but by bankers, trustees and real estate operators, and it is no longer an unusual thing for an architect to be a director of a bank and a force in the money lending circulation, so that the old tradition of the architect as merely an artistic adviser seems to have absolutely vanished from modern practice.
Boston is one of the few cities which has maintained a relatively low limit of height for its buildings. Ever since 1892 it has restricted all building constructions to a maximum of 125 feet, or 2 1/2 times the width of the street, and has allowed this only in the downtown sections, reserving the bulk of the city in area, for restrictions varying from 70 feet to 100 feet as a maximum, but there have been, however, for 15 or 20 years many who have felt that such restriction has been a handicap to the city, that it has hampered growth, retarded progress and made profitable investments impossible. This last Spring the desire for greater possibility finally won out and the city now has a maximum height of 155 feet, which is held quite shocking to some of the old guard, but which is still quite modest as compared with what is allowed in most of our cities. But the striking fact in connection with the attempt to increase the height has been the attitude of so many of the architects towards the increase. One would naturally suppose1, having in mind the extent to which architects have been called on to participate in modem affairs, that the profession would take a broad attitude and would urge that matters of height, which after all are chiefly business questions and not artistic, should be left to the natural laws of supply and demand rather than to be arbitrarily cramped to a limit about one-half of what is allowed in most of our other large cities. But, no, the profession in Boston was almost united in opposition to any change whatever and men whose judgment on artistic matters we cherish, did not hesitate to denounce every high building simply because it was high. Yow no one can say that it is impossible to design a tall building which shall be artistic, monumental and architecturally desirable when we have in mind such achievements as the Woolworth Building, the Chicago Tribune, some of the later studies of men like Mr. Corbett, Mr. Goodhue and York & Sawyer, to mention only a few of the architects who have solved the problem of the high building, but the Boston attitude was an irreconcilable one. The city was being injured by allowing buildings to be carried up no matter how carefully relative light and air might be guarded. The appearance of the city would be ruined if one building dared to raise its, height above the 125 foot level of mediocrity, and it was in the face of the opposition by those whom we call our best architects that, this measure, which is so manifestly in their own interests, in the interests of the city as a whole, as the right of
the individual citizens and in its beneficent effect upon development of business, commerce and real estate that this measure was finally put, through. The mere fact that some of the architects who were most outspoken against the measure have since its passage received commissions to carry up high buildings, does not in anywise explain their intransigent attitude before. The tradition that any building which is different from its ancestors should be looked at askance dies even more slowly and with more pain than the tradition that an architect shall be only an artistic adviser. But it is dying. During the height of the controversy over the increased limit, in Boston a very prominent Yew York architect was invited to address the Boston Society, and it was rather expected that he would give points as to why the height limits should not be increased, inasmuch as he had had a prominent part in the zoning ordinance under which Yew York had developed splendidly. But rather to the surprise of some of his listeners, his arguments all pointed to a regulated and reasonable increase in height almost without any absolute maximum limit, and just as sure as this country continues to grow, continues to have surplus money to invest in buildings, continues to have discriminating clients and open-minded architects, just so surely will the tradition disappear from our profession that we must be bound by what has gone before.
There is a third tradition in process of passing, —the tradition which stands for so much that is good as contrasted with what at times has to be expedient, and though it is passing, its passage is to be regretted. Anyone who has examined the sketchbooks of Michael Angelo, or any of the great Italian architect painters, must have been struck by the crudity of the drawings as well as by the wonderful grasp of the ideas. It was not many years ago that we heard the gospel preached very strongly that an architect was a creator and that, therefore, being a creator, he must create personally and individually everything he does, and that to pass over any part of his designing or planning to a subordinate is a derogation of his obligations to his client. At the time of the World’s Fair in Chicago Mr. Burnham was cited by some of his lukewarm admirers as an example of a man who was not an architect himself, but a man who could make other architects work for him, and that brings us to the very nub of this individual tradition—that the architect must be a creator. The creation of a modern building, aside from a very limited number of monumental structures, and not always even excepting them, is an extremely complex act. It is not merely making drawings, it surely is not merely working out, construction or practical details, but it is a combination of adaptations of materials and conditions to a definite need, and the working out of that solution in such
Boston is one of the few cities which has maintained a relatively low limit of height for its buildings. Ever since 1892 it has restricted all building constructions to a maximum of 125 feet, or 2 1/2 times the width of the street, and has allowed this only in the downtown sections, reserving the bulk of the city in area, for restrictions varying from 70 feet to 100 feet as a maximum, but there have been, however, for 15 or 20 years many who have felt that such restriction has been a handicap to the city, that it has hampered growth, retarded progress and made profitable investments impossible. This last Spring the desire for greater possibility finally won out and the city now has a maximum height of 155 feet, which is held quite shocking to some of the old guard, but which is still quite modest as compared with what is allowed in most of our cities. But the striking fact in connection with the attempt to increase the height has been the attitude of so many of the architects towards the increase. One would naturally suppose1, having in mind the extent to which architects have been called on to participate in modem affairs, that the profession would take a broad attitude and would urge that matters of height, which after all are chiefly business questions and not artistic, should be left to the natural laws of supply and demand rather than to be arbitrarily cramped to a limit about one-half of what is allowed in most of our other large cities. But, no, the profession in Boston was almost united in opposition to any change whatever and men whose judgment on artistic matters we cherish, did not hesitate to denounce every high building simply because it was high. Yow no one can say that it is impossible to design a tall building which shall be artistic, monumental and architecturally desirable when we have in mind such achievements as the Woolworth Building, the Chicago Tribune, some of the later studies of men like Mr. Corbett, Mr. Goodhue and York & Sawyer, to mention only a few of the architects who have solved the problem of the high building, but the Boston attitude was an irreconcilable one. The city was being injured by allowing buildings to be carried up no matter how carefully relative light and air might be guarded. The appearance of the city would be ruined if one building dared to raise its, height above the 125 foot level of mediocrity, and it was in the face of the opposition by those whom we call our best architects that, this measure, which is so manifestly in their own interests, in the interests of the city as a whole, as the right of
the individual citizens and in its beneficent effect upon development of business, commerce and real estate that this measure was finally put, through. The mere fact that some of the architects who were most outspoken against the measure have since its passage received commissions to carry up high buildings, does not in anywise explain their intransigent attitude before. The tradition that any building which is different from its ancestors should be looked at askance dies even more slowly and with more pain than the tradition that an architect shall be only an artistic adviser. But it is dying. During the height of the controversy over the increased limit, in Boston a very prominent Yew York architect was invited to address the Boston Society, and it was rather expected that he would give points as to why the height limits should not be increased, inasmuch as he had had a prominent part in the zoning ordinance under which Yew York had developed splendidly. But rather to the surprise of some of his listeners, his arguments all pointed to a regulated and reasonable increase in height almost without any absolute maximum limit, and just as sure as this country continues to grow, continues to have surplus money to invest in buildings, continues to have discriminating clients and open-minded architects, just so surely will the tradition disappear from our profession that we must be bound by what has gone before.
There is a third tradition in process of passing, —the tradition which stands for so much that is good as contrasted with what at times has to be expedient, and though it is passing, its passage is to be regretted. Anyone who has examined the sketchbooks of Michael Angelo, or any of the great Italian architect painters, must have been struck by the crudity of the drawings as well as by the wonderful grasp of the ideas. It was not many years ago that we heard the gospel preached very strongly that an architect was a creator and that, therefore, being a creator, he must create personally and individually everything he does, and that to pass over any part of his designing or planning to a subordinate is a derogation of his obligations to his client. At the time of the World’s Fair in Chicago Mr. Burnham was cited by some of his lukewarm admirers as an example of a man who was not an architect himself, but a man who could make other architects work for him, and that brings us to the very nub of this individual tradition—that the architect must be a creator. The creation of a modern building, aside from a very limited number of monumental structures, and not always even excepting them, is an extremely complex act. It is not merely making drawings, it surely is not merely working out, construction or practical details, but it is a combination of adaptations of materials and conditions to a definite need, and the working out of that solution in such