Part 9 (2/2)

”Oh, there are plenty of things that ht take its place Flower themes are just as beautiful in decoration as the shapes of men and women I can conceive of the ti and commonplace to have human bodies used as a lorification in it alone beco that the best we can do in life is to forget about ourselves and our old bodies There are even those who go so far as to look forward to the tiether It would be interesting, by the way, to get the point of view of a very spiritual Christian Scientist on the display here I suppose that it would see good in the tendency to reach finer and nobler conceptions of art according to our present understanding”

Then the architect proceeded to discuss the artistic superiority of the japanese Though they used the huure in their art, they did not play it up, after the habit of the Western world They did not make it seem to be of supreme importance They conventionalized and subordinated it to outline and color The use of the nude they never cultivated

Their attitude toward the body was characterized by discretion and modesty, qualities that they showed in their dress You would never see a japanese woht out the lines of her figure

”On the other hand,” the architect went on, ”there's no doubt we've become absurdly prudish in this country We're afflicted with shame of the body which, in itself, is unhealthy If art can help us to get back to aservice All the more reason then why it should keep within reasonable bounds”

XV

The Court of the Ages

As we turned froes the architect said: ”The workmen about here call this inner court 'Pink Alley,' not a bad nahout the Exposition Guerin shows that he is very fond of pink, probably on account of its war it so much on the imitation Travertine for the reason that there is no stone of exactly this color And yet there is pink marble But even if there weren't any pink stone in the world, Guerin would be justified in his use of the color for purely decorative purposes, just as he was justified in using it on his four towers”

Inside the Court of the Ages the architect drew a long breath

”In this court we architects feel puzzled We think we can read new architectural fors repeated down the ages But we can't read much here In that lovely round arch there are hints of Gothic, and yet it is not a Gothic arch

Throughout the treatment there are echoes of the Spanish, and yet the treatment is not Spanish The more one studies the conception and the workinality and daring

Mullgardt has succeeded in putting into architecture the spirit that inspired Langdon S 'When you were a tadpole and I was a fish' In the chaotic feeling that the court gives there is a subtle suggestiveness The whole evolution ofthe seaweed and the fish and the lobsters and the turtles and the crabs Even the straight vertical lines used in the design suggest the dripping of water When you study theof the conception you find an excuse for Aitken in flinging his hty fountain into the center of all this architectural iridescence He caught the philosophy of Mullgardt without catching the lightness and gaiety of the execution In that fountain he has brought out the pagan conception of the sun, and he has used the notion that the sun threw off the earth in aforth those co of the eleardt is delicate and fine How subtly Mullgardt has interwoven the feeling of spirituality with all the animal forces in man That tower alone is a masterpiece I know of no tower just like it in the world

Froht it is particularly impressive from the Marina”

The architect went on to explain soardt started to work out his plans he must have had in mind the transitional character of an exposition He knew that he could afford to try an experiht have been impracticable if the court had been intended for permanency He evidently was determined to cast tradition to the winds and to strike out for himself”

”I should think most architects would like to work in that way”

”The usual process is very different As soon as an architect decides to design a building he first chooses a certain type of architecture; then he saturates histhat line Out of the estions that he receives he is lucky if he evolves so more or less new Often hethat he is fond of or that has happened to catch his fancy The chances are that Mullgardt will go down into history for his daring here It isn't often that a ical conception and works it out in architecture with such picturesqueness It's never intrusive and yet it's there, plain enough for anyone to see who looks close It represented a et aith it”

Then the architect told me the human story behind all this beauty as andered back into the center of the court and stood there ”Notice the incline,” he said, ”froinally intended to have the floor of the court like a sunken garden

And reinal idea The Court of Abundance, that it is wrongly called, would have applied much better to the Court of Four Seasons Well, after the notion caest in the court the development of man fro, less physical than spiritual, he planned to build a court that should be the center of the pageants for the Exposition, where art should have its living representation in the form of processions and of plays, soarden there should be plenty of rooe There should also be room for the sculptured caldron that was to be an architectural feature and that later developed into Aitken's massive evolutionary fountain For the base of the tower there was designed a gorgeous semi-circular staircase, which was to serve as an entrance for the actors Around the court there was to run an ornaold, nificence The people were to watch the spectacles from the balcony and from between the arches In addition to the reat pipe organ, there were to be two others, in the corner at right angles, to be called echo towers The an was to be transmitted to the echo towers by wires and the echoes were to serve as a sort of accoht, would have been stunning”

”Mullgardt has kept the spirit of the pageant in his court,” I said

”Just as it is it would eant with music, opera, for example”

”Of course,” said the architect ”But the ht to co there Put brass never!”

”Well, what happened to the pageant scheardt showed the preliminary sketches it was ruled out as too expensive Then he removed the balcony and the staircase and, in place of the staircase, he introduced a cascade, keeping the rest of the court as it had been before His idea was to use the water in the cascade only in a suggestive way It was to be almost completely hidden by vines, after the manner of Shasta Falls, and to symbolize the mysterious appearance and disappearance of water that came from - one didn't knohere But that scheardt accepted the situation He was so interested that he worked out himself many of the details that most architects would have left to subordinates He really cared enough to make the whole effect as close to perfection as he could Everything he did he had a reason for doing Not one thing here did he use gratuitously He evidently doesn't agree with the idea that, in architecture, beauty is its own excuse for being; he wants to make it useful, too”

Then I was initiated into the details of the workmanshi+p ”Observe how the ideas in the structure of the walls of the court are carried on in the ornamental details and in the tower” The pri the upper edge had been finely conceived and executed by Albert Weinert And the nobility of outline in the toas sustained by the three pieces of sculpture in front ure soed to no particular religion It stood for the Spirit of Intelligence The ornamentation on the head was not an aureole, as bad been reported, but a wreath of laurel, sy ht, expressed in the torches, through those conflicts that so pitifully caion The lowest group showed humanity in its elemental condition, related to the animal, close to the beasts So, to be followed in sequence, the groups ought to be studied frohest, and then the eyes should be able to catch thethe tower, the petals of the lily, e the aspirations of the soul