Evening Star Newspaper, February 2, 1930, Page 15

GOES T0 DEFENSE OF L'ENFANT PLAN Head of Fine Arts Commis-i sion Backs Cleveland | "~ Architect in Objections. | Strenuous objection raised to the modification of the L'Enfant plan, voiced by Elbert Peets, a prominent architect of Cleveland, have met with response from Chairman Charles Moore | of the National Commission of Fine Arts. Mr. Peets points out that, al- though architects of today confess pub- licly they cannot improve on the plan the great Frenchman who laid out the plan for Washington in 1791. in the | privacy of their drafting rooms, there is nothing, he says, that gives them as much pleasure as “cutting a leg off M. L'Enfant's trousers. Mr. Peets’ complaint is chiefly con- cerned with the treatment given to Eighth street, which he claims was one of the key lines of the geometrical scheme that makes Washington unique | among the cities of the world, and with the prospective abaridonment of the | Center Market—which now cuts off the approach of Eighth street to the Mall— in favor of erection on the site of a new ;ullt?lng to house the Department of ustice. Objections Considered. Mr. Moore considers Mr. Peets’ argu- ment worth consideration, and already has called it to the attention of Abram Garfield, architect member of the com- mission.» whose home is in Cleveland. Here. Is the way Mr. Peets describes ‘what % called the “latest mutilation of the K ant plan” in the Baltimore Sun: “Washington's Center Market must go, and friendly obituaries of the old build- ing @Fe being published. They recall its melléw middle period, but they all over- look an important point—the dubious | legitimacy of its birth. For Center | Market was erected in defiance of the hallowed L'Enfant plan on which the artistic renown of the Capital depends. “In fact, the market obstructs a fun- damental line in that design. Eighth street, just half way between the Cap- itol and the White House, was one of the key lines of the geometrical scheme that makes Wi unique among the cities of the world. L'Enfant made it the most highly enriched secondary axis of his plan. Two squares, in one of which the city library now stands, lie on the northern part of the line, but it is the southen stretch that was to be of ‘The break occurs at a break in topography—on the high point where the Patent Office now stands. Contemplated Pantheon. “L'Enfant intended to erect there a stxutp:nu to be the monumental ap- proach to this national temple. Its first enlargement is a square where the midpoint of Pennsylvania avenue is marked by a ‘grand fountain’ From this square radiate eight views vistas, in L'Enfant’s plan, including views of the Capitol, the President’s house and ‘memorial statue of Washington. The axis continues south between two market houses—or possibly open market the unlldldr;d Mlllw , through another an wn to a naval memorial column at the Potomac shore. By means of such streets as this L’Enfant produced the sweeping breadth that is his plan’s most precious quality. the mad Frenchman's half of L'Enfant’s th"the help of an-. will' obliterate the only dent formal garden, but a detail in plan of a large city. The was, in L'Enfant’s conception, a kind of promenade from which the Be obsetved. For this pirpoce docp aha ol purpose and zmual ive vistas into the city are es- Calls Pathos Complete. tragic glorious vista-objective in the world without a single street shooting straight at it—and, to make the pathos com- plete, this happens in a city especially designed to take multiple advantage of grery such objective, & city world- agus for prec tl e e 1 architectural high-points of this sort should dominate symmetrical street vistas running deep into the city in many directions. That was his way of in on the monumental effect of his show pleces—his way also of the city into a vast but con- stantly felt unity. He counted on bowling the visitor over by repeated surprise-blows of stunning beauty. “This intersection of Pennsylvania avenue and Eighth street, accordingly, & vital nucleus formed by the meeting of his principal diagonal and his half- ¢ , L'Enfant made into a kind of clearing house for his vistas. From no other point in the city were the essential objects of his great com- position visible, And they were not to be casually visible to the eye. They were to be tied to this place by im- pressive receding perspectives, each opens up a picturesque view of the mighty obelisk. Now g Bl ernment controls the entire area south #f Pennsylvania avenue it seems a pity that the architects could find no way 1o relocate the diagonal in the direction of the monument, thereby realizing /Enfant’s intention and oroducing one t vistas in “It may be argued, in defense of the location of the Justice Build: that the distance from the Mall F_street hill, where L’Enfant ded his theon to rise, is too t. The effect of the new plan is cut the length of the vista more M,Mmm:;fi 2,800 feet down to 1,200. It is true that the most , looking south. Eighth | Pra THE SUNDAY ST WHERE TRIANGLE PLAN STOPS 8th ST. AR, WASHINGTON, ] | the first, The important function of | this tie-roq in L'Enfant’s structure was never understood and its weakening be- BaD With the first working drawings. The emotional significance of a antheon can hardly, even in Yankee- and, radiate from a Patent Office, though in justice it must be added that | the south ortico of the building is a full size copy of the parthenon front and that it affords, in spite of Eighth street's relative want of dignity, one of the very few good architectural vistas |in Washington. Throughout its length Eighth street has suffered, but the mis- takes of the past have mot been so vital as to justify those of the present. It is clearly wiser to retain an imper- fect detailing of a fine general plan than to introduce a change that ren- | ders the general conception forever un- attainable. We are dealing with the centuries here. The right tactics is to keep L'Enfant’s big lines open so that | the future can gradually realize his | magnificent plan. “It is almost fantastic that Presi- dent Hoover js urging the correction of a solecism committed long since in the proverblal dark age of our national taste, while at the same moment he is building into enduring stone the much more vital mistakes inherited on paper from the administration im- mediately preceding his. To scrap the mansard roof of the State. War and Navy Building and to wreck its many | storied porticoes will be a heart-break- | ing and costly job, The President must ]omn wish that the change could be made—as in his engineering work he has effected so many changes—by in- cinerating a few blue prints. A gen- eration or two from now, if L’Enfant’s | art chances to be more perfectly un- derstood, the then President will be | urged by his advisory architects to cut a hole through that confounded old Justice Building so that a view of the | Parthenon portico—behind - which = a | noble pantheon may by then be built— can be had from the Mall. In some such way as that the fates will surely have thelr Jaugh at the chaotic, changing and spotty state of our con- temporary _architectural thought. “The L’Enfant Association, I believe, is petitioning Congress for some $200,- 000 with which to erect a memorial. I suggest that the statue be set up in the remaining corner of the square that marks the mid-point of Pennsyl- | vania avenue. Let‘the sainted hero of American civic art be shown facing toward the Department of Justice | Building, violently tearing out his hair.” SIS A w"'of u-e‘ proposed Government building po)ect which would mn-! “NEAR:EAMlNE" CAUSED Eighth street from crossing Pennsylvania avenue to the south. This has drawn fire from Eibert Peets, prominent Cleveland architect. satisfactory views of buildings are from reasonably close standpoints. But it is also true that there is a pleasant sense of mystery in a long street view. The distant building exerts a pull in that direction, and whether we respond to the pull or not it gives us a lively sense of the great area brought into esthetic control. In most cities we can't see the woods for the trees. L’Enfant had no intention of letting the houses of Washington hide the city. “Perhaps it is not unquestionable ise to call Washington the city of magnificent distances, but by archi- tectural skill it is possible to make great distances truly magnificent. Paris is, of course, the classic example, and sev- eral Parisian vistas, comparable to the vista from the Mall to the F street hill, are longer. The Avenue de I'Opera, for instance, is 3,300 feet long, as against 2,800 in the Washington dimension with which comparison is being made. The distance from the Chamber of Deputies to the Madeleine is about 3,000. From the Avenue des Champs Elysees to the dome of the Invalides, one of the finest street views in Europe, is more than 4,500 feet. “In Rome the Porta del Popolo is about 600 feet from the Plazza di Venezia. The beautiful vista up the narrow Via Condotti from the Corso to the church on the hill is only 1,500 feet, but more distant views are also fine. By the test of these universally admired European examples it can hardly be proved that L’Enfant erred in this passage of his plan, particularly ‘when you remember that he intended a strong intermediate accent, the fountain in Pennsylvania avenue, to break the distance from the Mall avenue to the pantheon. Blemish in Air View. “Another phase of the new plan is its unfortunate effect from the air. Washington is hardly beyond infancy. The city’s middle and elder years will be lived in the age of the air. It is utter stupldity to put up buildings in ‘Was] without considering their beauty as seen from above, What have the Government architects done? With the help of professional comniittees, the approval of cabinet members and the biessings of the Art Commission, they have chopped the tail of their triangle into three lopsided chunks. The onspicuous lack of symmetry and block- plan beauty in these buildings will make them forever a blemish in the air view of Washington. And isn't it tactless, to say the least, to give the Department of Justice a crooked plan? “A few years ago an excellent eritic, Kingsley Porter, used the phrase ‘paper architecture,’ a graphic condemnation of the current building art. By it he pointed to the tendency to design in term of flat facades rather than in three-dimensioned solids. Since then the American skyscraper, with its set- backs and towers, has showed us the value of the controlled plastic mass. As we become used to seeing buildings from the air this attitude will strengthen and beauty in the flat facade will be more and more supplemented by a bold sculpturing of the whole body of the building. No longer will it be possible to pretend that a building is a solid cube when it is punctured by miserly interior light courts and wells. But the Government architects are conservative, Apparently they think that by crossing their fingers and collecting a dozen im- pressive signatures they can preserve forever the good old long-skirt days when a building could be internally lopsided and knockkneed and nobody would be so_impolite as to discover it. The Justice Building they have planned will make a brave show of symmetry on the side toward the Mall, but in the air view the eye will be wholly distracted by the irregular shape of the mass and :‘y)'“tté: contorted and dissimilar interior rts. “Actually, of course, there is no rea- son for calling L'Enfant’s plan sacred. It was far from perfect when it left his hand and its defects multiplied in execution. But it was a plan for the whole city, conceived with unique largeness of view. Though he worked so_hurriedly that the details suffered, L’Enfant attained, by his ‘reciprocities of sight’ the grand expansiveness and command of great areas that are the characteristic qualities of French park and city planning. He anticipated pre- cisely the qualities that harmonize with the modern American spirit. Dealing With Centuries, “The triangle plan is the greatest blow Eighth street has sufferes 1 BY PROWLER’S RIVAL Colored Man Sentenced to Year for Theft of Doughnuts and Milk. Edward Jones, alias “Doughnuts,” colored, almost caused a famine in the “panther pawed” territory of Northeast Washington, according to police of the eleventh and ninth precincts. Jones lived on the country in very much the same way as the marauding beast, although his victims were such helpless things as 700 doughnuts and 60 quarts of milk. ‘The man'’s depredations caused more loss than his rival. Varlous store operators, after ordering doughnuts and milk, would arrive at their business quarters the next morn- ing to find their door-step stocks very | much depleted. Twenty-nine of these persons complained to authorities. Jones admitted taking the food. He told Judge Schuldt he had a great lik- ing for doughnuts, especially when he could have milk to wash them down. Mrs. Gray's Father i)iel. JACKSONVILLE, Fla, February 1 (#).—F. J. Kallenbach, father of Mrs. Judd Gray, whose husband was & prin- cipal in the Snyder-Gray murder case, died here yesterday. Kallenbach for- merly was a toy manufacturer in Brookly: REBAIBING, Clocks Called For « Delivered - PHYSICAL CULTURE SHOES $985 FEBRUARY S ALE Physical Culture Shoes, at such prices, are an invitation thatthousands of women will accept with pleasure and excitement. 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