Part 4 (2/2)
The View From the Hill
”The best way to see the Exposition, in my opinion,” said the architect, ”is to stand on the top of the Fillmore Street hill and look down Then you will find out what the architects were up to The finest point of observation would be at the corner of Divisadero Street and Broadway”
The next day, as we stood at that point, the Exposition stretched out beneath us like a city of the Orient
”When the architects first discussed the construction they kneas to be looked at from these hills So they had to have a sche lack of finish on top and that should be pictorial and impressive from above One of the problems was to make the roof architectural Noe look down, see how stunning the effect is - like a Persian rug”
”And the color helped there, too, didn't it?”
”Of course And notice how skilfully the architecture and the coloring harround, it had to be lifted up One as by using the domes The central portion of each of those palaces was lifted above the main surface of the roof to introduce a row of seht the interior like a church And the do to the towers The big tower provided scope for the splendid archway that served as an approach and set the standard for the other arches”
It was plain enough that the top of the Exposition had not received the praise it deserved ”Think how crude that scene would have been if it had presented a straggling raceful lines, if it were lacking in color it would seehtly most of the roofs of our houses are, and how unfinished There's no reason in the world why they should be The Greeks and the Roht idea They were very sensitive to lack of finish They felt the charel down there that keeps recurring at the points of the gables
What a pretty bit of ornaifts of the Gods cos on this house' I suppose the wreath in the hand used here wasof the work It explains why the figure is called ”Victory” By the way, it has an architectural value in giving lightness and grace to the roofs”
The builders, we could see, had cleverly adapted their plans to the conditions ”The effect ht have been flat and dreary It was a fine idea to lift the central portion of each of those main palaces above the surfaces of the roofs to introduce the semicircular s in the domes It helped to infuse the scene with a kind of tenderness and spirituality And see how the two groups on top of the triumphal arches, the Orientals and the Pioneers, contribute to the soaring effect and to the finish at the same time The Romans disliked bareness on the top of their arches They wanted life up there, the more animated the better So they put on some of their most dramatic scenes, like their chariot races”
The expert proceeded to point out the architectural balance of the buildings The severe andsweep of line, at one side ined and poetic Palace of Fine Arts on the other In front of the walled city, between the long stretch of garden, stood two harlorious roof of glass, and the Festival Hall, closely related in outline, and yet very different in detail And the garden itself, with its dark, pointed trees standing against the wall, and with its sireat arched entrance under the Tower of Jewels ”Those banners down there, shi+elding the lights, are a stroke of genius, both in their orange color and their shape And those orange-colored streaaiety The trees have been placed against the wall to keep it fro stretch And observe the grace in line of the niches between the trees Even from here you can feel the warmth of the color in the paths The pink effect isthe sand Only a ht of that detail I wonder how many visitors down there know that the very sand they walk on has been colored”
Around the Tower pigeons were flying, so the reat arch, for a kind of pedestal, and the outlines above due to mathematical miscalculation or to the interference of the ornamentation? We finally decided that the proportions had probably been right in the first place But they had been changed by the Exposition authorities' cutting the Tower down one hundred feet, thereby saving 100,000 A matter of this kind could be reduced alh the ornamentation interfered with the upward sweep of line, the effect of flatness was made by those horizontal blocks which seemed to be piled up to the top
If the outline had been clean, it would have achieved the soaring effect so essential to an inspiring tower, creating the sense of reaching up to the sky, like an invocation
Thon He wanted to do so Expositional, exactly as Guerin did when he applied the coloring Now there were critics who said that the coloring was too pronounced It reht to reaiety, abandon The critic who said that the orange doht to have been followed throughout, didn't make sufficient allowance for public taste He wanted the Exposition to be an impressionistic picture in one key But one key was exactly what Guerin didn't want His purpose was to catch the excitement in variety of color as well as the war his color schenity At first he expected to use orange, blue, and gold, carefully avoiding white He did avoid white; but he expanded his color schereen But, in that tower, Hastings did so barbaric and crude
Here and there the bits of Austrian cut glass were sparkling on the tower like huge dia is wonderfully i impressive about a mass if it has any kind of uniformity, and here you can detect an intention on the part of the architect There are certain lights that have a way of dressing up the tower as a whole, giving it unity and hiding its ugliness And at all tiht have come out of an Aztecfor beauty in an ele up there in a barbaric fashi+on, their houses piled, one above another, like our uncivilized apart the Tower of Jewels in detail, we decided that it was not really so crude as it seeht be done even now by a process of elinificent ”In its present condition the tower unquestionably provides a strong accent It has already beco influence here But it's an influence that teaches people to feel and to think in the wrong way It encourages a liking for what I calla taste for the simplicity that always characterizes the best kind of beauty, the kind that develops naturally out of a central idea”
From the Tower of Jee turned our attention to those other towers, the four so char, their siraceful on account of the contrast with the other tower's over-ornamentation ”I wonder what the world would have done without the Giralda Tower in Seville? It has inspired many of the most beautiful towers in the world It helped to inspire McKim, Mead and White when they built the Madison Square Tower, and the Madison Square Tower ht be described as a relative of our own Ferry Tohich is decidedly one of the best pieces of architecture in San Francisco And it's plain enough that these four towers and the Ferry Tower are related The top of the four towers, by the way, has a history It coic Monument of Lysicrates, the little temple in Athens that was built by one of the successful chorus-leaders in the competitive choral dances of the Greeks, who happened to be a man of wealth Afterward, when a chorus-leader won a prize, which consisted of a tripod, it was shown to the people on that monument”
”So and the pattern on those towers”
”They can't justify theh this plaster looks like Travertine, it nevertheless remains plaster, and it lends itself to plastic decoration The Greeks and the Romans often used plaster, and they did not hesitate to paint it whenever they chose Kelham's four towers have been criticised on account of their plastic design, which has a good deal of pink in it But that design provides one of the strongest color notes in the whole Exposition, a delightful note, too
It happens that n son any the less attractive or serviceable”