placement here follows the location indicated in the New-York Historical Society typescript.]
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No. 9. TWO FLAT BUILDING [Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration indicates that this two flat building was designed for Albert Cohn.]
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TOTALITARIANISM VERSUS WHAT
Totalitarianism versus what? On that "what" our modern type of thinking has shattered.
One would be in despair (as apparently all our communities are) if one hadn't glimpsed the fact that, though rational thinking does not suffice for the solving of life problems, there can be creative thinking.
Some time ago rational thinking was discovered by two men independently, Abraham and Aristotle. That kind of thinking sufficed for a millennium or two, supplemented occasionally by genius (a kind of intuitive thinking, really a gift of the gods). Nowadays no one understands intuitive thinking so the gods are ceasing to give these gifts. Now we have to learn them. And rational thinking cannot solve life's problems. Rational thinking was necessary for a period to accomplish a quite different end, to make freedom possible. But now the creation of a new type of thinking is as urgent as the creation of rational thinking was for the periods beginning with Abraham and Aristotle.
To comprehend totalitarianism it is necessary, as with all polarities, to know its polar opposite. Without down there can be no up, nor an inside without an outside nor matter without spirit.
Totalitarianism is but the latest phase of Hebraic thinking, of rational thinking. To get rid of Hebraic thinking, if current methods were to be generally adopted, one would have to banish from the earth all westerners as versus Easterners whose gods are multiple whereas the western God is unity, the God of Abraham, the God of nature, the Father God. This oneness is the God to which logical thinking leads us. It is the Hebraic as versus the Christian God. With the coming of the Christ the concept of Threeness arose in religion. Two thousand years have passed and men have not grasped it yet. For some 1,500 years faith sufficed to carry humanity, but the last 500 years have destroyed the power of faith. Rational thinking has no place for faith and under
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the domination of logic our human communities are now disintegrating. Our only sound foundation, the next step in evolution to succeed faith, is knowledge, and rational thinking does not lead to knowledge, it leads only to self-confidence, a necessary step in evolution as it is the basis of free will, but free will can function only destructively unless supplemented by knowledge. That is the twoness, the duality, essential for this period of human evolution.
Now what is the present foundation stone of knowledge? It is the concept of trinity. The primordial concept of Trinity was the gift of the God Christ. (In the period of the Greek civilization.) All knowledge derives from concepts. Animals cannot gain knowledge because only to man was that primordial concept directly given, the concept - causality. That was the gift of the Father God and through perception (also directly given) all nature is the school through which we can gradually come to a comprehension of causality, oneness. Two was the number first created, the creator and the created - two. (Before that there was neither unity nor multiplicity.) From this we derive the concept of one. With these developed we can attain to threeness numerically first and later, with divine help, to Trinity which constitutes a true unity, as in a circle which consists of a center, a radius of definite length and a circumference - a true unity.
The gift of the Christ was the concept of the Primordial Trinity - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (that light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world). From that time there ceased to be different races, only individual differences.
So the polar opposite of Totalitarianism, of oneness, is Trinity, true unity. The time is ripe for our developing our Societies on Christian instead of Hebraic lines. And nowhere do we see that being done for all our states by whatever name they are being called, are Totalitarian. They divide into two groups, one efficient and so arresting our attention and very convincing to our logical habits of
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ENTRANCE GATES TO MUELLER GROUP [Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration adds to the end of the title "M.M." The Mueller Houses are in Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois.]
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thinking - including Russia, Italy, Germany; the other muddlers with no convictions so no clear thinking nor purpose, including America, England, France, consciously or unconsciously moving toward the logical conclusion.
In all alike there is no way for the three functions of a society to carry on in accordance with their own peculiar necessities and laws. We have however an example of the healthy working of a trinity placed before us in the constitution of man himself where the Father God, whose gift is natural man, has established the assimilative and limb system to do the work of the body as it does in the animal; where the Christ has given us the heart system to maintain balance, equity; where the Holy Spirit has given us the head and nerve system to develop pure thinking and to comprehend brotherhood.
With this pattern before us we should at least be willing to accept as proved that a trinity is practical and workable and in the face of the chaos about us give it a trial, and nowhere are conditions so favorable for a trial as in America, the land of adventurers.
You will notice that man has no central organization. He is not a being who has but a being who consists of the interplay of three independently functioning organizations, body, soul, and spirit, though the fruits of the activities of each are used by all. So must it be for health in a human society, as so must it be with a circle, or a tonic chord.
Abraham's rational thinking led him to a oneness as God, and to this religion we are still subscribers, unity as versus multiplicity, the West versus the East.
Aristotle's thinking led him into the material realm and his logic gave the same answer there - causality. Both functioned in the realm of cause and effect where cause precedes effect, the realm of rational thinking, one centering on cause, the other on effect. But man does not belong here. He forms a purpose. The effect precedes
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the cause. The mineral kingdom lives in the past, the animal in the moment, man in the future.
To these, the one the concept of the material, of the body, of individual abilities, and the other the concept of cause, of thinking, of the Spiritual, we must add the balance, the Christ, the concept of equity, of morals. With the word "Altruism" more than a century old now, we should begin to act on that concept and establish our societies accordingly, a trinity with each organization manned by the whole citizenry of the country, first a Political Organization whose function and only function is the maintenance of Rights, that modern conception of equality of man in the Rights realm.
Only so can man's moral nature function in the solution of social problems - through having an organization which can express the moral standard of the community, expressed by the majority, democratic in its form and not muddled by conflicting elements which have their proper field elsewhere, as liberty, but which have no place in the realm of equity, of morals. Thus it could become apparent that the difficulties arising in the realm of capital derive from lack of clear thinking. The problem is how to transform the circulation of capital, not its distribution, so that it may not be something oppressive. The evils of capital derive not from capital per se, not from its ownership by private individuals as versus ownership by the community as a whole, or the State, but from its ownership as versus the right to use it. And we should grasp that capital, and so all the advantages that come from it, can be created only by the spiritual capacities, or the abilities, either spiritual or physical, of individuals and therefore that capital for use should be available for all ability, but not ownership which would give the iniquitous (the inequitable) privilege to individuals or State of placing capital in the hands of those who have not the ability to use it advantageously, productively. Of all forms of Capitalism, the State owned capital is the most disastrous
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DWELLING . ROBERT MUELLER . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst . Architects
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and ultimately can have no efficiency.
And so we should understand the necessity for a second organization, that of Abilities, whose concern would be that everyone should be completely free to use his own abilities in his own way for only he can have any means of knowing what they are or how they can be used. Ability is a function of the individual, not of the state. This, the Body Organization, would not concern itself at all with morals or equity. Its whole interest, its whole value, is in the realm of Freedom which has no connection with Equity.
The Political Organization, the State, the Moral Organization, would require that capital be kept in constant use, as well as money.
The Trinity - man - consists of Spirit, Soul and Body, so in a Society a third organization is essential, the Co-operative Organization holding a middle position between the moral realm, that of Equity, that of the Christ, and the realm of liberty, of man's rational thinking powers.
This Third Realm, that of buying and selling, is bounded on the one side by Nature, the Christ (The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof) demanding in the last resort that all men shall have Equity in this realm; and on the other side by Capital which is the manifestation of man's spirit in the material realm. This third realm is where Thinking safeguards Nature. So we attain Equity, Fraternity and Liberty each in its totality where it has any significance.
The realm of Abilities in form is necessarily hierarchical as ability derives from the individual.
The realm of Economics is that of Mutuality and consists of the interplay of multitudinous Economic Associations and, in its totality, contains exact knowledge, based on experience, of all sides of Economic affairs. I sell to you because it is to my advantage to get rid of it, you buy because it is of advantage to you to have it.
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Thus the alternative to Totalitarianism is the Threefold Commonwealth. Through this we can satisfy the moral requirements of our time based on Equal Human Rights, can attain complete Freedom in the use of individual abilities and an Efficiency not possible in either a muddled or an enslaved community. We can have that which is not possible in a Totalitarian State, democracy and a planned community for the latter is a function not of the Political but of the Economic Organ and can be either national or international. With the control of money in this latter and so constituted that it will grow old like the commodities it measures, it will become a true medium of exchange and it will be possible to establish true prices, for money in this realm cannot be played with for it will not be based on abstract numbers as it is at present but expressed in terms of tangible values, as so many pounds of wheat, etc., which will take the curse out of it.
In order to attain economic efficiency, for a community to be efficient, it is not necessary that individuals should own capital which method gives rise to a tendency to pass capital on to inefficient people. What is necessary is that individuals should have the use of capital. So the elimination of the ownership of capital so long as it is complete and abolishes State ownership as well as private ownership will bring about not only as efficient but a more efficient social system. Access for use can and should be given in as large amounts as are required for maximum efficiency. Thus if an entity has a function to fulfill, it must have an organ to fulfill it. If it has 3 different functions to fulfill it must have 3 organs to fulfill them. So it must be with human societies. Thus is the conflict between the East and the West brought to an end, the polarity resolved into a trinity, the Earth become a true Unity. At the present moment the soundest step would be the co-operation of America and Asia bringing together the Political and Economic elements leaving the madness of Europe, the Will Group, to cool and ultimately take its place in the WORLD ORGANIZATION.
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GROUNDS . ROBERT MUELLER . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst . Architects [Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration reads "DWELLING . ROBERT MUELLER . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst . Architects".]
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Caption
The group of three dwellings in Decatur carried out by M. Marion Mahony and H. Herman von Holst and landscaped by W.B. Walter Burley Griffin were carried out thoroughly including interior furnishings and carpets, window glass and ceiling lighting and with mural paintings by Mr. George M. Niedecken
Griffin also laid out the grounds for the Mueller brothers' and sisters' Summer Resort.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 204 ====]
ARCHITECTURE & DEMOCRACY 1916 ENGINEERING IS THE BASIS OF ARCHITECTURE . Walter Burley Griffin before the VICTORIAN ARCHITECTS . AUSTRALIA
Engineering is the basis of architecture under the American system and has been till very recently the dominating influence. The great advance that architecture has made is not in the field of academic and scholastic architecture but in engineering feats, and the complaint I have to register is that these engineering feats have not been accompanied by adequate architectural development, that they have not been led by architecture and made to express architecture or the fundamentals of architecture. Our education in architecture is a reminiscence of Feudalism, as Louis H. Sullivan has expressed it, which is carrying into a time of democracy, the real essential mental attitude of the Middle Ages, looking to authority for our beliefs and thoughts. To my mind democracy should be the essential of our thought. We have realized the democratic trend for a long time now in politics especially but we have not begun to follow it into other phases of life where the necessity is not so plain. Democracy as I define it is independence of thought. Democracy in politics is independence of action, but action must be dominated by thought, and unless our thought is independent we are still in a feudalistic environment. The trouble with our education is that it has brought conventions in as authority and these conventions are the first thing that the student is taught. The first thing that he is brought into contact with in architecture is the classic "order" universal in European civilization. It was my own experience. I went through the mill and I would probably have followed the lines others had if I had not had the advantage of contact with an independent thinker in Chicago, Mr. Louis H. Sullivan. His emphasis was always laid on the essential connection between the structure and the use to which the building was to be put, and the expression of it in form. In other words "Form follows function" is the slogan Sullivan laid down years ago, evolved in his own experience following reading from N-YHS gained in practice as a draftsman with freedom from trammels
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LIVING ROOM . ROBERT MUELLER
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in his early days, coupled with a brief training at the Ecole de Beaux Arts for general laws.
The basis of my idea is an assumption that I have seen laid down that every child born onto the earth is a genius in one of three directions, either as a scientist in the observation of nature - an investigator of the truths of nature - or an inventor - an experimenter and contriver of mechanical processes - or an artist who gives form to these utilitarian things. And teachers in the primary stages of education are willing to corroborate that assumption. They find numerous evidences. There has been poetry composed by immature children equal to anything that is written in the language, but a few years of school training is all that is required to obliterate any sparks of ingenuity or any gleam of truth of expression in those children. They are taught that the other man has set an ideal, that the other man has expressed a thought, and that he is unapproachable. After this has been sufficiently impressed on the mind of the pupil it is enough to kill any originality or freedom to do good work.
We have our necessities in construction which are well recognized. Our materials have changed even in the last ten years. In the last 25 years conditions have altered so completely from those of preceding times that we can hardly find a way to adapt the preceding architecture to the present conditions, yet the greatest ingenuity of architects of the present day is just in that direction. The results are usually incongruous, very difficult to explain or excuse. Nor with the idea that the Greek or Goth or some other highly educated peoples have said the final word in architecture are we going to be able to express our idea in steel and concrete. We are building better buildings to-day, finer inside and out, then any people that we have any knowledge of in history and yet we acknowledge that the architecture of those buildings cannot approach anything in Medieval France or in Ancient Greece. With that attitude we cannot
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DWELLING . ADOLPH MUELLER . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst . Architects
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get very far ahead. I take it we shall have to abandon the hypothesis.
The difficulty is to put that into practice in the schools. I have heard it said, "What would you do? Would you give students blank pieces of paper and expect them to concoct magnificent designs forthwith without looking up the books?" I would not expect anybody to create a magnificent design in the beginning, and I do not think the pupil need to set out to do such a thing. I was taught, and the education of my time was, that the students should have big problems to work out to give themselves a chance to express the best there was in architecture before they were forced to go into a life of building warehouses, residences and railroad stations. I think the sequence ought to be reversed. My first problem in actual practice was a poultry house. (laughter) If I were to go in for teaching architecture I would put that difficulty, or something similar, up to a pupil as his first example and then let him build up from the bottom. It would not tax his ingenuity probably to build a poultry house a little better that he had seen. (hear, hear, and laughter) And after that he would take a second step in architecture. My second problem was a stable, a small one. (laughter) That was fortunate. It was the right process. I did not have to borrow anything to start with, and I started with necessities alone. The total investment was 60 dollars in the first building and 300 dollars in the second. If you divide those figures by five you will know what they represent in your money. (laughter)
Convention is not a proper basis for art. Art is not something that is put on to buildings or on to canvas or anywhere applied but it is the doing of some necessary thing in the best way that can be devised to do that thing; and erecting a building in concrete, for instance, will mean the investigating of the possibilities of construction, of surface treatment, of economical handling, of scale, of color, of form, rhythm, and proportion that can be brought to
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 209 ====]
apply on the material for the particular purpose it has to serve. I said I was glad that the schools in the United States had been so closely allied with the Engineering Schools, and I think therein will be their salvation; not that engineering will dominate, but that it will be just the other way when its essential relationship to architecture has been understood.
The jerry builder, I take it, is a natural product of architecture as it is taught. (laughter & applause) In the first place the architect does not stoop to solve the problem of the jerry builder's attempts to get the maximum result for the least money, but when the architect does get really down to that bedrock principle he is able to drive out the jerry builder. I have had some experience in putting enough time into the study of a £400 working man's cottage to make it cheaper than the jerry builder could make it, and get more results for the same money, and that sort of thing has led to a repetition of that particular design. Then I found that combining house units and working them out in what appeared to me to be the most economic way the largest problems could be solved, with results no jerry builder ever thought of, in the correlating of groups for convenience and effectiveness N-YHS substitutes "attractiveness" around the garden cities of England, where an effort to compete has been made, the jerry builder's sale sign does not bring its result. The people are going into these communities that have been carefully, economically and scientifically planned, and are leaving the jerry builder high and dry.
Architecture, as it has been taught, is based on convention, and is thus a cult which the man on the street is not initiated into, and while we suggest the glory that was Greece, or the splendor that was Rome, he knows nothing of what we are driving at, and consequently becomes disinterested in the whole subject and indifferent. It is a remarkable fact that savage people build well and beautifully.
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DWELLING . ADOLPH MUELLER . LIVING ROOM
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We cannot find a sample of savage building or even or animals erecting such monstrosities as some of our structures. They have no architectural cult. Architecture is so real and necessary a thing in primitive lives that the average man takes an interest in it, which accounts for the beauty of a Polynesian village as compared "with" inserted in N-YHS the Colonial Settlement alongside. Everywhere that primitive man has constructed he has done so with the idea or beauty of architecture, hand in hand with the idea of construction, proving to me that there is an intuitive quality in the human mind, that the human mind has the faculty of judging rhythm, of rhyme, of these beauties that are poetical; that it demands those things in its work, but when it is diverted in its appreciation of architecture, to things which are irrelevant, it becomes confused, and finally it abandons the whole thing to the architect or takes what it can get without the architect, because it does not understand what the architect is trying to give it. The architect is trying to teach reach? too much. Ferguson James Fergusson? said that architecture died in the year 1500, and I think that the corroborative evidence is very strong. Before that time architecture to count had to be homogeneous. If we are going to have architecture count for anything in a city we shall need to have a common basis running through all buildings. Where the architect is permitted, as he is by his cult, to take his authority from wherever he pleases, he is bound to disagree with his colleagues as to which precedent to adopt, and will put his Gothic design alongside the other's Classic building, and we have not seen a place where we have been able to prevent that. So whatever beauty one has got into his own building is nullified by the contrasting beauty of an adjoining one. No wonder "the man in the street" is "up in the air." He gets no effect. He sees 2 buildings, and we cannot get him into the habit of looking at one facade at a time. He is very apt also to look at the back end of the building. Another hypothesis taken, which is
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DWELLING . ADOLPH MUELLER . GARAGE
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not borne out by the facts of the case, is that architecture is confined to the one side. (laughter)
The question of genius, it seems to me, answers itself when we go back to the year 1500, and see architecture as it was practiced without cult or without self-consciousness, and where the average is high there genius does not appear, and does not have to appear. Perhaps the word genius is simply an expression of low average. (laughter) The basis of our study, I think, is Nature itself. If we can go into Nature that has been undefiled by man we can get beauty equal to that of any primitive architecture, or we have the architecture of the plants and of the animals, where nature's laws are allowed to work themselves out. These laws are inviolate in the emphasis of structural necessity, and taking advantage of natural conditions, and expressing those conditions with the maximum possibility. The law of the survival of the fittest dictates that. (hear, hear)
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TURN ABOUT OF STUB END STREET [Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration reads in part, "Mueller Turn About . 3 Dwellings on Each Side of Stub End Street".]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 215 ====]
THE JAPANESE TYPE
The Japanese type with the overhanging eaves brought low to form the window heads is about the only thing we see in Frank Lloyd Wright's work except where he saw say some European architect doing something quite different in which case he jumped in with some such form in order to claim it as coming from himself. But such work as Le Corbusier's is properly speaking not architecture at all. It is engineering, bare bones, and though it may meet the physical needs of men does not solve the spiritual problem at all. It lacks the spirit of mathematics, the spirit of music.
The overhanging roof takes two forms, the hip and the gable. Which is used depends on the fenestration. It cannot be reduced to a rule of thumb. If the plan in developing results in corner piers grace can be most easily attained by using a gable roof whereas with windows grouped in the corners the hip can be used without forcing an extreme overhanging which is really a refusal to recognize natural structural laws, in a sense an uncalled for defiance of the noble laws of gravity. When the roof recedes to form the wall line it is in essence a flat roof though the method of the disposal of the water requires slopes which may sometimes be visible as a hip. With the very simple forms often imposed by a small flat roofed house they are often much more effective, powerful, in reality than can appear in a picture rendering, as in the case with the Egyptian pyramids. In the reality they are breathtaking if the spirit of mathematics is there.
When a true creative work has been done it is a permanent thing. It consists in bringing into form harmonious with cosmic laws the other etheric formative forces. From that time on this creation is accessible to all human beings, in the material world if they are limited to observation by their physical senses but in the etheric world if they can function inspirationally. It is a curious thing how unfruitful Wright's work has been apparently because of the poison of his spirit of personality and
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possession which kills the spiritual things. This is a great pity but the influence of Louis H. Sullivan and Griffin has spread far and wide and now that the Wright incubus has been shed modern architecture, creative architecture, is taking root. It is long overdue. The men of this period should be thinking creatively, spiritually, though creative work is always in the nature of sacrifice. It is the giving of oneself and to be wholesome must be wholehearted, not niggardly. And the world should not be buffaloed by claims to spiritual works, they are the gift of the Gods not the work of men.
The difference in the two attitudes is expressed in the difference of the constitution of the two offices. Griffin's office from the very start was completely democratic, that is based on equity with no hang-over of European imperialism. The draftsmen were always free to do their own work in their own time in or out of the office knowing it would arouse no objectional feeling but would get helpful advice if they wanted it. When a draftsman developed a clientele of his own he could enter into a democratic partnership with the office so that he did not have to cease earning a salary and face the risks of the early stages of establishing a private practice. Later he was under no compulsion if he wanted to separate from that partnership. The resulting standard of the outgoing or instaying young architects was remarkable. One who went out was Mr. Taylor who sat in the offices in America of Hollywood designing sets which have had great influence in the architecture. One who stayed in was Mr. Eric M. Nicholls who in his early days did some remarkable things, one a multi parallelepipedon pyramidal design for a war memorial, and who is now carrying on a fine practice in Australia based on the no compromise with one's principles, which was true of the whole of Griffin's lifetime practice.
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No. 10. DWELLING . HARRY E. GUNN . CHICAGO [Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration reads: "This House Established a Type [/] for Minimum Cost Houses [/] Massive Corner Piers Provide . Coat Rm [Room]. Book Cases . [/] China Cupboard . Kitchen Cupboard".]
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CAPTION
With several clients' finding their houses more charming, with no waste space, built at a less cost and a charm almost never seen in a minimum cost house, with cupboards and book-cases stopped at the 2nd story window sill level to form massive piers in the lst story and flower boxes in the 2nd story, several of Griffin's clients planned to go into the building business.
In these earliest houses Griffin proved to the electricians as well as the owners that indirect lighting was no more expensive and far pleasanter than direct, the first client having both systems installed.
From that time he used nothing else. Unfortunately his early departure for Australia brought that great improvement almost to an end for a quarter of a century.
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THE INTERIOR COVE LIGHTING FOR RESIDENCES
This living room is 13 feet by 23 feet with an 8 foot 6 inch ceiling. The top of the cove is placed 17 inches below the ceiling. There is a total wattage consumption of 200 watts, or .67 watt per square foot. This furnishes the entire illumination for the room, with an easy reading intensity of light. The piano portable lamp is for use when it is not desired to illuminate the entire room, but simply to read the sheet music.
In the illumination of the home, the architect and illuminating engineer comes closer in contact with his client than in any other branch of his work. He is given a chance to work up many original and decorative ideas embodying special features which will harmonize with the general decorative scheme of the various rooms.
Until recently, practically no attention was paid to the lighting of these rooms when drawing up the specifications. This matter was left to the owner, who generally seemed to hold the opinion that the room which is best lighted is most lighted. As a result, a great many of our otherwise beautiful homes are glaring examples of inefficient lighting, which are not even comfortable to sit in.
Corrected practice dictates that some way be devised to conceal the bare lamp from view. It is also believed that well diffused illumination very largely minimizes the effect of glare and deep shadows making for a soft, efficient light.
THE INTERIOR [Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy this illustration appears at the bottom of the page. The interior may be of the Gunn House, Chicago.]
In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not. Otherwise the texts of the two copies are comparable.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 220 ====]
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Juan Ponce De Leon, wrinkled, old and gray, Wore out his life in quest Of youth's fresh fountain far away Within the fabled West.
The losing gamester for the prize Of buoyancy and bloom His vital "bottom dollar" tries, And wins at last - a tomb.
Health's wearing hose to mend and vamp, We squander all we handle, And seeking youth's unwasted lamp, Burn out life's farthing candle.
In vain is search, in vain is hope; Death still proclaims the truth That life renewed is but a trope,- Youth dwells alone in youth.
And well the old and loving know The warmth which they require From youthful bosom's cheering glow - From childhood's kindling fire.
Poor souls! grown faint with age and care Their flagging force to save, They warm them at the cradle ere They hide them in the grave.
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But should De Leon now appear, That traveler uncouth Would find, within our school-house here, The restless fount of youth.
Hard to hold as bursting steam, Gushing, rushing evermore, Laughing waters still they seem, Like the fountain at Ladore Lodore?; N-YHS reads Lahore.
'Tis God's fountain; from the mountain Of His love its spring He drew; There's a little, just a tittle, Or the - - other in it, too.
Blessed well! for years, for ever, Pay in glance in joy and truth; Let unkindness never, never Cloud this living spring of youth!
Come then clear or cloudy weather, Whether years bring glee or ruth, Wings of love, ne'er lose a feather, Bending o'er this fount of youth.
Jeremiah Mahony.
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[Note: Supplied title: Screen . 3 Leaves Like This The illustration may refer to the E.L. Springer house in Kenilworth, Illinois. This illustration is not listed in the table of contents. Its placement at this point follows the location indicated in the New-York Historical Society typescript.]
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TWO SOURCES OF WEALTH LAND & ABILITIES
Two things create wealth, not work for the values created by work belong not to this economic period but to the preceding period of barter; but land, natural resources, and play. Play is what we do for the sheer joy of doing it, the fascination of using our abilities.
These two, natural resources and human ability, create values and are the source of wealth - land plus spirit.
We recognize that land is a gift of the Gods and the fairies and can belong to no man though each and all have equal right to use it so long as they do not injure nor destroy it. The fairies build the vegetable kingdom but it takes the great primal spirits of mathematics to create the crystals - the universes.
To whom do we owe our abilities? Certainly not to our descendants. Nor to our ancestors, but to our own development in past incarnations. The direct attack of labor on land suffices for mere existence. It gives us certain primal commodities for exchange, but not wealth. But with the introduction of spirit, of creative ability, we get capital which can be accumulated; we get technique which brings about division of labor which enormously increases wealth and we get diversified means of production which are the expression of ability, of spirit, in the economic realm.
To whom do these means of production which are the result of ability, of play, belong? To our ancestors we might say. But how can this be put into actual practice, how can we pay this debt?
We owe our abilities to our ancestors through inheritance or to the Gods who give these gifts or to our own endeavors in past incarnations for no man during his lifetime originates abilities, he can only develop them. We experience the truth of this in waking out of sleep with a full-fledged invention or a problem solved. At one time he plays one game and again another. But each one knows those
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particular abilities were there from the beginning, and no two human beings are alike.
We owe our opportunities to develop our abilities to the educational systems established by our predecessors, that is to the community which is the manifested result of the conduct of life of those who have lived before us. We owe to this community the inspiration that comes from all the creative work they have done in the development of their capacities, in the arts, in science, in religion, that is their manifested life on earth. We owe to the community all we have the opportunity to make use of in the form of tools, of industrial plants, of accumulated inventions, of inspirational undertakings, of means of circling the earth and of choosing our place and mode of life.
We owe none of these things to our descendants who gave us nothing, but to the community which is the creation of our ancestors we owe whatever we may have achieved in the way of means of production as our small contribution to their accumulated gifts to us because means of production are the combination of land and ability. Other achievements as works of art, commodities, etc., we have a right to place in the hands of our descendants as an expression of affection if we wish but means of production belong to the community whose duty it is to place them in competent hands so that their management can make them most fruitful.
When we recognize this basic fact we shall find the community eager to place in our hands all means necessary to develop ability to the utmost and it will not lay down what line of ability shall be used by any man nor measure his value by the monetary returns that derive from his abilities. Whatever he achieves whether spiritual satisfaction or great wealth will be his so long as he lives. When he dies it will belong to the community who made it possible for his abilities to function, and it will be used to give similar opportunities to all members of the succeeding generation. This will make it possible for the children of the rich man to develop wholesomely, which is rarely the case now
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at present, for they will know that only by developing their faculties will they be able to attain great things in any line, accumulation of wealth or otherwise.
This page is the verso of page 223a.[Note: ==== Beginning of page [223b-2] ====]
[Note: Supplied title: The Natural House This illustration is inserted at this point in the New-York Historical Society copy. The illustration is not listed in either the New-York Historical Society or Art Institute of Chicago tables of contents.]
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DRAWING LESSONS by BERTHA NICHOLLS Eric Nicholls's sister
who tells me she owes everything to me in drawing as did Louise Lightfoot in dancing and Ida Prescott and Bret Hart Smith in poetry.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1st Term.
JUNIORS . 5 to 8 years.
In our first lesson we made with our arms the shape of the Cosmic Circle which holds all things.
We then drew the shape and inside it made as many drawings as possible, the sun, the moon, the stars the sea, us, etc., in color.
(The teacher had prepared large sheets of paper before-hand on which she had drawn with a compass the circle, the drawings were therefore co-operative ones.) Outside the circle we painted blue (water-color).
When this was finished we again made the circle shape with our arms, and became acquainted with (a) circle-like motion. (b) Our eyes contain a tiny copy of the circle.
We found the secret in the circle, the vertical line, and as this series of lessons was to lead to plant drawing we found as follows.
A large piece of paper was given to each child, they creased it down the middle, and painted along the crease (in a color) a vertical line.
We made this line swell and grow sideways, teacher painting one side for them, children carefully painting the other side. After this the children invented the first shape themselves.
We developed last lessons by making the shape grow as shown
(a) a family of shapes (similar to each other)
(b) Changing its shape as it grew.
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Note - Teacher also drew her shapes on board, using the underlying shapes of leaves, so that children would recognize these again when at a later age they found them in botany.
(c) Making the growing shape burst as it grew.
(d) Added to the original shape one of the 4 formative force shapes, using first sketch of a circle and then sketch of an equilateral triangle.
Children invented variations of these (e) and also broke the leaf shape itself into these shapes (f) sketches of a crescent and a square
(e) (f) They also made free growing patterns with these 4 shapes as basis.
We drew these shapes blank space in N-YHS on the board and tried completing them with blank space in N-YHS, and combinations of these, etc.
(g) We noticed fairies at work (g) in periods of activity and rest. We tapped out the rhythm.
Lastly we invented flower shapes and fruit shapes, using the 3 formative shapes -
Kenneth, one of the boys who has always shown a great interest in these and last year's lessons said to me at the beginning of the holidays at the end of the term, "Please give me the very biggest piece of paper you can find, I want to draw the four fairy patterns all through the holidays."
He brought it back covered with the patterns mostly plant shapes.
This page comes from the second copy of the Art Institute's typescript (AIC2).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 226 ====]
Teacher mentioned to children on last day of term that if they kept their eyes open during the holidays they would find the patterns the fairies had made on the plants, etc.
Dear Marion, at present I am very busy having signed a contract with one of the banks to make 36 perspective drawings of new homes for them.
12 to 16 years
Geometry (All drawings on colored paper.)
We started with the primordial triangle, the equilateral triangle, the artistic triangle from which all other triangles spring. The geometric construction was explained and drawn by girls.
The equilateral triangle is capable of perfect growth and the "opposite" form of growth was constructed, mention being made of crystalline expansion following this procedure.
4 equi-lateral triangles were next constructed and used as the basis for a perfect pattern - that is - all sides to grow similarly. Pattern colored.
Upward growth of equi-lateral triangle, whereby we obtain isosceles triangle.
The scalene triangle - a distortion of the equi-lateral triangle a chaotic triangle.
Note - Terms "altitude," "apex," etc., were always mentioned by teacher whenever possible, girls became used to hearing them and took them naturally, as a matter of course.
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Bisecting angles to obtain centroid (also used at early stage of sheet (a))
Girls designed Gothic window, based on this construction.
In color - the star of humanity - 5 pointed
2nd Term begins with solid geometry, turning the threeness (3ness) into the fourness (4ness)
Development of pyramid, lesson related to equilateral triangle, models were made of this
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FEEDING THE HERONS [Note: This illustration is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy. The blank page for the illustration has been scanned from the New-York Historical Society copy. The illustration is part of a mural located at George B. Armstrong School, Chicago, Illinois. An online image of the mural can be found at http://www.artic.edu/aic/students/mural_project/pages/M_armstrong.html from The Art Institute's online educational resources project, "Chicago: The City in Art."]
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Initial . Dwelling . Harry E. Gunn . Chicago [Note: See the illustration at the beginning of this chapter.]
WITH THE FAIRIES
Art is the result of free human nature, and the sense of duty ripens when the human impulse to activity commands materials artistically and with inner freedom. Rudolf Steiner
FEEDING THE HERONS
When asked to do a mural by the graduating class of June 1931 of the Armstrong School of Chicago, the first thoughts might be of appropriateness from various points of view. From the technical point the work must be correct, that is it must be kept in two dimensions with no creating of illusions as to there being no wall there by clever three dimensional stunts. This is the best lesson in the painting realm that the artist could give to the children because the art of painting has been degraded by this working with three dimensions which belongs to the arts of sculpture and architecture, just as music is the one dimensional art, sequence. These are the universal languages of space, spirit and time. Color is not a material thing. It is the mediator between spirit and matter, as is the rainbow.
This conclusion is confirmed by spiritual investigation through which we learn that painting derives in pre-rational times from direct perception in the etheric realms, the realm of color - two dimensional, non-substantial. And our own experiences of supersensible living pictures confirm this. Such experiences enable us to understand that the superb decorative work of ancient civilizations derive from that different kind of thinking which is now so important for us to learn to use as a supplement to reason which works in only one dimension, for these same etheric forces are the ones which enter into the vegetable kingdom, the life forces which distinguish it from the mineral kingdom. When we have become aware of, can perceive, these forces we are in a position to carry our scientific investigations on from the mineral into the vegetable kingdom, the life realm, which rational science, so-called natural science, cannot do. Not even Charles Darwin attempted to go there.
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BRINGING FISH TO THE HERONS [Note: The drawing may be a detail of the mural, "Feeding the Herons," at IV.10.228.]
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"By art alone is intellect awakened to true life-giving Joy in Earnestness, and Strength of Character in Joy; for Knowledge to be of value, must be permeated with a Love of Knowledge."
This is why it is so important for children from seven to fourteen to be taught only from the imaginative point of view - through the Arts. Imaginative work does not bring fatigue. Science, Geography, History, should all be presented in art forms. Mathematics too for geometry should precede arithmetic.
Since all physical creation consists in pattern making, the mural must hold and stir the mind by its pattern. The children will thus be helped to rest satisfied with their own work only when they themselves have created a pattern in the presentation of their subject. The result will be that observers will not be satisfied with a passing glance and thereafter forget to look again but that every time they pass the picture they will be caught and held and moved by it, and their own creative faculties, which have become almost atrophied in our concentration on mechanization during the so-called scientific period will be awakened. Indeed form is the essence of matter, form held by reciprocal forces. The smashing of the atom has confirmed that for they find no matter in the atom - only forces.
And then the appropriate subject - the out of doors, the creatures of the open and the spirits that work and rule there, these spirits despised and scorned by the sophisticates of the 19th century but with which the children of the 20th century must come in contact if they are to carry on the evolution of humanity, something by which we can portray these fundamentals to the eye and heart of the child. And what spiritual facts can convince the child. Not wordy moral precepts but a personal intimacy with the elementals, the tiny ones, for the children love tiny things. So the fairies that up to a certain age any child can see and that we grown-ups can learn to see if we will - the fairies who show the plants how to transform inert mineral matter, the rocks
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themselves, into living matter without which no other creature, animal nor man, can exist - the fairies who help the plants to build up cell by cell all the various shapes and colors to carry into effect the designs which great and powerful beings have created and stored within the magic seeds.
Again we must convince the minds of the children, warped by the superficialities of our present-day thinking, that they are surrounded not only by a world that they can see and hear and touch with their physical senses aided so wonderfully as they are these days by mechanical instruments to extend their field of operations but which can never reach beyond the world of effects; but that they are also surrounded by another world, the world of causes just as diverse, just as rich, just as full of adventure, which they can learn to perceive and in perceiving to enter, and in entering to become a creator in this realm of creation, the world of life.
For the same faculty which enables one to see the fairies is the faculty which enables one to do original work in all human realms, and to transform our community, so rich in toys and tools, into a real civilization thereby attaining great and worthwhile ends. For this, human beings must develop their spiritual powers of perception, the basis of a new form of thinking which will enable them to know causes as precisely and as thoroughly as at present they know effects.
Painting the mural decoration in the Armstrong School was great fun. One boy said to Miss Reynolds, the principal, "You sure did hire a good one when you hired Mrs. Griffin. "I didn't hire her," she said, "I got down on my knees to her." And this was the splendid spirit all the way through. The subject was a group of fairies high in a birch tree helping the mother heron to feed the babes in her nest, the father heron winging his way from a distance helped by other fairies to carry more supplies of fish. It was five feet high and twenty feet long and I stood on a table to paint it. Miss Reynolds let the youngsters get all
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AS DELICATE AS A SPIDER'S WEB
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they could out of it and there were daily processions from the various rooms to watch its progress, and free were the discussions, as with the children in my sister's room Georgine was a teacher at Armstrong, as to whether there really were fairies. One small boy asked Miss Reynolds as she came in the room whether she believed in fairies. "Why of course I do," she answered. One small six year old agnostic was reported to me so I took issue with him. He said his father said there were no fairies. I said, "But who made the flowers and the leaves of the plants?" He said "My father said God did." I said, "But if your father manufactured chairs, he would have to have many helpers in his factory; so God has to have many helpers with the many things he creates." Two small girls were heard by the lunch-room cook discussing, as they sat on the curbstone, whether there really were fairies.
The mural was finished shortly before graduation and Miss Reynolds was good enough sport to let me give a talk to the graduating students in which I explained to them that the kind of thinking that enabled them to see the fairies was the same kind of thinking that made people able to function as geniuses so, if they wanted to be among the geniuses in their work, they must be ready to develop that kind of thinking which someday would enable them to see the fairies.
THE WEAVING OF FAIRY AND SPIDER
After this visit home with my family in Chicago I returned to Castlecrag to find that one of our young citizens had lost her new baby daughter within a few weeks of her birth. She came to me soon saying she could find no consolation and hoped I could give her some help. She found no comfort in her church. She had heard our Mrs. Edith Williams speak of Anthroposophy but Mrs. Williams was no longer there. We had been in a German class together so I suggested that we carry on our German study by translating together Dr. Rudolf Steiner's lecture on prayer, which we did. I had found much delight in her two older children and we often had discussed Annette's baby reports of the fairies she saw
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now and then as they took their excursions over the bluffs, along the foreshores, in the caves, among the ever-blossoming shrubs and trees. Frequently Annette would stop, calling the attention of her parents, exclaiming, "Oh look at that little fellow," pointing him out with excited interest. Mrs. Trinick had told me these things because I knew there were fairies and had told her of the nature of their work in building up plant life - the gnomes in breaking down the rocks for the penetration of the tender roots; the undines the chemists who built up stem and leaves; the sylphs forming and painting the flowers; the fire-fairies building fruit and seed.
A MOON CHILD - ANNETTE
The child Annette was a beautiful thing, looking indeed like a child of the Moon. Later on when she had lost this faculty, as most children do now when they pass their third year, she still remembered, doubtless because her parents had been sympathetic and receptive, and so sometimes she asked why she didn't see the fairies any more. We told her that in these days people as they grew older had to learn to see the fairies. In discussions that arose with other children when her school days began, she quite overmatched an occasional small rationalist who contemptuously said there were no fairies by answering flat that there were fairies - she had seen them. This usually ended the argument for what one has seen one knows and her conviction based on experience was convincing.
One day instead of her coming up to read with me, I went down the hill to see Mrs. Trinick. As I approached I saw someone going into her house, a tradesman, so I stopped before going on till he was gone. As I stood on the hillside scattered over with yellow hawksbill blossoms I thought what a lovely thing it would be if I myself could see a fairy, of how the reporting of such an experience to her who was such a lover of children would help her to realize the reality of the spiritual world and of spiritual beings.
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THE MOON CHILD . ANNETTE [Note: The child may be Annette Trinick.]
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So I did a little concentration exercise on the plants and presently of a sudden the whole hillside blossomed out with lovely brilliant blue little beings moving about, dashing here and there between the plants - millions of them like living blue flames almost filling the space all over the hillside between the flowers. It was a lovely and wonderful sight. It was the undines I saw at their work. When I checked on this later with others who had seen them they confirmed in detail what I had seen. I was happy to be able to report this to Mrs. Trinick and felt that they had shown themselves to me because they too wanted to comfort a loving and grieving mother. At other times I have seen the fire-fairies, the salamanders, who like little golden comets dash about condensing the light to feed and form the fruit. I have never seen the other fairies though there are, among my friends, those who have.
The mothers on Castlecrag divided up the week in taking charge of the small children, one specializing on pottery, one dancing, one on botanical jaunts and so on. In my Saturday morning art lessons, if lessons they could be called, with babies up to their sixth year, we gave free reign to our fantasy to which knowledge lent wings. The qualities of numbers figured large in our plays and the children thrilled to it, fresh as they had come from the great Spirits of Mathematics. Wholeness we swung and drew and painted, the red circle of the primal warmth condition of our universe. And in our great circles we dotted sun and stars and earth and moon. We went straight from that to trinity which they adored. It was an endless source of games and pictures and discoveries, this threeness which is true unity. For years they brought me new trinities, never once three indiscriminate things, always a true trinity, and with such rapture - clover leaf or a newly discovered flower, the butterfly's wing and drawings of angel's wings, and fairies' wings. And what excitement there was in the Guy family when the calla lily opened and was no sooner open than Bronwen discovered the threeness
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PANDORA'S BOX
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PANDORA'S BOX
Mrs. Dorothea Jorio writes: - "I was looking at a picture of yours the other day, a delightful piece of work - at the Monty Grover's - "Pandora's Box." She told me that Septimus Power (a painter) offered any one of his in exchange but that of course she wouldn't part with it."
In the New-York Historical Society copy this page appears as page 239 and again as page 242a; in The Art Institute of Chicago copy it appears as page 243 (the first page of chapter No. 11.). The word "caption" is at the top of the New-York Historical Society page 239, and the page has been placed at this point so that it immediately follows the illustration.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 240 ====]
Continued from page 237of the tip of the pistil. Truly a surprise the fairies had given her and the news went round.
From threeness to fiveness where we stand now. Spread their feet and stretch their arms and we have and draw it just so in its simplest form, and we have there in our own bodies the story of where we came from - the stars. "When I first put my feet on the Earth," said young David and atheistic parents sometimes objected to the positive statements the youngsters made at times about angels and spiritual beings.
Nor could they understand why the babes couldn't be drawn away from their, to the adult mind, incomprehensible paintings but I knew and the babes knew they were getting real information - about life - for which they are so eager. That's how the planets are formed, I told Glyn Nicholls?, a five year old who had been building up intersecting circles within a big circle. "Is that how it's done," he said. And you could see the satisfaction he took in his creative work. And this five-year-old spent the whole afternoon working out some dozen designs, really interesting, in circles of various sizes. Later we had twoness, the oval and the crescent moon, and dad's eyes stuck out when his four year old daughter told him you couldn't have an up without a down, nor an inside without an outside, nor the visible without the invisible, nor matter without spirit. He felt his own materialism breaking down under the assured statements of his baby girl. They learned that all animals' bodies and man's own are a twoness that came when their divine origins were compressed from the circle to the oval, and with swinging movements we drew on the black-board fish and birds, horses and tigers, and with the wave - the crescent moon, the origin of twoness, the dragon, the hissing snake and swan and so on.
After the Guys had moved onto their farm and mother and Bronwen were making me a visit, mother telling me that daughter was winning praise in school for dancing and drawing both a part of Castlecrag life. Bronwen said, "You taught me how to draw bodies." She was quite
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conscious of the advantage of basic knowledge.
I called the attention of a two year old to the seed pods on a tree and they were a constant fascination for her for years to come. "Why the apple is a seed-pod," she told her mother. And the fairy lore of the bush, the scribbly gum, the Eucalyptus Haemastoma, where the fairies wrote their messages. Such fun!
And how they loved secrets. The secret in the heart of the triangle which we discovered by folding the equilateral triangle in two three times to form a pyramid and painting the forms within the hexagon with alternate blue and red - a sixness - that lovely floral form. "The secret in the mother's heart," I said. "A boy and a girl," said Kaaren Deans?, and then with their equilaterals they built the hexagon, that bond between the physical and the spiritual (for you can't make a solid from hexagons) with which one can do so many lovely things - the pattern on the turtle's back, endless flowers, new stars and suns in combination with the trinity itself. And the dragons on the blackboard appeared again with father and child, father and child swinging as a great dragon down the hillside - the children's idea not the fathers'.
At the welcome home party when I returned to Australia, the poet-laureate of Castlecrag, six year old Wanda, greeted me with her poem:-
Welcome home to this brush bush of thine Where fairies play and creepers twine Where beautiful flowers in shady nooks Welcome thee with the songs of brooks.
The news has spread in fairy land And the fairies dance all hand in hand For they were told by a little gnome That Mrs. Griffin had come back home.
There is no page 242 in the Art Institute copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 242b ====]
We can see that liquid does not really belong to the mineral kingdom; water for instance when it solidifies expands. We can see this in the forms its crystals take, the frost on the window pane, foretelling the vegetable kingdom.
the tree form follows the form of light movement, triangular. We find early form in Australia. The fern with spores has become a tree there. They came up from the South pole. The Auracaria too so formal in its growth, the precursor of the pines. The water lily foretells the cactus.
The vegetable kingdom transforms spirit to matter, mathematics to life. The ethers shape the leaves, from circular to triangular. Australia's Archangel was the greatest of artists playing with forms. Griffin emulated him in playing with forms. We find lovely painting in the coloring of the barks vivid in the Angophora Costale.
Which requires the greatest intelligence the building of a bridge or the building of a tree?
Plants do not consume food, they create it. Science knows only the mineral kingdom. Before life it confesses itself ignorant.
Spirits conceived life into the triangle and the sphere. Goethe sensed this.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 243 (table of contents) ====]
No. 11. STINSON MEMORIAL LIBRARY . ANNA . ILLINOIS
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THE LIBRARY
When men collect the products of the mind, The gold in Time's hot crucible refined, The garnered store of centuries of thought, The sifted wealth of brightest genius fraught With priceless treasure, - every voice should raise The song of thankfulness and praise; From mosque and chapel, synagogue and kirk, Should rise with one accord;- "God bless the work!"
What is the library? A living spring Where nymphs disport and voices sweetly sing:- Filled with water to the blooming brink:- That thirsty souls may sip inspiring drink:- The fabled fountain of perennial youth, With beauty mirroring the face of truth.
Link to bitaso
What is the library? A focus bright Of vivid, present radiance, and the light Of by-gone centuries, whose glories shine With blaze intenser as their suns decline.
From pedant furbishers of learned trash, From prosy cooks of scientific hash, From comic lecturers whose grainless chaff Make blockheads giggle as if hired to laugh, From wily worldlings and their canny crooks, We turn for solace to our friends, the books.
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From warring editors whose dust and wind Would smother Pluto as they blind mankind, From shrieking sisters who, with tongue and pen, Upbraid the Heaven that failed to make them men, From titled owls and high official rooks, We seek for comfort in our friends, the books.
From railing blowers-up of party strife, From ranting bigots, souring human life, From purse-proud codgers with ill-gotten stores, From brokers, peddlers, agents, duns, and bores, From fell Temptation's wiles and baited hooks, We run for refuge to our friends, the books.
Ye are magicians, Books, profound, serene. With mystic art ye shift the changing scene, And bear us grandly, killing time and space, To thrilling hour, or consecrated place.
Ye speak:- We spurn the lowly sphere of home To view the pageants of imperial Rome. Our wearing cares, our irksome toils surcease Amidst the learning and the arts of Greece.
We sigh with Sappho when her spirit yearns; We clink our glasses with poor Bobby Burns. We shout with Greeks to see the Persian rout; We nibble salmon with dear Father Prout - Now on divans of Turkish leisure toss; Now with Columbus raise the advancing Cross.
"Father Prout" was the pen name of the Rev. Francis S. Mahony (O'Mahony) (1804-1866), a Roman Catholic priest and writer.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 246 ====]
Long live the Library: long live the men That treasure up the products of the pen! Firm and protecting be the sacred walls Where Science speaks, where poetry enthralls:- Where sage Philosophy improves the hours, And sager Mirth bombards his pate with flowers.
Let it be Christian too, - in name, in fact; Progressive, aye, with principle intact; Its light no sectary's prismatic hue, Diverging here in red and there in blue But one bright blaze of clear and changeless light, A beaming force, a boon to great and small; A generous flame, as from the celestial ball, Heaven's solar glory shineth over all.
Jeremiah Mahony.
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LIBERTY & EQUITY Walter Burley Griffin
The issue between Liberty and Equity is stressed as the Crux of out time by Dean Teachers College Columbia University William F. Russell's "So Conceived and So Dedicated" in the May Atlantic, also by Albert J. Nook and Newton D. Baker in earlier issues. These writers site diverse early authorities but not the late Dr. Rudolf Steiner who succeeded, through extending the sources of data beyond obvious physical laws, in showing that although these conditions are mutually exclusive, it does not follow that we must choose the one and do without the other, nor compromise by subtracting one from another to obtain the insignificant remnant of opposing forces; for each has a clear field in which it is a paramount necessity.
There need be no greater conflict between Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in the genus humanity than there is between then as willing, feeling and thinking in the species individual man himself. The difficulty arises out of incapacity to recognize authority except as a unity whereas it can be conceived of as a trinity. The human being is of spirit, soul and body and his threeness is a wholeness, made up of distinct elements: - the assimilative system exemplified by the stomach, the regulatory system by the heart and the nervous system by the head.
Where one of these systems interferes with the operation of the other, disease ensues. But just so are our states trying to carry on.
The intuitive cry of the French Revolution recognized the threefold needs of the social body, but not how to meet them. We can enjoy social health only as we learn how. A society whose institutions are based on its threefold nature will be able to function properly like a human being, each one of whose three systems traverse the whole body: - Liberty the function of an individualistic creative and productive cultural activity,
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Equality the function of a democratic Political organization, Fraternity the function of a co-operative Mercantile system.
We can enjoy each principle to the full in the realm to which it belongs and has its value where each may supplement the other two just as do our free voluntary metabolic and limb activities, the moral impulse of our feeling and the logical laws of our thinking.
Toleration toward the idea of a single world economy and codes worked out by various industries under the National Recovery Act National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 began to illustrate the inevitable trend toward segregation of authorities according to functions and the relinquishment by the States, to competently constituted institutions, of all powers not strictly implicit in formulating and maintaining standards of human rights according to the degrees of moral consciousness obtaining in the respective communities.
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AMERICAN BOURGEOISIE ALL INCLUSIVE
When I was leaving Chicago to start my course in architecture at Boston Tech later the Massachusetts Institute of Technology my beloved companion, Aunt Myra Perkins, recognizing my sanguine temperament advised me not to take all the courses the university offered; but on my return home I found my own home was offering the same temptations. My French Club pal, Katherine, always said she never thought of Mother's dwelling as a home but rather as a community. Mother herself, principal of the Komensky School, in addition to being the whole support of the family of five children from the time the youngest was four, was really the precursor of such developments as university extension giving art courses to her teachers during the years and decades, attended by many teachers from other schools and repeated in her home for the neighborhood on Saturdays, and undertaking to make livable quarters out of the barracks that our schools are (How could they be otherwise under the control of a political organization) which in her case she transformed into a real art gallery through loans made by friends usually becoming permanent, stained glass windows, etc. So that you never went through its halls without seeing children gazing here and there at some work of art, for here one found a statue and there the colored glow from a window or a whole story on the stairway wall of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel's Jean d'Arc and such, and a very fine collection of European posters brought from various vacation trips.
One incident in connection with the Saturday Art class might throw some light on Mother's family. One afternoon I was practicing on the piano when my brother Gerald came home. We nick-named him the "smiling telegraph pole" though his normal expression was serious as that of a judge. Not liking the sounds I was making, he ordered me to leave the piano. Naturally I didn't obey his instructions so he lifted me off the stool and put me on the other side of the room. Naturally again I immediately returned to the piano and after a second attempt
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to settle me elsewhere returned and without looking at me caught me by the braids hanging down my back and hauled me unceremoniously across the room to the front door. On opening this to put me out he became aware of a shy stranger coming to mother's class and simply with a lift of his hand put me into an erect position and left me to deal with the situation. With my quite natural sweetness I greeted her and invited her to come in assuring her that Mother would be home at any moment, but she managed to find some excuse and disappeared never to return.
The home program was always a full one so it was usually impossible to change the day of the week for any function since every day was packed. In the daytime everyone left for a day's work but the spare time was filled full. There was not only the art class on Saturday afternoon and a general round up of friends of my sister, who was the belle of the neighborhood, on Sunday afternoons to stay for bread and coffee and on into the evening with songs and nonsense till Mother's alarm clock went off as a hint to the young folks that it was time to go home, which hint was as a rule not taken seriously. Monday would be filled with the rehearsals of the dramatic club which after a few years of presenting not too ambitious plays settled down to the study under Mr. Blake, and the presentation, for he insisted we never would give proper finish to a work without presenting it, of Shakespeare's plays which we carried on for the rest of the 15 years of our existence, some of our members graduating to the professional stage. I took part in this as I did in all the functions, the rest of the children being more choosey. So I had the fun of being Portia and Beatrice and Olivia and Cordelia and so on through the years.
Another evening would be given over to the little orchestral group, for Aunt Myra was a pianist who filled another evening too with a study group for listeners-in to the Saturday evening Theodore Thomas concerts. And another evening a group gathered for the study of poetry, Mr. Blake reading it, himself a master of English verse and a writer of plays.
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MARION MAHONY
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One of the interesting things he did was a series of experiments in versification based on plotted mathematical curves. He would take the same motif and put it into some normal metric form and then put it into the geometrical form and, without telling which was which, have us express our preference. It was surprising how frequently we chose this new experiment. He and I had many a pleasant quatre d'heure in comparing our arts, mine being architecture. When either of us found a basic principle we passed it on to the other to find how it applied there. It was a great lesson to find how these discoveries could be applied to advantage in either art, in all the arts. All children should be brought up to express themselves in all the universal languages - the arts. It is no harder to learn them all than to learn one. The arts are play and they play into each other. They are lonely without the companionship of their fellows. Our ridiculous idea of experts these days is a deadly thing. Of course in the realm of time we may spend most of our time in one or another.
The oldest of the children was Jerome. The kernel of antagonism between him and myself may have started when Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, who was a bit of a tease, on one of her visits to Hubbard Woods flung an arithmetic problem at Jerome which he could not answer, quite likely because of a bit of stage fright, and she turned to me, listening in from across the room and said, "Well Marion can answer that," which I promptly did. One might say that Jerome was the immoral member of the family and perhaps I myself was the prude for our conflicts in later years were largely of such a nature. Jerome was brilliant and widely informed and I remember a New York friend dropping a line to Mother saying she wondered if Mother knew what a cultured gentleman her son was. I myself no matter how great the row had been could never resist, when Jerome came home from work, the temptation to slip down and sit on the stairs, when I was too angry to go near him, to listen to his sparkling account of the day for no matter how stodgy the office he
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was in, or whether he was without a job, the day had some picturesque adventure as seen through his eyes.
He was one of those Americans whose work, if the United States had been democratic instead of imperialistic in those days, would have gone a long way in this last half century toward establishing friendly relations and economic unity in the Americas. Our imperialism means that we are still under the domination of Rome, under the Spirit of Addition, interested only to get and get and never give whereas by now, with all the advantages America has had, we should be well under the influence of the Spirit of Subtraction, the impulse to give and give and never get. Really Jerome's impulse and abilities and trend in Mexico were of a colonizing nature. He and his wife were of those who would have aroused friendly feelings instead of enmity.
Instead of the Americans' helping, President Woodrow Wilson, awakened one night by some official urgency authorized (to his later regret) the sending of soldiers down to Vera Cruz. These American soldiers captured some scores of Mexicans, lined them up the next morning and shot them. Naturally this aroused feeling throughout Mexico and Jerome was one of those who were taken to prison. The personal feeling of those with whom he had been working and living was illustrated by one Mexican's pleading with the soldiers to take him instead, that Senor Mahony was a good man. But they threw him into prison and every day for about a week they brought him out, stood him against the wall to be shot and then sent him back to his cell, and finally released him. A strain to the nerves indeed but one could not blame the Mexicans but only deeply appreciate their having finally released him. The blame was of course America's.
One can see that if the economic organization had not been mixed up with the political the work of such a man would have been of common advantage to both Americans and Mexicans, for the nature of economics if it is not supported by monopolistic powers granted by the states
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DWELLING . C.H. WILLS . DETROIT . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst
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in that liaison of our present system, is fraternal, the very continuance of economic relations depending upon mutual advantage to both parties. The economic stream could not continue to flow if there were not advantage to both buyer and seller. It is time we quit bandying words and took action for the establishing of democracy by freeing the political organization from its unwholesome alliances such as economics and education.
The mere fact of universal suffrage does not bring about democracy. Nor is it possible with the complications which we pile on our political organization to get anything in the nature of an intelligent expression from the people. Jerome remarked one day on the frequent statement that women didn't have enough brains to vote, saying that he went in once and looked up and down a long complicated list on the voting paper given to him and gave up trying to find what to do and never again went to a voting booth, his conclusion being that neither did men have enough intelligence to vote if intelligence was the thing called for. I myself have gone through life the same way. I went to vote once and realizing afterward what a foolish thing I had done never went back again till after I was 70 years of age.
Jerome was married when he was quite young and went with his wife to spend five years in Europe. They systemized their journey and spent about a year in each country during which Jerome concentrated on getting hold of the history of the country. When he returned he took an examination to teach in the evening school. He failed in the history examination. Naturally his answers were not the text book answers. He tried to get a job in Chicago, but the firms he went to wouldn't take him on because he was out of the country five years during which his life was not recorded by the official records. Nothing he could say or anyone else could say for him as to character and occupation during those years could make any difference. They simply wouldn't employ him. He started a factory in Minneapolis Minnesota which he carried on for several years
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and got a thorough understanding of how life can be more difficult for the employer than for the employee. After having sunk considerable funds he gave it up and started out with a quarter of a dollar in his pocket and beat his way across to Montana. He "rode the rods rails?" under the railroad cars and earned his way picking up odd jobs here and there when he could. More than once he went for more than seven days without food. He said that after the second day you don't mind it. One of the most trying situations he ever had to face was when a companion he was on good terms with suggested a partnership and explained the nature of his business which was stealing, and showed him his apparatus to safeguard himself in case of emergency. That, Jerome insisted, took more tact than any other situation he ever had to face since he really had to convince the man that he was one of his own kind and that there was no danger of Jerome's giving him away.
Arriving in Montana, he got a job as cow-boy on a ranch and later established himself on a ranch of his own. One of his heart breaks was the upsetting of the boat in the turbulent river in going to this new ranch and not being able to recover his violin which for so many years had been his boon companion. Circumstances brought him back to Chicago some years later and his next adventure took him down into Mexico.
In our childhood there was really almost a sixth member of our family for our only first cousin Dwight Perkins, a few years older than Jerome, was with us much of the time. It was in his office that I had my first architectural experience. Many years later he remarked that it seemed odd to him that he had never known me, the most Bohemian person he had ever come in contact with, to be guilty of any impropriety. In his mind there seemed to be something irreconcilable about this. In my business partnerships I had at times traveled with my partner. Questioning the propriety had never entered anyone's head. It was one of the natural things that have succeeded in establishing wholesome relations between man and woman in America.
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DWELLING . C.H. WILLS . PLAN
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The adventuresome nature of the typical American was expressed in one of the events of the Hubbard Woods summer vacations. The two younger boys, Gerald and Leslie fourteen and ten years of age, packed a lunch early one morning and went off to the lake. They had made up their minds to build a raft. With this constructed before the morning was over they ate their bit of lunch and started to paddle around on their raft. It was not long before they were caught in one of those occasional currents of Lake Michigan and, paddle as they would, they couldn't get back to shore. They passed one pleasure boat the voices from which they could distinctly hear and called out to them for help but no one paid any attention to them. Naturally, we felt afterwards that anyone seeing small boys so far out should have brought them in even without their asking for help.
Toward evening Mother went down to the shore but not finding the boys assumed they were somewhere around in the woods. However as the twilight deepened into darkness she became very anxious and the neighbors gradually gathered to spend the night out in the storm which had arisen, searching the woods having at times that curious experience of walking in circles. The next day the word went far and wide. Friends came out from the city, among them Mrs. Young Ella Flagg Young?. I remember that when it had occurred to her that the boys might have been picked up by some boat going into Chicago, I went up with her to run ahead to hold the train about due so that no time should be lost in following up this possible clue. I set her a pace indeed and when I tackled the conductor telling him he must hold the train which he said he couldn't do, my breathlessness helped my commanding will and he waited until Mrs. Young, scarcely able to breath, climbed onto the train. She went to John R. Walsh who proceeded to get in touch with the various boats for it was the 4th of July and no boats were coming in or going out.
The afternoon was drawing to a close when the men told me to persuade Mother to leave the Lake shore so they could drag the Lake.
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We had of course been telegraphing far and wide and as Mother mounted the steps of the station platform a telegram came through saying the boys were found.
When Jerome had gone down to the Lake there was a bit of a board raft on the sand which he had kicked contemptuously aside saying the boys would never have tried to go out on a thing like that. In fact they had worked well on the raft they had made having nailed four logs securely and this bit of a sieve had weathered the storm all through the night, the storm which the boat captains said no small craft could possibly live through. It was so dark that Gerald had to keep reaching out his hand to feel if Leslie was still there. A huge vessel almost ran them down but their screams of terror were not heard and the ship went on its way. In the morning they were so far out they could not see any land so had to wait till the sun rose to know which way to paddle. They had hung onto their paddles so as dawn came, in spite of their exhaustion, they paddled in finally reaching the shore. They started to walk but when they spoke to a man he wouldn't believe them when they said they had come from Hubbard Woods twelve miles away and went on his way leaving them to get along as best they could.
They would walk for a while then sleep for a while. They passed through a picnic group and asked for something to eat but nobody paid any attention to them. They went on and Leslie who seems to have an inborn genius for finding money found a penny and they went into a shop and bought the biggest thing they could buy for a penny. It took them nine hours to make the first six miles, half the way home when, as they were passing a railroad station, the agent spoke to them to see if by chance they were the missing boys. They were packed on the next train for home. So frightfully sunburned were they that a touch was agony and that first night Leslie ran a bit of a temperature. But two days later a friend came out from town to see the boys and couldn't believe his ears when Mother greeted him telling him the boys were not in, they had gone down to the lake.
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DWELLING . C.H. WILLS . INTERIOR
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Gerald, 6 foot 3 inches tall, who was the engineer of the family, worked his way through college - the Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago. He belonged to those fortunate days before high finance, when banking business was run on some such lines as would be universal if there were an Abilities Organization. So he was able to get financing on purely personal credit, no security, to run a factory. Later he spent some years in the making of transformers in one of the towns on the St. Joe St. Joseph river. Getting homesick he bargained with his domestic sister, Georgine, to keep house for him if he bought a home. Some time passed and she had begun a course of training as a nurse when a telegram came up, "If I buy a house will you come down." She couldn't very well drop her work off hand so I feeling ready for a holiday from drafting telegraphed - "Gene can't but I will if you'll have a piano as well."
Everybody was filled with consternation when they found Gerald was to be in the hands of a professional woman instead of his sister Georgine. They were sure he would starve to death. That was in the early days of women in the professions when such ideas were prevalent. I suggested to Gerald that of course he couldn't expect to be provided with a dinner when genius was burning, but he was ready to accept any proposition I made for he had gotten his eye on an old, left over farm house which the town had grown up to and around and which was right on the bank of the St. Joe river, and the bank of the Elkhart river just across the street in front. The friend with whom he had been boarding suggested a carpenter he ought to consult to get advice about fixing up the house. He replied that his sister was an architect and would do that, to which she replied, "Oh but she won't know about Elkhart Indiana ways." Sometimes perhaps he thought he would have been less exploited in the carpenter's hands for he always insisted that I ruined him. But such fun as we both had! A big brick fire place in the living room with odds and ends of architectural modeled plaster work built into it. Before the scaffolding was out, though it was a hot day, we crept in under to build a fire and sat there hugging our
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OFFICE OF WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN IN THE ATTIC OF THE MONROE BUILDING CHICAGO [Note: Griffin moved his office to the Monroe building (104 South Michigan Avenue) on its completion in 1912.]
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CAPTION
While the Monroe Building in Chicago was under construction Griffin found no use was being made of the attic space. Always a space saver Griffin took this space for his office.
This later became quite a custom in down town buildings. A seed planted grows. He and a number of the young Chicago School of Architecture had already made similar use of the attic space in Steinway Hall building of Dwight Perkins. A considerable number of the young Chicago School moved in here, Robert C.? Spencer, Horace S.? Powers, Griffin, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bowrie Adamo Boari?, Myron? Hunt, etc. Wright whose early work was without distinction was only just out of Sullivan's office and only now was following the Japanese emphasis on the horizontal "Japanese inspired horizontal" in N-YHS line which had considerable influence on the whole group.
Griffin was already planning a city for a Chinese client who unfortunately died before the work could be initiated. This was Griffin's first plan of a whole Municipality.
Griffin drew up plans for an addition to the port of Shanghai for Wong Kai Kah (1860-1906). The drawings were lost when Mr. Wong died while returning to China.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 264 ====]
Continued from page 261knees and gloating over it.
A second story over the one story kitchen made a grand billiard room, and over another ell made a sumptuous studio room; and the huge old fashioned barn picked up, moved over and dropped down over the riverbank formed a boathouse below with the whole huge hayloft above converted into a screened pavilion open on three sides, with commanding views up and down the river. It served for community life in Elkhart somewhat on the lines of Mother's home though tending more to water delights than land-lubbers' interests.
I found the children bathing in this dangerous river with those wicked little water wings and taught them all how to swim. Here I had a chance to teach all my married friends how not to keep house, but really to live. Here in the hay-loft Rachel and I rehearsed and painted the scenery - Florence as seen from the heights of San Miniato, and disgusted Gerald by ripping off the side steps of the house to aid our imaginations in the balcony scene of Alfred de Musset's play which had been presented in Paris by Sarah Bernhardt and Agar Leonide Charvin Agar?. I did the strolling minstrel and learned how to thrum the guitar for this special occasion. Mr. Blake had translated it for us into beautiful American verse. Later on we transported the scenery to present the play in Chicago.
Great fun we had for nearly three years and then Gerald had to go down to the Tierra Caliente of Mexico to erect a sugar mill and to carry on with the management for some years. This again is an instance of years wasted for lack of an Economic Organization for this splendid business on an ideal location came to an end and is utterly wasted because of the totalitarian states. The Elkhart house was closed for a while but afterwards for many years served as the ancestral homestead for the family for vacations and a place to which we could fly with the children for country air. My niece, Clarmyra, whom I took down there when she was three years old, when we returned from our first afternoon prowl, sat down on the step and announced - "My nebber going in the
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house again," and that became the rule for the year or two I spent there with her, her Mother coming down for the weekends. For the tradesmen and the other familiars never tried the house doors first but always came around to the river bank fairly sure to find us there. Later, after his marriage, this treasured place became Gerald's home again and still is.
However, before this return he had given this homestead to Mother. Now one of mother's favorite pastimes was reading the wills in the papers and she always got herself insured when traveling and every time made a new will having great fun apportioning this manufactured inheritance. She wrote me she had willed one of her houses to Georgine and the Elkhart one to me. At this time we were trying desperately in Australia to unify the Castlecrag estates for which end the Haven estate was very important, so I wrote her that since she wasn't using the house I would greatly appreciate it if she would sell it and send me the money instead of willing it to me. Learning of this Gerald's wife's father bought back the house "Gerald bought back the house (which he had given her)" in N-YHS from her and the total price was sent over to me. - These Irish - This made a tremendous difference in our carrying on this undertaking and proved a source of income which met all sorts of needs. Gerald having bought the place twice over was again able to occupy it himself.
Jerome again went down to Mexico and spent the rest of his life there, Gerald's plantation being near the Gulf and Jerome's near the Pacific Ocean. Gerald too was one of the outside plantation managers who would never carry a gun though there were 700 men on the plantation, half Mexican and half Chinese. The boys had at that time made the journey from Puerto Mexico to Salina Cruz, bathing in the two waters on the same day. Here is where the Panama canal should have been for the crossing is practically at sea level for the whole distance. Had there been a world Economic Organization there would have been no barriers for such a rational arrangement.
At this point in the New-York Historical Society copy appear two pages (numbered 265b and 265c) which contain a letter from Jerome Mahony to his mother. In The Art Institute of Chicago copy the letter does not appear here, but in the next chapter, No. 12., on pages 273a and 273b.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 266 ====]
We talk of opportunities being over but that is nonsense. We simply have to wipe out, by setting the example ourselves, the imperialism which comes from state ownership of nature and capital, the consequences of which have come to their inevitable conclusion in Europe, which catastrophe there is no way of escaping except by eliminating the cause in ourselves - the totalitarian form of community organization, substituting three organs for Security, Economics and Social Requirements.
I got one of my thrills while in Australia on reading an article in the Freeman periodical title. Though no name was used I found myself reading about this brother Jerome of mine. The writer had found himself in this remote and isolated region - in Tehuantepec - waiting for hours at a little railroad station and was so excited to have encountered here "one of the most interesting men" he had ever met that he made an article of it and here I was on the other side of the world making connection with my family anew. The world is not so big. It won't be difficult to make a unit of it so long as we don't expect different groups to have the same moral standards, nor individuality to be eliminated. Let's wipe out the "Prince of the World" idea and realize that it is nonsense to think of any of the European communities as democracies.
My sister Georgine was obliged to give up her undertaking of being a nurse because of a heart difficulty which perhaps had resulted as the outcome of acute attacks of rheumatism through her childhood. Doctors pronounced it a leaking valve and incurable saying she probably could not live through her teens and it would not be possible for her to live to the age of thirty, that she must be very quiet putting no strain on her heart. Her response was to dance and run and climb, for in those romantic years death had no terror but rather a romantic appeal. She did however go on a unique diet which may have caused Mother some anxiety in those days which feared the foods we now consider
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most important. One might say cucumbers were the chief of her diet. Anyway it was what would now be called an eliminator diet, and she would have nothing to do with the meals set before the family. I am inclined to attribute to this as well as to her spirit the fact that all the signs of her physical disability disappeared and when in her fifties these doctors saw her, they asked to be permitted to listen to her heart and found that the leak had disappeared. However she went into teaching instead of nursing and like her Mother before and her daughter after her, was a genius in this realm. Her experience in nursing was of value to herself and her friends. She was one of those who functioned and was looked upon as an angel by those who came into her environment though, as Mother said, in her girlhood she could make the Angel Gabriel angry if she wanted to.
Leslie was the babe of the family and didn't have a fair start because with Father's death he was put into school at four years of age so that, since this was before kindergarten days, he got the intellectual work so destructive to the body if prematurely used. These etheric life forces up to the sixth year of age are required for building up and establishing the physical body. If they are diverted, before the change of teeth, to head work which is their natural field from that time on, they leave the physical body depleted for the rest of one's life. So Leslie was too thin and short of vital forces all his life but so far as success, as generally understood, is concerned he was the one who attained it. As a youngster he had taken great satisfaction in the fact that he, as he said, had "friends among the rich and the poor." That faculty served him well and as manager of the sales Department of Explosives he broke the record of the du Pont Company in spite of the fact that depression came during his term of office.
Of Mother a family friend, Anna Ickes, said she was the only person she knew who held the center of her stage to the day of her death which came when she was eighty-five years of age. She had retained her
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position as principal until she was seventy six still full of vigor and able to do physically what none of her teachers could do - go from the top of one of her four story buildings down to the first floor and up to the fourth floor of the other building and address a class without stopping to catch her breath. She resigned against the wish of her teachers about half of whom were so disgusted with the principal who succeeded her "a man" inserted in N-YHS that they left the school to go to other districts.
There is a requirement in Chicago that the principal and superintendents mark the teachers. A new superintendent learning that Mother always marked all her teachers 100 in everything said that was insubordination, a defiance of the system. Gossip brought this to Mother's ears and she tossed her head saying he was welcome to visit her school any time he chose. When he did come she let him go from room to room making his own choice. By the time he had visited three he could keep quiet no longer but said he had never heard such work in his life. All the school work was on exceptionally high standards but as it happened he was a singing superintendent and Mother's school was in the Bohemian district, the children when they entered not being able to speak English, her teachers were mostly Bohemians and consequently they and the children were practically all musicians. With part singing of lovely music it was no wonder that he was astonished. Mother never heard any more complaints about her marks of her teachers.
In our youth a charcoal drawing of my Aunt Myra's hung on the wall, a life-sized head which I always thought was a portrait of Mother. Not till I was grown up did I learn that it was Beatrice Cenci. I was interested years later in a confirmation of this resemblance. An Italian draftsman in the office once came to me a bit mysteriously and asked if I knew Beatrice Cenci. I said, "Yes." He said, "You like her?" I said, "Yes, I think she was very beautiful." "You have the same outline," he said, "You have the same outline." I had been prepared not to give too much weight to that remark by another friend who had said that he and I
"Beatrice Cenci" was a Renaissance noblewomen executed with other family members for murdering her abusive father. Her story has been the subject of works in literature, music, and the visual arts.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 269 ====]
were designed by a genius but one who was sadly lacking in a classic education. And indeed by another friend who had said to me very earnestly, "You are like my wife, you know you are a very plain looking woman." So there you are. What wonderful things friends are.
So as we settled into our work, Mother's family was scattered from Chicago to Wilmington, Delaware, to Mexico, to Australia and India. Now I am convinced that in this second half of the 20th century the stream of immigration to the United States should flow on and Americans should emigrate to all parts of the world teaching the things that have been ingrained in their blood through the two centuries of the experience of democracy and should spread the knowledge of it throughout the world for elsewhere democracy is unknown.
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No. 12. CONCRETE DWELLING . ROOF VERANDA [Note: The caption to the illustration in the New-York Historical Society copy reads "Dwelling . Kenilworth . Illinois . W.B.G.," and in the rendering itself the words "Solid Rock House" appear. The structure may be the Tempel House. A "Solid Rock House" has been associated with the names of William F. Tempel (Winnetka), Frank Palma [Marshall?] (Winnetka or Kenilworth), and E.L. Springer (Kenilworth).]
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THE CENTURY PLANT Jeremiah Mahony
There is a plant whose modest flowers Refuse the ardent sun, Nor yield their virgin bloom until With years of wooing won; But when a hundred years are o'er, Its blossoms richly blow; So blooms for us the plant that grew A hundred years ago.
Oh! Freedom's plant was watered well With precious blood and tears, To make its bosomed glories smell For many a hundred years; And now it's ours to pluck its flowers - Let tears of gladness flow! And praise to them who nurtured it A hundred years ago!
God bless the men who set its root In Freedom's sacred soil - God bless the men, and women too, Who shared their grief and toil! And God bless us who now enjoy Fair Freedom's warmth and glow; For he reigns still who fired our sires A hundred years ago.
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AMERICA'S METHOD OF CONQUEST - THROUGH EQUITY
This may spur the hope that this song may be sung again three decades from now at the second centennial. Let us hope the fulfillment of our task may repeat the glory of the one here recorded to be sung in 1976 substituting - "Two hundred years ago."
America has been populated by the adventurers of the world. One might say that America had been reserved by the Gods to perform great tasks for the coming millenniums. Her first real adventure was in the 18th Century in the political field, establishing Equity as the foundation of Political Government. Her adventure in the 19th Century was in the Economic Field culminating in the present decades and now being carried to the world - Mutuality.
Her present task - of the 20th Century - is Liberty, and calls for the emigration of Americans to all parts of the world. The meaning of the word is practically unknown elsewhere. To build this arch requires the two foundation stones of Equity and Mutuality - i.e., democracy in the Political Realm and fraternity in the Economic realm. It calls for the development of every individual's ability throughout the world. It is the opposite of imperialism and is well expressed in Mr. President Harry S. Truman's great speech in Berlin of 20 July 1945 - where he spoke of "a better world, a peaceful world, a world in which all people will have the opportunity to enjoy the good things of life - and not just a few at the top." He said, "Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest. There is not one piece of territory nor one thing of a monetary nature that we want out of this war. We want peace and prosperity for the world as a whole. We want to see the time come when we can do the things in peace that we have been able to do in war. If we can put this tremendous machine of ours, which has made victory possible, to work for peace, we can look forward to the greatest age in the history of mankind. That is what we propose to do."
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WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN
3 GIRL GRADUATES M.I.T. 1894 MARION MAHONY . HARRIET GALLUP . SARA HALL [Note: An inscription on the verso reads: "Caption Round Robin" (members of a 'round robin' letter group?).]
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Jerome's letter from Oaxaca gives a glimpse. Killed in a motor car accident, but his wife carried on and still does.
Dearest Mother, There is a matter of $77 due from me to daddy some time in August. If the matter is in any way brought to your attention I hasten to explain that I have arranged to remit those funds from here. (Which he did. MMG) If the present deal goes clear over I shall be relieved in many directions. I will have a splendid start for further operations and would be really quite well off if I stopped and simply farmed the finca estate.
For a long time the people here thought I was a tramp, then they began to be afraid I was not, then they thought I was a bluffer, now they have for a moment, definitely made up their minds that I am a millionaire. This carries with it the punishment that is meted to millionaires and reputed millionaires generally.
The next property I will take over will be on the sea, in front of the Las Conchas ranch I am taking over now. Of course I do not know how far I can go and one's difficulties increase as the operations get further extended. So for the present I shall simply do all I can on the ones I have started on and commence turning the land into cash a little later on. the phrase "and commence . . . later on" crossed out in N-YHS The headquarters here I will always keep and also one finca of 5000 or 10000 acres. So I now have, if there is no slip, and always will have, a big "estate" really here and you can step from the train to within a few feet of headquarters and drive out to the finca.
From the Conchas you can see the spot where Cortez built his ships, the ancient town of San Francisco is as quaint as a corner in Spain. Many of the roads are along the sea and made of the shells and consequently look like Boulevards. There is not probably an estate in England which has as many deer on it as has our Las Conchas and there are but few places in the world where such enormous quantities of fish can be hauled out with a net. I am putting the houses, fences, etc., in order and one of the servants will be the "hunter" who brings in fresh
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fish every morning and venison whenever required, a deer a day if it could be eaten, for a salary of $4 a month. You can get all the fish and meat you can get away with for yourself and a gang of men for $4 a month. The place is a grove of palms and over the most of it one can ride at a gallop. No underbrush.
I expect to plant thousands of cocoanut trees a few at a time and have in time some thousands of cattle. Living generally here is cheap. One can live like a king here if he wants to for very little. I want you to come here soon. Mexico has much of the charm of Europe. This valley is old, old, old. Its roads, its churches, its costumes are ancient. For my part I love it. It is a veritable sleepy hollow.
Love and love, Jerome.
His wife is still there.
In the New-York Historical Society copy this two-page letter does not appear here, but in the preceding chapter, No. 11., between pages 265 and 266 with page numbers of 265b and 265c.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 274 ====]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF XANTHIPPE
When after a sufficiently long period of patience, Xanthippe put the suggestion before him that he would have to find his woman sometime, that he couldn't expect his mother and sisters to take care of him forever - both Xanthippe Marion Mahony Griffin and Socrates Walter Burley Griffin were in their thirties - he agreed that was quite true but that though he quite recognized the spiritual and intellectual bond between themselves, he didn't feel the need of her. He always did pride himself on what he called honesty. You see he had had his first love affair with a beautiful and charming young woman Frank Lloyd Wright's sister, Maginel? and in the face of the two alternatives between which men customarily choose after such an experience, he did not hurry into affairs with other women but set aside the idea of woman.
She had been on holidays from her professional work for some time and was keeping house for her brother in the perfectly good substitute for an ancestral homestead on the banks of the beautiful St. Joe Joseph River and had invited Socrates down for week-end camping trips on this magic stream, so had learned his weakness. He had been brought up in an inland suburb, had longed for the water but been forbidden by timorous parents to go on or in the same when he went off with the boys bent, as they suspected, on reaching some distant pool. Of course he disobeyed them. What a blessing for humanity that children are not overburdened with too great respect for the opinions of their elders.
Xanthippe, who was practicing architecture in partnership with one of the other members Herman von Holst? of the school of independent design in Chicago, in the same building as the office of Socrates, with the wisdom of the serpent, suggested one day that they buy together a canoe and explore some of the nearby streams. Little did she know what she was in for as a consequence of that innocent remark. Like the ancestors of her own family Socrates was, in every domain of life, an adventurer and thrilled with the idea of pioneering. She had simply been aware of the fact that men are dependent creatures and felt that if Socrates got used to being
"Xanthippe" was the wife of Socrates. Her name has become an eponym for a shrewish, scolding wife.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 275 ====]
with her the need of her would grow in him. But he immediately saw worlds to discover and conquer and then and there their doom was sealed. She watched him in amazement as she did for the rest of their lives. He hadn't in the least made up his mind to marry her (though she had and that perhaps made a difference) but that was of no importance and could not for a moment be allowed to stand in the way of the undertaking for undertaking it was - to rediscover domains in the same pristine state of loveliness as in centuries gone by when Rene-Robert Cavelier La Salle and Jacques Marquette journeyed through the Mississippi Valley.
And nothing but the untoward thing that happened a few years later which took him to the other side of the world, as will develop in this tale of adventure, kept him from taking these discoveries and constructing from them a most lovely thing to bring into the consciousness of his community to develop and to add to the glories of his native city - a community plan for Chicago and its environs, i.e., the state of Illinois 1913 City Club of Chicago competition?. The lovely thing lies there still unrecognized and unused awaiting the return of his magic breath.
Xanthippe's business arrangement with her architectural partner was that she should have complete control of design. Thus it was recognized that creative work can spring from one mind only who must have full authority and final decision in all matters of design and construction. The arrangement worked very well but was not the complete and logical one that was later developed in the office of Socrates. For indeed it would usually be necessary for the designer to have the contact with the client to be able to mold his mind in the give and take so necessary in the solution of a problem where the client always wants more than he wants to pay for.
The half dozen or more under her in the drafting room worked well and enthusiastically, for here was one of the few places where the ice was being broken for the freeing of the profession from the apron strings of stylistic architecture, a movement so wonderfully started and established by Louis Sullivan, and which received such a deadly set-back in
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the very heart of the movement in the Chicago Columbian Exposition, the whole nation being seduced by the superficial beauty of that wanton thing.
Her natural bent was toward independence and the girlhood motto - to live as always to be able to respect herself - had been the cause of her failing in design in her Boston Tech course due to her repugnance toward the required custom of going to the libraries for designs. The ultimate leniency of the beloved head of the department, Mr. Chamberlain, due to the fact she did well in her other work, and possibly that she was a woman, recognizing the difficulty of suppressing revolution in a woman and the only one in the course at the time, were probably at the bottom of her not failing to get her degree, though the presentation of her thesis won the praise of the head of design, M. Depradelle Desire Despradelle (1862-1912), whose joy had been exceeding great over a caricature of her by an under-class man depicting her, back view with a halo around her head, with toes turned widely out (a habit which it took years for Socrates to correct to make her walk straight footed like any proper Indian of the forest and right he was for with her black hair straight down, a band around her head, she would be taken for an Indian anywhere) walking straight toward the temple of fame in the distance while the street on both sides was lined with brass bands bowing and blowing their heads off. "Yes, yes," said Monsieur, "Yes, yes to the temple of fame."
In the drafting room was Mr. McArthur who has since been doing fine creative work in the Western States, who complained that she was very strict when she jumped on him for altering the design - the story height, of a house while working on the drawings, without referring the matter to her. But she impressed it on him that a design cannot be worked to two ideas, and to attempt it was the unforgivable offence. Mr. Roy Lippincott too, who years after, won the competition for the main building of the Auckland University, built it and established his profession in New Zealand, was just out of Cornell University and followed her wherever
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UNIT HOUSE [Note: The structure is the Gunn House in Chicago.]
EMORY HILLS GROUND PLAN [Note: Emory Hills was located in Wheaton, Illinois.]
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she was drawing so as to get in first on the educational side of the work, designing, detailing and rendering. Later he followed her to Socrates' office and to the Antipodes (married to Socrates' sister) whence he branched off to his own practice.
And unforgettable was the expression on the face of the engineer, the third member of the firm, when he saw an instance of her method in the office, when she leaped at a draftsman and said, "Oh, you naughty little thing. You have done that wrong," where he would have cursed and fumed. But her method was effective where his would probably have failed except on the surface. For all the draftsmen young and old were most painstaking and untiring in their work. In fact many times she told the younger ones not to work too hard, that the important thing was to keep themselves alive and wide awake. Many years later she learned in very truth how this is the essential requirement in entering the whole realm of spiritual realities, to become in fact an independent and creative being, to enter the supersensible with fully alive and wide awake self-consciousness instead of trying to penetrate it by trance or medium or blindly not knowing what one is doing nor how. By these fully conscious methods the doors to genius are open to every human being.
A strenuous week and Saturday noon arrived and two wicked little runaways dropped their canoe into the Chicago River at the Van Buren street bridge. The canoe was taken by their loving hands and launched at the point nearest to the station where it arrived from the East and then and there its journey began which was to last in weekly installments through the succeeding years, never retracing its steps, till the misfortune of fame called them to far distant parts. Allana they named the beautiful creature - Allana - Beloved - and she was left high and dry on the shores of Lake Michigan where their last week-end adventure had ended before they started out to conquer single-handed the most powerful and menacing empire of the present day. Socrates had provided two canvas sleeping bags with blankets. Xanthippe had provided bread and bacon and
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frying-pan and pail.
They were both of them working to the limit of their strength in their architectural work and could spare no time outside of the usual Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Xanthippe had expected to start on Sunday because that would give them a whole day for the outing. But waste a half a day when Allana was there on the water and waiting! Such a thought was intolerable to the logical mind of Socrates and we must remember logic started in humanity with Socrates. How could so frail a thing as Xanthippe - and she was frail - stop the most powerful force that had yet come to human beings in the long, long course of their development. Not yet was she aware of the still more powerful force that is developing in this new century. Well she couldn't and so through their lives logic won in the battle royal between Socrates and Xanthippe even to the taking of the hemlock.
Where in the world but Chicago could such an undertaking have been carried out, at the southern end of Lake Michigan with radiating streams from the surrounding districts pouring their waters into it, and such a system of radiating and belt lines of railroad as is to be found nowhere else. For they were hard working young people and had to be at their tasks all through the week. And entering a totally different world it was when they left the grime and noise of the big city and dropped into the sights and silences of the ages. For the canoe is not like the auto which keeps one to the haunts and sights of man and his works. The infinite wisdom of the Creator makes it necessary for farmers to leave strips of forest along the river banks or their land gets worn away and acres may be lost. So many times they paddled for days with no consciousness of mankind. What a blessed relief! Only Socrates and Xanthippe. Of course she came to seem a part of the wonders of creation to him. And of course all other humans were simply humans.
Up the Chicago River they paddled (not primeval beauty there) and even with the Hades of the modern city about them, though at times their
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eyes were rested by the majestic architecture of grouped silos, they began to meditate on other universes to be entered and as they slipped past the suburban limits and as the darkness of night and a brewing storm gathered, each in his own mind with no word spoken determined that nothing should turn them from this escape from the grime of our modern civilization into endlessly varied paradise - except that other conquest in creative architecture to which their souls were dedicated.
Finally Socrates, with that command of geography which was his by instinct and industry, said they would rest on their oars for, as he knew but she did not, they were at the spot where the Des Plains River in a sweeping bend comes a very close to the Chicago River. So after a most uncomfortable night (they were still amateurs in this realm) with unceasing rain the two, ill-prepared, inexperienced and soft, portaged across to the Des Plains, turning their canoe up stream.
Let no one think a canoe is light and easy to handle, anyway for white folks. But in their ignorance Xanthippe took her end to carry - the prow - and not till weeks later and after numerous portages was it discovered that that was the heavy end as it would be of course to make it right for one in the stern when alone to be able to paddle without lifting the prow too high out of the water. With bones so small that her mother used to try to prevent her from lifting even a tea-kettle from the stove with a - "But your poor little wrists" - it certainly was some task, these portages and carries, which an indifference to the use of these streams for pleasure made so frequently necessary, a stretch of shallows, a ruthless dam, a barb-wire fence thrown across by some self-centered farmer to keep his cows from wandering around the end. On one such occasion Xanthippe's world famed peculiar talent manifested itself when a typical picture-book Yankee came rushing down to the further bank and threatening them for, as he supposed, cutting his fence which they were taking great pains not to injure. So Xanthippe rose in her wrath and drowned him out with equally picturesque diatribe
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to the effect that putting his fence across the river was against the law and since he was so sassy about it they would take much pleasure in giving him the experience of the pinch of the law. The old man stood silent and with jaw dropped till they disappeared up stream. Probably he had not had any experience with truly Greek eloquence certainly not being the kind of a man that a Xanthippe would bother with.
As Sunday drew to a close and train had to be caught back to the city Socrates, in passing through a small town, chose a house on the river bank and asked if the canoe could be left there till the following week-end. Thereupon began their universal (with one exception) experience with the sweetness of human nature, for throughout the three years of this adventure whomsoever they asked whether farmer or summer-house occupant or bridge tender, whether in poor or comfortable circumstances, no one ever refused to take Allana in and care for her and sometimes it meant real trouble. Once a storm arose and the rising waters started her off on a jaunt of her own, but she was brought back. Sometimes as the cold season approached, they would say they expected to be back the next week-end and then the winter ice would close the stream and she would stay till Spring. And there after months they would find her. And no one would ever accept any compensation for this service. The one refusal was from an Institution well fitted to give her shelter - the Naval Quarters on the shore of Lake Michigan. They were sent from subordinate to higher up and so on to still higher ups and refused and they, on the lake where a canoe is not really safe even under the best circumstances, were sent out into the blackness of the night. They have been pacifists ever since. Militarism breeds beasts not humans. No one else was ever inhuman to Allana.
Back to the office and the drafting board; and pleasant work Xanthippe was doing in partnership with Mr. Von Holst - residence for Mrs. David M. Amberg, Grand Rapids; for the Adolph and Robert Muellers in Decatur; for the home of Henry Ford in Detroit - but somehow the work of that "pink
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DWELLING . F.L. MOORE Morse? . STILL CLASSIC BUT FREE [Note: A caption on the drawing reads (in part): "F.L. Morse [/] Ithaca - New York".]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 283 ====]
haired" (so called by my 5 year old niece) blond of a Socrates was gradually capturing her imagination. So one day, after they had got a cart to carry Allana over to the head waters of the Fox River and had dropped her into the waters of Grass Lake just when the great creamy yellow Egyptian lotus flowers were in bloom and stretching as far as the eye could reach (Socrates' Daemon would always land him at such a spot at the very right moment) they slipped along, so soft, so still, through the huge lotus leaves without even a sound (so close were the pads) of the drip from the paddles to frighten the birds away. And so near they let them come! Only three places in America where these grow, brought in some mysterious way by some people of the remote past from where? Perhaps from Atlantis from whence the Egyptians also might have taken them. So this landscape architect told her, who knew the flora of his country from a to zed as they say in the antipodes.
Afterward they got into the roaring rapids of the lower reaches where Xanthippe in the prow had hung in the air over a three foot drop shouting back, "We can't go here! We can't go here!" only to hear from the stern - "We've got to." And after waking very early in the cold morning to slip on down toward the Illinois, they watched veil after veil of the mists rise from the bluffed and forested banks, each veil as it rose revealing a new and ever more beautiful universe. Indeed the way to God, the Father God, is through a close and intimate contact with nature. What hope is there for our city-bred people. What does Rudolf Steiner say, not a "silly" crossed out guess like Albert Einstein's with his talk about a cylindrical universe, but that there are as many universes as there are crystalline forms. A crystalline form is a primal work of a deity - a Primal force which cannot but express itself in a universe of consequences. And so after a rest on a sunny bank while he took a dip in the refreshing stream, Xanthippe said, "Why don't I join you in your office?" for Xanthippe was well known for her renderings, her presentation work, and the work of Socrates was lying hidden away known only to the immediate clients. Said he - "I never
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DWELLING . SYDNEY . ROMANTIC [Note: The structure is the David Pratten House.]
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CAPTION
The illumination of the garage as well as of the front entrance is a grille, grilled lanterns. These grills let the daylight in and the night light out.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 286 ====]
Continued from page 283dreamed that you would do that." Said she, "All right I'll arrange it." And so they drew a bit closer together.
Xanthippe had watched with interest the transformation of the work in the office where she had worked before, when Socrates, the Town Planner, had gone into partnership with Frank Lloyd Wright, beginning to realize what has become clear beyond question as time has gone on, that architecture cannot be practiced properly unless based on the foundation of Town Planning. Just as Town Planning without Architecture becomes nothing but real estate business squeezing the life out of the earth, so architecture when not combined with Town Planning in the same individual cannot solve the problems of architecture.
And now on coming into his office she had revelation after revelation, thrill after thrill. Problems which she had seen struggled over in office after office and never solved were being solved one after another. Inspiration, the source of information, had been tapped and she watched Socrates as Xanthippe always watches Socrates with awe and amazement and understanding. Perhaps the fools would understand Mrs. Abraham Lincoln better if they had the wit to realize that true love is not based on friendly feelings but on feelings "more closely related to enmity." It is time we got rid of this sloppy stuff about marriage.
The small house, the minimum, the inexpensive house the most difficult of all architectural problems, were solved with the precision of a mathematical problem and with the exquisiteness of a Greek temple, and one after another laid before her delighted eyes. So they put their heads together and schemed a method of presentation. Uniform size, 18 by 36 inches on colored satin with the careful outline work of an etching and finished in transparent water-colors mixed with glue and a complete exposition of the building - plan, perspective, section, decorative details, worked together into a unified mural panel. Whenever the pressure of current work gave a moment's breathing spell these were continued till later there was a good sized roll for Socrates to
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tuck under his arm and take over to Paris to be exhibited in the Palace of the Tuileries, and so they have been in constant use from that time to this.
A democratic form of partnership was entered into which made each equally independent and responsible, the separation of personal clients with profits proportionate, to make the responsibility for design an individual matter, proved to be a splendid basis of future partnerships with the young people growing in the office which gave them a fine incentive for open, enthusiastic and thorough work and a possibility of working into responsible positions or into independent practice that does not exist in the usual architectural office.
And then into the midst of this busy life was thrown the bomb which has made these full and busy times seem like leisure days - the announcement which Socrates had been on the watch for during the ten years since the Federation of the Australian States - an international competition for the Capital City - and Socrates applied for and received the information and the data for it.
Weeks passed and months passed with no break in the usual tenure of their way.
Week-ends took them from the Fox to the "Fair Illinois" as Xanthippe's father Jeremiah Mahony had called it in his poem "The Marriage of Michigan to the Fair Illinois," dedicating the opening of the first canal; but the powerful stream began to add an element of awe and dread to the occupants of the frail shell so, after sweeping past the precipices of Starved Rock the old Indian natural fortress, with the current, for it would have been impossible to paddle against it, Socrates turned Allana's nose into the Illinois-Michigan canal and they began that strange tour back to the lake through regions some of which had doubtless not been seen by man for 50 years or more. The new canal, the old canal, swamps. They thought at one time they would have to rig up some sort of wheel support - so often had the old canal disappeared as nature resumed her sway - to get
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from one stretch of water to the next. All obstacles were of a nature that could easily be overcome by an outer park body i.e., system or organization? so that the whole of this three year route could become a wonderful pleasure jaunting field for the immense population of Chicago and all Illinois could they but have had time and strength for a detailed statement of the geography and nature of these waterways. Someday perhaps with young blood running swift!
At last the head waters of a stream again, the Calumet, which they followed to Lake Michigan and here was where they realized the full force of the phrase - "All the world is beautiful and only man is vile." For from the wonder and perfection of the natural stream they passed to town after town in this industrial region incredibly sordid, with the waters thick with the poisonous by-products of the mills, where it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have kept the river and its banks as permanent playgrounds for the growing communities. Was ever any civilization so stupid, so barbarous?
Then with a 45 mile paddle in one day the lake was reached. This does not mean that Xanthippe paddled all that day for the canoe is an ideal toy for two of unequal strength, the strong one in the stern with full control whether the other paddles or not; so Xanthippe would paddle, then stretch out in the bottom and snooze; then up and paddle again. But Socrates would never stop. He never would at any time save by some insuperable force of nature or by the force of Xanthippe. 'Twas so in the office where his great ideal was to break Xanthippe of her homing habit. Always one more thing could be done or a still lovelier spot for landing could be found a little farther on. One night paddling up a swampy stream in flood time the moon rose and the moon set but still Socrates paddled on, and wonderful it was if you had the strength left sufficient for the registering of the perceptive faculties. Continuous rain set in and sang songs with the drip and drip of the paddle. Finally in the pitch dark they turned in to a group of trees for where the bank of
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the river might be no human could tell and feeling around with their hands to see if there was any ground finally decided there was a bit, pulled Allana up on it and went to sleep in the canoe. Socrates himself thought the land would probably disappear with the rising waters and that such sound sleepers would be safer in the canoe. So they spread their rubber blankets over the canoe, it took the two to reach from end to end, and went to sleep.
One can easily imagine what kind of a night they spent by picturing two people on a cold night sleeping in a bath tub with the plug in and the water turned on, for the weight of the rain gradually depressed the blankets to form a reservoir and the crack in the middle formed a perfect outlet from the reservoir into the canoe. Needless to say they were on their way early in the morning, slipping up the first canal to a farm house where they left Allana and in their sopping wet clothes walked ten miles to the nearest railway station and so home and on to the office. One learns from a succession of such experiences that one doesn't catch cold from exposure. This like most diseases is the consequence of living in houses. No pleasure, no health, no way of educating our children, shut within prison walls as we are from five years of age, or from birth, to the day of our death.
Rudolf Steiner says that on looking back over his life one can see things he has done and said that he was quite unconscious of the significance of at the time but that seen from the later point of view become full of significance. When Socrates was a little fellow in school, and he was smaller than the average (These short men have the advantage they say since as a pumping machine the heart doesn't have anything like the task it has in the long fellows) he quite consciously made up his mind that when the older boys teased him he would make no sign, on the theory that if he didn't cry they would find no fun in it; and so it was. They soon left him alone. Fine discipline for the punishments he was to receive in his fight against the inertia of his time, especially in bureaucratic
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CLARK MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN . GRINNELL . IOWA
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CLARK MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN . WORKING DRAWINGS [Note: The illustration is the verso of that found on page 290.]
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Continued from page 289controlled communities, but what a handicap it gave Xanthippe.
Such evidence of preparation in former lives for the work he was to do in this was instanced by the demand on his part when he went to the Illinois university for a course in Town Planning, for no University in the world would offered such a course at that time. The basic religion of Town Planning requires the preservation of natural beauties, a respect for the works of the creator. Its practice at present entails perpetual fight with all the elements of the community. The weeks slipped by and the months slipped by and nothing was done about that competition. But on with the tale of Allana.
What an experience that 45 mile spurt was! Going up a bit of a stream Xanthippe, eagerly absorbing all delights that were offering, for she was of a sanguine temperament, ecstatic in her enjoyment of all lovely and gracious things, with head bent low between her arms, pulling with all her strength for they were in a current so swift that they could scarcely make progress against it, called, "Oh, look at the myriads of gastropods i.e., mollusks, snails on the logs on the bottom." "Don't look," said Socrates, "Paddle!" "But I've got to look," said Xanthippe, "They are so darling." "Provoking person!" said Socrates. And those are the harshest words he ever said to her. Once years after, she said, I'm like Ben Bolt's Alice. I laugh with delight when you give me a smile and tremble with fear at your frown." And he said, "Did I ever frown at you?" and with a still amazement this provoking person said, "By Jove I don't believe you ever did."
At one place where the stream had many shallows they had to get out and wade to lighten the load so that Allana could slip over the surface waters. A municipal gas plant, taking the privileges bureaucracies will take that would not be tolerated from a private organization, had let its waste material flow into the stream, a black, sticky mass and such a waste of byproducts, again typically bureaucratic, and soon they found that they couldn't really clean their legs so that when
"Ben Bolt" was poem written by Thomas Dunn English and later set to music. The words mention "sweet Alice" "Who wept with delight when [Ben Bolt] gave her a smile [/] And trembled with fear at [his] frown."[Note: ==== Beginning of page 293 ====]
later in the day they reached the lake they still left their legs bare and exposed to a blistering sun. The consequences later - Oh! let them be forgotten! They were now at the very southern toe of Lake Michigan but no rest was to be till Socrates had reached his predetermined goal, a group of camping hikers on the shore at the Dunes where late in the evening they arrived.
This was the organization founded by eight or ten young seers, one of them Socrates, another Xanthippe's only first cousin, Dwight Perkins, which interested rapidly increasing number to take long and ever longer hikes over the region surrounding Chicago, and later over the State, always under strict discipline to injure nothing and to pick not even a leaf; and under informed leaders to discover and inspect and select the beauty spots and to press for their resumption by Chicago or the State for permanent public play spaces and beauty reserves. Thus Chicago achieved the finest outer park system in the world. The work even overlapped into two states getting Illinois and Indiana to join in saving the unique and lovely dunes which were rapidly not only being occupied but destroyed by using the sand for concrete and other structural purposes. After this was stopped it proved just as easy, probably easier, for great sand suckers to get all that could be wanted from the bottom of the lake.
The next day was the hottest any of them had ever experienced, the sand as hot as the top of a stove, and they all spent the whole day in the water even eating their meals there, getting out just to snatch a handful of food and scurrying back to eat it with only hands and heads above water.
Perhaps it was the torture of those sunburned legs, perhaps it was just that well known mean disposition of hers or perhaps it was those spiritual advisers, of whom Xanthippe was unconscious at the time, that said to her - "We can't do anything with that Socrates without some human help. Won't you do something to make him get a start on that
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important matter he has in mind?" or perhaps it was the suggestion of the Devil himself as Socrates was later inclined to think; anyway the storm of wrath broke over his head on some such lines as follows:- "For the love of Mike when are you going to get started on those Capital plans? How much time do you think there is left anyway? Do you realize that it takes a solid month to get them over there after they have started on their way? That leaves exactly 9 weeks now to turn them out in. Perhaps you can design a city in two days but the drawings take time and that falls on me. Five weeks! It isn't possible to do them in nine weeks. Perhaps I am the swiftest draftsman in town but I can't do the impossible. What's the use of thinking about a thing like this for ten years if when the time comes you don't get it done in time! Mark my words and I'm not joking either, either you get busy on that this very day, this very minute (with rising tones) or I'll not touch a pencil to the darn things. Serve you jolly well right if I refused to take it on now." (No, not jolly. Such language only came later.)
And Socrates said nothing (He was such an amiable man) but started sawing wood. Oh my, Oh my, And so a new adventure was started.
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No. 13. ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN . DWELLING . J.G. MELSON [Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy a small photograph of the house is superimposed over the drawing. Rock Crest-Rock Glen is located in Mason City, Iowa.]
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CAPTION
I had just entered into partnership with Griffin when Mr. Joshua G. Melson, who with Mr. James E. Blythe had recently bought a bit of Mason City Iowa property through which a river flowed, came to me to design a house for him.
This unoccupied stretch of land lies on either side of the river close to the down town district of Mason City. Mr. Melson, looking quite melancholy when he came to me, had had a dream and it wasn't coming true. He had asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design a house for him but Wright had no Town Planning sense and had designed just a house to set by the roadside. So the poet in Mr. Melson wasn't satisfied. He came to me. You know I had a romantic look.
But instead of taking up his suggestion I told him that this was a Town Planning undertaking and suggested he talk it over with Walter Burley Griffin which he did on the site and was taken off his feet with the suggestions made for the general layout and for a dwelling for himself carrying up an old quarry wall to form one wall of his home.
In addition Griffin suggested an artificial precipice by encouraging the city to dump rubbish under quite a stretch of the bridge and facing it with the local stone thus adding 3 building lots whose outlook would rake up the river, and so on.
When Mr. Melson's home was finished Griffin himself climbed up the wall from river bottom to roof. The house is a lovely blossom in the natural terraces of the river bank, with a secret afternoon-tea terrace on the level of the floor of the billiard room accessible only from it.
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ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN
He was known as Don Melancholio. He got sketches for his home from one architect after another, including F.L.W. Frank Lloyd Wright, but nothing satisfied him though one at least was charming enough as plans go. But still he wandered on.
At about this time I had settled myself in the office of Walter Burley Griffin. One day the Don came in and asked me if I would make him sketches for his house. I begged off saying Mr. Griffin's office was pressed with work and I felt in fairness to him I couldn't take time off for other work. Then he revealed his problem. He and Mr. Blythe of Mason City had bought 18 acres on the banks of the river in their home town and would I make a perspective drawing of it.
The spark caught and I said I thought I could do that but if it was a landscape scheme he ought to talk with Mr. Griffin about it, and I showed him some of Griffin's houses, etc. He had a talk, had Griffin go down to Mason City for a day at the end of which the two gentlemen signed away their so-called liberties in a contract which bound each of them to do nothing on the property without Mr. Griffin's approval.
The two men had bought this property because they thought it a lovely spot for a home. The rest of the river frontage had been ruined. Below was a miserable factory, above a rubbish dump. The banker and the business man then put off and put off building each mistrusting what the other might do. To such impasses does this fetish of personal liberty, misplaced liberty, lead us in our chaotically conceived social system which refuses to recognize that a human community has three functions to fulfill and so requires three complete community organs to fulfill them, one for equity, one for liberty and one for mutuality, a political, an ability & an economic organ each consisting of the total citizenry. The Town Planner would be an impartial arbitrator whose only personal interest would be to maintain the high standard of the whole property.
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[Note: Supplied title: North Elevation Bridge Rock Crest & Rock Glen This illustration is not listed in the table of contents.]
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And Mr. Griffin came home with the job of designing the home of Mr. Melson, our Don, in his pocket. The other architects had handled the house simply from the architect's point of view locating it at the normal building line distance from the street frontage, but Griffin as soon as the house was mentioned inspected the property to select a particular lot and advised an abandoned quarry site on the river bank and drew a picture in Mr. Melson's mind of a house perched at the extreme back of the lot on top of the quarry precipice, continuing and giving finish to the quarry face, and commanding views up and down the river. Melancholy flew out and an enduring enthusiasm filled its place in our Don. Only once did it seem for a moment to have returned when the old "sad face" appeared in the office saying he was going to have to charge up his electric light bills to Mr. Griffin for - and then the smile crinkles began - everyone, and that was the whole town, who crossed the bridge - which connects "down town" with the residence district - whether pedestrian or motorist stopped to look up the river at the fascinating sight of Rock Crest's initial building - a castle indeed for it was a unity with the whole precipice - completely reflected in the smooth waters above the old dam; and he couldn't resist the temptation of keeping his whole house lighted up to make the most of a spectacle of it.
A location was also selected for Mr. Blythe's home - on the opposite bank - a gentle wooded slope, charming and gracious, extending from the house to the river, a complete contrast to Mr. Melson's site.
Operations had scarcely begun when the town approached the owners to buy the property for a park but they realized they should have done this long before and rather than interfere with the men of vision in whose hands the whole would be better safeguarded than in the hands of the officials, instead of using their right of eminent domain they would perhaps take on the restitution of other parts of the river frontage, perhaps converting the dump into a park. They agreed to
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GENERAL PLAN FOR ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN . MASON CITY
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CAPTION - ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN
Where the boundaries of the tract were not already set off by the natural screen of forest growth, the structures have been disposed to make a frame for this area as complete as possible, in conformity with its standards.
Moreover by the relegation of the houses to the perimeter the area of the gentle slope to the river will be preserved indefinitely for open view very much as nature designed and for those purposes of retreat and recreation to which nature has so well adapted it.
The endless fascinating possibilities for domestic a architecture with the unrepeated variations of view, soil, ruggedness, luxuriance, prominence and seclusion, need only the due attitude of appreciation to work themselves out in structures as unique as their sites, cut into rock or perched on the crest or nestled in the cove as the case may be.
The dam has been reconstructed in concrete from that of the old time grist mill that long occupied this site and whose foundation masonry is being transformed into a modest hydroelectric plant pumping water to a reservoir on the heights for fountain and hose purposes and generating electric current for the illumination of the public spaces.
This dam is designed ultimately to be traversed by a concrete bridge superstructure giving the architectural falls dignity and significance, adding security to the boating on the mill pond and offering access by easy ravine route to the crest outlooks. Walter Burley Griffin
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Continued from page 299accept Griffin's suggestion to dump their rubbish - not garbage of course which should be burned in incinerators as it is done in Australia - along and under the bridge's approaches to the river thus with stone facing building up another precipice and enclosing the property making advantageous building sites for three houses on this street frontage.
Of this Domestic Community Development Griffin says:-
Rock Crest & Rock Glen occupy the two sides of the valley which Willow Creek has carved out of the rocks within 3 blocks of the central square of Mason City, Iowa. In common with many such beautiful pieces of nature it has been neglected during the growth of the community in favor of the commonplace sites all around it, awaiting the day which seems to be approaching when the imagination of the people is sufficiently stimulated by opportunity for unique development in those instances where long abuse has not been, as is generally the case, coincident with the neglect. This example comprises 18 acres of the creek frontage between two bridges. That at the north is a permanent masonry arch carrying an important thoroughfare route and fixes definitely the boundary in that direction but the western footbridge is merely a temporary structure and its removal in the near future is promised for the opening up of another 5 acres up-stream of a territory where rock and dell have still different forms of expression to be preserved and respected.
The vertical bluffs of Willow Creek alternate from side to side of its sinuous course. In the portion illustrated they comprise the south and west banks, opposed by a gentle slope of meadow and open woods extending gradually up to almost equal elevation north and west within the limits of the tract. Wherever this rise has been less than that naturally, it has been augmented artificially by grading and filling to form a commanding hill at the north-east corner with lesser mounds and ravines masking the south embankment of the State street bridge
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approach and finally with a considerable rockwork precipice covering the bridge abutments, matching in a way the bluffs from which the concrete arch springs on the east and forming the semblance of a canyon.
Where the boundaries of the tract were not already set off by the natural screen of forest growth, the structures have been disposed to make a frame for this area as complete as possible, in conformity with its standards. Moreover by the relegation of the houses to the perimeter the area of the gentle slope to the river will be preserved indefinitely for open view very much as nature designed it and for those purposes of retreat and recreation to which nature has so well adapted it.
The endless fascinating possibilities for domestic architecture with the unrepeated variations of view, soil, ruggedness, luxuriance, prominence and seclusion need only the due attitude of appreciation to work themselves out in structures as unique as their sites, cut into rock or perched on the crest or nestled in the cove as the case may be.
The dam has been reconstructed in concrete from that of the old time grist mill that long occupied this site and whose foundation masonry is being transformed into a modest hydro-electric plant pumping water to a reservoir on the heights for fountain and hose purposes and, generating electric current for the illumination of the public spaces. The dam is designed ultimately to be traversed by a concrete bridge superstructure giving the architectural falls dignity and significance, adding security to the boating on the mill pond and offering access by easy ravine route to the crest lookouts.
For such coordination development various property interests had to be brought together on the basis of a common ideal and bounden to it through the extent of the tract so that the improvements have been going forward from the various angles with the assurance and co-operation that can come only from unified control.
Much of this page repeats the "caption" found on page 301 (above).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 304 (table of contents) ====]
NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY . GROUNDS PLAN [Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration has he following caption:"Before leaving America Griffin was asked to make plans for the University of New Mexico which he made and sent back from Australia to the Chicago office to be delivered to the University. They were never delivered. F.L.W. [Note: Frank Lloyd Wright] again.Grounds Plan - New Mexico University . Walter Burley Griffin [/] Studied Carefully in Relation to Contours".]
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The first thing Griffin sent back from Australia to the United States was drawings of the general layout of future buildings and a key design for the building groups for the University of New Mexico. He was very interested in and sympathetic with the pueblo motif they were then using. Unfortunately his young assistant Barry Byrne in Chicago in whose charge the Chicago office had been placed was influenced, by the so-called architect Frank Lloyd Wright whose vanity and malice killed the so-called Chicago movement in architecture, not to forward these drawings but to send down his own design for the building they were about to erect.
They erected it but were disappointed that it was so out of keeping with what they were doing that nothing further was called for from the Griffin office.
Fortunately they afterward continued on the lines on which they had begun.
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METHOD OF DESIGN . Marion Mahony Griffin
In entering my second office I was graduated from pure drafting to experience and began to function in my first stage of design in a realm fairly natural to me, that of the art of the painter. Not till years later was I to learn the radical difference between the art of painting and the art of architecture. Painting and sculpture are depictive arts sculpture to be sure including a sense of movement. But architecture is a spatial, a structural, art and requires a quite different impulse and type of comprehension.
In this second office, that of F.L. Frank Lloyd Wright, we were, to be sure, practicing as architects but were really functioning as artists, as painters. I became sort of subconsciously aware of this difference when Wright told me to design a flat roofed residence. This meant the building must have the feeling of a home but must have a flat roof. I completely failed in this as did Wright himself.
The most difficult of all architectural problems, the inexpensive dwelling was never solved in that office. But when I passed from that stage of my education into what might be called a post graduate school, in Griffin's office, I was brought to a comprehension of spatial principles, structural fundamentals, and the expression of soul requirements, or of human requirements if you prefer to put it that way, and began to witness the practice of architecture in this our 20th century. This was in Griffin's office about 1910.
I will illustrate by one instance, amplifying by another instance in present day world architecture. I have spoken of the first requirement in the primal landscape conditions of the Melson house of Rock Crest. These conditions determined the placing of the house on the top of the quarry precipice. This precipice determined the building material, the local stone. The river facade of the building continued the sheer precipice to the top of the house. That there should be no incongruity the roof was flat. When the house was completed the rough stone treatment made it possible for Griffin to climb the whole precipice
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from river level to roof. This river frontage is 3 stories high. The lowest story is the billiard room whose floor forms a continuation of a bit of a terrace of the cliff which thus becomes accessible from the house, and only from the house, from the side French windows of the billiard room, for outdoor seclusion or hide away, or for afternoon tea guests.
Next above are the living rooms. The steep slope on one side of the house means you can reach out over the windowsill of the dining room and pick wild violets or other seasonal blossoms flowering at the level of the window sill. On the other side the more gentle slope opens up lovely more distant views. From the front windows you look out to the river and step out onto a balcony veranda cantilevered out from the house so from here your view rakes up and down the river, and looking down you see the flat river bottom land with its garden laid out as a huge water lily, the paths separating the petals, and lily pads of sward surrounding the flower display.
The top story is bed rooms and the garage, for to this level the drive can be brought, so this is the level of the entrance to the house. A painter living in this home could earn his living without ever leaving the house, the views are so varied and so constantly changing. To dwell in such a house is to be a living being. Most houses contribute only death forces to their inhabitants.
In this house Griffin originated a motif which has had a world wide influence. Here we are up against the problem of the flat roof. So simple a means as making tall heavy triple stepped projecting keystones over the upper windows does the trick. They function as well as ornament, which is an expression of affection, of feeling, of joy in your work and in your profession. They give the feeling of substantiality, of 3rd dimension, of structure, of spatial reality, a very satisfying feeling to us mortals.
Griffin used this idea in many ways. Interestingly enough when one has done creative thinking, this becomes a permanent contribution to
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NEW MEXICO UNIVERSITY . ELEVATIONS & SECTIONS
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humanity, and this whether he has had the opportunity to put it into actual construction or not, and this is especially gratifying in the art of architecture where whether a design in carried into construction or not depends not on the architect but on others, on the client. They creative designs are accessible because the imaginative forces are permanent in their nature and when once brought into creative form in a creatively thinking being they remain for all time for they are of the nature of duration, of other, and are not perishable. One who has the power of consciousness in these etheric realms can have access to these forces and bring them down to use in the sensible realms. This faculty is the essence of genius.
The first office building for which Griffin made use of this motif has an interesting history. There was a custom in Australia when giving a foreigner a job, of requiring that he accept a partner whose only real function was to collect half of the fee, a manifestation of patriotism. The working drawings of this building as accepted by the clients when put to the city authorities for passing bumped up against an objection to a certain projection of a roof feature 10 stories above the street. This by the way was the first tall building erected in Australia. So Griffin made an alternate design of the facade using the stepped pier motif rising above the roof line and by their depth taking away the thin feeling of the usual city building, since city buildings frequently present only their front face to the public. At least that was the case before the stepping back above certain heights was required for light for the streets below.
The clients called upon the partner for advice as to whether this design should be accepted. He was awake to its possibilities so advised against accepting it. He then got to work with the Building Council and got the first design passed which was then built. Before many months had passed he built a city building using the Griffin design. It was not a handsome building but the motif was there.
In Section II, No. 3., page 28ff, MMG relates a similar story involving the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 310 ====]
You will see it all over the world now. As our steamer came into Madrid Madras in India I saw it there, an office building nearing completion, and used very charmingly. All around about one sees bridges so designed, very handsome. The most impressive building of the recent New York Exposition New York World's Fair 1939-1940, not counting the replicas of ancient National types, was the Russian building, this same motif, and so we find it in other buildings classed as modern architecture. Much is the effect of creative design.
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No. 14. BLYTHE DWELLING . ROCK GLEN
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CAPTION
Mr. James E. Blythe's house was the 2nd one built on the river bank of Rock Crest in Mason City, Iowa. The working drawings were but just ready when Griffin was called to Australia.
The house fitted the site like a glove. Since it was on the lower levels it was flat roofed to least obstruct the views of the dwellings above.
It is built of the local lime stone.
The garage and front entrance with the library above form an imposing feature balanced on the opposite side by a conservatory living veranda with a sleep-out porch above and its corner flower boxes.
The slope of the land on the other side gives ground floor living space below the living rooms level.
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ROCK CREST & ROCK GLEN
Rock Crest & Rock Glen occupy the two sides of the valley which Willow Creek has carved out of the rocks within 3 blocks of the central square of Mason City, Iowa. In common with many such beautiful pieces of nature it has been neglected during the growth of the community in favor of the commonplace building sites all around it, awaiting the day which seems to be approaching when the imagination of the people is sufficiently stimulated by opportunity for unique development in those instances where long abuse has not been, as is generally the case, coincident with the neglect. This example comprises 18 acres of the creek frontage between two bridges. That at the North is a permanent masonry arch carrying an important thoroughfare route and fixes definitely the boundary in that direction but the western footbridge is merely a temporary structure and its removal in the near future is promised for the opening up of another 5 acres up-stream of a territory where rock and dell have still different forms of expression to be preserved and respected.
The vertical bluffs of Willow Creek alternate from side to side of its sinuous course. In the portion illustrated they comprise the south and west banks, opposed by a gentle slope of meadow and open woods extending gradually up to almost equal elevation north and west within the limits of the tract.
The text on this page is similar to that found in Section IV, No. 13., page 302 (above).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 314 (table of contents) ====]
FIREPLACE IN TILE & MOSAIC . J.E. BLYTHE [Note: The illustration in the New-York Historical Society copy adds to the title "W.B.G."]
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SUNSHINE IN THE HOME . Walter Burley Griffin
Color is an essential element of all that exists in form. Without light and color life is a term devoid of meaning. Possibly it is indicative of subordination to objects other than life itself that modern civilized existence is the drab, sooty and monotonous thing our city-dwellers know so to hate, and get away from into the country whenever a chance offers, if only to witness others' sport and play or even horses run or, at great expense, trouble and annoyance, to spend a few hours somewhere in the open at the week's end. How can it be explained otherwise so that a Melbourne merchant has had to re-dye with that "fear" color, brown, thousands of yards of those brilliant and effective henna shades, notwithstanding they were in the height of fashion and much admired in every shop window.
The colors of nature are exuberance itself and play "play" crossed out in N-YHS infinite in variety of combination and ever changing during the passage of the sun. No painting on the wall can be an acceptable substitute for a glimpse of a mountain view or a garden, and no place here in Australia need be too small to afford for every day something of actual animate nature if no more than a wall garden.
The obstacle that stands in our way in our home is the wall, a necessary evil we assume but not one incapable of mitigation if we try. Verandas are popular because they afford an escape on occasions though, unfortunately, rare in many situations in our climate. One or two ordinary guillotine windows do not suffice, however, to make daylight and life our own. Upper sash must be almost continually blinded off to reduce glare. To appreciate the value of eyebrows in windows, compare the clearness and brilliance of coloring of nature viewed from under a low spreading tree and then from out in the open.
The proper objective in a house should be as continuous a belt as possible of windows between the landscape or garden outlook and the point of view of the eyes when seated or standing, and with no more glass than in one double-hung window, two or three times as much
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prospect from our rooms is obtained with a single tier of sash, whether single-hung, pivoted or swung. Otherwise the house is the lifeless prison we generally have to put up with and accept as punishment for indifference to nature's harmony and for submission to the rapacity of land exploiters who would increase their income by herding us closer if they possibly could.
Of course full benefit cannot be expected from landscape windows if there is no outlook but, in few, if any, cases is it necessary to accept such a position at the time the house is planned. There are possibilities of making landscape outlooks all the way from window boxes, suntraps and courts, to so informally grouping our buildings (otherwise than in rows cheek by jowl in stockaded pens) as to preserve to each whatever common outlook there may be of gardens, parkways or distant views.
Then too, relative proportions and open connections between rooms have much to do with their sunniness and liveliness and in overcoming the feeling of confinement in cells. Doorways generally afford the sole communication but partitions, windows, rails, screen walls and loges N-YHS reading and gallery effects must become the rule instead of the exception if we are ever to know in ourselves the romance we merely observe, through these means, in the settings of the stage or the screen, where the necessity for romantic expression is always recognized.
To reflect into the interior itself the colors of daytime, the most important element is the carpet, whose reflection supplies most of the light from the sky out of doors. Nothing is so good for this purpose as the glowing green of the lawns or the buffs of the grain fields or the yellows of the sands to which shades in similar relation to the eyebrows, we are accustomed by our hereditary constitutions and which colors are by reason of their universality in nature the most neutral in their effects on our dispositions and psychology. Then too, they are economical of the light having high reflecting power,
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whereas the dingy reds, browns, and nondescript mixtures most commonly in use on our floors are veritable robbers of life giving light.
The walls are next to the floors in importance as daylight reflectors in most cases; and their importance in this respect is less often overlooked. But, apparently since white can be more or less maintained on these surfaces, it is accepted in its rawness or, almost unquestionably, in the form of pasty tints as a substitute for whatever colors we may want. This seems to me radically wrong for flat flour-pigment tints are a feeble compromise at best, except with sheen or bloom such as are found only in flat coverings beyond reach of the ordinary householder, including tapestries, silks, metals and marbles. These are available only for incidentals.
There are, however, wall textures of rough plaster or gritty artificial stone susceptible of brilliant tints and rich shades derived from the tints in the middle range of the spectrum. These textures can be produced at no greater expense than the ubiquitous hard, cold, cheerless plaster of paris, and it is with them that the main possibilities of interior decoration lie.
How such a sepulchral finish as the plaster could have become accepted in the community it is not easy to see for it as devoid of practical advantages as of aesthetic adaptability. It is fragile and always becomes chipped; it is absorbent and hence never free of finger marks and all kinds of smudges and smears and it cannot be cleaned. It necessarily abounds in cracks almost from the beginning and these have a clear smooth field in which to exhibit all their vagaries; and finally, it affords no adequate or permanent foothold for paint, paper or fabric covering so much demanded by its inherent hopelessness.
Given however, a decent structural basis of floated lime or cement plaster or a wire-scruffed burned clay, all that is necessary for the maximum of elegance and finish in the interior walls is either a glaze or a stain of some pure hue containing a large proportion of yellow.
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The result may be tan, orange, salmon, yellow, olive, or sage, or anything within the gamut of the sunshine colors but nothing nearer to either end of the solar spectrum can be expected to carry sufficient brilliance to be tolerated where God's day light is the objective.
The problem of the ceilings is different. These surfaces have the least effect on the lighting in the daylight but are the all-essential reflectors of artificial light at night. That, however is another story. It is sufficient to say that, for such purposes they should invariably be tints and as may be deduced from what has been said, warm glowing tints.
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LEETON . NEW SOUTH WALES . A HILL DEVELOPMENT [Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration reads: "Griffin's 1st Town Plan & 1st Structure - Water Tower - in Australia".]
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CIVILIZATION & ITS FURNITURE . Walter Burley Griffin
In its furnishing, are the standards of our requirements based upon utility, comfort, and appreciation of nature's own artistry? Or are they merely the expression of a machine-ridden era and of a more or less indifferent public?
The Western peoples have necessities more or less artificial and arbitrary which it may take some thousands of years to eradicate: we have yet to grasp the simplicity of a really old and fully developed civilization without even beds or chairs for instance. Among the longer civilized races domestic ornament in generally restricted to single or significant objects of interest; it is not, as with us, an objectless accumulation with few, if any, outstanding features. It is gradually becoming recognized now that the less furniture a house contains, consistent with its needs, the better. This is a phase of aesthetics which has been most evident among the people of the Orient.
Australia is an Oriental country, and if our civilization embraces adaptation to environment, climatic influences may eventually bring about a corresponding reaction on the part of the people.
CONSIDERATIONS OF COST
Although the tendency of modern furnishing has long been toward excessive elaboration the question of the beautiful and infinitely varied household effects of Europe, dating in style from the Middle Ages, is denied us by reason of high cost. The best we have been able to attain in that direction is a monotonous procession of machine-made imitations of "period" furniture.
The result is seen in the mass of low quality impedimenta exposed in the shops and offered as achievements of the art of furnishing. Even the cost of the upkeep of this "period" trash, despite the use of various mechanical devices for cleaning and refurbishing, is so serious a matter as to make inevitable some steps towards a rational equipment for living in accord with modern conditions.
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MISUSE OF BEAUTIFUL MATERIALS
In the first place the machines that turn out hard mechanical reproductions of highly wrought designs, are surely capable of doing within their limitations more perfect, accurate and highly finished work in lines adapted to machine methods.
There is an inherent beauty in all natural materials that can be brought out by mechanical working in a higher degree than any other way and this is the feature that should be sought rather than the intricacies of man-made design, which only the continuous operation of creative imagination can keep alive.
It is to the pattern of the marble, the grain of the wood, the weave or pile of the fabrics and textiles, and the patina of the murals, the luster of the glass that we have to look now instead of to the cunning of the craftsman, otherwise the grinding tedium of the operation is too obvious. It intrudes all too noticeably and the result, despite a mathematical precision, is disappointment and dissatisfaction. It is an art that is too admittedly "faked." For simple lines and plain surfaces the beauty is in the greatest degree provided by the material itself; nature's contribution, beyond all effective imitation. Here are texture, mottle and color in endless variety that our facilities can bring to the surface if we don't attempt to overlay or off-set them by meaningless decoration.
THE FUNCTION OF FURNISHINGS
With furniture whose charm lies in qualities of nature's providing a vaster scope than in the days of handicraft is opened up to the modern home builder.
In a consistent singleness of motif an individuality of the home as a whole comprising ground, house, furniture and furnishings there is in fact a scope for design open to our age that was never possible before the invention of machinery. The aesthetic function of the furniture and furnishings is not now to attract attention to itself or to its
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individual specimens but to carry out and express a larger creature of the imagination a home as unique in general conception as in all its parts.
Such a scheme in the first place should rest upon a given measure of rhythm or module, the necessary condition of harmony supplying the scale of all the appurtenances as well as the envelopment and the structure itself.
FIXTURES
A great deal of what has been and is being carted from house to house in the incessant migrations of our present day life represent sheer waste of effort and wear and tear since certain features are essential to certain rooms which should never be built without them. For instance no bedroom can be a bedroom without a wardrobe which, integral with the structure, takes up a fraction of the space and represents a fifth to a third of the initial cost of the much less effective and more troublesome and clumsy transported encumbrance to which our British communities are inured. Kitchen cabinets are coming to be seen in this light too and book cases, fuel bins and settees, which are not frequently taken into account in the building but require to become general to rid the community of a large share of the bugbear of moving day.
Already, fortunately, lighting and cooking and heating equipment are not necessarily nor even generally portable and are therefore recognized elements of the home in its fixed environment and as such make for that opportunity of individuality in each case which machinery and organization offer to replace the more restricted scope for inventiveness and expression that belonged to the handicraft era.
Little use as yet is being made of the greater scope because evidently we are still restrained in our minds, however free may be our hands, and so the forms even of indirect lighting today mostly ape the lamp shades of yesterday. However, there is no need for any home builder to follow in the rut for in his own building he can complete these
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[Note: Supplied title: Windows Hung with Curtains in Rich, Plain Colour. This illustration is not listed in the table of contents. The interior is of the Grant House.]
[Note: Supplied title: Court Garden (Castlecrag)] This illustration is not listed in the table of contents. The interior is of the Felstead House.]
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features to his own free will provided some antiquated arbitrary bye-law does not happen to intervene, as is often the case.
CARPETS
The first item after the building is the carpeting, the design of which must usually precede the wall decorations because the field of selection and the bounds of cost, and available materials are usually more restricted.
Only of late has anything been offered in our shops so suitable as the perfectly plain rugs, without borders even, in rich autumn shades and, as yet, nothing is better where the conditions of use are suitable. But, of course, there is sometimes a practical objection to these in the matter of keeping clean and it is fortunately becoming possible to find now and then two-tone or unostentatious all-over patterns in subdued coloring that are not imitative and do credit to factory looms.
HANGINGS
As to hangings there is now a wealth of wonderfully beautiful textiles in all fabrics to meet every sort of requirement as to economy or richness in plain or decorative weaves and in "texture" patterns that need little or no hand work adornment to provide all the liveliness and interest that can be desired.
It is remarkable that opportunities in this direction are not made much of in our houses where often portieres curtains hung over open doorways are better adapted to the necessities than doors or blinds or shades or screens and they give an atmosphere of comfort and completeness not matched by the much more expensive alternatives.
Wall hangings, on the other hand, suitable enough for nomads and tents and hutments for armies or Arabs, are not properly a feature of the modern fixed house which lives up to the opportunities of modern construction since nothing so flimsy as paper or cloth laid over the more substantial structure of the building itself can share the dignity, strength and permanence that inhere in the exposed surface of integral materials of the building whether stone, clay, mortar or timber.
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STONE DWELLING . ITS LOCATION ON LOT [Note: The structure is the Cox House, Castlecrag.]
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FURNITURE
Bedsteads presumably must long continue to be portable, but the sooner they more nearly approximate couches than the old four-posted canopied affairs from which they are gradually degenerating the better for our health and convenience and the more variously useful and spacious will our apartments be for oriental couches afford in fact the most comfortable and sociable and flexible seating accommodation possible.
Either over-stuffed or wicker chairs are more adaptable as yet to a style of our own times than the machine products of wood which latter are economically made in larger numbers and require more thought then the factories yet give to design or other than imitative lines. Grace in the simple wood work frame is all that is required but this is most over-looked in the craze for pretense.
Wooden tables are essentially massive and simple enough to permit of their manufacture to order for any particular home that aims consistently toward individual homogeneity without increase in cost.
For the finish of the furniture, as in fact for the finish of most of the woodwork of the house on these lines, wax in some form affords the only surface coating that will conserve to the maximum the natural qualities for which we have started out.
APPLIANCES
There is not much room for 'objects d'art' complete in themselves in our homes for the multiplicity of already accepted needs in dishes and useful devices and instruments and in the receptacles for a profusion of plants and flowers give in themselves more scope for affectionate interest than can be distributed so widely. Especially is this so in Australia. Simplicity, evident lack of effort, alone in a great majority of all these effects is the key to restfulness in the aggregate.
The very especial features to which attention may be attracted are properly the craftsman's product easily designed or chosen in any time and place in character with the individuality of the home.
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FROM CHICAGO TO THE ANTIPODES
What an American learns in Australia and how difficult it is to impart to others is the theme of this record. If it were not so important one would not attempt it. But when one sees the consequences manifest, as they have done at the end of a quarter of a century in frightful wars encircling the globe, and more terrible things lying in our near future unless cures are provided, one dares do no less than make the attempt "to" inserted in N-YHS pass on to the coming generations the information gained through what may be called the unique experiences of one man.
After all man is a unique being. He is not just a digit in a genus or species nor any longer in a race. For the course of evolution of humanity has been toward the development of a complete individual, and the time has come, however recent it may be, when we are as likely to find a great creative molder of humanity among one people as another. It may be a Leo Tolstoy in Russia or a Sun Yat-sen in China or a Thomas Jefferson among Anglo Saxons or a Dr. George Washington Carver among Americans.
Here we find a clue for our story, for America (the United States) is a unique thing in the world - a great natural region where for many generations, running now into several centuries, but organized only since 1776, any human being could come and live, earning his living and practicing his religion on even terms with anyone else, not barred from even the highest office in the land. Only in this deadly century did the community degrade itself by putting up immigration barriers. But the very nature of democracies opens the doors to mistakes but at the same time makes it possible to rectify them.
With a world organization now pending there may come a solution of this problem which will naturally melt down these barriers without calling for so high a moral test as the present rescinding of those acts of cowardice. After all people are home lovers. The Gods are certainly holding their breath to see what the beings to whom they greeted that incredible gift of free will do in this testing time.
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Pages 327-329 are essentially repeated in No. 15, pages 337-339 (below). In the New-York Historical Society copy these three pages appear only once, at No. 15 on pages 337-339.Griffin's post graduate course of education began with the Canberra incident, a unique thing in many ways but chiefly in the fact that it united two poles of the earth - Chicago and Canberra. I would like to make an appeal to the imagination. If you could see what I have seen you would see a child born with a vision. He fashioned it through into a reality though he had to "Jamb it down their throats." He died under the power of an Indian Oriental spell, at least our Indian gardener thought so - thought that the Gods had accepted Walt's life in the place of his wife's. And in his return to earth in a new incarnation he sees humanity falling to pieces because men of our time will not heed the message seers have given them. Is it ever thus with our seers? Can we never learn to listen and give heed?
The Sun was in the zenith when Burley Griffin was born - high noon - which would bind his life - as the orientals among our European peoples think - with the antipodes as in other polarities where up is bound with down or inside with outside. If you project a line from America through to the center of the earth it will hit the realm of the ancient Lemuria whence Australia sprang. There at about the same time another man was born. James Alexander Smith was ruled by the Midnight Sun which bound him to the land of his birth though he was much better known in other lands than in his own - a great creative scientist to whom many doors were opened in the Western Hemisphere among them a complete laboratory and to do as he liked by our Westinghouse Company.
But to fulfill their vision these two men had to come together. The Australian early determined to make a nation of Australia. Griffin while still in the grades was laying down the basic plan for its Capital City. Two people working together can transform the world. Dreams come in a flash but one must fight the whole past to the death to make them come true - "sweat and tears and blood."
Australia's favorite slogan "Australia for the Australians" rang from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern and was taken up there
James Alexander Smith (1862-1940) was a noted consulting engineer and a member of the board for the Canberra design competition.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 328 ====]
by the Indian cry "India for the Indians." Well do I remember the astonishment in the face of an Australian friend when she expressed surprise that the Indians there approved of the Australian slogan, and I answered - of course they do, that means India for the Indians. We had a glimpse of what may come of this during our year in India. The answer does not lie in such limited visions, such self-centered hopes. Mr. John (Joseph) Curtin, the present Prime Minister has taken further steps which I'll take up later.
This one man Smith working, as he did all his life, behind the scenes gathered others about him, suggested here, directed there and brought about the Federation of the States and, written into the constitution was the requirement that the location of the Federal Capital must be determined within ten years.
In the mean time from a baby following his mother through the garden patting the flowers lovingly as he went, from a schoolboy held back in his grades a year because he spent his time drawing city plans, laying down their basic principles, eliminating their conflict as seen in every modern city yet built, solving simultaneously the problems of occupation and of communication, from a youth going to his state university in Champaign, Illinois and demanding a course in Town Planning which they created for him thus establishing the profession of Town Planning in modern times, Griffin came to manhood. Just at this moment Smith's triumph was flashed around the world. Australia was a nation. Griffin took note of this and having complete confidence in his rational powers, from that day he watched all the architectural publications for the announcement of an international competition for the designs for this capital city. This was truly humorous for it was the last thing in the world the British Empire intended should happen. But seen from his logical mind - there were no planners in the world at large so the only way a planner of the town could be picked would be by means of a competition. The story of how J.A. Smith accomplished that is a story
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indeed. The two men won for after all, in human affairs, all initiative and all creative power lies in the will of individual men. What a man sets his will to he can accomplish (especially if he gets a pal to work with him).
In this interim Burley Griffin had added unto himself a wife and "very sensibly" as she overheard a client of his saying to him, "had picked an architect" and indeed a useful slave she proved to be. A year passed and there, to her unbelieving eyes, was the announcement. On request, complete data for the same was received from Australia. But the office was busy and weeks and months passed till 9 weeks before the drawings would have to be sent the Mrs. performed that valuable Xanthippe function for which the wives of great men are famed.
During my early life I was led by the passing Will o' the Wisp in what I did - drawing, dancing, drama, architecture. Not so after my marriage - Yes even before, when I suggested to my friend Walt that he might find me a useful person in his office in the matter of the presentation of his work. I presently became deeply centered in the task of lending a hand in all the various emergencies that arose. Truly I lost myself in him and found it completely satisfying. That is the normal difference between men and women though the task of each is now to become a complete human being - both receptive and creative. Australia and India gave us our greatest joys as well as our greatest agonies.
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No. 15. HOLAHAN DWELLING . ROCK GLEN . MASON CITY
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CAPTION
In the Holahan house the living veranda is an extension of a natural cave in the hillside, lovely and cool for the summertime. The garage in this case is on the level of the street.
Even these two groups - Trier Center and Mason City - to say nothing of Australia and India show Griffin's endless versatility whereas what variations arose in Frank Lloyd Wright's work, even to the raft foundation about which he has had so much publicity, came from other sources. His first houses nondescript, the Winslow house Old Colonial, the Morse house on Oak Park avenue half timber. The Walser house, T shaped, the first diversion from the rectangle, entirely my design, my first in his office, the Husser house my design for our family's home in Hubbard Woods except that 2 two squares instead of 2 octagons flanked the long oblong.
It was Griffin who brought the Thomas house up out of the ground with an English basement and a right angle plan, etc., etc.
The enthusiastic and able young men as proved in their later work were doubtless as influential in the office later as were these early ones but Wright's early concentration on publicity and his claims that everybody was his disciple had a deadening influence on the Chicago group and only after a quarter of a century do we find creative architecture conspicuously evident in the United States.
The William A. Storrer Catalog Numbers (3rd edition, 2002) for the Wright buildings are: Winslow House - S.024; Morse House - no listing; Walser House - S.091; Husser House - S.046; Thomas House - S.067.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 332 ====]
UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES by Walter Burley Griffin
Quite aside from the stereotyped colors and the crude patterns of most of our rugs there is the fatal defect which practically all of our rugs have of lacking any connection with the motives in design used in other parts of the house.
Nothing is more trying to our nerves or displeasing to the eye than to have a lot of heterogeneous motives huddled together, for a design is an expression of an emotion and the jarring effect of a lot of indiscriminate visual motives is quite as great though not at present so clearly understood as would be the throwing together of snatches of music of different character as pastoral, and jig, and hymn and dirge.
The Japanese are right in using from their stores only one decorative ornament as jar, picture, statuette, flower group, at a time set off by the simplicity of the general treatment of surfaces. The room itself should be beautiful before anything is brought into it.
The confusion to which we doom ourselves when we use figured wall papers, figured rugs, figured curtains, figured upholstery, is responsible for much of the weariness of the women who spends so much of their time in the house, for peevishness of children who cannot he expected to understand the causes of their discomfort, and for grouchiness of men who need rest when they come home from a day's work, who would resent being obliged to listen to discordant notes constantly jangling in their ears and, if sufficiently intelligent to understand the cause of their discomfort, would recent being subjected to discordant visual notes.
We understand this fact of harmony or discord in music. In the course of the centuries it finally dawned on us that there was a law in accordance with which sounds were pleasing or displeasing to us. We studied into the nature of the law and then we entered into the great, new, limitless world of music, a heaven of measureless delights. As the Kabalistic writings say - "When we name a new angel and know
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its duties we become its master," or as it is put in accordance with the modern manner of thinking - when we know a law and its functions to that extent we gain control over nature and become powerful accordingly.
We have discovered the Angel of Color. We are just beginning to learn its functions.
But the Angel of Proportion, the significance of line and angle and form, the meaning and value of motif and design we are hardly aware of.
But a building is line, form, motive, and until we realize that they must be used in conformity to law to be pleasing we will get occasional satisfying results as are found in barbaric music but no great or growing architecture and as all things act and react on each other so the very development of our character, of our souls, is dependent on these laws of nature which are spiritual as well as physical in themselves and in their effects.
A motive in design must therefore be used with great care, we can take a simple theme which alone may give relief to what might otherwise be a monotone too severe to be entirely desirable. Such a note can be very charmingly introduced in a home by a bit of design with perhaps a touch of color in the window glass. Any evidence of affectionate treatment of any useful element in a structure is very pleasing. This same motive, or developments of it, can be carried into the case doors and illumination fixtures. There is no limit to the elaboration possible and beautiful in following this plan. The design can be carried into a rug or the draperies or the china but always the designs must be related to each other either by conformity or contrast. It is not possible to say that any one degree of elaboration is better than another. Each one is a song. Only to overdevelop one part and neglect another would be as bad as to put the treble of a symphony with the base of a finger exercise. Balance of all parts
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DWELLING . MR. RULE . ROCK GLEN
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is essential. This matter of balance depends primarily on the arrangement of the plan of the house. The necessities of the small house holder are totally different from those of larger establishments and the introduction of elements which are most convenient in the latter case into the former problem resulting from lack of realization of the difference in the problem often leads to waste, extravagance and actual inconvenience. This often happens when a pantry is being considered where there are several servants to prevent too great confusion in the one room, to enable the housekeeper to have a place to work where she will not interfere with the cook, or to separate the confusion of a room where people are working from the dining room, but in the bungalow where one does one's own work or at most employs one assistant, it means added steps, inconvenience in getting at implements and materials, waste of space. A small kitchen properly arranged with cupboards on the walls is not only an economy in building but a most desirable arrangement for the housekeeper. When we stop to think what meals can be turned out of the tiny kitchen of a dining car we are brought to a realizing sense of the wastefulness and inconvenience of our ordinary domestic arrangements. Again the space used for hall and stairway in a large house become most inconvenient in a bungalow. The plan should be so arranged that in a compact and restricted area access can be given to all the various parts of the house as entrance, living room, kitchen and second story while maintaining the privacy of each and avoiding making a thoroughfare of any. The grand stair way appropriate enough in a palace with its functions of pomp and parade become an absurdity in our domestic life, a manner of living totally unknown two centuries ago.
The flexibility of a small house is much increased by throwing the living rooms together so far as possible, for no matter how small the family there are many times when for social purposes it is necessary to have a large room. Nor does this arrangement interfere with
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the proper fulfilling of the separate functions of living and dining room for the nature of these two rooms is such that when one of them is occupied the other is empty.
The economy of throwing the space of the two together is obvious. The necessity of separating guests from the confusion of elaborate service does not exist. Such separation of dining table from living quarters as might occasionally be needed can be easily effected by the use of a screen. On festival occasions the whole space can serve as dining room, arranged with tables which can be easily removed leaving a fine big room for frolic when the feast is done. Indeed I have known very small houses that could entertain on a much larger scale than really big houses, simply as a consequence of a well thought out plan.
Small rooms, each capable of being cut off from the others, is an arrangement no longer called for by the old difficulties of heating, nor by the old difficulties in housekeeping which made it easier to keep one room immaculate, ready for the reception of the occasional guest. We live too close to each other in these days, too intimately, on too reading from N-YHS democratic a footing to make us wish to have a little show spot. We open our homes as our hearts and are not ashamed of our occupations. It is no doubt convenient to have one room, call it a reception room or den or grouch or study or office, where seclusion is possible but under ordinary circumstances this need is subordinate to the more constant and pressing needs of our everyday life where more and more we are becoming conscious of harmonizing and unifying the interests of all the members of a family, men and women, old and young - a movement permeating all our community as we see evidenced in our movements for equality of opportunity in education and business and politics, as we see it in the social center movements unifying the social life of old and young, bringing together all the elements of a community.
Walter Burley Griffin
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Pages 337-339 essentially repeat the text found in No. 14, pages 327-329 (above).UNITING TWO POLES
Griffin's post graduate course of educating the profession of the world began with the Canberra incident, a unique thing in many ways but chiefly in the fact that it united two poles of the earth - Chicago and Canberra. I would like to make an appeal to the imagination. If you could see what I have seen you would see a child born with a vision. He fashioned it through into a reality though he had to "Jamb it down their throats." He died under the power of an Indian Oriental spell, at least our Indian gardener thought so - thought that the Gods had accepted Walt's life in the place of his wife's. And in his return to earth in a new incarnation he sees humanity falling to pieces because men of our time will not heed the message seers have given them. Is it ever thus with our seers? Can we never learn to listen and give heed?
The Sun was in the zenith when Burley Griffin was born - High noon - which would bind his life - as the orientals among our European peoples think - with the antipodes as in other polarities where up is bound with down or inside with outside. If you project a line from America to "through" substituted in N-YHS the center of the earth it will hit the realm of the ancient Lemuria whence Australia sprang. There at about the same time another man was born. James Alexander Smith was ruled by the Midnight Sun which bound him to the land of his birth though he was much better known in other lands than in his own - a great creative scientist to whom many doors were opened in the Western Hemisphere among them a complete laboratory and to do as he liked by our Westinghouse Company.
But to fulfill their vision these two men had to come together. The Australian early determined to make a nation of Australia. Griffin while still in the grades was laying down the basic plan for its Capital City. Two people working together can transform the world. Dreams come in a flash but one must fight the whole past to the death to make them come true - "sweat and tears and blood."
Australia's favorite slogan "Australia for the Australians" rang from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern and was taken up there
James Alexander Smith (1862-1940) was a noted consulting engineer and a member of the board for the Canberra design competition.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 338 ====]
by the Indian cry "India for the Indians." Well do I remember the astonishment in the face of an Australian friend when she expressed surprise that the Indians there approved of the Australian slogan, and I answered - of course they do, that means India for the Indians. We had a glimpse of what may come of this during our year in India. The answer does not lie in such limited visions, such self-centered hopes. Mr. John (Joseph) Curtin, the present Prime Minister has taken further steps which I'll take up later.
This one man Smith working, as he did all his life, behind the scenes gathered others about him, suggested here, directed there, and brought about the Federation of the States and, written into the constitution was the requirement that the location of the Federal Capital must be determined within ten years.
In the mean time from a baby following his mother through the garden patting the flowers lovingly as he went, from a schoolboy held back in his grades a year because he spent his time drawing city plans, laying down their basic principles, eliminating their conflict as seen in every modern city yet built, solving simultaneously the problems of occupation and of communication, from a youth going to his state university in Champaign, Illinois and demanding a course in Town Planning which they created for him thus establishing the profession of Town Planning in modern times, Griffin came to manhood. Just at this moment Smith's triumph was flashed around the world. Australia was a nation. Griffin took note of this and having complete confidence in his rational powers, from that day he watched all the architectural publications for the announcement of an international competition for the designs for this capital city. This was truly humorous for it was the last thing in the world the British Empire intended should happen. But seen from his logical mind - there were no planners in the world at large so the only way a planner of the town could be picked would be by means of a competition. The story of how J.A. Smith accomplished that is a story
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indeed. The two men won for after all, in human affairs, all initiative and all creative power lies in the will of individual men. What a man sets his will to he can accomplish (especially if he gets a pal to work with him).
In this interim Burley Griffin had added unto himself a wife and "very sensibly" as she overheard a client of his saying to him, "had picked an architect," and indeed a useful slave she proved to be. A year passed and there, to her unbelieving eyes, was the announcement. On request, complete data for the same was received from Australia. But the office was busy and weeks and months passed till 9 weeks before the drawings would have to be sent the Mrs. performed that valuable Xanthippe function for which the wives of great men are famed.
During my early life I was led by the passing Will o' the Wisp in what I did - drawing, dancing, drama, architecture. Not so after my marriage - Yes even before, when I suggested to my friend Walt that he might find me a useful person in his office in the matter of the presentation of his work. I presently became deeply centered in the task of lending a hand in all the various emergencies that arose. Truly I lost myself in him and found it completely satisfying. That is the normal difference between men and women though the task of each is now to become a complete human being - both receptive and creative. Australia and India gave us our greatest joys as well as our greatest agonies.
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Pages 340-346 in the Manuscript Facsimile are from the New-York Historical Society copy.TREES Marion Mahony Griffin lecture at the Armstrong School
We can see that liquid does not really belong to the mineral kingdom. Water for instance when it solidifies expands. We can see this in the form its crystals take, its frost crystals foretelling the living vegetable kingdom.
The pine family originated in the South Pole. The Auricaria in Australia shows the early form. Note the similarity of the water lily and the cactus blossom.
The vegetable kingdom transforms spirit into matter, mathematics to life. The ethers shape the leaves - in the light sharply triangular (see the photograph of light), in the shade the crescent or double crescent of the chemical ether, water forming. Australia's Archangel was the greatest of artists playing with color and form, in barks and leaves as well as flowers. Which requires the greatest intelligence a tree or a bridge?
Plants do not consume food, they create it. The 19th century knew only the mineral kingdom. Before life it confessed itself ignorant. Spirits conceived life into the triangle and ellipse archetype. Goethe sensed this.
FOURNESS MATERIALIZED - A. WARMTH . HEAT . SPHERES [Note: This drawing is located beside the following paragraph in the text.]
To understand a tree, or anything else, we have to know where it came from and who made it. So for trees we have to search the universe and we look out and see the sun and moon and the stars. Now then we look at a child, say all bundled up for a cold winter day we see her clothes and not the child herself so when we look at the stars, and the nearest and so to the eye the biggest star is the sun, we see the garment of the Sun Being, the most powerful of all the Beings that we know anything about. These starry Beings are Fire Beings, great spheres of fire, so we can picture them by drawing a great circle. And we can show these great Fire Beings working and playing together by
This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 341 ====]
drawing many circles -A-. In working together these Spirits of Fire form ideas. You see here already they have formed the idea of plant life, of the leaf form - of the clover leaf - and, as the great poet Goethe told us and as all the scientific world now knows, the leaf form is the original parent of all plant life. We call that parent form the archetype.
FOURNESS MATERIALIZED - B. C. LIGHT . GAS . TRIANGLES [Note: Drawing "B" is located beside the following paragraph in the text. Drawing "C" is located at the bottom left of this page.]
Then the Sun Beings laughed with joy and said let us tell all creation what we have done and the Sun Beings joined the Fire Beings who had come down from the great primeval Saturn, the origin of the Solar system whose rings still tell us the story of the origin of substance which the smashing of the atom has now confirmed. They sang - Let us illuminate the world so that all may know of this lovely thing and all the lovely things we do. So they created radiating light. They illuminated the world -A- "-B-" in AIC. They sent out great radiating streams of light, for from heat we can't get light. Not until the great Spirits said, "Let there be light." So with light a new form was created - the triangular form -B-.
Now these Beings love to work in rhythms, we call that the music of the spheres for all music, all sound, comes from rhythm. We call it vibration. So there was Light and then when the Spirits rested they called in the Spirits of Sound. The light ceased for a time and then there was darkness which is just as real a thing as light. This was the creation of the Moon Beings. In it the Moon Beings play. They are -C-
Beside the text on the rest of this page is a drawing labeled "C".restless Beings always in movement so they were perpetually throwing up waves and music filled the universe for these waves are sound waves. The shape of these waves is the half circle or the crescent. We know that the other side of the moon which is turned away from the sun, is dark
This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 342 ====]
so the real nature of the Moon is darkness. So when the Moon Beings threw up their crescent waves against the radiating light they got the forms built up by the interplay of light and darkness and these are the living things for the Spirits of Light and Darkness keep things moving and growing all the time, the light filling things with color and the dark filling them with sound so they can be both seen and heard -D-.
FOURNESS MATERIALIZED - D. SOUND . LIQUID . CRESCENTS [and E] [Note: Drawing "D" is located beside the following paragraph in the text. Drawing "E" is located four text lines below it; "E" is not listed in the table of contents and has no title.]
Let us watch how these forms grow. Higher and higher the waves are tossed, taller and taller the radiating triangle grows. In the meantime the different stars have played another game. You see all ideas are created by the Fire Beings. The Stars have been throwing their radiating beams across the sky and in their crossings a new form has been created, and then many new forms. Let us see how it works -E-. A star is a point in the universe. Each Star throws out certain beams, sometimes one kind of beams sometimes
Beside the remainder of this paragraph is drawing "E" -- two stars and a quadrilateral.other kinds of beams. Let us watch their play. Two Stars send out a message each a living thing and a quadrilateral is created. All these great beings have children and we human beings call these children of the angelic Beings Fairies.
We have spoken of the Star Beings, the Sun Beings and the Moon Beings but now we have come to the Earth Being whose children, the gnomes, help her to live and grow. For when the Earth has come into existence as an idea of one of the Fire Spirits the other Fire Spirits become interested and begin to send out their rays and the quadrilateral is formed, the gnomes get busy to keep this form fixed, a solid material body and as the stars create form after form -F- the Gnomes gather them together and build up the solid Earth as we know it.
This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 343 ====]
For as the stars send out rays and rays they build up all the wonderful crystal forms in creation and the solid earth is made up of all those lovely crystals that the star beings imagined.
Then all the fairies got together in council to see if they couldn't bring all the lovely forms that the heavenly beings were creating to the Earth where they could use the crystals to build up all sorts of lovely living, shining, moving, singing creatures.
FOURNESS MATERIALIZED [/] F. MAGNETISM . SOLID . POLYGONAL [Note: This drawing is located beside the following paragraph in the text.]
So now we all show you what children can do. For the children of men can do wonderful things as well as the children of the angels. These began to build up a tree. They first of all had to have the idea of a tree for no one can build even a chair without first having the idea of a chair.
So they watched and listened to the angelic beings till all of a sudden the Undines shouted for joy for they were the children of the Moon Beings and they had seen the lovely forms the Water Beings were tossing up into the triangle of the Airy Beings, the Light Beings. So in council they told the fairies and they all agreed to help bring these forms into the Earth which had now be become a solid body with water and air and warmth around it. The Undines being water fairies had to ask permission of the gnomes to transform some of their crystals into liquids. The gnomes agreed and began to design passages in the rocks so that as the Undines, who were the chemists, worked they could help them to change the form of the crystals from the usual forms to the forms of water crystals, the frost, which grows and spreads out branches, and the gnomes made it possible for these forms to last for quite a while, not as long as the earth crystals for you know how quickly
This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 344 ====]
FOURNESS MATERIALIZED - G. LIFE . THE TREE [Note: This drawing is located down the entire length of the left side of the page. Just below the drawing is a small circle, and, underneath it, the words, "MATTER . 3 DIMENSIONS . FORCES NO DIMENSIONS [/] VEGETABLES DON'T NEED FOOD THEY CREATE FOOD."]
the frost disappeared but still longer than water crystals could last by themselves. And then they got busy making channels in the rocks for the tender roots of the plants to develop in so that the plant could keep its upright position as the Undines built the stems and leaves enabling the plants, as the years and centuries passed, to climb higher and higher till we got trees as tall as the Sequoias of California or the gum trees, the Eucalyptus trees, of Australia.
One of the very first trees ever created was the fern tree which we still find growing in Australia. At first this is a very low and widespreading triangle, but now some of them are higher than a house.
This fern tree has no seeds but just little spores on the leaves like other ferns. The Sylphs, who are the Air fairies, and the Fire Fairies saw what a wonderful time the Undines and the gnomes were having so they offered to help. So the Sylphs designed all sorts of flowers and painted them all sorts of colors for they are the light fairies so they contributed not only the air for food but also condensed the light into tiny comet like bodies and fed it to the plants making it possible for the flowers to develop.
This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 345 ====]
And then the Fire Fairies built the fruits and seeds so that myriads of different kinds of trees and plants could come into the earth world.
And it is as well that they did so for the earth itself, the crystals, neither animal nor man can eat. Only the plants are smart enough to transform crystals into food and of course they could not do it if the fairies didn't show them how. The Fire Fairies have command of the formative forces which is the warmth ether which as I told you creates spherical forms so they could not do much for the plants at first. We recognize their work in the fruits which are mostly more or less spheroid. Sometimes we see that the sylphs have helped them as in the seed of the pine tree which is a triangular pyramid. We see how they helped the Undines too in building the tremendously tall triangle of the trunk of the fern and the pine so very symmetrical in form. Especially in these early works of the fairies was the work of the first hierarchies, the star beings and the sun, evident in the form of the plant as a whole.
Fairies built the fruits and seeds so that myriads of different kinds of plants and trees could come into the earth world.
This page is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 346 (table of contents) ====]
FOURNESS MATERIALIZED - H. THE TREE
Pages 340-346 are reproduced from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 347 (table of contents) ====]
No. 16. CLUB HOUSE . LUCKNOW . INDIA
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"Caption" is handwritten at the top of this page, and "No. 16. [/] Newton Center" is handwritten in the upper left margin.The Normal Residential Quarter Section would have 8 major parks.
Griffin has shown here how when adjacent to a factory district two of the major parks might be eliminated.
He has also shown an arrangement with 4 major parks. No further reduction should be tolerated yet we find self-styled Town Planners of 1944 presenting as town planning a duplicate of this street system with no interior parks, squeezing them out by adding a few more streets.
With such moral standards on the top levels it is no wonder that juvenile crime is increasing so menacingly. The low moral standard of the whole community is evidenced in the private assumption of public values - the land values, which should be used by the Social Organ in giving opportunities to every individual to develop his capacities to the maximum.
This "caption" would appear to refer to WBG's 1914 plan on page 351 (table of contents). In neither the New-York Historical Society or Art Institute of Chicago copies does there seem to be a caption for the initial illustration of the Lucknow Club House on page 347 (table of contents), the page preceding this one.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 349 (table of contents) ====]
PLAN SUBMITTED BY CHICAGO PLAN COMMISSION . 1940
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CAPTION
Wrong in every particular.
What would happen of course is that the parks would become business buildings since quarter section through streets will become through streets "thoroughfares" in N-YHS.
Also central school buildings would give way to the thoroughfares which dotted lines indicate since no other way across is provided. The schools would thus ultimately be on the corners of thoroughfares.
There are more acute angles than in even the usual city layout.
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PLAN SUBMITTED BY WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN . 1914 [Note: This plan, sometime called "Newton Center" or "Newton Quarter Section" was submitted for a City Club of Chicago competition.]
The "caption" on page 348 would seem to go most logically after this illustration.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 352 (table of contents) ====]
BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF QUARTER SECTION
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NEWTON CENTER
KEY TO PLAN
INDUSTRIAL FUNCTIONS
Transfer Station 1. Store Arcade Structure
Public Service Units 2. Post Office 3. Police and Fire Station 4. Ward office 5. Gas, Water and Electric office 6. Bank 7. Rental Office
Street Assemblage Units 8. Theatres
Retail Vending Units. 1. Store Arcade Structure 9. Retail Stores
Trade Units 10. Trade Shops
Bulk Storage 11. Fuel and Building Supply Depot 12. Community Heating Plant
DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS
Community Units
Educational Units 13. Music Pavilion 14. Water Basin 15. Public Gardens 16. Schools 17. Assembly 18. Library 19. Gymnasium 20. Natatorium 21. Exhibits Building 22. Kindergarten 23. Refectory 24. Training School
Association Units
Dormitory Units 25. Y.M.C.A. 26. Y.W.C.A. 27. Neighborhood House 28. Inn 29. Billiard Hall 30. Union Headquarters 31. Lodge Hall 32. Cafe 33. Churches
Neighborhood Units 34. Play Fields 35. Play Courts 36. Gymnasium Courts
Two Family Units 184 Houses
Family Units 860 Houses
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COMPETITIVE PLAN . QUARTER SECTION . CHICAGO
"Metropolitan Residential Unit" replaces title in N-YHS.With the level land and other conditions so characteristic of the central western portion of the United States we can, in a typical community scheme, deal very generally with the structural elements of development.
The method of this project follows a primary distinction between suitable site requirements for individual or specialized occupancy, and those of social or general communication, in which twofold aspect the multifarious factors are analyzed before formulating onto "onto" crossed out in N-YHSa synthetic design.
SYNOPSIS
1. OCCUPATION 2. COMMUNICATION 1.1 INDUSTRIAL FUNCTIONS 2.1 EXTERNAL TRAFFIC 1.11 As Part of Chicago 2.11 Boundary Highways 1.111 Focal Industries 2.2 INTERNAL TRAFFIC 1.112 Local Industries 2.20 General 1.11201 Location 2.201 Nomenclature 1.11202 Area 2.202 Equipment 1.11203 Unit Allotments 2.2021 Vehicle Pavements 1.1121 Transfer Station 2.2022 Pedestrian Pavements 1.1122 Public Service Units 2.2024 Parkings 1.1123 Street Assemblage Units 2.2024 Illumination 1.1124 Retail Vending Units 2.2024 Conduits 1.1125 Trades Units 2.21 Distribution 1.1126 Bulk Storage and Supply Units 1.12 As Integral Industrial Group(Alternative) 1.121 Manufacturing Site Plant 2.211 Segregation 1.2 DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS 2.212 Congregation 1.21 As Part of Chicago 2.2121 Private 1.22 As Integral Domestic Group 2.2122 Neighborhood 1.221 The Community Unit 2.2123 School 1.222 Educational Units 2.2124 Associations 1.223 Association Units 2.2125 Community 1.224 Dormitory Units 1.225 Neighborhood Units 1.226 Two-Family Units 1.227 Family Units1. OCCUPATION - The location at about eight miles southwest of the Loop and an exclusively street car accessibility must, according to general tendency in similar portions of Chicago, imply for this site adaptation to a predominantly residential function. Since the site is flat and the problem an economic one, irregular curves and acute intersections may be entirely avoided.
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PALAIS PICTURES . MELBOURNE [Note: This illustration is listed as being on "page 352" in the table of contents but has the page number of 355 in the New-York Historical Society copy. The structure is also known as the Palais Picture Theatre.]
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CAPTION
When the Palais Pictures got its new face it also got a new proscenium somewhat on the lines of The Capitol Theatre but of course entirely different. In this case the proscenium did not conceal an organ but was aglow with an orange light the source of the light of course completely obscured. The light flowed through the design from concealed lamps.
It gave such a glow apparently of heat that there were no longer any complaints of chilliness in the auditorium.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 357 ====]
Continued from page 3541. INDUSTRIAL FUNCTIONS
1.11 INDUSTRIAL FUNCTIONS
1.11 As Part of Chicago
1.111 Focal Industries. - Chicago is pre-eminently an industrial organism whose focal functions are connected in a gridiron system of main streets and avenues at half-mile intervals with occasional radial highways, all equipped with steam railroad, surface tram, or overhead rapid transit systems.
1.112 Local Industries.
1.11201 Location. - Local industrial functions are found generally distributed along these circulating avenues, and therefore on this typical tract will eventually "be" inserted in N-YHS found along the greater part of the perimeter.
1.11202 Area. - By comparison on the basis of population the frontage of the perimeter is proved excessive for local industries so that only about five-eights of that frontage is allotted to business.
1.11203 Unit Allotment. - These lots are all rectangular with alley shipping frontages as well as street store frontage free from alley crossings and of 100 feet depth.
1.1121 Transfer Station. - Since the points of greatest traffic will be the most accessible and valuable sites, the most general local industries will naturally start at the existent transfer corner in a special arcade court structure that will be dignified and important as a keynote. Built full to the street line, with three arcaded sheltered approaches and a fountained courtyard, there is accorded a window frontage of 1480 lineal feet for the small popular stores. A two story office tower corner feature may effect a befitting terminal
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INCINERATOR [Note: The structure is the Ipswich Incinerator in Queensland.]
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for each long-internal avenue, while a roof garden cafe can have an attractive outlook toward the central community group.
1.1122 Public Service Units. - These should have subordinate preference as terminal gateway features to the shorter avenues, and include postal, police, and fire stations, ward office, water, gas, and electric offices, bank and rental offices.
1.1123 Street Assemblage Units. - Corner allotment must for safety be given to popular amusement establishments.
1.1124 Retail Vending Units. - Following in order of importance contiguous to the most valuable corners are the retail stores, wherein vending alone is carried on, comprising display and sales spaces for groceries, drugs, confections, cigars, liquors, dry goods, furniture, and furnishings.
1.1125 Trades Units. - A different class of industries naturally to be set next, and of less continuous demand, are the trade shops, permissible only in single-story structures on account of light requirements, fire risk, and noise. These are the bakeries, restaurants, barber shops, laundries, paint, plumbing, and carpenter shops, photograph studios, and garage.
1.1126 Bulk Storage and Supply Units. - On the least valuable circulation avenue are placed the larger industrial units of wood-yard, fuel and building material supply depots, and possibly a community heating plant.
1.12 As an Integral Industrial Group.
1.121 Manufacturing Site Plant. - To suggest the adaptability of a quarter-section development in connection with its own manufacturing industry, assume the triangular
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quadrant of 40 acres lying along a steam railway frontage on the west side of the tract. The accessibility of switch tracks is evident, and with buildings disposed along the community frontage, the railway operations would be faced off.
1.2 DOMESTIC FUNCTIONS
1.21 As Part of Chicago. - Considered thus it seems advisable to develop independent communities within the limit of local acquaintanceship, apart from the external disturbing influences.
1.22 As Integral Domestic Group. - As the internal attractions will have to compete with those of the external city, they must be so organized as to raise the popular standards and minimize the evil influences found in? a multitude of time-killing pursuits.
1.221 The Community Unit. - In the center of the tract, its most accessible point, is provided a community group, consisting of the common with music pavilion set in a reflecting basin with bordering aquatic gardens, tree-shaded promenade, and public gardens setting off refectory, assembly buildings, library, and amphitheatre, and a colonnade connecting four eight-room public schools eventually necessary.
1.222 Educational Units. - The four schoolhouses are placed at one community center for economy of administration, within range of a quarter-mile of separate continuous children's playgrounds radially disposed. Schoolrooms are preferably set with the cardinal points of the compass.
1.223 Association Units. - On the octagonal circuitway are eighteen street terminal sites suitable for important structures
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BOY'S CLUB . PERTH [Note: The structure is also known as the Young Australia League Club Premises.]
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CAPTION
Wall surfaces of highly ornamented burned tiles if the areas are considerable do not increase the cost at all. There is no excuse in either form or surface for ugliness which at present dominates our communities destroying the character of the citizenry.
Beautiful surfaces and rhythmic design are the fundaments of civilization.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 363 ====]
Continued from page 360for local social groups such as union headquarters, lodges, turner societies, social clubs, residential inns, billiard halls, and religious associations, all placed contiguous to playfields or garden frontage. Church edifices in appropriate grouping can command quiet internal vistas.
1.224 Dormitory Units. - Closely allied to, and often combined with, the associations are the various residential organizations and other home provisions for independent individual residents.
1.225 Neighborhood Units. - The outdoor neighborhood features are here substituted for the street areas of the built-up city or the isolated playgrounds of the slum districts. The advantages of parental oversight by reason of contiguity to the home are thus secured. Variety is afforded by garden accommodation to some, modest play courts to others, children's playgrounds with apparatus or water facilities, and to many ample fields for each sport in season, including football, baseball, basket-ball, lacrosse, handball, tennis, croquet, cricket, and banked running-track to be flooded for winter skating rink.
1.226 Two-Family Units. - The two-family house has become established in our developing Chicago residence districts to such an extent that we are not warranted in ignoring it. The proportion of these units is entirely flexible in this scheme, in which about 18% has been introduced, these are placed on lots of most accessibility to transportation line and on street corners, utilizing the lots with smallest back yards.
"Turner societies" - Growing out of the German Turnverein movement encouraging gymnastics and physical activity, the American Turners developed organizations which promoted social and cultural services (along with sports activities) for German immigrants.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 364 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING [Note: A title below the illustration adds "M.M.G. & von Holst". A caption on the drawing itself identifies the structure as the Adolph Mueller House, Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois.]
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1.227 Family Units. - It is to be hoped that the individual house and grounds will long be the dominant features of our cities.
An allotment of 30 feet will allow a house of two good rooms in width, with entrances at the center of one side, leaving street and garden frontage free for outlook, and when staggered, a vista from the two sides also. Verandas are thus free in the rear where house fronts are maximum distances apart and free from intrusion. These lots are 100 feet deep, with additional backset of 15 feet belonging to the city, but planted and maintained as an individual holding, and securing a spacing of 60 feet between building lines.
Gardening is not a universal avocation here as in England, so that less private yard recreation space is to be provided. Hedges and irregular shrubbery constitute the better means of separating and beautifying the neighborhood lawns in one harmonious parklike ensemble.
For sunlight in all rooms each day an arrangement of houses with diagonal points of the compass is most important in our climate; seventy percent are here so placed.
Inside the house, the concentration of entrances and stairways utilizes the space least useful for occupancy. Here a back alley approach becomes unnecessary and rear outbuildings functionless.
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2. COMMUNICATION. - This phase considers the means of connecting the specialized sites with the general facilities for transportation, being tributary to the existing surrounding system, yet discriminating as to the kinds and quality of service desired.
2.1 EXTERNAL TRAFFIC.
2.11 Boundary Highways. - The prevailing boundary highways of 66 feet width are here maintained, also the continuity of the abutting streets, to avoid confusion. It is inevitable that there will be some distinction in importance between the existing street car lines, determining the most valuable part of the tract, in which the development will begin, and from which it can progress normally without intervening vacant spaces, as is apparent from the geometric plan.
2.2 INTERNAL TRAFFIC.
2.20 General. - A minimum width of 60 feet is here fixed between frontages on communication ways serving as access to buildings, giving a suitable backset from actual public ways, whose widths are determined by their transit needs as inferred from their length, character of occupancy, and tributary feeders.
2.201 Nomenclature. - A simple system of nomenclature is important, and is possible here.
2.202 Equipment.
2.2021 Vehicle Pavements. - These are to be considered of ample width at 25 feet in the more important ways, and at 18 feet in the lesser ways, being sufficient for a vehicle to pass one backed against the edge.
2.2022 Pedestrian Pavements. - Sidewalk pavements are 4 feet for purely residential routes allowing promenade two abreast.
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MINIMUM COST HOUSE . KNITLOCK [Note: The structure is the Creswick House (House of Severn Lanterns).]
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CAPTION
From across the valley this tiny minimum cost house looks like a castle. The low entrance hall and bathroom ceiling emphasized the flanking rooms whose effect is further increased by the fact that the corner closets and cupboards are stopped at doorhead height and form flower boxes (the plants were not yet established when this photo was taken).
The supporting columns at the entrances are carried above the roof height and topped by flaring tangents to form lanterns adding charm to the total composition.
This design illustrates how the cheapest home may out-rival its expensive neighbors. The roof is concrete thus adding living space. It commands magnificent views down the valley.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 369 (table of contents) ====]
ONE ROOM HOUSE . KNITLOCK [Note: The top image, a photograph, may be of Pholiota (Heidelberg - Melbourne); the bottom image, a drawing, may be of a structure for Summit Estate, Section of Mount Eagle Estate, Eaglemont (Heidelberg - Melbourne).]
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Continued from page 366In the primary routes 6 feet width is conceded. The pathways of the playgrounds are 4 feet wide, a minimum amongst shrubbery.
2.2024 Parkings. - A parking of but 2 feet width will permit planting of evergreen creepers for easy maintenance, and can be omitted entirely at road intersections where additional vehicle width is welcome.
2.2024 Trees and Shrubbery. - Residential ways are both natural and dignified, being short, straight avenues lined with different species of trees and massed shrubbery, all confined to the abutting allotments.
2.2024 Illumination. - Illumination of narrow ways can be sufficiently diffused from relative low standards, possible of execution as ornamental concrete lanterns.
2.2024 Conduits. - A public service conduit in each trafficway is here contemplated, to be built of concrete in the trench excavated for sewer, furnished with stubs and manholes, and equipped with all public service mains.
2.21 Distribution. - The functions of internal lines are to reach the homes quickly and to meet the needs of distribution and collection to and from these homes. Study of this project shows it to be continuous for such service, without being attractive to thoroughfare usage.
2.211 Segregation. - It is important to arrange internal lines to seclude the domestic community from industrial circulation. No streets are therefore allowed to pass through without diversion.
2.212 Congregation. - This function is for periodic domestic social amenities, in contradistinction to the streets of a general city which are for concentrating and circulating traffic in large numbers and drawing trade. Filtered
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through the segregating system, cut off from through traffic, this function is only periodically operative, as for the children at certain times of the day and for the adults at evening.
2.2121 Private Congregation. - This reassembling of the individuals first takes place within the buildings in the family and club and inn groups.
2.2122 Neighborhood Congregation. - The garden reading from N-YHS fronted park, play fields, play courts, and gymnasium courts of various sorts are supplemented by an informal winding scheme of paths with irregular shrub and tree plantations, forming a circulating pedestrian parkway suitable for children and for infants' go-carts.
2.2123 School Congregation. - The advantageous location of the schools at the internal ends of the bisecting centerways makes the shortest possible distances between home and school, which are thus not more than two blocks apart.
2.214 Associations Congregation. - In general these features are cross linked for interfellowship by the octagonal circuitway with two objectives terminating a vista at each turn.
2.2125 Community Congregation. - The location of this function in the geometric center is established for reasons of accessibility, isolation from external influences, and to emphasize its importance to the city as the unified social expression of a 6400 community. The central functions are joined together by a protected passageway as a promenade for students and visitors, overlooking the public gardens setting off the pool with its central feature of an open pagoda designed as a music pavilion.
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ECONOMIC REVIEW OF THE PLANS by Robert Anderson Pope
The high degree of intensity or this plan is shown by its 1224 lots, with their average dimensions of 37 x 100 feet, and is commendable, yet this intensity has been accomplished at the lowest cost of any of the plans submitted. It has not secured this result at the sacrifice of park and playground spaces, which are situated in such a way as to enhance land values very materially. The arrangement of houses secures for many the maximum possible exposures. Therefore the intensity has not been achieved at the expense of sunlight and air.
The distribution of community objectives along the boundaries of the quarter-section is certainly desirable as far as the commercial units are concerned; but it is improbable that for an area of this size such a large percentage of community features would be economical. Therefore a location of these commercial objectives along the two car lines, instead of on all sides, would seem to be the better design.
It is especially good designing from an economic standpoint that the non-commercial community objectives are splendidly distributed to secure a high economic value.
The street system of this plan, from the standpoint of convenience to the external objectives or car lines, is only about one-third as efficient as the theoretical ideal which would project all blocks and streets perpendicular to the car line, were other considerations not more important. This point is the only major economic deficiency of this design.
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From the standpoint of convenience of reaching by this street system the interior objectives, we find a very high degree of efficiency, and therefore of economic worth.
Again, this design has accepted the definite hypothesis stated in the introduction, i.e., that the through thoroughfare is economically detrimental to a residential area - as this plan has only two streets that would have any tendency to invite cross traffic and, even if invited, such traffic would be negligible on account of the extent of detour involved by the central public space - a detour which would, of course, be saved by the use of the thoroughfares flanking this quarter-section.
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No. 17. DWELLING . H.M. MESS . WINNETKA . ILLINOIS
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Caption
A minimum cost house acceptable in a high class district. Though Griffin established and emphasized the 2nd story sill line his methods of handling it were by no means uniform, and power is as often expressed as simplicity. In the interior as well as in the exterior they served as decorative features instead of simply holes punched in indiscriminately.
The corner fenestration groups used by him - revolutionary at that time - were by no means offensive to the eye giving a feeling of instability, but gave distinction and power to the design.
The dignity of design and permanence of construction, the house including roof of concrete, made possible the location of this low cost dwelling in the outlying Gold Coast district of Chicago without complaint or opposition from the wealthy neighbors.
Note the engineering revolution in the corner groups of windows which has become so general now after a quarter of a century but which is treated architecturally, graciously, instead of being the bleak thing it is in the hands of modernistic builders. The mullion having become a special structural feature is treated as such adding human interest to the structure. So treated it does not give the feeling of a face with the front teeth knocked out.
Nature can run riot about this concrete home and the burned tile fireplace front designed by the architects brings a touch of it into the living room. This landscape decoration which forms the breast of the fireplace is burned tile.
This page is from the second copy of the Art Institute's typescript (AIC2).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 376 ====]
ARCHITECTURE INCOMPLETE WITHOUT TOWN PLANNING
Gutzon Borglum likens methods prevalent in the practice of architecture to a prostituting of the profession, the architect subsisting on the life blood of his draftsmen. The taste for this sort of thing is whetted and the conscience salved by the fact that in this unreasonable social system of ours it is only too common to find the man who works starving while, through some special privilege, the man who does not work feeds fat off the fruits of the other man's labor.
Our predecessors, our teachers, our ancestors should not be drags, parasites feeding off the tissue of our spiritual growth, causing arrest of development or degeneracy, even as physically the parents of many of our children do in factory towns. They should be inspiration and incentive to a geometrical progression in achievement, rejoicing in the greater accomplishment of those following. A teacher is no teacher at all unless the work of his pupils exceeds the quality of his own and each generation is under obligation not only to do its own work but so to teach the succeeding generation as to cause progress. And here is the only value of tradition.
In the work of radical architects we find constant resemblance to the work of other men and other people even Oriental, Aztec, Moorish, Japanese, Greek, Gothic and primitive. But their difference from the copy-book school is that they employ the same natural method and do not consider external form first and shamefacedly hide behind it as best they can the element of use. They glory in the laws of nature where everything has its purpose, and "Form" becomes satisfying only when it best fits and expresses that function. They believe not in art for "art's sake" but that art consists in doing necessary things in the best possible way - that art except as a result of need, physical or spiritual, is degenerative instead of progressive; that in this creation of ours the ideal must be based
Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) was an American sculptor, most famous for carving the faces of four U.S. presidents on Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 377 ====]
on the real; that nothing is practical except the ideal.
The concept of "freedom" is infinitely attractive and the influence of the first man who definitely stated and expressed it in the architectural field in America, Louis Sullivan, has been very widespread in his own country and elsewhere. It must not be confused with the idea of democracy which is purely the realm of Equity. Mr. Sullivan's intelligent comprehension of the principles he was working on made his own work a continuous progression and gave it a remarkable variety whereas an interest simply in one's own achievement leads gradually to an imitation of one's self and a stereotyping of manner and motives which, bit by bit, transform even rational architecture into personal architecture. For problems are ever new and one's work must be either static or developing.
The fact that similarity of conditions and materials and methods of construction will, if rational methods are used, lead to similarities of form is what develops the styles of various times and peoples. For style is perceptible only in the large, is no concern of the individual designer, but only of the historian. We find also the intermediate men who, though following this method of thinking, would deny this right to others making claims as grotesque as those of Bottom in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" who would be the lion too. The consequence of this greed was that the development of this movement was seriously handicapped in the neighborhood of its origin. In the intellectual or imaginative world we must recognize the right of every man to the use of his own thinking powers. Priority in claim no more gives a man a right to monopolization than it does to the land or the air.
How deadly is the effect of such claims we can see when we consider what would have been the consequence to the development of Gothic architecture if the man who claimed first to have used a buttress had been able to deny others the right to use it, or if at any stage, say when the flying buttress was used, any such attempt had been tolerated. There never would have been any Gothic architecture.
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The development of a style anywhere at any time is dependent on freedom to use all the powers of nature - physical, intellectual, spiritual. It is, however, not sufficient that man use his reasoning powers for this faculty can disport itself in fantastic fields entirely unproductive. If his efforts are to be fruitful he must learn the laws of nature and act in conformity with them. The old Greek fable is forever true. Man loses his strength when he takes his feet off the earth. To know is his chief obligation on this earth. He must, therefore, not only have the courage to depend on his own faculties but he must develop them and must take the pains to learn all the facts which may have a bearing on his problem.
Our thoughts to be moral must conform to cosmic laws. We must not think personally where causes are cosmic. All forms in matter or thinking derive from the chemical ether which is the manifesting force as compared with the spiritualizing forces of warmth and light. It is the central region of America that is ruled by the chemical ether whose basic manifestation is liquidity with its moving wave forces, the great Mississippi valley, and there we find the founders of creative thinking in the arts, the modernists - Lois Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan in the dance, George Bernard George Grey Barnard? in sculpture, Leo Masters Edgar Lee Masters? in poetry, Louis Sullivan in Architecture, Walter Griffin in ground planning, town planning or whatever you wish to call it. Though all new movements derive from one individual since ideas arise in the human mind, when that has happened the way is open to all humanity to carry on the work. The foundation has been laid. Louis Sullivan laid the foundation of modern architecture. His influence was felt as early in Europe as in America and even more powerfully in the early decades. His successors vary in degree of creative power but they are not founders. The delay in the development of creative design was largely due to the malicious vanity of one Frank Lloyd Wright who had been inducted by Sullivan himself.
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The necessity of preserving the life of the Earth is a prime duty in every field of life, in every occupation; and taking maximum advantage of its gifts is the task of the designer. The power of a conscientious consideration of all the elements of a problem was brought home to me when I saw the revolution in methods and results that took place when landscape was made a part of architecture, when Griffin entered into partnership with Frank Lloyd Wright. It meant not only a broadening of view but a positiveness of action arising from the firm foundation of definite facts determining the general scheme before taking up details of internal requirements. Landscape architecture does not mean gardening as an afterthought to a building but means consideration of the external elements before starting to plan or build reading from N-YHS. Not only natural conditions but the character of the surrounding buildings have sometimes to be taken advantage of, sometimes to be overcome. We must consider not the mere personal point but must look to the advantage to everyone affected, for it is curiously true that a thing to be a permanent advantage to one must be of advantage to everyone, just as in animal or man a sound organ is of vital importance to all the organs. Human society is an organism and the individual can benefit only from what is of benefit to all since all are independent as root, branch, leaf and flower of a tree.
On the whole in America as well as elsewhere a building, a residence, was a parallelogram. Nothing else was done. The Greek thinking was back of this, a religious recognition of the 4th period of our present human cycle as the pyramid was a recognition of the 3rd the Egyptian period. Once the parallelogram was established the almost automatic thinking of our times flowed on in the same old grooves. After all the mechanical is the idol of the present age so why not leave our mind to its tendency to work automatically.
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Now in this 5th period the tradition was finally broken down. The plan was not necessarily a parallelogram, and freer forms developed to be carried on later by Griffin in an endless variety of crystalline forms for he conceived of buildings not as facades but as three dimensional. This is creative thinking. We learn that there are as many universes as there are crystalline forms each created by a great primal Spirit of Mathematics.
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A COMPARISON BY LIEUTENANT CARRARA [Note: Arthur A. Carrara?] [Note: The illustration is of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Capitol House (Capitol Theatre). In the New-York Historical Society copy the following barely legible erasure is handwritten at the bottom of the page: "The true balcony motive was first [/] established by Griffin: in the [Sydney?] Sanitarium. [/] They were truly architectural. These later ones are [purely?] [/] [illegible] and not practical for use[.]"]
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INTERIORS OF THE CAPITOL THEATRE [Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy there are four images on this page.]
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INTERIORS OF THE CAFE AUSTRALIA . BANQUET HALL
INTERIORS OF THE CAFE AUSTRALIA . AFTERNOON TEA ROOM
INTERIORS OF THE CAFE AUSTRALIA . DAPHNE
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CAPTION
Of the Cafe Australia one could perhaps say it is the most beautiful Cafe in the world. It is certainly unique. It introduced Griffin to Australia because it was the first completed work of his over there. It occupied the ground floor of a down town building under the light well of the building and consisted of five rooms separated not by walls but by great piers which carried the structure of the building above.
It is lighted in part by the open vaulted grill under the light well and partly by stained glass ceiling panels screening electric lamps. The tiles used are real gold Delft tiles brought from Holland. The sculpture was done by Miss Margaret Baskerville of Melbourne and the mural decoration by Miss Bertha Merfield of Melbourne.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 385 (table of contents) ====]
AUSTRALIA'S STRANGE LIFE . STERCULIA TREE [Note: The tree pictured is also called the baobab tree.]
AUSTRALIA'S STRANGE LIFE . KOALA . TEDDY BEAR
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1913 AND THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
Chicago to Australia - Well Walter, terribly silly of me to be writing to you this way isn't it. Well I was born silly. And then I want to remind you that you are to drop me a line from Honolulu. I waked at 5 this morning and lay abed till eight just thinking it over, then I got up and have spent most of the day in the yard. A lovely day it has been, the air perfect. I have written eight letters and now as starting off to Detroit Michigan with Mr. Herman Von Holst to see that all goes well with the Henry Ford dwelling. Do tell me everything. No just drop me a line. It's a pity to spoil a good outing by writing letters. But a line I must have. Love from your cheerful (honest) wife, Marion Mahony Griffin
Well me darlint, you must be somewhere in the neighborhood of Pango Pango Pago Pago? now which inclines me to be foolish again. But you love me just the same - no es verdad? Have you decided by now to leave me in the States for the next few years while you get Australia straightened out? May be Mr. Lawrence can't get along with women but he and I get along fine. Mr. Jackson was in yesterday. Wanted to meet Mr. Lawrence. He said the trustees wanted me to come down once, that they valued my opinion highly. Thank heaven he said either before your return or afterward with you. It was a very pleasant courtesy and he put it in a very pleasant way. Of course I chose to go with you later. My thought is with you constantly, my love, your love, Marion
Am working here alone this afternoon - Saturday - so of course am thinking of you. Roy Lippincott went up to Racine Wisconsin, found the canoe all right and left it where it was. People very nice and would take nothing in way of pay till you came for it yourself. Said it was no bother to anyone there. We have the possibility of a new home to build in Ravinia Highland Park, Illinois for a Mr. Hubbard - about the size of Ralphs Ralph's?, i.e., Ralph D. Griffin, WBG's brother. Your cable made it seem not so far away. Glad to be informed of the situation up to date but I'm getting homesick for my old man. As going to Elmhurst tonight to have a new dress tried on. .....
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I should have said that we sent back the revised sketches of the Stinson? Library to Monroe and they returned them saying - go ahead with the working drawings. Miss Hoffman stayed down late the other evening working on specifications, got locked in and stayed all night. Mr. Lippincott has worked out Compton and seems to be satisfying them.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
It's so hard to write a lot of stuff when the probabilities are that you'll be home soon. I have decided that one might just as well be the wife of a sailor as a city planner. I don't expect ever to get any satisfaction out of you again. The only letter in which I wrote you must come home right away (My knees were cold) was returned to me. Evidently fate did not intend I should put any such pressure on you. Your poor desperate wife, Marion Mahony Griffin
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
I enclose a jolly letter from Clara MMG's mother?. I sent you an amusing one from Gerald MMG's brother. He signed it on the typewriter saying his fingernails were all smashed except his thumbs and that he had written this letter with his thumbs. Would you think it feasible for Gerald to go into contracting and could we use him on the Trier Center work. If Mr. Blount a home developer in Beverly, Illinois could why not Gerald. Mr. Von Holst sent me a copy of the letter he wrote Mr. Felton concerning the publication of the David M. Amberg dwelling. N. certainly has colossal nerve. In two weeks more you would have been home if you had'a come reading from N-YHS. Anyhow there surely will be letters. Miss Stella (Miles) Franklin was so delighted with your enthusiasm about Australia. She does hope you won't let Sydney shippers spoil the Harbor Gardens. Marion Mahony Griffin
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dear Walter (from WBG's sister Gertrude), Three cheers and then some. I just got a letter from Father telling of your cablegram (appointment as Director of Design and Construction of the Federal Capital). Isn't it wonderful that you actually are going to build your city. It's almost more that I can realize, but I am so happy about it that I can hardly keep from shouting it aloud. Your appointment isn't really so much of a surprise after reading the clippings from the Australian papers but one
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is never fully prepared for such things. I've read that message a dozen times to get the full extent of its meaning but it will have to soak in gradually. To say I congratulate you or to express my feelings in any kind of words would be wholly inadequate but you know anyway how more than happy I am about it. Six months leave of absence and then back to Australia for three years! It's plain to see that your permanent place of residence will be your capital city. I do so wish that it wasn't so awfully far away especially as I fear that teaching will never pay me enough so that I can afford such a long trip. As glad as I am about your appointment I can't be glad that you are going to be at the other end of the earth and I don't see how we are ever going to be able to get along without you. With much love, Gertrude.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Walter me darlint, I can't write you about business. I don't care anything about business. I want you. It seems as if I'd suffocate, there are bands of iron around my heart so it can't beat. The joy in my soul over your beautiful success can't entirely keep me from being sick to see you. I wish I could have gone over with you. I shouldn't have wanted to be in the melee but everything would have gone perfectly well here without me. Mr. Lawrence is the most conscientious and painstaking person on earth and Roy is too though he worries Lawrence quite a bit by going off sailing on the lake when according to Lawrence's standards he should be working. With Gerald here I think we are going to have an organization that will be able to carry the work during your absences. But I cannot live on business. In fact I'm working less and less. Two months more is a dreadful long time. Each week seems like a month. I keep counting wrong, thinking two weeks have gone when only one has and then it seems as if time was standing still and you never would be back again. However I'm trying to feel that this postponement is the last one. Please come home. Marion
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THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD
As a friend said - "Now we have 5 minutes let's discuss the history of the world." We have indeed to go back to the beginnings to catch up with the ends, to understand the ends. For the world and its creative forces do not work on straight lines like rational thinking. Creation works in circles and spheres.
Go on the straight line through the center of the earth and we land in Australia which fills us with amazement but we can understand nothing. Let us take a circle and encompass a sphere and we can learn, and so shall be able to accomplish what is necessary to accomplish in our time. For we have come to a time when isolation will not work. Humanity must be treated as a unity.
We traverse the Pacific Ocean, the great realm of fire on the earth, practically the whole volcanic realm. We remember that warmth was the original substance of the solar system still functioning here on earth as are unicellular beings so that man may read the story of evolution. Politically, or shall we say from the latest step in the evolution of human society, we start from the end - America - take the plunge and find the beginning. We have perhaps flown, taken the modern way, traversed the realm of the air, the 2nd condition of matter, the realm through which we experience light and color - the rainbow and its reflections in the creations that follow. We come down in the great ocean - the whole southern hemisphere almost - the 3rd condition of matter, and find the very earliest bit of solidity still existing - the 4th condition of matter - Australia, which has indeed run into the extreme of fixity, the wooden pear an Australian tree a type of all its fruits - a time when the angels didn't have to provide for the feeding of human beings on earth.
On this continent we find the forms of creatures of the watery realm fixed on land in the vegetable life - the sea cucumber in a great Sterculia tree - and in one of the Sterculias the octopus with its thick body and its waving outstretched arms now living on dry land - the
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Angophora trees on the bluffs of Sydney harbor, pink barked like a child's cheek, lovely yet gruesome till you understand and learn to adore, records of the ancient Lemurian continent and the origins of the vegetable kingdom, coming out of the watery realm up into the airy realm.
Here in the human community we find the most ancient aboriginal people taking degrees in the stiffest Sydney University courses, proving that differences in race have ceased to exist since Christ gave that "light" to every man that cometh into the world. The English lads and lassies love to become as dark as our negro people through basking in the sun of this earthly paradise. And the custom of competition for prizes in the Queensland schools was given up because usually the schools of the aboriginal children overtopped the others.
Here in Australia we find that wickedly ingenious device of imperialism - the parliamentary form of government which makes the functioning of democracy impossible though seeming to be its implement. From this hoax America was saved through the genius of its founders who know of their own experience the nature of this evil form and invented a new one - the Congressional - under which dictatorship can be made impossible.
And yet here we find Mr. James Alexander Smith, a most highly developed individual, functioning in full freedom and - almost single-handedly - defeating these powers behind the screen and consummating the unification of the Australian States and the establishment of a Federal Capital City, Canberra which is the only modern city in the world. This is one of the greatest stories of modern times. All the imperial interests were against it - all the big interests. But we'll skip that for the moment. The end, our aim, is to find a way to cure our sick civilization, to make it possible for our communities to function wholesomely, free from disease. This cannot be done unless we have a
James Alexander Smith (1862-1940) was a noted consulting engineer and a member of the board for the Canberra design competition.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 391 ====]
properly organized community. And this cannot be attained unless our children are properly educated. This is not possible unless all the children have access to nature, natural continuous contact throughout childhood - all of them. Otherwise they cannot develop inventive or creative powers to say nothing of health. The geniuses come from the rural districts not the urban. To give the children this is not possible without community planning which facilitates decentralization, puts an end to overcrowded cities and an end to wide open spaces too sparsely occupied. It interlaces the urban and the rural.
And only in Australia has this been done on a scale to make it tell. Not only Canberra but several other municipalities which Griffin planned before he went to India where he found these depths of the Orient immensely interested in modernism. Those are greatly mistaken who think India could not function on even terms with the rest of the world in a World Economic Organization.
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No. 18. TOWN PLANNING BEGINS WITH ONE LOT [Note: This illustration is a 1909 garden plan for Mrs. J.W. Bolte, Hubbard Woods (Winnetka), Illinois. In the New-York Historical Society copy the following is handwritten on the verso of page 392: "The ground always as completely [/] and perfectly designed as the building[.] [/] Native & local plants predominating[.]"]
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MAN'S EVOLUTION
In the course of perfecting the rational faculty, necessary to give men confidence in their own decisions as a basis for free will, the power to receive revelations was necessarily withdrawn from men for a time. Through Anthroposophy, the Twentieth Century science, which, along with the smashing of the atom in the atomic bomb, revolutionizes thinking for this century as material science did the thinking of the nineteenth century, this power of receiving information directly from the spiritual realms can again be developed but it must now be in a Christian form and not pre-Christian if it is to be wholesome and developmental. This difference of method is of vital importance and is but little understood today so that many unfortunate things are happening through the longing for direct knowledge of spiritual realities without any comprehension of the nature of Christian requirements.
Since the creation by the Christ was the creation of a being who could attain to responsibility which is dependent on free will and, since with His coming into the Jesus being where He dwelt for three years, He gave to man the individualized Ego (which he gave to every man that cometh into the world) which marked man's maturity and readiness to function in free will, the power to develop the faculties necessary for the reception of revelation must reside in each individual human being.
But since the all important factor is the retention and development of free will, no method must be used now which dulls man's fully awake consciousness nor which interferes in the slightest degree with the free action of his will. The only form of occultism recognized by natural science is hypnotism, but these scientists know nothing of what they are actually doing nor can they know its dangers nor its serious or even fatal consequences. The process used is to substitute another's will which is an attack on the manhood
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itself of the one hypnotized for will is the faculty of the spirit (spirit is that which creates) and the Ego is the man. The methods used in all pre-Christian times, when man had not reached his maturity so that he was still under the guidance of Angelic beings were all dependent on this dulling of consciousness and depression of the will and had to be carried out with great care. They were used only in the mystery schools and with specially chosen and developed individuals under the guidance of the initiates. The underlying principle is like that of hypnotism and was appropriate in those past preliminary civilizations, and the precautions necessary were understood. They all entailed dulling of the normal faculties.
The use of those methods today is harmful and often very seriously so and serves no useful purpose. They belong to the past. They solve no problems. We are familiar with them in various forms, Yogi, mediumship, spiritualism, etc. However, the awakening and making use of the perceptive organs of the Etheric body in full consciousness and with no dulling of any of our normal faculties is urgently necessary at the present time. A new revolution in thinking is as necessary in the Twentieth Century as that of the Nineteenth Century was in its time.
The knowledge thus gained can be checked with the same precision as knowledge through perception in the material realm and the problems of our time can not be solved without this supplementary information which is appropriate to this period of human evolution.
I have stood before an object and said to a fellow Anthroposophist, "Do you see what I am seeing?" and she has responded by describing the appearance of the ethers moving, rising, forming, changing tones, conforming exactly as she spoke to what I was witnessing. In Australia, I have stood looking over the valley and suddenly seen the cloudlike formation of the chemical ether outlining with a wide band all the trees and shrubs, a phenomenon checked by thousands of
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SANDSTONE TERRACES FROM SYDNEY TO PORT STEPHENS
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others which can be experienced at will again and again if your etheric eye has become active. These things cannot be seen by the at present normal eye. One not trained standing by does not see these things at all.
Indeed our own physical scientists have already transformed all the so-called atoms into each other in the laboratories of our universities but they are very shy about publicizing this fact. In California I asked a University Professor to show me their atom smasher. He said, "Yes if you can call it an atom."
Since with the coming of the Christ the first half of man's evolution, the descent into matter, was completed, it is now our task to bring about the ascent into spirit. With the Light (He was the Life and the Life was the Light of man) now in man it becomes his task to carry on evolution, and the Earth's evolution as well as his own becomes his task "man's task" typed over? though the Christ will be with us till the end of the Earth period. Since man is now mature enough to function as a responsible being, since the period of faith has led on to the period of knowledge, the Angels can no longer be permitted to guide men as they did in the past. He must make his own decisions. Otherwise he could not carry on his evolution as a free being. He can become fully cognizant of his nature only if the consequences "of" inserted in N-YHS his deeds fall upon him. So in the latter decades of the nineteenth century the Archangel Michael, who in biblical times functioned as the Countenance of Jehovah, took over the rulership of intelligence in the Cosmos. In a way he now functions as the countenance of the Christ and he will not compromise. Now if human beings want the assistance of the Angelic Beings they must come to them "him"? for guidance out of their own free will; they must use all their powers and faculties to solve their problems and then come to Michael of their own free will and he will give them help.
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Rudolf Steiner tells us that there is the present chaos in World Affairs because men will not recognize the Spiritual Beings. The Spiritual Beings are not permitted to come to the aid of humanity unless and until men recognize them, until they come to them for aid having used all their own powers to solve their problems. And men today are not functioning helpfully even in their thinking. Each kingdom is dependent for its sustenance on the kingdoms below, the vegetable on the mineral and so on. The Angels are dependent on man for their sustenance, on his significant thinking, and at present they are starving.
Significant thinking we need that arouses the will and culminates in deeds. Today they know not where to turn nor what to do. Each step now in material science which was the hope of the 19th century but lowers the standards and provokes man to greater and greater destruction. Unless material knowledge is supplemented by that other help, spiritual knowledge, man's work cannot be constructive. Anthroposophy is applied Christianity, Christianity applied to every side of life.
As Aristotle, a master of the knowledge of the period in which he lived, established rational thinking and the foundations for all the knowledge necessary for the period to follow reading from N-YHS, so with Steiner who has laid the foundations for the knowledge necessary for the period in which we live.
In ancient India, Religion, Art and Science were a true unity. In the time of Egypt religion first appeared, religion as a separate thing. It became the controlling factor of life. In the Greek period Art was separated out. It became the dominating factor. Religion was expressed through Art. In our own period Science has become the dominating factor and the gap between it and religion and art has become ever greater. Out of this separation all three have gone astray. Science has become dogma and functions through the Will whereas it belongs in the thinking realm and should clean itself
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ARCHITECTURE FITS NATURE [Note: The structure is the Fishwick House.]
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of fanaticism, superstition, beliefs. It is religion that should function through Will, deeds, and as a unit in a trinity dogma ceases to exist. Art is functioning in the thinking realm. We find all sorts of thought out tricks and devices taking the place of genius in Art where feeling should rule. Religion has become nothing but the expression of feeling whereas its realm is will, deeds. The task of this period of Evolution is to reunite the three into a true unity, when they will again function in accordance with their true nature. Thus can Christianity become a reality functioning in every department of life. The Earth is a living Being and at present we are killing it. With the Christ event the further evolution of man and the Earth was placed in man's hands. The barometer itself proves that the earth is a living breathing being for there is no other way of explaining the double recording of high and low pressures of this instrument. What our time needs is a little more confidence in facts and a bit less theorizing.
What then is the constitution of the Earth Being where the Christ now dwells. To our physical senses there are 3 conditions. There are however 4 cause forces in action and they create 4 conditions of matter. The primal ether expresses itself in the condition of matter called warmth. This forms the outer sphere of the earth. This information is but just confirmed through aeronautics, the study of the stratosphere.
Scientists have said that as one goes out from the earth temperatures falls. That has never been the case at night when the chemical ether is breathed back into the earth but until recently no attention has been paid to that fact. Now a student hears it spoken of as temperature reversal. But what spiritual science has observed is now being corroborated by high fliers who even in the daytime reach a level where the temperature begins to increase. Physical scientists are likely to begin to the theorize and generalize about that. Already I have seen an article by a scientist saying
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that we'll probably have to give up our plans for flying to the moon because we'd probably get fried before arriving. But the exact science of the supersensible, never based on hypothesis but on perception, informs us that when we go on from the earth's warmth ether realm though the warmth material no longer exists, the ethers themselves exist in the reverse order.
This phenomenon of reversal, of turning inside out, expresses the basic difference between the organic and the inorganic. That the Earth is an organic being is again evidenced in another reversal as we go toward the center.
It is of course impossible to enumerate the consequences of these facts. The knowledge of them lays the foundation for a new and useful development of all branches of science. The aim of living beings therefore should not be perfection which entails something finished, fixed, dead. Instead their aim should be growth, development. The great work of the physical scientist was the establishing in the minds of modern men the fact of evolution. That their conclusions were topsy turvy, that they followed always the straight line of reason in the reverse direction from what really took place concluding that man derived from the animal instead of the other kingdoms from man does not alter the fact of the value of their contribution. They arbitrarily limited their observations to what can be perceived by material sense organs. We do not need to limit ourselves in any such way. The time has come when the further advance of civilization hangs on our using all our perceptive organs, physical and etheric.
Australia's young Shelley, Sylvia Brose, whose drama in verse, Mirrabooka - The Southern Cross - based on the very beautiful Australian native mythology See III.24.443 (above), was a new member in the Anthroposophic Society. She was full of questions, among them questions about the Sun. Now physical science here again tolerates in itself ideas in complete conflict, first that the Sun is a burning ball of gas,
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TERRACED HOME AT HEAD OF VALLEY [Note: The structure is the Fishwick House.]
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then that it has an attractive power 5,000,000 times as great as that of the earth. But scientists know that gas has no magnetic, no drawing power. Its nature is outflying.
I told her that physically speaking the interior the Sun was a vacuum; it contained no material substance. But it was filled with life ether. She repeated this to her uncle, Professor Henry L.? Brose, who had charge of the Rockefeller laboratory in Sydney and who had worked with Rutherford and Einstein in Europe. He told her that was nonsense, if that were the case everything would be falling into it. The burning ball conception means that they consider the great radiations shown in photographs to be flames reaching out from the Sun. Within 6 months news came through that 2 young astronomers, in Kentucky I think, had for 2 years been taking moving pictures of the Sun which revealed a movement inward to the Sun. The life ether being the creative cause of solidity in which gravity manifests is naturally attractive force itself. I myself at one time had the impulse to concentrate my attention on the Sun and suddenly saw its as one does in photographs, with the luminous radiations and the whole interior sphere, or disc as I saw it, lilac, the life ether color, the color I had seen rising from the seed.
These Sun forces act on the earth vertically, whereas the Moon forces act horizontally as is checked by physical science which finds the magnetic forces of the Moon at their maximum from the horizon. Physical science would reasonably conclude that, like the Sun, it would have its maximum influence from the Zenith. But this is contrary to fact. These polarities are expressed in physical creatures in the typical horizontal backbone of the animal versus the vertical backbone of man, hence their different types of consciousness. One might say that the Sun is the Ruler of Plant and Man, the Moon of the Animal.
As the Sun makes its diurnal path around the Earth and its a annual path from north to south and back, corresponding movements
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of the ethers take place from which we can learn something about what is called the instincts of animals of which science can say nothing. It uses a word and rests satisfied with that. In fact that is what all our thinkers have been driven to - nominalism. They might as well answer every question that arises with the - "Quien sabe?" of the Spanish. But today we must not rest short of the answer to questions. Otherwise the chaos that we see on our horizons will become world wide. Anthroposophy consists in the capacity to ask questions and to recognize the answers when they come.
When the great seasonal migration of the birds takes place how does this come about for we know that even the new season birds can take these great journeys. How do they know the route is asked? But they don't know the route. The seasonal movements of the Sun set flowing great and powerful streams of the Ethers, the North and South currents. These the birds are aware of and they follow the currents even fighting against heavy storms and powerful air currents. I went to Cowes Island Phillip Island? in Melbourne's harbor to witness the coming of the Mutton birds from the South Pole continent in the spring. When the day arrived I was much perturbed at the coolness of the hotel-keeper whose coach was to take us to the particular point of the shore. I didn't want to miss the spectacle. But he said afternoon would be soon enough. After lunch I pressed again for starting. But he said if we started at half past two we would be in time. We arrived at the appointed spot. No sign of birds and he said they wouldn't be along for 20 minutes yet. In 20 minutes they came blackening the sky indeed they came in such numbers. You see they had an even more accurate clock than ours, the Sun itself, for their time-keeper.
So with the rise of the sap to the top of the trees. This is another phenomenon on which science has given up guessing. Discussing? It isn't done. For they know that the pressure of the
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atmosphere, so called, is not sufficient to raise the liquid to these heights nor is osmosis nor any power known to science. But the Chemical Ether with the rhythm of the Earth's breathing and with its liquid creating power effects this movement and carries it on, not only the diurnal movement but the seasonal which for a time each year diminishes and increases this flow of the sap.
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KNITLOCK DWELLING . S.R. SALTER . MELBOURNE [Note: The S.R. Salter House is in Toorak (Malvern), Victoria.]
KNITLOCK DWELLING . VAUGHAN GRIFFITHS [Griffin] . HEIDELBERG [Note: This illustration is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy. See the illustration at III.18.[344-2].]
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Article in the The Australian Home Beautiful SEGMENTAL ARCHITECTURE A System to Simplify and Cheapen Building Construction by Walter Burley Griffin
EDITOR'S NOTE.- The writer of this article is best known as the architect who planned the Federal Capital, built the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, and designed the garden suburb of Castlecrag, Sydney. But Mr. Griffin is also keenly interested in the problem of small house construction, and in the following columns he presents a brief description of what he has termed segmental architecture. It is a system that employs building units of special design, and its object is to reduce the cost of building houses - particularly small homes - at the same time scorning monotony and providing for an uncommon style of residence.
The Segmental System
The Segmental System is the outcome of ten years' effort to simplify the complex processes of building now in vogue. It is realized that the machine-made product must eventually supplant the hand-made in housing and the Segmental System is a contribution toward that idea.
On the other hand no one wants to live in a "stereotype" house, and the idea that first comes to mind when we think of machine made is monotonous repetition.
Where concrete houses are cast monolithic in form, economy demands a high degree of uniformity; likewise the large slab units that have been in use put severe restrictions on variation.
Now elaborateness obtained at the cost of endless repetition would be still more distressing even than the barnlike plainness to which the older methods of building in brick or stone or timber have accustomed us.
In the case of inexpensive small houses that is the only alternative because every projection or corner or opening or other departure from the square box economic ideal is an expensive luxury in labor costs
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KNITLOCK DWELLING . W.R. PALING . 2 story building on hillside [Note: An additional caption in the New-York Historical Society copy adds "Roof Tile as Wall Tile Griffin's Invention . Concrete . W.B.G." In the New-York Historical Society copy the following is handwritten at the left of the illustration: "Griffin also solved the problem of leaking roofs in Aus. [Australia]"]
LIVING ROOM [Note: This illustration is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
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that do not provide any additional room.
But Segmental Construction is not designed as a substitute for timber, brick or stone, artificial or natural, or concrete plain or reinforced, nor for any other substance in its usual and proper uses. If one wants to have his house of the types suitable to any of these or within their limitations for the amount he has to spend, then he can dispense with the segmental system.
Segmental Construction, however, by eliminating the extra cost of outside walls, of wings, angles and bays and buttresses, of openings for doors and windows, and cupboards, through eliminating cutting and fitting and plumbing and aligning, makes possible the convenience and beauty and infinite variety of such features within the limits of expense of our commonplace boxes or more or less dark cells which we have been driven to by sheer necessity. The ordinary types have to struggle to attract interest by such devices as varying the front covering with clinker or blue bricks, or spatterdash stucco, or by alternating hip and gable roofs or departing from the shape of the "classic" veranda pillars to bulbs or pyramids, or by attaching "gew-gaws" to entrances or window frames, or fancy, but non-transparent, "lead-lights" in the sashes.
Technically there are only two types of segments - vertebral, which lock together to make the framework or skeleton, and tesseral, which lock together for two-ply curtain walls, attaching to and stretching between the vertebral columns.
The double wall provides for lap joints everywhere, and between the inner and outer layers there is an insulation layer of bitumen or aquella, as well as a proportion of air ducts in the interlocking keys, which allow for cooling by convection where the exposure requires it. In these flutes also are concealed gas and electric conductors.
In erection, the segments are simply slipped together from above.
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With the manufactured half segments all the openings and corners work out accurately so that, without cutting or fitting, the grooved frames of the doorways and windows and fixtures are likewise slid into place and made fast with grouting, with all the essential fittings thus inserted true to fixed standard dimensions, they can be completely prepared and coated in the shop, and their essential parts are carried in stock, much quickening the building operation.
The unit of dimension in each direction is six inches which leaves ample variety of size and shape for all the features of the house.
Internal surface consists of six-inch squares with all the possibilities open to tile work for panels or pattern decoration, in colors or ornament applied in stencil or imprint.
Externally the segments appear mainly as twelve inch chequers with tuck-pointed joints, the effect at Castlecrag being cut stone, the colors being supplied by the sands selected for the surface - white, purple, pink, yellow and yellowish green.
Almost unlimited modeling of the masses is rendered practicable by the lightness and stiffness of the construction which spans openings without lintel members, and projects without extra supports to form balconies, oriels and turrets. Buttresses, pylons and crenellations are almost inevitable features, and the uniform supporting power of interior and exterior walls invited the introduction of courts or the breaking up of the mass of even the smallest house into terraces or tower rooms.
Such freedom to deal with the general proportions, making an articulate pile out of the smallest type of building, is the great characteristic of Segmental Architecture. And this opportunity is, of course, the fundamental of all architectural design; the basis for real diversity, with neither superfluous nor arbitrary factors.
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IMITATION OF GRIFFIN'S KNITLOCK WITHOUT ITS STRUCTURE [Note: A printed caption beneath the picture identifies the building as Frank Lloyd Wright's Freeman House in Los Angeles. The William A. Storrer Catalog Number (3rd edition, 2002) is S.216.]
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CAPTION
Imitation of Walter Burley Griffin Knitlock without its structural features.
This architect was visited by Mr. George A. Taylor who after calling me into his office in the early days in Australia to inform me that Mr. Griffin was to do as he told him (which of course he never did) and who spent an amazing amount of time vilifying Griffin even going to the Prime Minister Mr. William Morris Hughes.
Mr. Hughes was not so easily handled however and simply handed over Taylor's papers to Mr. Griffin.
Largely impelled by his venom he visited the United States and called on various architects who gave him much material for his magazine. Wright did not give him any but he listened to the knitlock story and shortly after built this structure in California. He was always quick on the uptake. This however except in superficial appearance has not structural resemblance to knitlock and no structural value. He also followed the hint Taylor gave him about floors solid on the ground and used the idea but with no structural basis, which of course Taylor couldn't give him, so of course the water poured in and the floor had to be? supplemented with another. Griffin's method of construction was not grasped. Griffin laid an asphalt layer under the whole house with 2" x 4" strips cut in two with the narrow edge upward and? laid it in flush with the top so that when the floorboards were nailed to these strips there was no air space below so no chance of rot.
Griffin also solved the problem of leaky roofs in Australia where with their horizontal driving storms the Marseilles tile was no good. His is a concrete tile set diagonally.
Handwritten at the bottom of the page: "Wright did not contribute he swiped." George A. Taylor was an architect and engineer, who together with his wife Florence (also an architect and engineer) founded a publishing company for trade and professional journals. This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy. There are no pages 409 through 416 in either the New-York Historical Society copy or the Art Institute of Chicago second copy (AIC2). In the tables of contents of both the New-York Historical Society copy and the Art Institute first copy (AIC1) there is an entry for page 409 -- "The Aboriginals" -- which has been erased. A similarly titled essay can be found at III.23.448ff (above).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 417 (table of contents) ====]
No. 19. SCHEMATIC PLAN FOR CHICAGO [Note: The year "1945," written in the margin of the New-York Historical Society illustration, coincides with the date of the Better Chicago Contest, sponsored by the "Chicago Herald American." In the New-York Historical Society copy handwritten below the image when it is oriented horizontally: "1945 [/] All Radiating thoroughfares 200' wide. [/] High speed depressed in center [/] Lake Calumet made a circular Venice".]
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CAPTION
In this schematic plan Chicago's fine radial railroad system with its connecting belt lines has been co-ordinated with motor speedways to enable an orderly development of 6 municipal centers indicated by double ovals which relieve the pressure on the main urban business center on the lake.
Each of these is placed where several railroad routes come together all being below the surface level.
The Metropolitan air field was shown in the lake which idea has now been adopted.
Each of the municipal plazas has a surface Air Landing field to supplement the underground railroad station giving rise to a natural municipal center so that the practical needs of the outlying districts are met minimizing the excessive crowding of the metropolitan center. Sydney, Australia is an example of such a grouping of metropolis and surrounding municipalities which are independent politically as well as officially. The arrangement works well.
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Both the tables of contents and the New-York Historical Society copy entitle this section "How to Bring Health to Chicago".A COMMUNITY PLAN - TWO REQUIREMENTS SYNOPSIS
OCCUPATIONS - Parallelograms only - GREEK
COMMUNICATION - Radii only considered - MEDIEVAL These must be considered and solved simultaneously - Example, Griffith, Australia
RADIAL THROUGH ROUTES - Domestic streets come in perpendicular to these. Neither must be imposed on the other.
COMMUNICATION - Chicago - Location in the center of the continent brought about emphasis on communication - with the splendid though too complicated radial system with branches and belt lines.
Major Thoroughfares - Since Chicago is a 60% occupied city we have accepted with but slight modifications its system of major thoroughfares, railroads or other types, modifying their widths and construction, depressing the high-speed railways and at many intersection points flooring the railroads over, as also the rail-road yards, so that no occupation space for structures or air-planes is lost as in Mr. James Alexander Smith's suggested Melbourne railroad center. See II.12.173-174 These intersection points, usually from one mile to three miles apart, form natural locations for Community Centers. These should be handled as natural small towns within the Metropolitan area. They have been denoted simply by a conventional oval shape to indicate their locations and not to determine a routine form. Their development and individually should become a matter of local pride and rivalry - crystallizing in widely different and beautiful forms. (See Community Center - Leeton, Australia). These rail-road yards floored over could be used as local Air Ports also which on the whole are "I have" is crossed out placed near the Community Centers.
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THEATRE [Note: The structure is the Ascot Theatre, Ascot Vale, Victoria.]
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CAPTION
This is but one of several buildings in which Griffin used the stepped motive carried above the roof. The first one was an alternative design he offered to his clients in 1914 when the Capitol Theatre was on the boards raked over the coals by his clients' representatives.
His silent partner then persuaded the clients to accept the first design and shortly afterward built a ten story building to the stepped design.
It has evidently impressed itself on the ethers for it has appeared in various connections all over the world. It appeared impressively used in the Russian Building in The New York Exposition New York World's Fair 1939-1940. The most beautiful example I have seen was in Madras, India under construction in 1937.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 422 ====]
Continued from page 419Flat roofs for all buildings commercial & domestic for Helicopters.
Motor Cars - Where the winter frosts go deep, they should come in onto a lift which will drop them down to basement space. No parking on streets should be allowed.
Minor Thoroughfares - The streets at half mile intervals between the Through Routes form convenient business districts and these distances apart can be adopted as proper for the minor thoroughfares which can be shorter or longer as happens as the result of their contact with major routes. They serve local purposes. (See Neighborhood Community)
OCCUPATION - Our young folks are becoming delinquents, cripples, criminals, with no chance for genius to sprout nor enthusiasm to develop; death and disease are rampant. Between the thoroughfares there should be no speedways, no short cuts, no wide streets. On the other hand there should be no stub end streets but direct access, for everyone within, to the business circumference - shops, movies, etc. The whole will be safe. Children can go to the interior schools or to the circumferential shops without danger. The omission of alleys and the narrowing of the streets and the carrying of none through will accomplish these and many other things. It will give 16 parks to every quarter section where contact with nature, people and sports will make humans of the growing generation.
INDUSTRY - On the whole the Industrial Area follows Rivers and Railroads.
ADMINISTRATION - This district as well as the Retail Trade district and intense Flat Occupation district occupy the central Lake Front District.
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[Note: There are no pages 423 or 424 in the New-York Historical Society and Art Institute copies. The illustration listed as being on page 423 in the table of contents: No. 20. ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: The table of contents lists two entries for "page 425": "Administrative Problem" and "Political & Administrative Problem."]
POLITICAL & ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM
The solution of community problems is simple - not like a line but like a circle or a triangle. Just as the solution of Town Planning lies in separate but simultaneous attack of the problems of Communication and Occupation, plus the mathematical special requirement of eliminating acute angles, and the spiritual requirement of conserving nature, so with the administrative problem. It has three elements - Political - Economic - Social. This has now been recognized in the organization of the United Nations.
1st - The United States is outstanding among the major nations in that it stands on this correct foundation of equity.
Welfare the slogan of some is a totally different thing and leads to war.
The State is just a hang over from the rivalries of the group of states before the revolutionary war. State lines serve only to revive tariff walls and other evils.
The Nation should require the collection of the land values. The spending of the land rentals should be in the hand of the Social, or Abilities, organ.
2nd - A City is essentially a business. At its head should be a City Manager - selected by the citizenry. His function is to manage the practical affairs of the community but not private business. His renewal or replacement should be on the initiative and referendum plan. Since he has no control over affairs of Equity a long term has no dangers. He would be replaced on the basis of efficiency and economy.
3rd - The Social or Abilities is of the nature of the Teachers and Parents Organization in whose hands would lie the land rentals
The illustration listed as being on page 426 in the table of contents: ROTUNDA . SMALL SHOPS . ENGINEERING BATTERY is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy. This illustration may be associated with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 427 ====]
for advancing education in all fields to develop the abilities of the citizenry throughout their lives with no interference by the other two organs except to maintain equity. No Board of Education under either Political or Economic control.
The three Organs are as interdependent as the Center, Radius and Circumference of a Circle.
At this point "Employment is a World Issue" is crossed out in the New-York Historical Society copy.UNIVERSAL EMPLOYMENT ATTAINED BY FREEING ENTERPRISE
1st - How facilitate FREE ENTERPRISE.
2nd - How arouse and implement ENTHUSIASM for production, always increasing, in individuals while preventing their taking unfair advantage of others.
1st - What form of Governments facilitates these ends.
2nd - What steps other than political should the community take.
The two elements upon which increased employment and production of wealth depend are human abilities and access to Nature. These two offer endless opportunities for employment if the development of them is not shut off by some MONOPOLISTIC or DICTATORIAL POWER. Our problem is how to get the maximum from these two without destroying Nature.
What form of SOCIAL ORGANIZATION most facilitates the maximum employment without menace to future humanity, to the development of rational, free beings capable of using free will constructively and without menace such as devastated the wilds of the United States during the past? What measures must we take to attain our ends?
The Economic system is really running ahead in this realm for it has established a system of DIVISION OF LABOR which gives maximum and cheapest production. This is about the only up to date element in our communities. Here, with no intrusion of morals, Altruism has established itself for in this system each one produces for someone else. Humanity has become an interdependent
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MUNICIPAL BUILDING [Note: J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) p. 399-400 identifies this structure as the Raja Tagore House or Chatterji House.]
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Unity. Morals, as we shall see, belong in the political realm, in the maintenance of Equity (not equality) and as yet among the major nations, only in the United States has the Political Organ written that into its constitution.
EMPLOYMENT IS A WORLD ISSUE
The question of the attainment of Mutual Advantage must go beyond the borders of nations or we will be faced with wars which will continue to increase in ferocity as long as mechanical genius continues to develop unless -
Therefore our first question, the urgent issue of the present moment is:-
1st - Which one of the present forms of government most facilitates universal employment with the greatest returns to the individuals and the least menace to the development of human individuality.
2nd - What changes in organization should be made in this best form? This is urgent for there seems to be a subterranean influence working for the perpetuation of the worst of all forms of government since all kinds of tyranny can screen themselves behind it - the Parliamentary form, the froth of which comes up even in our Universities in America. It took a war of revolution for the United States to free itself from that form. It is dust in the eye to say that it was a king from which we were escaping. It is the most urgent question in the reconstruction of the world at the close of the war. The writers of the American Constitution knew the evils of the Parliamentary System of their own experience. This menace is far greater than that of Communism for the latter is openly controlled by the bureaucracy whereas the parliamentary form is just as completely controlled but so cleverly that no one seems to be aware of it. But the consequences are there and can be measured by a comparison of the welfare of the people of Europe and America.
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STORAGE PAVILION [Note: The caption to this illustration in the New-York Historical Society copy identifies the image as the "Pylon Pavilions" at the United Provinces Industrial and Agricultural Exposition in Lucknow.]
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It is urgent also since now the Oriental peoples "whose numbers reach the billion mark" are quite equal to the Occidentals "whose number is but a few million" in intellectual, scientific and mechanical ability. The recent war has thoroughly awakened them to the issues of EMPLOYMENT. They are ripe for reorganization.
Experience of life under each form, the Congressional and the Parliamentary, makes clear the radical difference between the two which is understood by almost no one, yet is the chief issue today as it was in the 1st World War. It is the basic issue of employment since it is the issue between concentrated Power and Democracy.
Only under the Congressional form of government do the people have the opportunity, if they chose to use it, of selecting their executive. The electoral system US Electoral College?, a hang-over from the past, should be ended. The power of amending the constitution puts that in the reach of the masses of the people.
Under the Parliamentary system the powers behind the scenes, the bureaucracy, can determine the executive from the start or at any time after the election by throwing out the elected party whenever it wants to which gives it a powerful influence over members even without overthrowing the party. They vote as they are told to vote or out they go, and the whole complicated and expensive business of election has to be gone through again. No wonder the people are dejected. Naturally the more businesses that are put in the hands of the government the easier it is for the officials to control everything so socialism moves swiftly to communism which is simply perfected - call it what you will - communism or imperialism.
This means that after this war Americans should use every possible means to direct the reorganization of Europe toward the congressional form, and the basic principle laid down as EQUITY.
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INCINERATOR [Note: J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, “The Griffins in Australia and India” (1998) p. 346 identifies this structure as a second alternative tender presentation for the Brunswick Incinerator, Brunswick, Victoria. On the verso of the illustration in two different hands appears: "[first hand] Harvey Acres [/] [second hand] Incinerator - Project. 5 [/] [first hand] for Castlecove".]
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CAPTION
There is no excuse for America in its miserable way of dumping refuse. Municipality after municipality in Australia has adopted incineration.
All refuse is dumped into the furnaces which run up a 9000 degree temperature so that nothing is left but glass. The rest goes up the chimney but not as smoke, only warmth which has no offensive odor.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 433 ====]
Continued from page 430Nowhere but in the United States (among the major communities) is this the intention of government. The next step should be to eliminate the power of granting monopolies from the political province. Whatever is done in this field should be by the Abilities Organ (the social organ), the Political - the central organ - would have the task and the power to prevent inequity.
Text similar to that above can be found in Section II, No. 12., page 175ff.ABILITIES ORGAN - With local groups, somewhat of the nature of parents and teachers organizations, interorganized to meet various other than educational needs purposes could be effected which would center neither on making warriors nor serfs out of the mass of the people. Capacities could be highly developed and efficiency enormously increased and the whole field of education broadened and extended. Education would be provided throughout the lifetime of the citizenry so that any changes in employment, due to invention or other factors, could be provided for by open opportunities for education in all fields throughout a man's life instead of his being thrown out of work and reduced to lower standards of living.
Having recognized that in the Political Realm the idea of Equity is the opposite of Welfare which but leads to war since it rests on the idea that might is right and that conquering a country is a benefit to the common people of the conquering community, we look at the realm of ECONOMICS.
ECONOMICS - Having recognized the Community's obligation to provide the opportunities for every man to develop his own abilities in his own way, we turn our attention to the Economic Organization of the community which has to function in a totally different realm to meet the bodily needs of men. In this everyone in the community is concerned either as producer or consumer, as manager or worker, agriculturist or technician. It is essentially international.
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No. 21. NEWSPAPER PRESS & OFFICES [Note: The structure is also known as the Pioneer Press Office and Works in Lucknow.]
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CAPTION
Mr. Young, editor of the Pioneer Press in Lucknow, India, when the building was completed wrote that due to the design and the method of construction they didn't even have to use the fans, so universal over there, to keep cool in the hot season.
Clerestory windows ran the full length of the Press Room between the two tower buildings. One of these towers was the Management Tower, the other the Office building. The top floor of the 2nd terminal building is Mr. Young's flat which supplements his home.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 436 ====]
Initial . Newspaper Press & Offices
See the illustration at the beginning of this chapter.COMMUNICATION RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION & HIGHWAYS
EXTERIOR
AIR WATER - RIVERS & LAKE LAND THROUGH ROUTES HIGHWAYS - 1/2 or 3/4 mile apart
LAND PLANNING should be continental and must not be determined by the squares of the surveyor but by natural conditions.
Its functions are:-
1st - To protect and preserve natural features, so that the Earth may not die.
2nd - To facilitate safe and secure human intercourse.
3rd - To secure close and safe contact of all to nature and to provide domicile with humanizing contact and interplay between human beings, and between human beings and nature. Only so can we get rid of delinquency and crime and disease.
At present each block is a war zone. Children prevented, for safety, from crossing the streets are considered enemies if they do cross and the battle is on. We must make communication adequate and safe. All, even children, must have close access to the requirements of daily life yet that access must be safe as well as the access to education and sport.
Since Chicago is an existing city we have, on the whole, accepted its diagonals. Except for their own intersections, the acute angles, so wasteful of space and so objectionable in construction, have been eliminated. In minor streets coming into the radials, when a geometric plan takes the place of the gridiron, these can easily be eliminated. Each quarter section has half its streets lined with the cardinal points of the compass and half with the intermediate compass points so the perpendiculars can easily be effected.
The illustration listed as being on page 437 in the table of contents: CLOCK TOWER . ENGINEERING BUILDING . ART GALLERY . MERCHANDISE is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy. This illustration may be associated with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 438 ====]
AIR -
To Chicago's Air Port west of the city we have added one east of the administrative Center in the Lake, completing the central communication center - the air, the river, and all Chicago's Railroads (some of their present terminal stations becoming local stations). This makes this truly Chicago's Entrance Gateway.
At intervals of two or three miles, in proximity to local Community Centers, Air Ports are located usually at junction points of Through Routes or Rail Yards. Where the covered over space below is not used for the Rail Roads themselves, it may well be used for public garages for either private or public vehicles - buses, etc. These are usually placed fairly close to the Community Centers whose buildings will not run to the heights of the Lake Shore Retail, Office and Flat districts along the Lake Front, but where intersecting Through Routes bring people from considerable surrounding areas.
WATER -
The Water ways are pretty well completed in Metropolitan Chicago, with supplementary canals, etc. We have accepted them on the whole and also the Industrial Districts on their shores and canals.
Beyond the Metropolitan limits, where it is not too late, we would require the river and its natural banks to be preserved for the use and delight of the citizens, sometimes formalizing it as in Griffith (New South Wales, Australia). By safeguarding the run-off of the water, deviations could be made and canals used for industry. These levels could be maintained in the canals more easily than in the streams themselves. This is a wet climate district and enormous quantities of water are wasted, often menacing human communities. The T.V.A. Tennessee Valley Authority should be repeated all over the nation. MVAs, AVAs, etc. references to a hypothetical Missouri/Mississippi Valley Authority or Arkansas Valley Authority?
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CALUMET [Note: This illustration is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy. The blank page for the illustration with the words "Calumet Municipality" has been scanned from the New-York Historical Society copy. This illustration may be associated with the Better Chicago Contest sponsored by the "Chicago Herald American" in 1945.]
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CALUMET HARBOR
Instead of destroying its value for the citizenry as a whole by industrializing Lake Calumet we have used it, by the same method of holding back the run off of its water for a charming residential community - a New Venice. There is ample space to the west of Chicago for industrial development, advantageous to Chicago if properly planned. Chicago could properly and profitably extend as far west of its ENTRANCE GATE as it has to the North and South.
LAND
Chicago has an unusually complete system of Railroads, appropriate to its central location on the continent, and of diagonal avenues. We have made no distinction between these except in the matter of the time of construction. The building lines on them all should be 200 feet apart that they may be ready for the introduction of depressed central rail lines in the future when required. In the mean time, on the whole, only the 8 rail Through Express routes call for the use of all that width for vehicular traffic. All these thoroughfares should be treed and gardened ways. The evaporation serves as a very noticeable cooler on hot days.
On the whole the radial routes, varying in the weight of their service, have been retained. In only a few places have they been removed. Sometimes there has been a slight deviation here and there to bring together unnecessarily close lines thus simplifying the problem of satisfactory occupation. A surprisingly large area of Chicago is unoccupied. Land value taxation would put an end to that. We assume that all the latest improvements will be made use of.
Instead of the present type of steam, or even perhaps of Diesel engines there will be single rail lines with trains suspended while in motion between the wire above and the rail below for we have recently awakened to the advantage of Tom Johnson's invention
Tom L. Johnson (1854-1911) was a Progressive politician (mayor of Cleveland), businessman (investor in street railways), and inventor (a pay-box for trolleys).[Note: ==== Beginning of page 441 (table of contents) ====]
POSTAL TOWER [Note: This illustration may be associated with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
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perfected a quarter of a century ago. In competition with air service the surface, or rather depressed service of Railroads will have to be modernized. At crossings one express should go deeper - under the other.
A city is immortal. All these changes need not therefore entail heavy expenditures but can come with the timely and natural restoration of the properties involved. The external roads of the quarter and half sections will be fast traffic but local rather than express so generally the present widths are sufficient. Passenger traffic here should be buses which can pick up the passengers at the curb minimizing danger. There may be exceptions to this where new 200' thoroughfares will be used. The freight trucks should be so constructed that they can be switched onto Rail lines thus minimizing the crowding of streets. The problem of the safety of surface traffic at intersections of thoroughfares has been worked out in Chicago and is being established by either center circulating parks or over and under ways.
INTERIOR - Segregation of Occupation and Communication divides communication into exterior and interior. The Neighborhood streets, the opposite of thoroughfares, should be narrow and devious though this does not mean indirect. No stub ends and no curly streets. Their use will be purely for domestic service - some 18' and others 25' wide.
This narrowing of pavements - for the building lines can be set at a width of 50 or more feet - and the elimination of all alleys, except the one back of the shops on the Section lines, on the circumference of the Neighborhoods, will mean that this system of occupation will entail no extra cost but be a saving to the community.
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The Elevated roads should gradually be eliminated. Subways are called for only in the main Retail and Office centers North, and later South, of the Cultural and Administrative Center and in Community Centers.
Irregular spaces along the through routes will supplement the Industrial and Manufacturing spaces or be used for flats.
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No. 22. ADMINISTRATION CENTER . DIAGRAM [Note: This illustration may be related to the Better Chicago Contest sponsored by the "Chicago Herald American" in 1945.]
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OCCUPATION ENTRANCE GATE TO CHICAGO ADMINISTRATIVE & CULTURAL CENTER
In accordance with the general principle or locating Community Centers, this center of Metropolitan Chicago is placed where all 8 of the Through Routes come together. Its location has been indicated diagrammatically. It lies between Halstead Halsted Street? and the Lake and between Roosevelt Road and 26th Street. Into these 8 routes pour all the railroad main and branch and belt lines. One can reach it directly from anywhere. Within this district all the Railroads and Stations will be below grade and completely floored over. (In Sydney the Railroads of the whole metropolis are underground, very elegant and offering enough safe and comfortable space to house close to the whole population of the city in time of war.)
This is not a terminal station. All lines are through routes. It is about the center between the North and South limits of Chicago. The South Side, since through it pours a stream from the intensely occupied Eastern States, bids fair soon to become as important as the North Side. It requires only proper handling within and beyond the City limits to become so. We therefore suggest the expectation of a Retail Trade and Office development district to the South comparable to that to the North especially as this South East region continues to have the Lake Shore. The State line boundary line i.e., between Illinois and Indiana means nothing.
Three Routes come in from the South. The other Through Routes come in from the West and North. Trade and Office building may naturally extend Northward in this district beyond the River. Beyond the area to the North of the mouth of the River along the Lake Shore is, and may well continue to be, the tall flat building district with a more or less transient occupancy. A similar
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OFFICE BUILDING [Note: The caption to the illustration in the New-York Historical Society copy adds to this title, "Double This to Full Block W.B.G. [/] An interesting variation of the stepped pyramid". J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) p. 399 identifies this structure as the Prince of Nepal Residence.]
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development can ultimately be expected on the shore district to the South. The significance of State lines will gradually disappear as the State has no real function. It is merely a left-over from pre-revolutionary times.
In the United States, as in the world, all purely artificial boundaries should be broken down. The three natural divisions are the world, the Continent and the City. A difference between races really no longer exists. As people go to the Tropics they become dark, in the Temperate zones they become fair and today the individual recognizes no boundary lines. Indeed America's especial task in the coming decades is to migrate to all parts of the world carrying along the concept of democracy whose foundation stone is Equity. A democracy is a community organization whose function, and only function, is to maintain EQUITY. A separate organization of the same people is necessary to maintain FRATERNITY (mutuality), that is an economic organization, and still another to maintain LIBERTY a social organization financed by land taxation to supply education through man's life.
The meeting point of Land, Water and Air transport, if properly handled, should establish a spectacular Architectural Center - a true Urban Cultural Center. A deviation of the river could take freight traffic west of this center. This natural Center offers the opportunity for a beautiful expression of the genius of the City as the representative of the present civilization. The construction of this center should not be too hurried. The Field Museum and the Planetarium are already there. The drawings of buildings presented in THE MAGIC OF AMERICA but suggest the variety and range that could make this center of Metropolitan and State and Federal government's executive, administrative and judicial functions a superbly beautiful Center with a background of tall buildings.
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OPERA HOUSE [Note: J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) p. 126 identifies this structure as a section through the Newman College refectory.]
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Here, creating a new course for the Chicago River, we have a lock system to form a series of formal reflecting pools of controlled waters for garden and architectural effects. Every location and approach would have to be studied individually along with its surroundings. We do not suggest following any ancient civilization's forms but the using of America's creative genius whose fire was lighted by the founder of modern Architecture - Louis Sullivan. Broad ways with Terminal accents, Theatres, Opera House, Libraries, Museums, Galleries, Institutions, should gradually be established in this district - Civic Buildings, Convention Halls, etc. There is plenty of time for these works to be carried out, fifty years means nothing to a city so long as it grows right. The gardens might well be Botanical Gardens with trees and so forth properly labeled. Elsewhere, Australia for instance, the great cities have magnificent Botanical Gardens in the very heart of the business centers. Everybody uses them.
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No. 23. OFFICE BUILDING . ERIC M. NICHOLLS . ARCHITECT
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OCCUPATION RETAIL TRADE AND OFFICE BUILDING INTENSE OCCUPATION
Chicago as a whole is a community which contains within it other communities. We discuss this as a present and future problem. The present retail and office building district lies to the North of the proposed Entrance Gate extending west from the Lake and tending to go beyond the River. The original difficulties of the site have been overcome and its location at the confluence of the river with the lake is properly the determining factor of its location.
This Central City, free from radial lines is a natural Retail and Office Building Center. Provision is made for the extension of this central down-town area by extending it Westward to Halstead Halsted Street. Its business is improved by the intense flat district to the North and the Entrance Gate on its Southern Boundary and the bringing of all Through Routes to this Center which is not a terminal station. Much use will be made of the underground of all this district. The present terminal stations will remain but as local stops.
We suggest nothing revolutionary for Chicago's business center. As time goes on, multiple buildings will be replaced by single buildings occupying a whole block, with interior courts, etc., and they will tend not to become higher but to become monumental and beautiful. Open squares will be left so that the surrounding buildings may be seen to advantage. Such spaces cost nothing when held by the community. Through this district the river flows and the property adjacent to it will be held by the community and gradually the river will be parked developed into parks? on either side to become spectacularly beautiful, and offering
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space enough to see the buildings to advantage.
The River within this central city should be entirely freed from anything that would hamper its stateliness and beauty. It would be well to set immediately the building line boundaries on either side of the river to ensure a park along both its sides from 25th Street to its mouth. Rentals cost the city nothing as they belong to the community as a whole. Where there are monumental buildings these could be allowed to remain.
To the South we forecast a similar Retail and Office Building area developing gradually from the Entrance Gate. Such a district might develop in the two sections (about a mile southward by two miles from East to West) to the South though they have been drawn as ordinary residential districts.
Three of the Express Through Routes (No.1, No.2, and No.3) carry from the South and the Southwest districts through this district into the Administrative Center and the Retail Trade and Office District to the North. The South Side, if properly handled would have a population as profitable to Chicago as the North districts beyond the City limits are. We begin that by making Lake Calumet a New Venice.
The intensely occupied flat district along the Lake to the North can be left as it is on the whole. It will be occupied by transients or elderly people. Families with children or young folk will move into the neighboring districts where life can be full of interest. Apartments will also appear in the spaces adjacent to thoroughfares.
Bit by bit we are breaking away from imitative architecture and designing with a free hand which can be beautiful and interesting and worthy of a bit of speciousness for a soul developing influence. The industrial buildings themselves can become
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INCINERATOR
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impressive and even majestic features as the grouped silos are in some cases now. Cleanliness can become universal. With so many radiating Through Routes the citizenry can easily reach any of the outlying districts. The River should be used and broadened for grandiose building frontage. The N.W.R.R. Chicago & North Western Railway? and the Opera buildings have set an example. But promenades along both sides of the river should be provided with gardening effects.
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No. 24. RESTAURANT [Note: The structure is the Lanterns Restaurant (or perhaps the Stadium Restaurant) at the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
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OCCUPATION INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURE
Industry from early days took possession of Chicago. It made and it will destroy it if allowed to be the controlling factor. Chicago should be a London only modern. London is made up of many separate municipalities. If Chicago's extension into the lake East of the mouth of the Calumet River (which perhaps Nature's piling up of the sands might make possible) is not feasible at least pains should be taken there to form an enclosed harbor whose outer shore should be park and pleasure ground for the citizens, restoring to them what industry has destroyed.
Chicago is a natural Industrial and Commercial Center. Whether it is living or dying depends upon its citizenry first and the transients secondarily. The beautiful lake district South and Southeast will attract as high class a citizenry as have the beauties of the North Shore and should not be despoiled. There is plenty of room to the west for expending industry but its expression calls for pre-planning. We take for granted that Chicago will presently do as other places have done and prevent industry from polluting either the air or the water. All its by-products can be made use of even the heat which can be used as in Oak Park Illinois for community hot water systems.
A FAIRLY GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRIES IS DESIRABLE as it affords employment to a considerable proportion of the population who should therefore live as close as possible, and whose standards can and should be as high as anyone's and whose home environment and opportunities for the children should be on a level with any other citizen's. This has been the natural cause of Chicago's growth so we find industry scattered throughout the Metropolis, and on the whole we have left that as it is as we have also that of the radial transport system.
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INDUSTRIAL BUILDING [Note: This illustration is associated with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
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There is endless opportunity for extension of industry to the West. It is no more important to Chicago that it should be within the municipal limits than that the North Shore residential districts should be. What is necessary is that it should be pre-planned, each and every square mile. Each district may be a particular problem. The successful planning of each district will contribute to Chicago's development as a continental center.
The great work of the young people of the 1st decades of the 20th century gave Chicago a magnificent outer park system of reserves. But this has met but the one necessity of preserving nature within the community boundaries. It was done with no town-planning system except the rescue of as many lovely spots as possible. Its work extended over the State and even beyond. In a way it was outside the realm of Town Planning as we have defined it - i.e., the problem of occupation and communication. Its motive was simply "to the rescue" of Mother Nature. That must be followed by district planning.
The waterways can be kept pure, as can the air, by Imhoff tank a kind of septic tank systems, incinerators, etc., which can be used on any scale from the single house to communities as a whole in which case the buildings housing such functions can be monumental structures, an honor to any neighborhood and no menace. (See illustrations of incinerators.)
The manufacturing districts would naturally, and may properly, follow the through routes. This again gives easy access of their employees to them and to the domestic Centers. The irregular spaces caused by not having preplanned the Through Routes could well be used for such purposes and for tall flats. Manufacturing could also use some of the minor distributive thoroughfares depending on its nature.
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No. 25. CLUB HOUSE . NILES . MICHIGAN
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Initial . Niles Club House
OCCUPATION COMMUNITY CENTERS
In accordance with the suggestion of one of the world's great engineers, Mr. James Alexander Smith, who suggested for Melbourne Australia (where all Railroads come into one station, the only one, with the great railroads adjacent) the erection of buildings over them in the heart of the City District, we are suggesting such treatment at the various intersections of Chicago's complicated Railroad System.
The Central District is supplemented by the Community Centers the underground space of which along with that of the Community Air Ports can provide areas for railroad yards, community garages, etc., as well as temporary parking space for shoppers, etc. - those things which do not need sunshine and where artificial light and ventilation, etc., suffice. These Community Centers are located from one to three miles apart throughout the Metropolis.
All the Major and minor thoroughfares from the quarter-section circumferences to the Express Rail Routes (smokeless) will be business and flat districts which with an organic plan, will inevitably locate such elements, the business naturally starting from through route intersections major and minor.
The through routes have been the only thing that has defied rectangles but they have neglected the occupation requirements. So between the two (surveys and transportation) our communities - well, as the old man said, "Confuse is Hell and my wife is all confuse" - our communities are ..... all confuse. See the Perkins family story at IV.4.98.
We stand at the threshold of a modern civilization. Let intelligence come into our tackling of the problem of the human being on the earth. The ancient peoples solved their problems and their beautiful records still remain to a certain extent. The problem
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MUNICIPAL HALL . BALCONY [Note: The structure is the refectory rotunda of Newman College.]
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CAPTION
This great central domed hall in Melbourne is a unique type of construction. I believe there is one such in India. Strictly speaking it is not a dome. The structure is a series of great circular intersecting arches which eliminate the dome type of strains. At their lower contact point Griffin placed the highly ornamental torches, making all the lighting indirect. So effective was it that the oculist member of the board of directors could no longer complain when he found that he could read the tiniest print on his eye testing chart.
The coloring of the walls and arches of this hall is wonderful. The rough surface of the intersections add richness, and the varied pattern of the intersecting arches which could be colored in different shades of gold and orange and green.
The design of the whole is a unique thing in the world and though by no means Gothic holds its own with the beautiful structures of Europe.
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Continued from page 459bnow is that of an industrial people (no longer inspired but dependent on their rational faculty) who must tackle their problem or the answer will be delinquency, crime, disease, degeneration. We must recognize the consequences and responsibilities which arise from the division of labor.
In Chicago which really has a superb system of radial, branch and belt Railroads, we have accepted on the whole the through routes. The intersection points determine the proper location for Community Centers. On the whole we have chosen those at two or three mile intervals where a Center one mile long will include two or more different through route intersection points. Within this area not only will the tracks go underground but the stations as well. The fact of locating these natural places for concentrated service will develop a rivalry that will tend to make them all beautiful. The Community's collecting of rental values will prevent the holding back of development. The neglect of this in early days was the cause of the perversion of Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's plan of Washington which sent the development of business where it was not intended.
These Centers can combine, with business, other functions of general community interest as Civic Buildings, Libraries, Memorials, Aquaria, Museums, etc. The form used is but to indicate the location. Individual initiative as well as local use of Town Planning advice will lead to interesting variety in the solutions of these problems, as it would in suburban and outlying communities, as the importance of preplanning becomes understood. Main thoroughfares radiate from these Community Centers.
CALUMET - A NEW VENICE
Just as the Skokie wetlands? was a special problem whose opportunities were ignored and so lost to the coming generations, so now is Lake Calumet threatened. We are only now just beginning to realize the
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[Note: Supplied title: Dwelling . Knitlock . Walter Burley Griffin . (Minimum Cost) This illustration is not listed in the table of contents. The structure is the Mower House (Casa Bonita).]
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disastrous consequences of canals in draining swiftly the waters in nature's reservoirs to pour their seasonal waters into the streams below causing loss of life and much other damage. Such natural features should be dealt with by humans, but not to desecrate as is being suggested for Calumet, but to use in beauty, for Nature rejoices in being in partnership with man, but if desecrated She destroys him, if not by violence then by disease. Work with Nature and She grants genius.
In Calumet there is ample water. It should be conserved. Space can also be conserved by using flat roofs entirely. They can be used for gardens only, which keep the buildings cool in summer, or for garage or other services. The development has been suggested diagrammatically though quite possibly it may be the best way since wriggly roads on flat land are intolerable. On the main radials, business etc. will develop as on the Quarter Section lines. Within them will be purely domestic roads and canals. In the Center the schools.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy. The illustration listed as being on page 463 in the table of contents: THEATER . WHOLE WALL STEPPED COVES FOR COLORED LAMPS is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 464 (table of contents) ====]
No. 26. DWELLING . SOUTHERN STATE . G.B. COOLEY . LOUISIANA [Note: The house is located in Monroe, Louisiana.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 465 ====]
OCCUPATION DOMESTIC OCCUPATION
Town Planning and Architecture are inseparable even down to the case of the private house on a single lot. Whether it should be low lying and set back or lifted up with ground floor instead of basement depends on its adjoining neighbors.
Architecture is one half of the problem but in Chicago only the problem of communication has been tackled and only half of that - the major communication lines. No consideration has been given to what should be done for interior distributive lines. The consequence is that except for the retail trade and office districts and the occasional large parks, Chicago is completely slums.
Our problem is to get the correct answer which can be attained only by combining mathematics and art. In nature we have an illustration in the triangle or hexagon - the snowflake with its myriad enchanting forms. What the adult is depends on what the child has been. Only in proper wholesome surroundings can one grow up complete, healthy, happy - fully developed in body, soul and spirit. All other issues are secondary. Only if the problem of occupancy is solved can the coming generation grow up healthy, wealthy and wise.
Since Chicago is an established city we approach the problem so. We find that all the streets are thoroughfares. No consideration has been given to occupation except in the location of various isolated parks. These are right and fine but do not in the least meet the needs of small children and their parents for daily and hourly use for the thousand and one purposes that the prisons of house and school cannot offer.
In communication we must consider topography. Its basic requirement is directness but this must be considered with topography which it must not defy. In occupation in the residential
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 466 ====]
districts the basic factors are accessibility, safety and seclusion. So no solution can be universal. Each particular part must be given individual attention; to both these problems the preservation of nature is basic.
It is of first importance that we should eliminate delinquency. The children should be safe and have wide contact with others while growing up to be complete and satisfied human beings. In Chicago no attention has been given to this half of the community problem. The issue is not centralizing or decentralizing. Even intensely occupied areas may be safe but all the other requirements should be met too. Even if our domestic units should be crowded (which we should not permit) they still would be safe for the domestic functions of children and parents.
The type pattern set for Quarter and Half Sections sometimes conform to present quarter-section lines and sometimes are set diagonal to them. In each case this could be determined by investigation of the particular district. In all cases the present Quarter Section lines could be retained if it was found to be important to do so. In no case need the changes within the Quarter Section lines be revolutionary. We can do as they have done in Metropolitan Sydney to get rid of the hopeless confusion of traffic on its narrow streets. There a new building line has been set. When a new building is erected it must conform to the new line. This entails no extra expense and really gives added style to the new buildings, attracting attention and custom. Or we could do as was done several times in Los Angeles - move buildings on to new lots.
The ultimate building lines could be set and when present owners decided to rebuild they could be allocated a new lot on the plan as determined. In many cases about half of the streets would remain where they are at present, just their width and treatment would be
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 467a (typescript) / 467 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . SOUTHERN CLIMATE . MR. PRATTEN [Note: The structure is the David Pratten House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 467b ====]
CAPTION
The dining-room and lounge of Mr. Pratten's home form the two arms of a cross, and there is not dividing wall; all these rooms are spacious and have windows on two or three sides. The foot of the cross is the garage which is so constructed as to be an integral portion of the building.
A circular stairway gives access to the 2nd story which is devoted entirely to sleeping accommodations. A feature of the stairway is a stained glass window. The garage piers serve as huge lanterns serving to illuminate the garden and paths. Flower boxes put an artistic touch to these unique features.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 468 ====]
Continued from page 467changed. The amount of street frontage remains practically as it is except in some of the Half Sections where the treatment is shown to be on an ampler scale. Consideration of each district would determine whether the quarter or half section would be used. If, as is sometimes suggested, the interior streets within the Quarter Section are placed closer together and the back yard space eliminated and perhaps one common park substituted, this does not meet the requirements for plan and congregation space. A quarter section with practically no parks, or one or two parks and with round about access to commercial streets is but going from bad to worse and would make hopeless slums.
In this general study the present location of important buildings has been given no consideration. This can be taken care of just as the present parks have been cared for within the special Quarter Section in which they occur. In bringing order out of the present confusion each detail would be given careful consideration. No scheme should be used "given" typed over that gives less park than shown in the special case considered under the title of - A Neighborhood Community - Newton Center. We have considered Cemeteries as valuable open spaces which ultimately will become accessible gardens, each with a memorial building with tablets of those buried there. With ample access to nature and ample provision for sports the necessity for tubercular institutes, etc., would disappear.
Intermediate spaces between Quarter Sections and Through Routes could be used for such group requirements as Universities. We count on a continual great increase in the number of people going through the Universities. The scientific nature of our civilization calls for this and provision should be made for the use of these institutions throughout a man's life. Science and Culture should go hand in hand and could do so in a properly planned community in which the distinction between the so-called working-man
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INCINERATOR & PARK MUSIC PAVILION [Note: The structure is the Unley Incinerator in Wayville West, South Australia.]
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and the "privileged" would be wiped out.
The Purpose of Town Planning is to get rid of dirt and noise. To do so restores Health and Sanity which calls for close contact with Nature.
It makes it possible for parents to know their children and children their parents. This restores to the HOME a community of interests in work and play. The school life itself should be close to and under the eye of the parents. The seclusion and safety of the interior of the Quarter Sections make these things possible. Isolation of children in their homes destroys the broadening of their souls and genius. The crowding of them together in the drill chambers of huge schoolrooms destroys their originality. There must be interplay and interwork. The safety of the inner Quarter Section accomplishes this.
Identification of location for mail and access in general can be made simple by the abstraction of dividing the whole area of Chicago into Quarter Sections and numbering them. The quarter of the Quarter Section could be indicated by the cardinal points of the compass N; S; E; W; or NE; SE; NW; SW. To this would be added the house number on the particular type of street - Circle Way; Octagon Way; etc. Thus an address would be:-
No1 - N - Octagon Way 27. Chicago, Illinois
Whether the Quarter Sections should be normal or diagonal to the Cardinal points of the compass would be determined by the local existing factors.
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No. 27. DWELLING . F.B. CARTER . EVANSTON . ILLINOIS
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NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY PROBLEM PREVENTIVE OF DELINQUENCY & CRIME
Any scheme of development that is to serve during a considerable period of time must first be "elastic" to accommodate as many contingencies as can be predicted. But a development that is to suit the simplest requirements of modern community life can be neither amorphous nor arbitrary nor with autocratic restrictions. Its elastic adaptability will not be secure unless founded on a simple articulation of functions with careful attention to distinctions that are fundamental and specific, and to correlation that may be considered of vital organic necessity - generic.
To arrive at these relationships it is necessary not only to study present civic conditions - failures as well as successes - but to trace their historical development from our earliest knowledge to ascertain tendencies that may be expected to affect the future. Thus only can we hope to deal broadly in generalization without running into mere speculation unrelated to reality.
The method of this project follows an assumed primary distinction between the needs of suitable site conditions for individual or specialized Occupancy on the one hand and those of social and general Communication on the other. Co-operative industrial site requirements are reciprocal with the most general accommodation and family social and private requirements.
With the level land and other conditions so generally typical of not only a large part of Chicago but of a majority of our growing towns of the Central West we may emphasize quite literally and diagrammatically the general structural significance of the scheme and, in practice, eliminate many non-essential though important variations that would have to be considered in the event of execution for any particular site.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 473 (table of contents) ====]
BOUNDARY SHOPS WITH OR WITHOUT DWELLINGS ABOVE [Note: This illustration is associated with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
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The general tendency of most of Chicago implies, for the Quarter Section, adaptation to predominantly residential function. There is, however, an important modification of the normal considered here as an alternative. This involves a development in connection with a manufacturing concern to provide home and social advantages primarily for the employees of the contiguous works. The most typical additional assumption for that condition would be railway facilities on one side of the Quarter Section in place of the future streetcar lines otherwise predicted.
On the basis of an ultimate population of the Quarter Section, that frontage - 1280 x 4 or 5120 feet - will doubtless prove excessive as compared with business frontage in average towns of that population and, accordingly, only about 5/8 of that frontage conferring transfer points and principal centerway entrance corners for stores and shops; and less accessible frontage for supply yards, garages, storehouses, etc.
Since the traffic point will be the most useful business site it is suggested that the most general local industries can be accommodated there, beginning with the existing transfer corner as the first arcade courts structure. Built full to the street inter-section line such a building will sacrifice none of the most available shop frontage.
We must realize that a high organism only will lead to great and real freedom for artistic expression. For analogy, the whole city may be compared to a tree with its unified circulating system of industry represented by the stem, roots and branches, the rootlets and the leaves, all continuous and constantly interoperating to augment, repair and maintain the system's integrity. In the great industrial city we have all that now, more or less efficient, in this way and just as certain to end disastrously if limited to these purposes as in the case of a tree without its Floral expression of
The illustration listed as being on page 475 in the table of contents: ART GALLERY . INDIRECT DAY AND NIGHT LIGHTING is lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy and is not listed in that copy's table of contents. See the illustration, "Art Gallery . Completely Indirect Lighting. Day & Night" at III.4.62a.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 476 ====]
the Domestic functions to generate, vitalize and perpetuate, the organism with each flower as distinctive, independent and complete, even geometric if you please, as is the characteristic of highly developed special organisms. For the flower and the family too, doubtless, the most efficient unit is the considerable organized group for purely domestic purposes represented by the all-conquering, youngest and most vital order of the floral kingdom - the compositae the Asteraceae (aster) family?. The civic organism may best survive with grouped domestic organisms such as are possible to a segregated purely domestic community development.
The established general skeleton not only in Chicago but predominant in America is the gridiron of main thoroughfares at half mile intervals in each direction affording, for typical units of subdivision, quarter-section plats of 160 acres. With the level land and with other conditions so characteristic not only characteristic of a large part of Chicago but of a majority of newer growing towns we can, in a typical scheme, deal very generally with the structural elements of the problem and eliminate non-essential though important variations that would have to be considered in the event of execution for a particular site. Any scheme of development that is to be extended over a considerable time must first, because of the complexities of democratic life, be flexible to accommodate more contingencies than can be predicted but by no means need it be amorphous as in the usual "gridiron" nor arbitrary in restrictions as in the German "Zone" systems. Above all we have to avoid running into speculation outside of reality. Co-operative industrial site requirements are reciprocal with general circulative accommodation and habitation, and domestic social private site requirements demand a reciprocally specialized and distributive communication accommodation.
The phase of the general subject that is termed Occupation considers the desirability of relative positions in the tract for the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 477 ====]
various functions and the proportionate areas and suitable plot shapes and aspects for those special uses. The quarter-section site will not be considered as a focal point in the city and our aim may well be to make available the most space possible for specialized occupation that the traffic necessities will permit; to have those spaces adapted by location, size and shape for the specific purposes public or private that are desired. It may be taken for granted that in general a rectangular or obtuse angled plot will be preferred and that the building plots shall be related to each other most simply, that is geometrically, because only thus can they be grouped architecturally to advantage especially with that degree of repetition dictated by economy as well as the aesthetic necessity for restfulness. Where the site is flat and the problem an economic one, expense and difficulties of irregular curves and of acute intersections may, and must of course, be avoided entirely.
The circumferential allotments on the boundary streets are for industrial functions. The lots for all these purposes are strictly rectangular, with rear alley shipping frontages as well as street store frontage free from alley crossings and of 100 feet depth. The typical frontage allotment is set at 30 feet as being capable of division into two 15 foot spans, the most economical in construction as well as constituting a reasonable minimum limit for the single store compartments. Two lots can, moreover, accommodate three spans of 20 feet, the maximum economical construction limit of span, and suitable for large unobstructed stores, with the advantageous double-column line disposition for important emporiums.
Apart from the circumferential Industrial allotments the area of this development is to be devoted to home life in the same sense that includes, in addition to private habitats, those features of education, play and social congregation, leisure occupation and rest that
There is no page 478 in either the Art Institute of Chicago or New-York Historical Society.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 479 ====]
carried on co-operatively. It seems advisable rather to counter-act than to stimulate the prevalent amorphous condition of social life in a great metropolis and rather to develop largely independent units within the limits of personal fellowship. Standing apart and well organized, these internal attractions will be able to exert to the utmost the popular healthy standards of the group as a whole against those of less normal individual types and thus at least minimize the forced or unsought evil influences that account so largely for saloons, for instance, among a multitude of baneful time-killing pursuits and the remote activities of mass groups of the young folk.
In the center is provided the Common with music pavilion set in reflecting basin with bordering aquatic gardens, tree-shaded open promenade and Public Garden setting off Refectory, Assembly Buildings, Library, Amphitheatre, Exhibits Building, Gymnasia, Natatoria and Special Training Schools and Kindergartens, colonnaded-connected and continuous with, and essential to, four eight-room public schools that will eventually have to be provided.
The center nucleus is a community center for every day and evening, physical and mental training of all classes and ages, for Sunday rest, for esthetic indulgence in the beauty of water, flowers and garden-grouped architecture, also for pageant and celebration, and a Forum for public discussions all real general needs only expensively and ineffectively provided for in our current heterogeneous lack of co-ordination, though not only vital to but possible for a community of six thousand souls.
With the advantages of combination of all the schools and their auxiliaries in one Community Center for economy of equipment, control and administration, is combined a maximum range of but two blocks, or a quarter of a mile, of separate continuous children's play grounds radially disposed to be subject to the same supervision.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 480 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . HENRY FORD [Note: The caption in the New-York Historical Society copy includes the phrase "M.M. & von Holst".]
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So the four school houses directly inside the "Circleway" terminate the shorter "Centerways" that bisect their four triangular districts. Schoolrooms are preferably to be so set with the cardinal points of the compass.
On the "Octagonway" that links the various parts of the community in the middle are street terminal sites and thirty two additional prominent corners suitable for important structures for local social groups such as Union Headquarters, Lodges reading from IV.16.363, Turner Societies, Social Clubs, Residential Inns, Billiard Halls, Bowling Alleys, Religious Associations, Churches. The former category may be accorded those points contiguous to the play fields for setting, for outlook, and for sport under systematic direction.
This position similar to that of the associations that most avail themselves of public recreation grounds is to be given these Dormitories, Fraternities, Boarding Houses or Inns and their attendant Cafes. The common standard of family independence and utmost privacy of garden accommodation is to be afforded to some, modest play courts to others, children's play-grounds equipped with apparatus or water for wading and bathing to others in addition to the larger sports fields.
These outdoor features are the substitute for the street area in the fully built up city and the precarious vacant lots of our slum districts and the far isolated palliative play grounds of our slum districts, with the great advantage over all of these of convenience to induce use; and of parental control to prevent abuse without the expense and artificiality of the paid overseer. Their multiplicity is intended to be enough in advance of any present standard to overcame much of the tendency to boisterous license that results from overcrowding, and to bring out the full use that cannot be attained in centers of greater separation than a block radius as
"Turner societies" - Growing out of the German Turnverein movement encouraging gymnastics and physical activity, the American Turners developed organizations which promoted social and cultural services (along with sports activities) for German immigrants.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 482 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . ROBERT MUELLER [Note: The structure is located in Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 483 ====]
indicated in the recent Seymore Bayard Survey at Newark.
That it is possible to provide these areas so liberally is chiefly due to the economies devised to avoid common useless quantity and also excess reading from N-YHS length and consequent surplus widths of public streets which are strictly for internal distribution purposes only. The spaces therefore constitute no addition to public charge.
For the accommodation of families and parts of families who appreciate the advantage of cooperative house maintenance; of companionship in the same building; of ease of living in the single story and especially the advantage of freedom to move on the one hand and, on the other, of the ease of controlling and repairing rented property half of which is occupied by the owner, and the eminent desirability of having one's savings in an investment secure under the eye of the owner and capable of being managed by, and largely to support in emergency, the widow or orphan, the two-family house has become one of the institutions of our developing Chicago residence districts of all classes. The corner lots generally 60' x 60' divided diagonally into two holdings to make salable all frontage and attain the maximum efficiency from the street system are adaptable for flat buildings because with them the back yard, of least utility or desirability for garden uses, cannot be private nor fully efficient in connection with apartments.
This arrangement of the corner plots overcomes the current universal difficulty in making use of any of the block-end frontages because of objectionable rear lot abutments. When this thus? located they contribute most architectural effectiveness in the groups as the strongest terminal elements for each combined block-front composition of small units. At the same time they are granted the best disposition for light and air as required by the houses of largest areas. At the corners, however, the larger buildings least affect the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 484 (table of contents) ====]
FURNITURE . RUGS . Marion Mahony & Herman von Holst . MURAL PAINTING . NIEDECKEN [Note: The interior is of the Irving House, Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois.]
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lighting and prospects from the smaller houses and are placed on the lots of most accessibility to transportation lines, being of more transient character than individual homes.
Hedges or irregular shrubbery constitute the best means of separating and beautifying for every variation between isolated yards and neighborhood lawns in one harmonious park-like ensemble for our rear outlook. Proper planning of even the smallest house can eliminate the need for back or alley entrances and accomplish the aims of specialized functions and convenience with the privacy that distinguishes our lives from those of any other time or nation.
A simple system of street nomenclature is important in direct proportion with the high development of the system's organization. Herein as related to the city as a whole the number of the quarter section of the community itself appears.
There is no excuse for overhead wires nor poles nor yet for mutilated pavements for when the sewers are excavated it is only necessary to omit refilling of the excavation and to pour concrete into the sides of the trench about a box form as it is moved along! to equip with stub ducts, and to provide manholes for the concrete pavement when laid overhead, to have, complete, an accessible warm passage conduit ample for all water, gas, and heating and other equipment pipes and wires as needed; all at an insignificant charge of not more than one dollar a front foot as against a dependence on Franchise buttressed public monopolies whose income must provide for duplication excavations, poles, as well as maintenance charges and pavement replacements altogether out of comparison with this single conduit cost. There should be no stub end streets.
It is not enough that the homes be reached directly only, even if at the same time free from through traffic, since they are supplied
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 386 (table of contents) ====]
MINIMUM COST DWELLING . STONE [Note: The structure is the Cox House, Castlecrag.]
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in numerous needs by distributing or collecting agencies for foods, mail, papers, garbage and ashes. Such needs are uneconomically met in stub streets, loops or the like, for the services are often competitive or, if not, are discontinuous as in mail delivery where retracing steps may aggregate in great loss of efficiency.
Study of the internal lines of this quarter section taken as a distribution system graduated in thoroughfare width (from 18-20 feet) as well as in equipment proportionately to the relative tributary areas, shows it to be continuous for such service without being attractive to any more general thoroughfare usage. The four shorter "Centerways" have, however, a special linking function as explained hereinafter.
Because of natural gravitation of business to the through line boundaries of the tract, it is important as well as feasible to arrange internal lines to discourage useless artificial intrusion of discordant commercial elements and to seclude the domestic community from industrial circulation. For that reason entering streets are allowed to pass through only with at least quarter diversion if short, or greater obstruction if exceeding an ordinary block. The congregation function of the internal communication system of these tracts are of special function for domestic social requirements only.
The garden fronted park "Play Courts," "Play Fields," and "Gymnasium Courts" of various sorts are supplemented by a system of approach paths as well as surrounding internal paths marking the first stage in the public social congregating reading from N-YHS system. The internal streets are supplemented with an informal winding scheme of paths with irregular shrub and tree plantations in the external angles not required for sport, making of the whole one continuous circulating pedestrian parkway tributary in use and reciprocating in vistas with the "Common" Center. Especially, as relieved from all large vehicle
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transit, it is the proper way for the children at leisure times.
Since such each triangular quadrant of the quarter-section may be taken to require ultimately an eight room school, the most advantageous location of their bisecting "Centerways" makes of them in connection with the "Gateways" the shortest possible diagonal out routes between home and school that are thus only about two blocks apart in the extreme instances.
The location of the domestic center band-stand, pool, park and assembly buildings provide for night as well as day use. This impressive grouping of community buildings must make it representative and establish for it no mean interest to the whole city. Thus as an element in that created social organism it is properly recognized as a foundation for community pride. The intimately interwoven relationships of the Central communal functions can well be joined together only in a protected or enclosed passageway for the students and visitors, the entire promenade having for its outlook the public gardens setting off the pool with its central feature of an open pagoda designed as a music pavilion occupying the geometric center of the tract, as well as with underground conduit-way for their cooperative hydraulic, mechanical and electric systems herein accomplished with utmost economy through disposition in a slightly interrupted circle.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 489 (table of contents) ====]
No. 28. HILLTOP HOTEL
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 490 ====]
ENVIRONING HILLY DISTRICTS AND OUTLYING COMMUNITIES
The outlying features and conditions and the location of Through Routes should be the determining factors in the planning of all outlying districts. Community plans should be mathematical but not mechanical. As the years pass Chicago should continue to acquire possession of lovely open spaces to become parks as it extends its boundaries, and interests, which are one with the State, just as the Hikers did a quarter of a century ago. The citizens should vie with each other in discovering such areas.
Between them where thoroughfares have not already been established as they have in Chicago, are the residential districts (see Griffith plan) whose streets would leave the thoroughfares at right angles and meet between them in obtuse angles as desirable for buildings as the right angle, often more desirable, especially for civic structures. The streets within come into these secondary streets at right angles forming, for the most part, squares or parallelograms, never acute angles.
COMMUNITY CENTERS
There has been much misunderstanding of the basis of Community Centers and consequently much loss to business enterprise and many failures. Only timely Town Planning can prevent this and this Community Planning should include at least the whole state. Surveys should in no case determine the lines of communications but only give the facts necessary for their determination, levels as well as distances, for to place rectangular roads on sloping ground is as fatal as to place curving roads on flat land.
"Hikers" may refer to an informal group (including WBG and Dwight Perkins) who, according to MMG, hiked the Chicago area as well as Illinois and pressed government agencies to set aside parks and reserves. See Section IV, No. 12., page 293.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 491 (table of contents) ====]
HILLTOP DWELLING . MR. FELSTEAD [Note: The Felstead House is at Castlecrag.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 492a (typescript) / 492 (table of contents) ====]
HILLSIDE DWELLING . MR. BLYTHE [Note: The Blythe House is located in Rock Crest-Rock Glen, Mason City, Iowa.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 492b ====]
CAPTION
Their conformation in ledges is the ideal for successive tiers of stately homes, and the sandstone substructure of these ledges affords the most elegant of all building materials. It also constitutes a district free of wind and dust, also perfectly drained beneath as to water, and above as to cooling currents of air, so that the temperature and humidity are the most equable, even precluding frost - all the conditions for the best health.
Some years ago the genius of Walter Burley Griffin, architect and town planner, saw the amazing possibilities of the three virgin promontories on the western side of Middle Harbor with their glorious four miles of water frontage. His enthusiasm inspired a group of Australian capitalists among his professional clients, and the magnificent amphitheatres passed into the hands of Greater Sydney Development Association Limited.
This is literally a case where the last is best, for here is the only harbor frontage free from the threat of commerce and quite out of the field of industrial expansion now in evidence in every other direction. It is the only waterside development that can be, and will be, protected against flats.
This page is not in the Art Institute of Chicago copy and is transcribed from the New-York Historical Society copy.[Note: ==== Beginning of page 493 ====]
Continued from page 490With these principles controlling, endless variety can arise. When the land is not level the contours should become a controlling factor (see Leeton Australia) but the geometric principles hold.
Buildings should be as straightforward solutions of their problems as the layouts of the districts. But this does not mean that they should be stupid and uninteresting repetitions. No natural beauty should be injured but each one taken advantage of. Environing established communities should be considered as centers for express ways and branches to aim toward in order to connect with the radial roads that start from the various towns. Each town will of course require special consideration for its growth. All high speed through traffic should be depressed, open as a whole but covered over where it concentrates.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 494 (table of contents) ====]
RAVINE DWELLING . CASTLECRAG [Note: This image also appears as "Angophora Lanceolata . Castlecrag" at III.6.85. On the verso of this illustration is inscribed: "Castlecrag [/] W.B.G. architect [/] M.M.G. delineator".]
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