Cornell UniversUy Library NA 737.M27G75 Charles Follen McKim; a study of his life 3 1924 015 662 152 B*wlpWBr k '. -Aith \vhich ill , .;d m hj' ; i. 1 , ^iwd often :>hi""> k^'fhis cli-- iv.is conipleied, . Mei ^r\d hi:; sA-AL-''A\af. v.■.uv.^. ANCESTRY, TRAINING, EARLY WORK m pointing out his influence in his chosen profession and the reasons therefor. We know from his letters that his childhood's home was one of moderate means where every legitimate economy had to be practiced, but we also know that the atmosphere of that house was one of rare sweetness and brightness. Charles McKim's father, James Miller McKim, came of Irish Protestant extraction, his father having come to America from the North of Ireland in 1 774. He was educated for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, but almost immediately after his marriage he became so interested in the cause of Abolition that he withdrew from the ministry, and until the emancipa'- tion of the negroes was wholly given up to the Anti^ Slavery cause, and was for years the resident publish- ing agent of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. In 1 840 he married Sarah Allibone Speakman, who, although a Quakeress, was in thorough sympathy with his cause. They made their home in Philadel- phia until 1866, and here, amid the constant excite- ment of the times and the multiplication of fugitive slave cases, they found all-absorbing work for the cause of Abolition. Their circle of friends was necessarily limited because of the strong sympathy for the South which existed in Philadelphia, but near them was the 9 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Quaker home of James and Lucretia Mott, around which gathered a choice httle circle of men and wo- men ostracized by pohte society, but amply sufficient among themselves for all the requirements of duty and the pleasure of human intercourse. Mrs. McKim, Sarah Speakman, was one of the remarkable women of her day. All of the portraits of her show that she was possessed of great beauty. Her parents belonged to the Society of Friends, and she was brought up in the strictest tenets of that order, but not even the doctrines of the Quakers could stifle her bril- liant wit and her bubbling sense of humor. In Phila- delphia, and later when the family had located in Llewellyn Park, Orange,New Jersey, she drew around her men and women of cultivation and character who delighted in the society of this brilliant, beautiful woman. It was in such an atmosphere that Charles McKim grew up, and undoubtedly from his mother he derived many of those qualities which made him so charming to all who knew him in later life. He received his early education at the school of Mr. Theodore D. Weld, Eagleswood, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, which had been chosen by his father because of Mr. Weld's strong sympathy with the Anti-Slavery cause. In the lo ANCESTRY, TRAINING, EARLY WORK summer of i 866 he went to Cambridge, Massachu^ setts, to find a tutor to coach him in mathematics and chemistry so that he might enter the Lawrence Scien^ tific School in the Mining Department. At that time the idea of becoming an architect had apparently never occurred to him, and his whole mind was bent upon becoming a mining engineer. His letters home during that summer are stamped, as to the end his letters were, with evidences of Quaker discipline and training, simple, quiet, and self-restrained, yet brimful of affection and reverence for those he loved, bubbling over with humor, but showing always through them all an earnest desire not to be a burden or tax upon the family purse. McKim's plan at this time seems to have been to spend one year in the Lawrence Scientific School and then two years at the School of Mines in Paris, where he felt the training would be better and the expenses of living less; but after coming home from Cambridge he was led to change his ideas, probably through the influence of Mr. Russell Sturgis with whom he had become acquainted, and in whose ofHce he worked for a few months, and had thus discovered his natural leaning towards architecture. In the autumn of i 867 he went to Paris and en- 1 1 CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM tered the atelier of M. Daumet at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he spent three years pursuing the course of study which in after years he always recommended to those aspirants in architecture who came to him for advice. During this time he traveled quite extensively in France, feasting eyes and mind and soul on beaU' tiful buildings, and in 1869 visited England and be^ came deeply interested in the Georgian work from which our Colonial style sprang. To the younger men, who only knew him after he had fully arrived, as the French so happily express it, it would have been a rare treat to have met him in the days immediately following his return from his first European studies. I purposely use this adjective "first," \ because with McKim every trip to Europe was a \ period of hard study and great mental refreshment. He always believed in and talked of the inspiration of Italy, and one can imagine him in those younger days filled with the enthusiasm of youth, slender, graceful, and distinguished in appearance, always quiet in his mode of expression, but his whole personality alight with that passion for beauty, beauty in form, beauty in color, and beauty in execution which, in him, never died down. McKim returned to America in 1 870, and almost 12 ANCESTRY, TRAINING, EARLY WORK immediately entered the office of the firm of Gambrill and Richardson in New York. At that time the vivid personahty of H. H. Richardson was just beginning to be felt. America was awakening to the fact that ar- chitecture meant something more than miles of nar- row brown-stone fronts approached by perilously high stoops, or Victorian Gothic Churches without a vestige of the Gothic spirit. Richardson and Hunt were the dominant men in the profession and both were gradu- ates, diplomes, of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Richard- son had also had some years of actual professional work in a Paris office when the Civil War so affected the finances of his family in Louisiana that he was thrown upon his own resources in a foreign country. McKim never forgot his indebtedness to Richard- son, although he departed so far from the Roman- esque style which Richardson had introduced and which he alone handled with any distinguished suc- cess. It is interesting to know that McKim worked upon the winning design for Trinity Church which took Richardson from New York and led to his estab- lishing himself in Boston. Copley Square owes its dis- tinction to the two great monuments, Trinity Church and the Public Library, which there face each other, let us hope for centuries to come. These two supremely 13 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM beautiful buildings make far plainer than can any written words the peculiar genius of the two greatest architects that America has thus far produced and show how far the pupil departed from the tenets of his maS' ten Of the Public Library I shall have much more to say, but Boston is indeed fortunate to possess both these buildings and to have them erected just as they are, for in no other spot in America can the develop'- ment of the architectural mind be so perfectly stud- ied. Richardson was a poet of a Southern clime, rich, exuberant, and endowed with the superabundant vital- ity of the Middle Ages. McKim was a poet, too, but of a later day, when men were alive to the power of reason and awakened by the renaissance to the potency and charm of order and simplicity. To the preserva- tion of this charm of order and simplicity he gave his life. He early seems to have realized that in America, just recovered from a bloody civil war and only begin- ning to be acquainted with her countless resources, the conditions were somewhat similar to those in Europe during and after the Reformation. A really new peo- ple were eager to grapple with the tremendous prob- lem of national expansion upon the most impressive scale that the world has ever seen. New cities were 14 ANCESTRY, TRAINING, EARLY WORK to be founded and those already founded were to be re^ built so as to express this great expansion, and for this purpose Art, and especially Architecture, were to be called upon to contribute as never before in America had they had an opportunity to do. The conditions which confronted Sir Christopher Wrenn, when, after the great fire, he was called upon to plan the rebuilding of London, were in many ways similar to those which faced the young firmof McKim, Mead, and White at the beginning of their practice, and of them the inscription carved over the doorway of St. Paul's, " If you would seek his monument, look around you," can be aptly quoted; for truly they began the transformation of New York from a very ugly and commonplace town to the brilliant city of to-day, and the traditions which they started, orderliness, dig- nity, and beauty, have been and are being ably carried on by the men who have worked beside them. McKim worked in the office of Gambrill and Rich- ardson until 1872. When he left there he had secured some work of his own to do and for this purpose had opened a little office. Previous to this he had become acquainted with William R. Mead, who had had some architectural experience in the office of Russell Stur- gis. In 1872, McKim invited Mead to join forces and 15 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM help him on the work at hand, and a firm entitled McKim, Mead, and Bigelow was formed, which firm continued in existence until the withdrawal of Mr. Bigelow in 1877. At this time Stanford White was working in the Richardson ofiice,andhad already shown evidences of that brilliancy of design which distinguished his entire career. The three men had discovered that sympathy in taste and ideas which made their future work so brilliant and so consistent, and in 1879 Stanford White was invited to come in with them, and thus was born the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. That this combination was an ideal one and that con^' ditions in New York were ready to receive the output of such a combination of talent was evidenced by their almost instant success. These three men kept before them the high standard of their calling, and, living up to this standard in the midst of modern business condi^ tions, that their business steadily increased until the volume of their work became stupendous and their clientele nation'wide, makes their success more re^- markable and almost unique. I have said before that they worked together in such close harmony that in most cases it is impossible to difi'erentiate the work of any one of the three, but until his death the spirit of 16 ANCESTRY, TRAINING, EARLY WORK McKim was the spirit of the firm, and his confreres gladly accorded to him the position of leader. As in all cases of architectural practice, most of their early work was residential in character, and in this type of work and in their earlier commercial buildings one can see traces of that romantic spirit which so dominated the work of H. H. Richardson. It is not my intention to take up the study of individ- ual buildings of this period of their career, nor do I at all agree with Mr. Russell Sturgis who has said, " The picturesque side is the best side, after all, of the work of Messrs. McKim, Mead, and White." In designing country houses or such buildings as the Casinos at New- port and Narragansett Pier, which stand on open lawns among great trees or near the sea, the natural tendency is towards the broken outline and variety of plan. Much of this work is charming and all of it distin- guished, but it was not until they began more serious and important undertakings that the peculiar genius of Charles McKim began to be felt, and it was the study of these larger problems which led to the choice of what is recognized as the " Renaissance of McKim, Mead, and W^hite." In their interpretation of the Re- naissance and their adaptation of its forms to modern conditions lies the secret of their professional success. 17 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM McKim seems to have been the first man in his pro^ fession to recognize the pecuhar analogy between the conditions in Europe at the time of the Renaissance and the conditions in this country immediately after the Civil War. Both periods were times of awakening, — transitional periods when the people at large were realizing the extent and power of their material pros- perity ; and in the midst of all this potential activity to this firm came first the vision of a civilization equaling and even surpassing the civilization and prosperity of ancient and imperial Rome. All around them was architectural chaos. Richard'^ son had not succeeded in implanting his rich, beautiful, and romantic Romanesque style upon this soil because it could not take root. What his style became in the hands of his followers we all know. There was no real place in a nation expanding by leaps and bounds, and demanding light and air and sunshine, in which to ex- pand still more, for an architecture which called for the silence and shadows of medievalism. McKim saw in his dreams a civilization of law and order, cities rich, spacious, and necessarily conventional. He quickly grasped the adaptability of the architecture of Rome, Florence, and Tuscany, as well as the Louis XIV pe- riod of France, to the needs of America and devoted 18 ANCESTRY. TRAINING. EARLY WORK himself to the study of these styles, and what I have called the "Renaissance of McKim.Mead, and White" is a wonderful adaptation of the styles of these periods to the needs of twentieth-century America. Many critics, who have failed absolutely to dis- cover the spirit animating the work of this firm, have called them archaeologists, and accused them of merely transplanting to our soil certain well-known and admired European buildings. Never was criticism more ignorant or unjust. To cite one example, the Tower of Madison Square Garden, which even so intelligent a critic as Russell Sturgis has called a copy of the Giralda at Seville : — excepting the fact that both towers are square, that the top story of each main tower consists of a loggia with five bays to each side, the central bay in each case being arched, and that there is a similarity in the outline and in the number of stories in the structure of each, the two towers are totally dissimilar in color, in material, in proportion, and in detail, and in my judgment the New York tower is much the more beautiful. McKim has at times been called impractical be- cause of his passion for beauty, but now, thanks to him and men of his vision, the American people are awakening to the fact of the material advantage of i9 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM beauty as realized in financial returns upon invest' ments, so that the battle fiDr architecture is more than half-won, and for this we must reverently salute Rich- ardson, Hunt, and McKim, for they blazed the trail. That McKim would never sacrifice his ideal for the purpose of securing a job is nowhere better shown than in his action in connection with the competition for the New York Public Library. The fundamental con- ditions of the plan had been most carefully prepared by the trustees of the library in consultation with li- brary experts. Naturally their responsibility to the city which they were pledged to serve made it essential that the proposed building should embody within itself every known device and expedient for perfect effi- ciency and economical administration. The great li- brary in Boston had been only recently completed and had been found faulty in many administrative details. It was expressly for the purpose of avoiding any such mistakes in the New York building that the conditions of the competition had been made so rigid. To Mc- Kim these conditions were exceedingly hampering. His mind was so occupied at the time with the vision of a building of extreme exterior and interior beauty, occupying the most conspicuous site on the most im^ portant avenue in the city he so supremely loved, that 20 ANCESTRY, TRAINING, EARLY WORK he refused to accept the conditions as outhned and he was excluded from the final competition. This was naturally a great disappointment to such a man as McKim, but he could never be persuaded to sacrifice his ideals; however, m spite of his disappointment he never ceased giving himself whole-heartedly to every^ thing that made for the civic betterment of the city of New York. CHAPTER III THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY The first great building embodying all the principal qualities of the style with which the work of McKim, Mead, and White will be forever identified is the Bos- ton Public Library. Scarcely any other public building except the capitol at Washington is so widely known by the great mass of the American people, or has been so extravagantly praised, on the one hand, or so mer- cilessly criticized on the other, as the great palace of books on Copley Square. In 1880 the Board of Trus- tees of the Boston Public Library decided that the building on Boylston Street which had been occupied since 1858 was no longer in any way adequate. To en- large it to any extent was impossible, and because of its crowded situation, the danger from fire was con- stant. The granting by the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts of a large portion of the present site for the purpose of a library building stimulated the uptown movement and the planning of the new structure began. Many tentative plans of many architects were con- 22 w ai < Of >- W o o o h IX n CQ ;^ a. Z O H O (0 THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY sidered, and it was not until 1887 that a decision was reached and the work entrusted to McKim, Mead, and White, of New York, with the understanding that an office should be maintained in Boston during the pe^^ riod of construction and that one member of the firm should be in actual charge of the work. This task was undertaken by McKim, and to it he gave all of his enthusiasm and his passion for the beautiful, embody^ ing in the study all the knowledge he had gained from direct personal inspection of the great libraries of Eu.^ rope. Just here seems to be the time to settle the oft-re^ peated criticism that the exterior of the Bosto'n Public Library is nothing but a copy of the Librairie Sainte- Genevieve at Paris. Russell Sturgis has said, "The Boston building has a somewhat greater massiveness of effect, thicker walls to all appearances, more reveal to the large windows, but otherwise it is not changed from the Paris building more than a draughtsman with a piece of tracing-paper would naturally change his original, expanding here, crowding a little there, adding or subtracting a few details." Fortunate Mr. Sturgis, to have had in his employ such draughts- men! In thinking over the best European prototypes for the problem which he had to solve, McKim, with that 23 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM unerring taste which never seemed to fail him, selected Sainte^Genevieve as being the best type of building for an open situation like Copley Square, an arcaded building with a high basement. Both of the buildings under discussion are that, but beyond that their simi^ larity ceases to be much more than that similarity which exists between two members of the human race of the same sex and nationality. The main facade of the Paris building consists of nineteen arches separated by very slender piers, standi ing upon a high basement story, which in turn rests directly on the ground. Considerably over half of the arcade openings is filled up with masonry. The crown^ ing member of the basement story, from which the arcade rises, has a very slight projection and is richly ornamented with a band of festoons. Above the arcade is a richly carved frieze and shallow cornice crowned with a low stone parapet, behind which rises the roof. The basement story is pierced by a series of rounds arched openings centered on the arcade above. The center opening is one round-arched door with heavy reveals; these are the salient features of the design of the Librairie Sainte-Genevieve. To simplify the comparison let us consider the main facade of the Boston Library in the same terms. In the 24 5ER,VIC PLAN OF GROUND FLOOR, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY PLAN OF READING-ROOM FLOOR, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Boston building the main story is an arcade of thirteen arches separated by quite heavy piers. Just about one third of the height of the arcade is filled with masonry. The windows above are much higher than in Sainte^ Genevieve with deeper reveals. The frieze above the arcade is plain except for an inscription in Roman let' ters, and the cornice, almost the most beautiful feature of the design, is of Italian rather than French propor- tion, of considerable projection, and surmounted by a very rich copper cresting. The basement story is much more lofty than in the Paris building and is pierced by squarc'headed openings. The entrance consists of three lofty arches of very deep reveal filled in with elaborate wrought iron grilles. The whole building stands upon a granite platform raised six steps above the level of the square. From this brief description it must be readily seen that the designs are unlike in every salient proportion. The Boston Library being the first great monu- mental work of McKim, Mead, and White, and being peculiarly Mr. McKim's own child, merits a much more lengthy description, especially as its influence upon the future work of the firm is still felt. To the completion of this building were called painters and sculptors, that the result might be the more perfect. 25 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Among all the wonderful achievements of Augustus Saint'Gaudens it is hard to find anything more charm- ing than the three sculptured panels over the entrance arches, illustrating the seals of the Library, the City, and the Commonwealth. The medallions cut in the spandrels of the great window arches and representing trademarks or devices of the early printers and book- binders, mostly of the sixteenth century, are the work of Mr. Domingo Mora, who did his work directly from the originals as he found them in books. The great couchant lions on the main stairway are the work of Louis Saint-Gaudens, a brother of Augustus. In mural paintings the building is exceptionally rich, pos- sessing the Sargent and Abbey series, so well known and illustrated, and in one sense it is unique in being the only building in America decorated in any part by Puvis de Chavannes. But it is not my intention to go into a detailed de- scription of the treasures of the building, all of which have been the subject of many published articles. Within and without, none but the best of materials has been used in the construction and adornment of the building, and in each case the material was chosen by McKim, after most careful consideration, as being in his judgment the only thing to use. The accompany- 26 MAIN ENTRANCE, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY ing illustrations and plans giwe a much better idea than can any written words. The plan of the building is interesting as showing the directness -and_general simplicity of arrangemertt. Were it being worked out to-day with the knowledge of more modern library methods, undoubtedly the whole rear of the building along Blagden Street would be given up to the library stacks, as is done in the new library in New York ; but in the eighties it seemed better to devote the fine light along Boylston Street to such departments as the reading-rooms for children, the periodical room, the assembly hall, and the patent library, placing the stacks around the opposite corner. As far as I can find out, from talks with a former head of the Boston Library and from conversations with administrators of other large libraries, this is the main fault in the building. In all other respects the plan is economical and straightforward with ample circular tion. The central courtyard is a feature of great beauty and usefulness. One day last August I strolled into the library, as I always do when I have a leisure hour in Boston, and nothing, even in Italy, could have been more charming than this court with the fountain play^^ ing in the center and many readers seated in comfort^ able chairs in the arcade. It was a veritable out-of-doors 27 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM room pervaded with the stillness and coolness so con- ducive to study and meditation and completely re- moved from the heat and noise of the streets. Such a spot on such a day is the strongest possible indorsement of the court feature of the plan. To one studying the life of Charles McKim this building is supremely important as being his launching upon the great style to the following of which he and his two confreres have given their lives since 1887. The science of library management, and I think it can be called a science, has developed in many channels, and according to the most modern lights the Boston Library has inconveniences ; but in spite of these it stands to-day the most serenely beautiful of Ameri- can library buildings and an expression of the highest architectural ideals according to McKim, Mead, and White. And right here I would attempt to describe more fully those ideals as I understand them. At the very outset of the firm's career, Messrs. McKim, Mead, and White recognized that the only architectural tra- dition to which America could lay any claim was that transplanted form of Georgian which we call Colonial and which in itself is an adaptation of Renaissance forms. This of itself was enough to incline a man of McKim's temperament to a closer study of this style. 28 MAIN STAIRCASE, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY BATES HALL, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY D u C THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY follow and further develop. This is just what McKim did for American architecture. He recognized that under certain conditions the forms of the Renaissance were capable of almost infinite expansion, and after the completion of the Boston Library, McKim, Mead, and White practically abandoned those picturesque forms in which they had hitherto worked, and even m their residences and churches clung steadily to pro-- portion, simplicity, and where possible, to a conserva- tive richness of detail and ornament, to attain the dis- tinction which they desired. No building designed by them combines these qualities more successfully than the Boston Public Library, but I aim to show the elasticity of their style in brief descriptions and illus- trations of various other buildings. L CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS It IS not my intention here to enter into a detailed criticism of McKim's executed work, but there are a few among the many buildings designed and executed by the firm to which I wish to call attention because they illustrate so perfectly the principles for which McKim so persistently strove. It is not possible to maintain that these buildings are exclusively the work of McKim ; in fact, with some of them, he had no immediate connection, but, as has been said, until his death his spirit and influence were predominant in the office and set the standard of taste to which all con^ formed. Their clubhouses in New York, the Century on West Forty-third Street; the Harvard, on West Forty-fourth Street ; and the Metropolitan and Uni- versity, both on Fifth Avenue, have established a style for all large city clubs. Of these the Century is the oldest, and while it is almost wholly the work of Stanford White, I men- tion it in this discussion because it is so striking an example of those principles of architectural design 32 EXTERIOR OF THE HARVARD CLUB, NEW YORK O z m o >■ M U M O «! O X w ] DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS which need to be implanted in the minds of students of American architecture. It is a simple balanced facade of stone and brick and terra-cotta. This was one of the first buildings in the United States in which the long, thin "Roman" brick was used, and because of its successful handling in this building for many years this shaped brick became a fashion, until it was superseded by the so-called "Harvard" brick, the re^ vival of which is also due to McKim, Mead, and White. The facade of the Century Club deserves constant study for young architects who sincerely wish to master the fundamental principles of proportion, \ composition, and suitability. In this design there is no - superfluous ornament. Every detail counts, and the omission of any one would materially injure the archie tectural composition. That all the enrichment is con-' fined to the terra-cotta surfaces is worthy of attention. This material is never satisfactory when used in plain surfaces, as in the burning it almost invariably buckles and becomes uneven. In the Century Club the terra^ cotta is either fluted, as in the pilasters, or richly moulded, as in capitals and friezes and the garlands which fill up the spandrels of the loggia arch, thus focalizing the eye upon what was intended to be the main feature of the design. The high basement ex^ 33 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM presses at once the fact that this floor is given up to rooms of secondary character and yet of sufficient im^ portance to demand h'ght and air, and at the same time it is a most forceful factor in the beauty of the whole composition, as it lifts the charmingly proportioned loggia and the windows of the great rooms of the first story just the right height above the street. These things in a design do not happen, but are only achieved by careful study combined with faultless taste. To cultivate such a taste and make it a part of one's nature is surely the soul's desire of every young architect who loves his art, and such taste can be acquired in America by no surer means than the careful study of the work of Charles McKim and his associates. One of the club buildings erected by the firm in which McKim took peculiar delight and which with him was a veritable lovC'child is the New York Har- vard Club on West Forty-fourth Street. I can think of no more exquisite example of Georgian architec- ture in America than the Forty-fourth Street facade of this building. It is the sort of thing that no one can appreciate at first sight, but it grows more beautiful with each year and is an object of constant delight to all who love those principles of design which have made our own Colonial architecture so delightful. In 34 DINING-HALL, HARVARD CLUB, NEW YORK Pi w > Q > < X W H ■ H CO w > s O O I O <: DETAIL OF THE UNIVERSITY CLUB LIBRARY DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS with this criticism. Here we have McKim, and Mc- Kim at his best. Through the courtesy of the firm I am able to pubhsh so many photographs that I will let them speak for themselves. This building possesses all the qualities desirable in a palace upon a great city street, and to-day the modern city club can be nothing but a palace if it is to fulfill the demands made upon it. Since the widening of Fifth Avenue has necessitated the removal of the area balustrade, the building stands solidly upon its own base, and from base to top of cor- nice is an example of perfect proportion, perfect com- position, and perfect suitability. The plan is quite as simple as the elevation and the elevation well expresses the plan. Would that we had more such buildings in America. It was the good fortune of McKim, Mead, and White to be chosen to design many " palaces," as we use the word in these United States. The group of houses on Madison Avenue known as the Villard house, but in reality four separate residences, is another example in the same manner as the University Club and hardly less successful. While this is primarily a sketch of the work of Charles McKim, because of the strong inter-relations of the members of the firm one is compelled, in at- 37 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM tempting to describe their work, at least to touch upon the work of the other two men; and there is one strictly commercial building to which I cannot resist alluding because of its great beauty as well as its perfect adapt' ability to the purpose for which it was built. I refer to the Gorham Building at the corner of Fifth Avenue andTwenty^sixth Street which was designed by Stan- ford White. Here is a building built for a retail jew- elry store, demanding great show windows and all the other requirements of commerce, but here we have a work of art and perhaps the most beautiful store build- ing in America. That McKim had nothing to do with the design himself I have said, but here are the princi- ples for which he stood carried out with the utmost perfection of taste and here is a type of design adapted to almost any commercial purpose. Critics for years have praised the Rue de Rivoli in Paris as an example of street architecture. If Fifth Avenue, from Madison Square to Fortieth Street, were carried out in a contin- uation of this design, what a street America would pos- sess. Let us hope that some new Western city, ambi- tious in city planning, may see the possibilities of this design and build just one street of this type. It would create an architectural revolution. The buildings thus far referred to are distinctly Re- 38 THE GORHAM BUILDING, NEW YORK. DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS naissance in feeling, rather than Roman, but as the work of the firm grew more strongly established in the mindsof the American people, as representing the ideal towards which American architecture was pushing, they received commissions of a much larger scale and among them three great universities. Of these, Co^ lumbia and the University of New York were entirely new plants located in what was then open country, while the commission for the University of Virginia was necessitated because of a disastrous fire. As an in^ stance of how dangerous, and often silly, it is for one to judge any work of art before the whole conception is completed and the observer able to understand what was in the mind of the creator, I am constantly re- minded of my first impressions of Columbia Univer- sity. I first saw these buildings just after the comple- tion of the first group, and my disappointment was so great I could have wept. I had been told that Colum- bia was peculiarly the work of McKim, and with my mind's eye filled with memories of Padua and Bolo- gna, I expected — I do not know quite what. With the exception of the library, everything seemed cold and barrack-like. The library alone — calm, serene, majestic — satisfied even from the beginning. I went again and again because I could not reconcile my dis- 39 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM appointment with my intense admiration for and be- lief in the genius of McKim. Slowly I began to under- stand the bigness of the conception. This was not Columbia College moved uptown, but the beginning of a great University which was to grow and expand with the growth of the city until it became the crown jewel of the metropolis of the Western World. Each year new buildings have been added. With each addi- tion one gains a clearer conception of the whole idea as conceived by its designer. To-day what I called barracks are so no longer ; not because they have been changed, but because, with the erection of other build- ings, they take their proper places in the composition of which the library is and always must be the keynote. How Columbia University regarded McKim's work was so beautifully expressed by President Nicholas Murray Butler in his remarks at the Memorial Service held at the New Theater in New York on Novem- ber 23, 1909, that I copy them in full: — Mr. McKim belonged to our University in a peculiarly inti' mate and personal sense. In his going we mourn the death of a great artist and a noble citizen, but we add to that a deep sense of personal bereavement and loss at the passing of a dear colleague and friend. From the day when, thirty years ago, the study of architecture was first systematically begun with us, it had his in' terest, his guiding counsel, his generous and consistent support, 4,0 DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS and when the time came for the University to enter upon the construction of its new and permanent home, the task of making it was his. His mind seized the underlying principle andconcep^' tion of a great home and school for scholars in the metropolis of a modern democracy as no mind had ever done before. McKim knew that under those conditions he could not plan and build something remote, detached, suburban ; he knew that he must plunge his institutional home into the city's life, that his scholars might be part of the city. He knew that it must have an en' trance broad and spacious and free as the invitation which it of' fered to every one who would drink at its fountain. He knew that it must not turn its back or its side to the great population ; but that it must look it straight in the face and tell its own story. He knew that the University of the twentieth century must own its dependence upon the world's learning and the world's lore by building itself about a great library which represented the accu' mulated scholarship of the ages that have gone. All these things McKim saw ; all these things McKim and those associated with him did. It was a great service, not alone to the University, but to our democracy. We like to think of him as a member of the great tradition, the one great tradition that has shaped the intel' lectual life and the esthetic aspiration of the Western World ; the great tradition which, despite all changing, fitful tempers, all al' terations of scene and passings of time, remains the one pure well of art and literature undefiled, the tradition which bears the name of Greece. The spirit of sacrifice of individual preference for the greater benefit of preserving architectural tradition is shown in the restoration of the White House in Washington and the turning of the old Custom 41 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM House in New York into a building for the National City Bank and the rebuilding of the Bank of Mon^ treal. The enlarging of the White House is one of the things for which the American people should for^ ever be most grateful to McKim. For many years before this commission was entrusted to him, plans for this enlargement had been considered. One plan was to give up the White House entirely to executive offices and build a residence for the President upon one of the surrounding hills. Public opinion was so strongly opposed to this that the scheme was aban- doned, and various designs were made for enlarg- ing the existing building every one of which would have completely destroyed its charm and architectural beauty. Mr. Roosevelt, who was then President, fully real- ized the beauty and historic associations connected with the W^hite House and heartily indorsed the scheme which was finally adopted of devoting the building exclusively to residence purposes and build- ing temporary offices in the White House grounds until such a time as Congress should make the neces- sary appropriation for an Executive Office Building. Mr. McKim at once made exhaustive studies of Hoban's original plans and all of these changes were 42 DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS made to harmonize with these plans and preserve the architectural simplicity for which the White House was justly famous. Many alterations had been made during different administrations, so that the interior was a sort of architectural hodge-podge. All of these were removed and the Colonial character and dignity of the rooms restored. The structure was made fire- proof and supplied with those domestic conveniences which it had so sadly lacked. Even the new State Dining-Room, where the architect had an opportu- nity to do as he pleased, was designed in complete harmony with the other rooms, and while very beau- tiful and dignified in treatment, is far more simple than the dining-rooms of many private houses in Washington. To-day the White House can be pointed to with justifiable pride by all Americans as embodying in itself those democratic ideals of sim- plicity and dignity upon which the whole structure of our government was reared. To realize this was no easy task and the architect was thwarted at every step and harshly criticized both in and out of Congress, but McKim never gave in against his best ideals and for this the people of the United States will always bless him. Shortly after the completion of the White House 43 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM the American Institute of Architects, holding their thirty^eighth convention, celebrated their fiftieth anni^ versary with a great banquet at the Arlington Hotel. No more distinguished body of men ever met together in Washington. The President of the United States, members of his Cabinet, ambassadors of foreign gov' ernments, dignitaries of the Church, Senators, Repre^ sentatives, college presidents, painters, sculptors, and authors who were the guests of the Institute, were seated at a long table raised upon a platform and ex' tending around three sides of the room, but among that distinguished group McKim was not to be found. He had heard the rumor that he was to be the real guest of honor, and with his characteristic modesty had seated himself at a small table in a distant part of the room among the workers of his own profession. Speeches were made by President Roosevelt, Cardinal Gibbons, Senator Root, Nicholas Murray Butler, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John La Farge, and others upon many varied topics, but each speaker at the end of his ad^ dress made a point of mentioning McKim's work for Washington. One amusing sight at this banquet was Speaker Cannon, chewing his long cigar and listening to unstinted praise for the remodeled White House and the man he had baited in every way in his power 44 t*-,- ■»■ .rt^^p**.-,.^'. *^ EXTERIOR OF THE BANK OF MONTREAL, ST. JAMES STREET MAIN BANKING-ROOM, BANK OF MONTREAL DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS during the whole extent of the work. It was at this meeting that McKim was able to announce to the In- stitute of Architects what was to him the realization of one of his dearest dreams, the ability to purchase a permanent home for the American Academy at Rome, which was made possible by gifts of one hun- dred thousand dollars each from Mr. J. Pierpont Mor- gan and Mr. Henry Walters. But to return to our muttons. When the National City Bank bought the old New York Custom House on W^all Street, it was a much discussed question what to do with the property. Some favored tearing the building down and starting afresh with an entirely new structure, others advised the erection of a skyscraper upon the old colonnade. McKim opposed both of these schemes. He and his partners not only realized the beauty of the building as it stood, and felt it would be a distinct loss to the street should this monument of an earlier day be destroyed, but also felt that a typical office building placed on top of the really beautiful order would be an anachronism for which they could not stand. The building as it stood was entirely too small to meet the demands of the bank, and there was nothing in the interior worthy of preservation. The question, therefore, was how to provide modern bank- 45 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM ing quarters for a great corporation and at the same time preserve the really beautiful exterior. After most careful study the solution of a superimposed order, more delicate in detail, following an ancient Roman precedent, was decided upon. So carefully has this been done that, instead of taking away from the beauty of the original order, that beauty has been greatly in^ creased, and the additional height of the second order but brings the building more into scale with the sur^ rounding buildings and makes it to-day the most dis- tinguished edifice on Wall Street. When it came to designing the great banking-room, the architects had a free hand, and our illustrations show far better than words can tell what a great success has been achieved. In rebuilding the Bank of Montreal the same spirit of determination to preserve all that was worthy of preservation in the original building was carried out. As it was utterly impossible to meet the needs of the bank by enlargement of the original building on St. James Street, this building, with its beautiful pedi- mented portico, was turned into a great vestibule or anteroom to the bank and a new building was put upon the lot in the rear in every way sufficient for the cor- poration's needs for years to come. The two structures are perfectly blended into one, and the Bank of Mon- 46 VESTIBULE OF THE MORGAN LIBRARY INTERIOR OF THE MORGAN LIBRARY DISCUSSION OF VARIOUS BUILDINGS treal is to-day the admiration of every visitor to the Canadian metropohs and the pride and joy of its citi^ zens. One other building I must dwell upon before leaving this brief description of some of McKim's executed work, and that is that pure architectural gem, the Mor- gan Library, on Thirty-sixth Street, New York. Here was an opportunity for every form of lavish expendi- ture, for this was the private toy of a multi-millionaire who never discussed the price when gratifying his de- sires. Again I must appeal to photographs to give any really clear idea of the beauty of this exquisite build- ing, but even well-taken photographs cannot show the color harmonies within and without. In this build- ing restraint and discrimination are carried to the nth power. These are the two characteristics which Amer- ican architecture most sadly lacks and a careful and exhaustive study of the Morgan Library, as a whole and in detail, only strengthens the belief that no great architecture can exist without them. Because during McKim's lifetime the firm erected no skyscraper building, it has often been said that the principles which they taught so persistently could not be applied to a tall building. One has only to study the new Municipal Building of the city of New York 4-7 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM now rapidly nearing completion and which is the work of McKim, Mead, and White to discover that McKim was right, absolutely right, in maintaining that pro-- portion, dignity, and restraint are the fundamental principles of every great art, the foundation stones upon which building rests, and that without them no-- thing truly beautiful can be, and with them any type of structure may be, made beautiful. Beauty was the demand of McKim's soul, and that he achieved beauty the illustrations which I am able to show and this brief description of only a few of his many creations will, I hope, prove. ii\B\ i^m \u^\ttbvii^Am\i\imM { M)M-iM\ '^-^^ I H 1 1 1 NEW MUNICIPAL BUILDING OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK CHAPTER V THE WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO Perhaps no one event in the latter part of the nine^ teenth century did so much to awaken the American mind to the possibihties in architecture as the Inter- national Exhibition held m Paris m 1889. Since the Centennial in Philadelphia m 1876, nothing of this nature had been attempted in the United States, and yet those intervening years had been years of very great material prosperity and expansion, and the aspi- rations of the American people had soared away be- yond their own somewhat narrow boundaries. The Paris Exposition brought these subconscious aspira- tions to the light of vigorous day. It was almost time to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Co- lumbus's Discovery, and the nation demanded a great international exposition which should certainly equal if not surpass the one so recently held in Paris. Several cities, notably New York and Chicago, competed for the honor of housing this proposed ex- position. New York was so sure of her own fitness as the only possible place that she entirely overlooked 49 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM and underestimated the zeal and enthusiasm of the Western metropohs, and so by Act of Congress this fair went to Chicago. It is not my purpose here to give even a brief history of the inception and carry^ ing out of the Chicago Fair. Its memory is too dis^ tinct in the minds of all to need any description. At the time of its conception the most brilliant genius in the architectural world west of the Alleghany Moun^ tains was John Wellborn Root. He with his partner Daniel H. Burnham, under the firm title of Burnham and Root, had built up a large practice in Chicago and throughout the West and had done more than any other men to place the profession of architecture in its proper relation with the people, who before their ad^ vent had looked upon an architect as a rather tricky mason or carpenter who by calling himself an archie tect hoped to get a little more money out of the pock^ ets of the community. John Root possessed in his nature a rare combi^ nation of the characteristics of both Richardson and McKim. In his executed work his warm Southern nature led him to express himself in the Romanesque style of Richardson rather than in any adaptation of classic forms, and like Richardson he had an intense love for rich and glowing color. On the other hand, 50 THE WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO like McKim he passionately loved music and de-^ manded m his life and in his work proportion, har^ mony, and order. To the firm of Burnham and Root is due primarily the location of the Fair in Jackson Park, which up to that time had been a barren waste. Various locations were considered, notably the Lake Front Park. On August lo, 1890, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, of Boston, came to Chicago on the invitation of the Buildings and Grounds Committee to consider the situation. At first even he was discouraged by the un^ finished desolation of Jackson Park. On August 20, the Committee appointed F. L. Olmsted and Com-' pany consulting landscape architects, and on the fol- lowing day John Root was made consulting architect. At Root's request this appointment was changed so as to include his partner, and on September 4, 1890, Burnham and Root were made consulting architects of the Exposition. At this time feeling in Chicago with reference to the planning of the grounds and the designing of the buildings ran very high. It was the popular idea that it was to be a Chicago Fair and that only Chicago architects should be employed in its creation. Not so for one instant felt John Root. From the very begin- 51 -J CHARLES POLLEN McKIM . ning he took the ground that it was to be a National Exposition and should represent the entire nation and show to the world the ideals and the achievements of the American people. That their position might be perfectly understood, Burnham and Root announced that they were employed simply in an advisory and executive capacity and that they would design none of the great buildings around the proposed Court of Honor. On December 8, i 890, Root presented to the Buildings and Grounds Committee a memorial in which he set forth four modes of procedure towards the securing of designs for the various buildings and his recommendations were as follows: — Preliminary work in locating buildings, in determining their general areas and in other elementary directions necessary and proper, progress in the design and erection of the structures of the Columbian Exposition has now reached a point where it becomes necessary to determine the method by which designs for these buildings may be obtained. We recognize that your action in this matter will be of great importance not only in its direct effect upon the artistic and commercial successes of the Exposition, but scarcely less, upon the aspect represented by America to the world and also as a precedent for future pro' cedure in this country by the government, by corporations, and individuals. In our advisory capacity we wish to recommend such action to you as will be productive of the best results, and will at the same 52 THE WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO time be in accord with the expressed sentiments of the architect tural societies of America. Whatever suggestions are here made relate to the main buildings located in Jackson Park. That these buildings should, in the designs, relationship and arrangement, be ot the highest possible architectural merit is of importance scarcely less than the variety, richness and comprehensiveness of the various displays within them. Such success is not so much dependent upon the expenditure ot money as upon the expendi' ture ot thought, knowledge and enthusiasm by men known to be in every way endowed with these qualities. And the result achieved by them will be the measure by which America and especiallv Chicago, must expect to be judged by this world. Several methods of procedure suggest themselves: — First. The selection of one man to whom the designing of the entire work should be entrusted. Second. Competition made tree to the whole architectural profession. Third. Competition amongst a selected few. Fourth. Direct selection. The first method would possess some advantage in the logi' cal result which would be attained. But the objections are that the time for the preparation ot designs is so short that no one man could hope to do the subject justice even were he broad enough to avoid, in work ot such varied and colossal character, monotonous repetition ot ideas. The second method has been employed in France and other European countries with success and it would probably result in the production of a certain number ot plans possessing more or less merit and noveltv. But m such a competition much time, even now most valuable, would be wasted, and the result would be a mass of irrelev ant and almost irreconcilable material which 53 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM would demand great and extended labor to bring into coherence. It is greatly to be feared that from such a heterogeneous com' petition the best men of the profession would refrain, not only because the uncertainties involved in it are too great and their time too valuable, but because the societies to which they almost universally belong have so strongly pronounced its futility. A limited and paid competition would present fewer embar-- rassments; but even in this case the question of time is presented, and it is most unlikely that any result derived through this means, coming, as it would from necessarily partial acquaintance with the subject and hasty ilPconsidered presentations of it, could be satisfactory. Far better than any of these methods seems to be the last. This is to select a certain number of architects because of their eminence in their profession, choosing each man for such work as would be most parallel with his best achievements ; these arch' itects to meet in conference, become masters of all the elements of the problems to be solved and agree upon some general scheme of procedure ; the preliminary studies resulting from this to be fully discussed in a subsequent conference, and, with the assist' ance of such suggestions as your advisors might make, to be brought into an harmonious whole. The precise relationship between the directory and these architects might be safely left to a general conference at which all questions of detail could be agreed upon. The honor thus conferred upon any man thus selected would create in his mind a disposition to place the artistic quality of his work in advance of the mere question of emolument while the emulation begot' ten in a rivalry so dignified and friendly could not fail to be pro' ductive of a result which would stand before the world as the best fruit of American civilization. 54 THE WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO That this memorial was approved and adopted by the Commission was one of the most fortunate things for the architectural profession that has happened in America. Before presenting it Burnham and Root had definitely canvassed the situation in their own minds and picked out the men best qualified to carry out the work according to the highest ideals of architectural practice. Their recommendations were carried out by the Committee and Messrs. Richard M. Hunt, Wlc- Kim, Mead, and White, and George B. Post, of New York ; Peabody and Stearns, of Boston ; and Van Brunt and Howe, of Kansas City, were appointed. On December 27, Root announced to the Buildings and Grounds Committee that these gentlemen would ac^ cept their appointment, and January 10, 1891, was fixed upon as the date for the first general conference. The Committee, after having accepted the ground plan for the various buildings, wisely left all questions of design and detail to the various artists and so the great work of planning and constructing the Exposi^ tion began in a spirit of friendly harmony and emula^ tion. The members of the Eastern firms came together at the time appointed. At first sight of Jackson Park they seemed discouraged and fearful that nothing really beautiful could be accomplished, but largely 55 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM through the enthusiasm of Root, and Mr. Codman, of the firm of F. L. Olmsted and Company, thej became fired with the possibihties offered by an almost clean field upon which to build, having the blue waters of Lake Michigan as a background. At this first conference McKim was not present,but his firm was more than well represented by Mr. Mead. In the midst of this conference. Root was stricken with pneumonia and died on January 13. At first his loss was felt to be irreparable. Up to his death he had been the guiding spirit of the whole conception and had him^ self prepared the first complete plan for Jackson Park. As the consulting architects worked and studied the problem on the ground the excellencies of Root's plan became more and more apparent, and in the main his plan was carried out. McKim entered into this work with even more than his usual enthusiasm. This was the sort of problem in which his mind and soul delighted, and in the confer^ ences between the architects, which became more and more frequent as the work progressed, his judgment and taste became more and more in demand. It had been John Root's desire that Mr. Hunt, whom he re^ garded as the dean of the profession, should design the Administration Building which was to be the domi^ 36 THE WORLD'S FAIR AT CHICAGO nant building in the proposed scheme. Mr. Hunt's preferences for the classic style being well known, this settled the question of styles. Root's idea had always been for a Fair resplendent in color, brilliant, and ephemeral as expressing a great passing fair rather than a city. To McKim's taste and influence more than to any other one among the already famous group of men is due the decision to keep all the build- ings around the great court of a uniform color, thus creating that dream of loveliness — the White City. Mr. Burnham, naturally, was inclined to carry out what he knew to have been the idea of his beloved partner and friend, but under McKim's quiet persua- sive arguments soon yielded and became an enthusi- astic supporter of the W^hite City idea. Largely also at McKim's suggestion, Saint-Gaudens was placed in charge of the sculpture, bringing with him from the East many brilliant men in his profession as likewise did Millet, who was placed in charge of the depart- ment of color. And so the great Fair grew. Never before in Amer- ica had there been a real federation of arts, and thus it marked a new era for American architecture. Here for the first time in this country architects, engineers, painters, and sculptors worked together in perfect har- 57 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM mony, " Each for the joy of the working," and the result was such a dream of beauty as will never be forgotten by those who saw it. The results of this working together of the artists has already led to many great schemes such as the plan for Washington and the American Academy at Rome of which I shall speak later, and also the comprehen-' sive planning of such cities as Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and others. The actually executed work of McKim, Mead, and White at the Colum.' bian Exposition was confined to the great Agricul- tural Palace along the south side of the Court of Honor, which many critics pronounced the most beau^ tiful building at the Fair; the New York State Builds ing, which was a very free adaptation of the Villa Medici at Rome, and the White Star Line and Puck Buildings ; but the importance of McKim's own work lay in his power to enter into the bigness of the whole conception and work in perfect harmony with other minds. Here, as nowhere before in his career, were his powers of persuasion and his wonderful tact brought into play and here he laid the foundation of that repu- tation for civic planning which became so great in his later years. CHAPTER VI THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA The first twenty years of McKim's professional life from 1880 to 1900 were completely bound up within the work of the firm of McKim, Mead, and White, and as has been said, so close was this associa- tion that except in a few cases, such as have been men- tioned, it is hard to specify particularly the work of any one of them. During these years, however, the individual reputation of Charles McKim, as leading his profession in America, had been growing steadily stronger. Public opinion had come to demand his judgment on many questions pertaining to civic beauty, such as the proper location of statues to dis- tinguished men, the planning of decorations in public buildings, even the designing of proper pedestals, or settings for statues, as well as the criticizing of the statues themselves. During the latter part of this period, our country seems to have experienced a great civic awakening. The American people had become dissatisfied with the 59 CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM happy-go-lucky method of planning and building up our cities and towns. This was undoubtedly due, in a large measure, to the great increase in European travel, and to familiarity with the orderly arrangements of such cities as Paris and Vienna and Berlin. One of the most marked characteristics of the average American is his desire, whenever he sees something better than he has, to possess it for himself. Our people come home from their first trip abroad with their minds filled with the beauty of Europe, to find on all hands slovenliness and waste. We cannot expect monuments of an- tiquity, but we can expect, and demand, orderliness, dignity, and beauty. In no city was this feeling greater than it was in Washington. Not alone from its citizens, permanent or temporary, but from the country at large came the demand that the National Capital should be a model of orderliness, cleanliness, and beauty for the entire world. We must show the older nations that a de- mocracy is not given over entirely to individual com- mercial prosperity, but, on the contrary, is the most natural field for the growth and expansion of all that pertains to cultivation, refinement, and beauty. In 1898 the citizens of the District of Columbia began to arrange for a proper celebration of the one 60 THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN hundredth anniversary of the location of the National Capital. In December, 1900, commemorative exer- cises were held in both the Capitol and the White House, The officers of the Federal Government, the Governors of the States, and the representatives of the foreign governments all took part in these exercises, which were brought to a finish by a reception and ban- quet given by the Washington Board of Trade in honor of the Congressional Committee and distin- guished guests. The main topic of discussion through- out this celebration was the improvement and devel- opment of the District of Columbia to make it express in its physical aspect the dignity and importance of the American Nation. The Spanish W^ar had been suc- cessfully ended, and we felt ourselves, for the first time in our history, a real world-power. Improvements and expansion were in the air, and the time had come for such improvements and embellishments of W^ashing- ton as to make her one of the great capitalsof the world. At this same time the American Institute of Arch- itects was assembled in convention discussing and suggesting various improvements in the capital city. Papers were read setting forth, in a tentative manner, the ideas of leading architects, painters, and sculptors for the development of parks and the proper locating 61 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM and grouping of public buildings. A committee was appointed by the Institute to lay these matters before the Senate and House of Representatives, and as a result of these discussions the Senate ordered the pre- paration of a general plan for the development of the park system of the District of Columbia. Two Sen- ators, Mr. McMillan, of Michigan, and Mr. New- lands, of Nevada, entered into this scheme with utmost enthusiasm, and, by their unselfish services and their entire sympathy with the efforts of the American Institute of Architects, have done perhaps more than any other two men to make possible the carrying out of the plans of the so-called Park Commission. On the 1 9th of March, 1 901, the Sub-Committee of the District Committee, which had this matter in charge, conferred with the American Institute of Arch- itects and agreed that a committee be formed, to be called the Park Commission, and to have entire charge of the preparation of a plan or plans for the develop- ment of the District upon the broadest and most com- prehensive lines. This Committee was to consist of an architect and a landscape architect with power to increase their number. Because of his work in connec- tion with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chi- cago, which had been at once a revelation and an inspi- 62 m ■~% n J! .1 vi.t — ^nnf~inruT\\n U // f » ^^ O aacnsorannong ■« aODDQCO □DOOO p XfJi i!i|iiniriii,3!iiiniiii!i|iiHii'i THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN ration to the entire nation, at which time he brought together and with rare executive abihty maintained a perfect accord between architects, painters, and sculp^ tors, Mr, Daniel H. Burnham, of Chicago, was placed at the head of this Commission, and associated with him was Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., of Brooke line, Massachusetts, whose work in the District of Co' lumbia was well and favorably known to Congress, These men immediately availed themselves of the per^ mission to add to their number and invited to serve with them Charles F. McKim and Augustus Saints Gaudens. The addition of these two men to the mem^ bership of the Committee met with the hearty approval of Congress and of the people at large. McKim was known throughout the country as architect of the Boston Public Library, more than for any other one achievement, and had already been accorded by his fellow^architects the position of head of the profession, because of the simplicity, directness, and scholarliness of his work, and his rarely sane judgment and exqui^ site taste; while the position of Saint-Gaudens aseasily first and greatest of American sculptors was beyond question. All of these men entered upon their work with the utmost enthusiasm. Private matters were deliberately 63 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM laid aside, and for more than a year all of their time was devoted to the absorbing task of preparing a plan which should carefully preserve what was already beautiful in Washington and make possible its become ing, in time, the most beautiful city in the world. During the preparation of the plan the Commission visited all of the great cities of Europe, studying care- fully everything that could be of use for the beautify/ ing and improving of the city by the Potomac. In ad- dition to the usual city problems of circulation, traffic, sanitation, and public parks, other very important ques- tions were given most careful consideration, and in all these discussions, I have been told by Mr. Burnham himself, the opinions of McKim were given greatest weight. Here more than anywhere else did his inher- ent love for tradition and history come to the front. The original plan of Washington, which had been prepared by Major L'Enfant under the direct supervis- ion of Washington and Jefferson, was given most care- ful study. Both Washington and Jefferson had felt the influence of the art of landscape architecture as they had seen it practiced by royal governors and wealthy planters, while Jefferson had visited and admired the stately capitals of Europe and had been particularly impressed with the work of LeNotre. His own home, 64 o O S H O a. O § o o w b. O w w a. THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN Monticello, was m those early days the most dignified estate in the United States, and in his hbrary were ac- curate plans of Paris, Frankfort, Amsterdam, Milan, and other European cities. L'Enfant himself was a man of cultivation and position, and an engineer of recognized ability, and so pleased was Jefferson with Washington's choice of such a man to prepare the plans for the future Federal City that he turned over to him all the data in his own library. McKim, of course, recognized the potential beauties of the original plan in spite of the departures which successive Congresses had made from it, and main- tained in every conference with the other members of the Committee that this plan must be kept, as far as possible, in its entirety. The main feature of L'Enfant's plan was the Mall stretching from the Cap- itol Building to the Potomac. The whole city was laid out with a system of great avenues, connecting future centers and crossed by streets on the usual rectangular plan. The avenues were given unusual breadth, and when they and the streets intersected, ornamental cir- cles or squares were planned with the idea of these cir- cles or squares being embellished with fountains or statues, and forming open parks for recreation and pleasure. The greatest of these avenues, Pennsylvania, 65 CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM was to form a direct axis between the Capitol Build^ ing and the President's residence. This axis was unfor^ tunately destroyed by the location of the Treasury Building, while the Mall had been completely cut in two by the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad Com^ pany. The Commission at once realized that the preserva-- tion and restoration of the Mall was the most impor- tant feature in the plan of the city, the one unique distinction which it possessed, but at this time plans had already been prepared for the enlargement of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, with greatly increased track area. Fortunately for the city and the country at large, the then President of the Pennsylvania Rail- road, Mr. Alexander J. Cassatt, was a man of high patriotism and distinguished cultivation. When he was taken to the Capitol Terrace by the members of the Commission and the possibilities of the Mall were pointed out to him, he at once realized that the railroad tracks formed an unsurmountable obstacle to any really great improvement, and of his own volition proposed to give up the railroad's property in the Mall, provided another equally good entrance to the city and the co- operation of Congress could be assured. Such a propo- sition coming from the head of the railroad company 66 PLAN OF THE MONUMENT GARDEN, WASHINGTON THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN was, naturally, of greatest help to the Commission. Steps were immediately taken which resulted in the complete vacation of the Mall by the railroad, and the building of Mr. Burnham's splendid station, which now forms so admirable an entrance to Washington. With the railroad tracks removed, the study of the Mall advanced rapidly, but one other opposing feature to the idea of two great axes intersecting each other at right angles, one from the Capitol through the center of the Mall to the river, and the other from the center of the White House lot to the river, was discovered in the location of the W^ashington Monument, which had been placed so far to the north of the central axis of the White House that to use it as a point of inters section was impossible. Many years ago, when the monument was first started, Charles Bulfinch,of Bos^ ton, who had been appointed Architect of the Capitol by President Monroe, had said that a colonnade around the base of the obelisk was needed to give the shaft scale and dignity. The Commission realized that some such embellishment was greatly needed, but such a colonnade would forever destroy the possibility of in- tersecting axes, so that the proper treatment of the monument was the subject of exhaustive study. The solution, embodied in the report of the Commission, of 67 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM a great terrace with steps leading down into a formal garden, centered on the point of intersection of the two axes, was the idea of Charles McKim. This solution is so perfect in dignity and beauty that it is, indeed, fortunate that the monument stands where it does. Most careful drawings of this proposed monument, ter^ race, and garden, as well as of all the improvements suggested by the Commission, were prepared by dif-' ferent artists, and these drawings with accurate models of the city as it was, and the city as it would be, were exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, and at other galleries in various large cities of the country, and aroused the greatest enthusiasm among the people at large. The full report of the Commission was pub- lished with many illustrations. This report is so com- plete, and such interesting reading, going as it does into details of everything pertaining to a great, beautiful, and healthy city, that I regret the impossibility of pub- lishing It complete in this memoir, especially as one cannot but recognize in reading it the influence of Mc- Kim's conservative mind, preserving carefully every important feature of the original plan, and looking with large foresight to the future growth of the city, and planning everything on the broadest lines. With the preparation of the report, which was the 68 o H a, < w X f- Q Pi < O h O M o o >-] M o < a Pi w h h is S !2 O THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN work of over a year of continual labor on the part of each member of the Commission, the real work was hardly begun. The whole matter had to be laid before Congress and, as was natural, met with strong opposi- tion. Here McKim came prominently forward, and at no time in his career did his personality count for more. He persuaded his opponents but never argued, and as he never yielded a point when once convincedof the rightness of his position, his quiet tact and persist- ence, combined with his keen sense of humor, carried the day. It was during the sittings of the Commission that he was en trusted with the remodeling of the White House and the building of the new War College, each of which was sufficient to occupy all the time of one man, but he cheerfully undertook all this work and carried it through. He was so much in Washington that he became closely identified with the social life of the city, where his wonderful charm of manner made him an ever welcome guest, and even after his most arduous work at Washington was completed, he was continually sent for to be consulted about various mat- ters pertaining to the beautifying of the city. When after his death, a Memorial Meeting was held, in the Corcoran Gallery on December i^, i 909, among the many tributes paid to him as a man and an artist the 69 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Hon. Elihu Root spoke so clearly and concisely of his work in connection with the War College and the White House that I feel his words should here be quoted in full: — Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — There was a great meeting two weeks ago in the New Thea' tre in New York, called by the united action of a great number of societies devoted to different branches of art, for the purpose of voicing their universal sentiment of honor to the memory and mourning for the loss of Charles McKim. At the meeting I said what I had to say in tribute to his memory, but I cannot resist the feeling that it is appropriate that it should be supplemented by this meeting here, held under the auspices of the American Institute of Architects, representing his own profession and the brethren among whom he had worked with such loyal friend' ship and co-operation for many years, and held here in the City of Washington where, it seems to me, the brightest and loftiest development and expression in his character and his genius occurred. Charles McKim was a conspicuous member of the little group of men who in the planning and building of the White City by the Lake at Chicago, sixteen years ago, turned the current of American feeling and opinion upon all matters of art. No greater epoch in the life of art ever was than that which is marked by the influence and the new impulse in the minds of the millions of men and women of this great and rich ayd powerful and pro' gressive country, who received a new impression of beauty and dignity in art by their visit to that wonderful exhibition. It has seemed to me that there was as great an influence upon the minds and character of the men who did the work as there was 70 O X w X H H Q < O H O 2 O O W o <; w H Q c < O h :z w S D 2: o S THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN upon the people who saw it and learned its lesson. There has been with all of them, and notably and pre-eminently, I should say, with McKim, from that day forth a breadth of public spirit and devotion of their art to the public service such as we never had before. Charles McKim was peculiarly fitted by habit of his mind, by his character and by the tendencies of his art to correct some of the chief thoughts of the American temperament. He despised and shrank from the merely ingenuous and fantastical, through which amateurs in the beginning of a desire for orna' ment are apt to express themselves. The tendency was to hold fast to all that was good in the past, to anchor to the great achieve ments past, and to aim to adapt the established principles of art to the new conditions to which his problems related ; and so when he came — when he was called to apply his art to the solving of the problems that lay before us in Washington, it was natural for him not to attempt some great and brilliant achievement, but to study the history of our country, and to study the history of the arts that could be brought to illustrate and express the history of our country here. The Commission for the Development of the Park System of Washington did not attempt to evolve something from their inner consciousness, or to present some plan which should be marked by their names and lead all the world to praise their ingenuity or their inventive genius. They went back to the plans of L'Enfant and Washington, and with them in mind they went all over the world and studied all the great specimens of the past through which similar problems had been worked out, and they brought here upon their return the wealth of all the ages and a keen appreciation of our own history and produced a plan and development of L'Enfant's plan for the beautificationof Washington, for the development of its park system, which I be lieve is as certain to be followed as the sun is to rise to-morrow. 71 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Unfortunately, the immediate acceptance of the plan is hindered by a wretched little controversy about the authority under which it was created ; but that is a temporary matter. We cannot go on forever rejecting the best work of our best men along the lines that our nation is following in all of our great and progressive cities — we cannot go on forever rejecting that because of a lit'' tie quarrel over the authority out of which it arose. Mr. McKim was consulted by the War Department when it came to the building of the War College and the Engineer's School in the Old Washington Barracks Reservation. He made the plans and he put up the buildings. There was a charming illustration of his character in the course of that work. The con^ struction was put in charge of a very able officer of the Engi'' neering Corps, who brought to it the rules and traditions of a strict utilitarianism. For months it seemed as if there was an irrepressible conflict between the engineer and the artist ; it seemed as if nothing but the brute power of the War Depart' ment could settle it. But as time went on the old story of the sun and the north wind with the traveler repeated itself. The gentle insistence and unswerving constancy of McKim carried the day, and it was but a short time before the engineer officer was the most ardent admirer and loyal follower of the artist, and all controversy disappeared, and the War College to'day seems to me to be a very wonderful and charming example of architect ture, perfectly adapted to its purpose and expressive of the char' acter of the institution. When he came to repair or restore the White House, he found there were plans, plans which looked to the building of great pavilions at either end of the Old White House. It would have been splendid, would have been much admired, would have redounded to the glory of any architect; but it would have 72 BULFINCH S DESIGN FOR COMPLETION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN dwarfed and pushed back into insignificance the plain, simple, old White House, and McKim with his reverent spirit, his self' restraint, sought in the history ot the White House and the his' tory of the time from which it came the spirit in which he was to work. Time and time again he has come to me and talked about what he had found at Monticello, what he had found here and there all over the country in the way of remaining buildings that expressed the spirit of the time of Washington and of Jefferson. He sought for the foundations of the old east wing which was destroyed, I suppose, and never rebuilt after the fire of 1 8 14 — at all events it had long disappeared — and he put back the White House as nearly as possible as it was originally, except that he took out all the poor material and put in the best material ; he took out all of the gingerbread confectioner's work that had been put in in the course of years and replaced it by simple and dignified work, and he left us the White House a perfect example of an American gentleman's home on the banks of the Potomac. I told him once of something that some one had said about the office building — the President's office building. There was gen' eral criticism, and the members of our Congress generally failed to see where the money had gone, because the great pavilion had not been kept ; but the thing that I told him was that some one had said that the President's office building looked like a stable. "Ah," he said, " that is the best thing that has been said about it yet. I wanted it to look like a simple dependency of the main building, and this criticism shows that I have accomplished what I sought." It was not alone in the matters where he was directly intrusted with the prosecution of work as an architect or as a member of the Commission that he was of service. We got in the way of calling upon him for advice upon all sorts of ques' 73 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM tions relating to memorials, to statues and to buildings in the city ot Washington certain that his correct taste, his carefully stu' died views would prevent any error being made. He was called upon to pass upon the designs tor the Grant Memorial, which is now under construction, and he was called upon to pass upon the location, and a battle royal occurred over the design and a still more serious contiict over the location ; but he was tenacious and unyielding in his contention for what he was sure was right and best, and he prevailed. When we came to build the new build' ing for the international Union ot American Republics, which is now nearing completion, fronting on the White Lot on the east and on the Potomac Park on the south, there was a great competition ot more than a hundred architects who sent in com' petitive designs and they elected Mr. McKim, with Mr. Lord and Mr. Hornbostel, to make the selection from the designs. They all agreed upon the design, which is now being followed, and when that had been done the characteristic occurred, for McKim said : " Now I would like very much, as this design has been determined upon, to make some suggestions. I think all of our Committee would be glad to go over these plans with the architects, and possibly we may make criticisms and sugges' tions which would better be done now than after the building is put up" ; and the architects, of course, were delighted and they submitted their plans; many invaluable suggestions were made, the plans were worked over and still again ; and the cot' rect taste of McKim goes into that building also, as it has into the White House, as it did into the War College, and as it will ultimately appear in the great park system of Washington. Our President needed to add nothing to the many reasonsthat I have for respect and affection for him ; but he did add to both of those by the steadfastness and general appreciation with which 74 THE PARK COMMISSION PLAN he stood by McKiin in his strenuous efforts to prevent the park system plan from being overslaughed and rendered impossible by subsequent inconsistent construction. All of this work illustrated not only McKim's character as an artist, but his unselfishness, his love of his country, his pride in the Capital City, which we all believe is to be so beautiful and so noble. He did love his country and he was willing to spend himself without stint, in order that his art might do its part in a noble and adequate expression ot all that was best in his country's life. Many great and noble lives have entered into the structure of American Government and American freedom, but none in executive chair or in legislative hall deserves a higher meed of appreciation and grateful recognition tor noble service to our country than the life of Charles McKim. It was the last thought in his mind, but it should be the first in ours. By the side of L'Enfant, Thornton, Hoban, Latrobe, and Bulfinch, the name of Charles Follen McKim should always be perpetuated among the builders — the great genius^ gifted builders — of what is to be, I believe, the most noble and beautifiil city in the world. CHAPTER VII THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL It was undoubtedly the intimacy fostered by close association in connection with the improvements in Washington between Mr. McKim and Mr. Cassatt which led the latter to entrust to McKim, Mead, and White, without any question of competition, the building of the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Man^ hattan. In 1871 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company secured by leases the control of the United Railroads of New Jersey which terminate in Jersey City. From that time the desire of the railroad was to get into or onto Manhattan Island, and many plans were con- sidered, only to be set aside as impractical. The panics of 1 873 and 1 884 made it impossible to finance any great undertaking from which there could be no imme- diate return. The beginnings of the Hudson Terminal scheme first suggested tunnels under the North River, but the engineering obstacles to such a plan were deemed unsurmountable. In 1 8 84, the papers were filled with the reports of a suspension bridge over the North River, having a span almost twice as great as 76 ■ PLAN OF THE PENNSYLVANIA STATION, NEW YORK THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL the Brooklyn Bridge. This, too, was given up largely because of the active opposition of the river traffic. In 1899, Alexander J. Cassatt became President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. That he was a man of large vision we have already seen, in his having volun^ tarily given up the Mall property in Washington. To such a man physical obstacles are as nothing in com- parison with an ideal to be realized. Many of his most devoted supporters after the work on the ter- minal improvements was begun offered him nothing but discouragement at the inception of the scheme. In 1892, the subject of tunneling under the river was again revived, careful surveys were made, and a num- ber of different plans submitted, but the silver panic of 1 893 again made the financing of such a project impossible. The purchasing of the control of the Long Island Railroad by the Pennsylvania in 1 900 made a physical connection between the two railroads a ne-- cessity. During all these years the population of New York and the surrounding cities had grown by leaps and bounds, increasing by thirty-eight per cent in the area of Greater New York between i 890 and 1 905. If the Pennsylvania Company were to secure and re- tain their legitimate share of the traffic of handling such a population, immediate action, in the judgment 77 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM of Mr. Cassatt, was necessary. No makeshift schemes appealed to him ; only a great station in the heart of Manhattan Island could satisfy his dreams for the fu- ture growth and supremacy of the Pennsylvania Rail- road. To accomplish this before the cost should be- come prohibitive or the accomplishment of the work impossible, because of the construction of other under- ground lines, demanded instant work. The plan as conceived in the mind of Mr. Cassatt seemed to his associates at first hearing like a dream from the " Ara- bian Nights," but only those " who dream dreams and see visions " accomplish the impossible and the enthu- siasm of the leader soon fired his associates. The plan as outlined, and as it was afterwards car- ried out, involved not only the acquiring of sufficient land in the heart of the city for a station to meet the wants of the people for years to come, but it was also considered necessary to offer to Newark and the other cities in New Jersey and to the residential sections of Long Island quick transportation to New York and intercommunication and to provide all-rail connec- tions between the South and West on one side and New England and the East on the other. One can easily imagine the eager sympathy with which Mc- Kim entered into these schemes. The designing of 78 THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL the portal to the Capital City had been entrusted to Burnham as head of the Park Commission, but here was a greater portal to a far greater city than any other in the Western World. The bringing of the trains into New York and other structural problems had been worked out by the engineers, but the designing of a station to meet the new conditions was surely a prob^ lem of sufficient magnitude to fire the ambition of any man. Many studies were made of most diffisrent types, but always the architects saw before them the great baths of Rome, magnificent in their dignity and sim- plicity, the greatest examples in history of large areas rpofed over and treated in a monumental manner. Two ideas were predominant from the very beginning : the building must at once express a great railway station under the unusual conditions of having the tracks so far below ground that no outward expression of their existence was possible, and it must also stand as the great monumental gateway to the metropolis. In ad- dition to these main ideas the station was so planned as to give the greatest number of lines of circulation in order to avoid congestion of traffic. How this was ac- complished can best be understood by a glance at the plan. 79 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM The central feature is the great waiting-room which can be approached from the center of the Seventh Avenue facade through the arcade of shops which carries Thirty^second Street direct to the waiting-room, also from Thirty 'first and Thirty-third Streets and from the carriage court at either end. In this main waiting-room are ticket offices, telephones and tele- v^' ^ graph, news-stand and other conveniences for the traveler, so located as to save any unnecessary steps. Between the main waiting-room and the train con- course are two large subsidiary waiting-rooms, one for men and one for women. These rooms, as well as the main waiting-roomi open directly into the great train concourse from which very easy flights of steps lead down to the trains. This concourse can also be reached by easy stairs from Eighth Avenue and from Thirty- first Street and Thirty-third Street, without going through the main station. At the west end of the Thirty-second Street arcade is a colonnaded loggia from which one enters the restaurant on the one side and the lunch-room on the other. Sloping driveways, over sixty feet in width along Thirty-first Street and Thirty-third Street, carry vehicles down to the waiting- room level direct from Seventh Avenue. Such in brief are the main features of the plan, 80 THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL which is surely one of greatest simphcity and conven- ience. In no other large station are the incoming and outgoing passengers kept more separate so that even in the rush hours the station never seems crowded. Another convenience for the public is the mezzanine concourse halfway between the train level and the main concourse floor, from which concourse one can go direct from his train to Seventh or Eighth Avenue or to Thirty-first Street, Thirty-third or Thirty-fourth Street, or can change from the Pennsylvania to the Long Island trains without climbing up to the street level, as what is really a separate and complete station is provided for the Long Island Road at the north- western corner of the building at the lower level. So much for the practical features which do so much for comfort and convenience of the traveler. Upon the solution of these questions depends much of the sue- ^ cess of any building, but these questions, though they cl be ever so perfectly solved, do not satisfy the natural ^ demands to be made of such a building as the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company proposed to build in New York. To do this, those qualities which make for real architecture, dignity, proportion, and beauty were, in the mind of Mr. Cassatt, quite as necessary as the ones already spoken of, and these qualities McKim was 81 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM called upon to produce. That he did so in this as in so many other cases no one can deny, but what makes the architectural solution of the Pennsylvania Station supremely interesting is the fact that it was the last work in which he took any active part, and to one who has studied the growth of his style it seems to be the fulfillment of everything for which he had striven so hard, the visible embodiment of those principles to which he had given his life. When the actual working drawings for the Penn^ sylvania Station were commenced, McKim's health had begun to fail so rapidly that he was not able to give any attention to the study of the details. The original conception was inspired by him and in its development he took the deepest interest, but his as- sistants, and among them notably Mr. Richardson, worked out the details and 'developed the conception into the beautiful structure which is such a monument to New York. Looking down Thirty-second Street from Broadway the picture which fills the eye, of a great Doric portal, behind which rises one of the lofty semicircular windows of the waiting-room, is at once expressive of the whole idea, the gateway to a great city : not a gateway in a solid wall of fortifications as in the ancient city, but the modern gateway through 82 THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL which thousands are daily brought to and taken home from the city by means of electricity and steam ; m other words, a railway station, the only possible portal under the conditions of modern life. Standing at the corner of Broadway and Thirtysecond Street at any hour of a clear afternoon, the color effect of the station against the blue of the sky is one of such beauty that it almost hurts, it is so simple, so pure, so serene. Go inside the Seventh Avenue portal, through the arcade lined with shops, and stop at the head of the stairway leading down into the waiting-room ; at every step it grows more wonderful, so that instinc- tively one lowers one's voice as one takes in slowly the intense beauty of this gigantic room. Is this a railroad station, a place of dust and noise and hurry } Where are the things one always associates with such a place ? Look around ; it is not necessary to ask a single ques- tion, everything the traveler can demand is before him, and all distinctly marked and so located as to serve him with greatest convenience and expedition. It is hardly comprehensible that this can be the waiting-room of a railway station ; this great hall of simple and lofty proportions, flooded with the light of day, warm in color from the mellow tones of the Travertine stone, here used for the first time in America ; almost entirely 83 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM devoid of decoration except for those marvelous maps which Jules Guerin has painted on the walls. Yes, these are maps, questioning traveler, real railroad maps, and absolutely correct in the drawing, these exquisite harmonies of blue and buff. Go on into the concourse from which one enters one's train ; still no noise, no dirt, no confusion. You are in an even larger room than the main waiting-- room, a room as light as out of doors, for it is really a court covered with glass. The steel structure support- ing this glass roof is again devoid of ornamentation or embellishment of any sort, but wonderfully impress- ive from the supreme beauty of line and function like the lean, lithe frame of a young athlete stripped of every ounce of superfluous flesh. From this concourse one descends by very easy steps to a platform on the level of the floor of the cars, which are entered with- out the usual steep platform steps. It is all so simple, so serene, so beautiful, that even when once seated in the train it is hard to realize that one has been through that which, at the time of its completion, was the largest railway station in the world. Did McKim, whose health had for some years been failing, and who felt that he was near the end of his period of active ser- vice, see before him more clearly the vision of the great 84 THE PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL orderly, simple civilization of which he had always dreamed, and for the realization of which he had so devotedly and unselfishly worked ? I think it must have been so. This was a type of what the civiliza^ tion of to-morrow already demands, calmness, order, beauty. All these are to be found embodied and glo- rified in the Pennsylvania Station, a mighty portal, a perpetual gateway to a great modern city. " Lift up your heads, oh, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye ever- lasting doors." These inspired words come to one's mind when gazing upon this poem in stone, the off- spring of modern science and modern art. CHAPTER VIII THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME McKim's interest in everything that helped young men to fit themselves for the practice of architecture was second only to his interest in architecture itself. One can readily imagine that when he first visited Italy his enthusiasm and delight over the buildings of antiquity which he saw in Rome must have been in^ tense. Mr. Peabody has told us how his natural trend of mind led him to Rome rather than to Paris for real artistic inspiration. After that first visit he went to Italy many times, and that he reveled in the beauties of Florence and Venice and the smaller Italian towns has been shown in his work, but it was always to Rome that he went for his deepest inspiration. Whether the idea of an Academy in Rome for American students came to him on these early visits, we know not, as this idea took no tangible shape until the completion of the buildings and grounds for the World's Fair at Chi^ cago in i 893. This Exhibition has been the inspira- tion and starting-point of many great artistic move- ments in America, but I think none has been and will 86 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME continue to be of such lasting value to the American people as this Academy, planted in the heart of the world, where students from the newest of Republics can study the monuments and documents of that first great Republic which for centuries ruled the world. It was a notable body of men which created that dream of beauty on the shores of Lake Michigan,and theasso^ ciations formed at that time when, to slightly alter the words of Kipling : — Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his Separate Star, Created the Thing as he saw it for the God of Things as They Are! — have, as I have said in a previous chapter, been most far-reaching in their influence. The avidity with which McKim took hold of the idea of a School of Architecture in Rome and the en- ergy and zeal with which he pushed it unto his death, and even afterwards as I shall show, makes one feel that it was no sudden impulse created by the inspira- tion of the World's Fair, but an idea which had long lain dormant in his brain. The men who founded the American Academy were thoroughly familiarwith the history, the tradition, and the work of the French Academy, which had been founded in the reign of 87 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Louis XIV, and which perhaps more than any other one thing had fostered and kept ahve the traditions of classical art in France, and had enabled her to maintain her supremacy in architecture, painting, and sculpture through more than two centuries. McKim's dream was to establish a great national post-graduate school where students in the three arts could live and work together as had the architects, painters, and sculptors during the planning and execu^ tion of the World's Fair. No one ever realized more clearly than he the great inspiration and help to a stu^ dent to be derived from contact with other men of other minds, but inspired by one great ideal. The condition of the public mind in America, until the World's Fair, was one of absolute indifference towards art in any of its phases. It is true that in such cities as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston there were earnest groups of men striving with all their might not only to create the beautiful in itself, but also to create a demand for beauty, but it was generally " love's labor lost." In the face of such general indifference the task of founding and maintaining such a school as the pro-- posed Academy was an almost Herculean one. Money was to be procured, the public to be educated up to the 88 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME idea, students to be told of the advantages of such a school and their enthusiasm for it to be aroused, and above all a vast amount of prejudice against any for-- eign school to be overcome ; for all the men interested in its foundation, and above all McKim, felt that such a school should be established only in Rome. No other spot could present such advantages and make it possible for the school to realize for its students the benefits which its founders had in mind. In order at least to make a beginning, when he found the time not favorable for the establishment of a full-fledged Academy, McKim founded,in i 894, the McKim Fellowship in Architecture at Columbia Uni- versity giving for its endowment twenty thousand dol- lars. This was a traveling fellowship and the winner was compelled to study abroad. In the same year, in order to provide headquarters for the winners of the McKim Fellowship, the Rotch Traveling Scholarship, a Boston foundation, and the Stewardson Memorial Scholarship of the University of Pennsylvania, he established the American School o£ Architecture m Rome. For this purpose quarters were taken in the Palazzo Torlonia, and here the school was opened with Mr. Austin Lord as Director and the first winners of the three scholarships, Messrs. Pope, Magonigle, and 89 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Ash, as students. This was the beginning of what is now the American Academy. In 1 895, the Peabody Institute of Baltimore estab^ hshed the Rinehart Scholarship m Sculpture, and in 1896, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Lazarus Scholarship for the study of mural painting. These establishments made feasible the enlarging of the field of the little School of Architecture, and in 1898 it was reincorporated under the laws of the State of New York, the title being changed to "The Amer^ ican Academy in Rome." As many people have asked why these men should be so anxious to establish an American Academy in Rome and why students in America should be sent there particularly, I shall quote the views of three of the founders upon this subject. Charles McKim, who was first President of the Academy, said : — The advantages which Rome has to offer to students of archi' tecture and the allied arts need not be urged. What with its architectural and sculptural monuments, its mural paintings, its galleries filled with great works of every epoch, no other city offers such a field for study or an atmosphere so replete with the best precedents. Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Bramante are among those who head the list of the enthusiastic students of the antique which has continued down to our day and which contains repre' 90 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME sentatives from every country. Raphael, architect as well as painter, devoted himself with unceasing ardor to the examina' tion and measurements of the monuments of Rome, and not only undertook to restore particular buildings, but even conceived the vast project of the restoration of the city in its ensemble. Augustus Saint-Gaudens, unquestionably the great- est American sculptor and until his death actively in- terested in the development of the Academy, wrote: — The conditions of life with us make the long and serious pre' paration necessary for the thorough training of an artist almost an impossibility, and the temptations to plunge into an active career with immature preparation are constant and inevitable. To take the best of the young men and protect them from these temptations as well as to give them great advantages of surround' ings and general atmosphere is one of the principal benefits of such an institution. John LaFarge, our first mural painter, also believed in the desirability of such an institution, and has said : It seems to me, that above all other nations, we can be bene' fited by the establishment of an Academy at Rome. We could open to all the forces of Art which Italy has nurtured minds more free than those at the other academies, less weighted by preju' dices, of more varied types and with an infinitely more open fu' ture. At the same time, whatever there is of restraint, or order, of what is properly education, is exactly the force needed to knit together our rather loose energy. Such study would free us from the subserviency of other European training, for the extremely sensitive mind of the artist is especially impressed by authority 91 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM and it is evidently desirable that that authority, however various, should be the highest that we know. These expressions of opinion, so decidedly in favor of the Academy, from the most recognized authori- ties in the three great Arts naturally influenced public opinion and did much to remove popular prejudices. In 1898, after the incorporation of the Academy, it soon became evident that the quarters in the Palazzo Torlonia were no longer adequate and that larger quarters with studios were necessary. It having be- come possible to secure by lease the Casino of the Villa Ludovisi, better known as the Villa dell' Aurora, the Academy leased this building, which was all that re- mained of that once famous villa whose grounds had been sold piecemeal and are now covered by modern buildings. Here the Academy remained for nine years, and in a way took root among the recognized institU' tions of the Eternal City. Each year returning students proved by their work the real value of the institution and the Trustees and Founders, fired by these evi- dences of awakening public interest, began to make more strenuous efforts to put the Academy upon a solid financial basis. In 1901, the Secretary of State authorized the American Ambassador to Italy to become ex-officio 92 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME Trustee of the Academy and to use all his influence to gain for it from the Italian Government all the privi^ leges and exemptions granted to similar institutions of other nations. During all these years McKim had never ceased his efforts to arouse public interest and to secure needed funds for the maintenance of the in- stitution. In his address to the Convention of the American Institute of Architects in i 903 at the time he retired from the presidency of the Institute he said : — The movement to endow an American Academy of Fine Arts in Roine on the general lines of the French Academy in the Villa Medici is not new to you. Until now dependent for support upon the insufficient means at the command of the incorporators (members of the Institute) the number of scholars has of neces' sity been small and the conveniences for work not such as would be afforded by an older well^equipped and welPendowed institu' tion. Nevertheless, in spite of its vicissitudes, such has been the quality of the work, so able the few men turned out and so strong the conviction of those most deeply interested in the need for an institution offering a post-graduate course intended only for those who shall be already technically equipped, that a bill for the in^ corporation of the American Academy in Rome by Act of Con' gress, and asking for the protection of the United States Govern' ment was introduced in 1 90 1 by the late Senator McMillan. The persons named as incorporators, besides the leading architects, painters and sculptors, include the great Universities represented by their Presidents, the Secretaries of State and War, the Libra' 93 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM rian of Congress, the Government Architect and a considerable number of men chosen from the community at large, known for their interest in art and education. It was McKim's hope to raise an endowment fund of one million dollars, the interest of this amount be^ ing almost equal to the income granted the French Academy by the Government of France. He proposed to do this by securing ten subscriptions of one hun^ dred thousand dollars each, and, had his life been spared, he would undoubtedly have accomplished this. At the Convention of the American Institute of Architects, held in Washington in January, i 905, McKim was able to announce that two of the ten subscriptions towards this fund had been promised by Mr. Henry Walters, of Baltimore, and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of New York. The bill incorporating the Academy as a national institution was passed by Congress and signed by Presi- dent Roosevelt on March 3, 1 ^o^, and the institution was immediately given a standing in Europe which it could not have otherwise acquired. McKim at once redoubled his efforts towards raising the endowment fund and obtained promises of subscriptions from Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt, Mr. W.J.Stillman, Mr. H. C. Fnck, and Mr. H. L. Higginson conditioned upon the secur- 94 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME ing of the ten subscriptions needed to bring the fund up to a milhon dollars. Pending the raising of the full amount, these gentlemen have generously given each year the interest on their subscriptions, so that by care^ ful management the Academy has been able to pro-' ceed with its work without any serious discomfort or inconvenience. The object of the Academy is to offer to its students every opportunity for study and development, each in his chosen art, in an atmosphere remote from the temp- tations of commercialism. Mr. Blashfield has said, "The man who has inherited a temperament and ac- quired a technique may learn in Rome a lesson from a higher example than any he has seen, the cumula- tive example of twenty centuries of Art." In order that the student may approach his work with a mind free from financial worries, the Academy provides him with lodging and studio and gives him each year one thou- sand dollars, but it insists that during his course of study he receive neither employment nor commissions. The winner of the Academy Prize of Rome has before him three years of travel and study, three years of unrivaled opportunities for the acquirement of knowledge of all that is best in his chosen art, but the amount of his acquirement depends absolutely upon 95 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM himself. The programme for the work allows him during the first year ample time in which to become accustomed to his new environment and to absorb some of the atmosphere of culture of a civilization that has ripened with the centuries. The programme is one of suggestion rather than compulsion, it being assumed that no man could secure the Prize of Rome before he had, in a way, found himself and determined quite definitely upon his life's work. The requirements for the first year are, for a painter, a copy of an old mas^ ter, a study of some mural paintmg with its own sur- roundings, and the decorative treatment of a life-size figure from nature. A sculptor must submit studies from the antique and a life-size relief. An architect is expected carefully to measure and draw an ancient building and to make comparative studies of the pro- portions of plans, domes, halls, etc. In addition, each student is expected during his first year to spend four months traveling upon the mainland of Italy. In the second year, after the students have become more ac- customed to the atmosphere of Italy and have begun to realize the inestimable value of contact between disciples of the three arts, in addition to a special type of work for each department, the three, architect, painter, and sculptor, are required to collaborate in 96 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME making a drawing or model in which the three arts shall be equally represented. In the second and third year more time is allowed for travel, and the students are expected to visit other countries besides Italy, the architects being expected to go as far as Greece and spend some time in study there. It will be seen from this brief outline that the mmd which conceived the Academy was bounded by no narrow limitations, but intended to offer to the stu^ dents therein opportunities for the very broadest type of culture. The American School of Classical Studies in Rome was established by the Archaeological Institute of America at about the same time as the Academy. Recently these two institutions have been consoli'- dated to the mutual advantage of each. The Classical School is a center not only for its own members, but also for all American scholars visiting Rome. It pos- sesses an already valuable library of seven thousand volumes and it offers to all who enter its doors almost unlimited opportunities for study and research, and the union of these two institutions cannot fail to be of in- estimable advantage to the students of each. For the present the Academy and the School occupy separate villas, but in the near future will be housed together in their permanent quarters on the Janiculum. 97 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM After Its legal incorporation the Academy soon be^ came very crowded in its quarters in the Villa dell' Aurora, and as no additions could be made to that building the Trustees began to look for new quarters. After a long and careful search the Villa Mirafiore on the Via Nomentana, just a mile beyond the Porta Pia, was purchased. This is a modern villa with extensive and beautiful grounds, containing a grove of ilex trees of unusual beauty even for the environs of Rome. In these grounds have been constructed studios for three painters and two sculptors in addition to the original buildings. The students also have tennis courts within the grounds and many beautiful spots for out-of-door study and recreation. When the Villa Mirafiore was purchased, the Trus- tees of the Academy thought that they had found what would be its permanent headquarters and were amply satisfied with that prospect, but an even better fate was in store for it. After her death, it was found that an American lady, who had long lived in Rome, a Mrs. Clara Hyland, had left her villa on Mount Janiculum, occupying the most splendid site in Rome, to the American Academy to be used as its permanent home. This villa is known as the Villa Aurelia, and part of it is of great antiquity, being a portion of the 98 THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME great wall built by Aurelian seventeen hundred years ago for the purpose of keeping the barbarians out of Rome. Garibaldi occupied this villa as his headquar- ters when defending the Roman Republic against the French under General Oudinot. During the siege the buildings were almost destroyed and since then have been restored and not happily. The gardens, however, are of considerable extent and of exquisite beauty, and to-day the rebuilding of the villa on a scale commen- surate with its purpose and dignity has been begun. When these buildings are completed, the Academy will possess studios, libraries, an exhibition hall, and residences for directors and students, and the grounds are of sufficient size to accommodate these buildings with dignity. What makes Mrs. Hyland's gift of such priceless value to the Academy and to America is its incomparable site, much the finest in the city. The views in every direction are superb. Off to the south lie the Alban Hills, to the east the Sabine Mountains, with distant views of the snowy Abruzzi in between. To the north, just beyond the gardens of Villa Au- relia itself, lies the Passeggiatta Margherita, a charm- ing park that extends almost to St. Peter's. The stu- dent at the Academy has only to cross this park to reach those priceless treasure-houses of the Christian 99 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM world, and all the wonders of the Vatican. Trevelyan, in his story of " Garibaldi's Defense of the Roman Republic," thus speaks of the spot from which in the near future will fly the Stars and Stripes, the emblem of our great Republic: — Ascending the heights of the Janiculum we look back across the Tiber at the city spread beneath our feet in all its mellow tints broken here and there by masses of dark green pine and cypress and by shining cupolas raised to the sun. There it lies, beneath us, the heart of Europe and the living chronicle of Man's long march to civilization ; for there, we know, are the well pro' portioned piazzas with their ancient columns and their fountains splashing in shade and shine around the sculptured water gods ; the Forum won back by the spade and the first monument of the Christian conquest. There rise the naked hulks of giant ruins stripped of their imperial grandeur long ago by hungry generations of papal architects and there, on the outskirts of the town, is the pyramid that keeps watch over the graves. As we look down we feel in the presence of all the centuries of Euro' pean History, a score of civilizations dead and lying in state and, in the midst of their eternal monuments, mankind still swarms and labors, still intent to live, still weaving the remote future out of the immemorial past. And then, raising our eyes to the far horizon, we see those hills of great name, molded by the chance spasms of volcanoes, leaving against the sky ridges and peaks to which in after days. Consuls, Emperors and Popes looked every morning as on familiar faces. There, to the north, is the spire of Soracte, to the east, grey, gaunt Lucretilia, to the south the Alban Mount itself, the presiding genius of the city. Across the fifteen loo THE AMERICAN ACADEMY AT ROME miles that lie between the capital and this great semicircle of sacred hills rolls, sea^like, the Campagna in waves of bare open country. Over it, from the day when Consul Aulus led out his host to the Porcian heights yonder, to the day when Italy entered Rome under Victor Emanuel, the armies of many nations, in many ages, for many causes, have come and gone, and each could have been seen slowly crawling over the vast plain. In solemn hush of the distance, it seems as if that semi^circle of mountains were the seats of an antique theatre whereon some audience of patient gods were watching an endless play, as if Rome were the stage on which their looks were centered and on which the short-lived actors moved. Is it not an inspiring thought that on such a site the American Academy may through ages to come teach lessons as immortal as Rome itself and learn from the Eternal City those fundamental principles upon which all art must stand ? This was the dream which Mc'- Kim dreamed and for which he worked unceasingly until his health broke down so completely that he was prevented from doing any further active work. After the first great subscriptions to the endowment fund had been made, for several years nothing further in the way of large gifts could be secured. McKim's en^ thusiasm was greatly missed, but his death, which sad^ dened all of his own profession, brought vividly to the minds of his brother architects as well as to his personal friends the memory of all for which his life had stood, lOl CHARLES POLLEN McKIM of his unselfishness, and his abiding faith in the future in America for the profession he so loved. A movement was started to raise a memorial to him, and it was felt that nothing else would be so fitting or so pleasing to him as another subscription of one hundred thousand dollars to the funds of the Academy. The call for this subscription met with instant response from all sec^ tions of the country and the fund was soon secured. Upon the reading of his will, it was found that he had carried his love for the Academy even beyond the grave, for, fearing lest the project for which he had so unceasingly labored and which he had so deeply loved might suffer for lack of money, he had left his entire fortune of a quarter of a million dollars to the Ameri- can Academy subject only to his daughter's receiving the income during her lifetime, thus showing how dearly he held this project in his heart. When the Academy is moved into its permanent quarters on the Mons Janiculum, the sale of the Villa Mirafiore will add another large sum to the Endowment Fund, so that its future is now assured, and its influence and power will increase with the years, and to all time it will be a living monument to the genius, generosity, and tact of Charles McKim. CHAPTER IX McKIM THE MAN Thus far in this memoir we have been considering the hfe and influence of McKim the Architect. To adequately express McKim the Man is a far more difficult matter. To those who knew and loved him, the man was a far greater influence than his work. Even slight acquaintances realized this because of the subtle power of his personality. His whole life has been best described in one trenchant sentence of his only surviving partner, Mr. Mead, which I have quoted on the title-page of this book, " Perfection in whatever he undertook." That he never got far away from the atmosphere of his early home and the teachings of his beautiful mother, I have already tried to show. His was a life crowned with outward successes and filled with honors, and yet it was a life far from free of care and sorrow. It seems no man of pure ideals can escape from suffering: — Is it true, Oh ! Christ in Heaven, That the highest suffer most ? That the strongest \vander farthest ? 103 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM And most hopelessly are lost ? That the mark of rank in nature Is capacity for pain, And the anguish of the singer Makes the music of the strain ? The McKim of his later days, handsome, reserved, dignified, full of reposeful charm, the McKim whom the younger men of his profession only met to revere and love, was the product of a life of rigid discipline, strenuous work, and constant self-denial. In his youth he bubbled over with fun and animal spirits. As he grew older, these same spirits were curbed and held in check by an invincible will and a mind of very lofty purity and became the tools by which he achieved his highest successes. His sense of fun and of the joy of life he never lost. Mr. Robert Peabody, of Boston, one of his close friends and confreres, said of him after his death: — It does not s eem so very long ago that there cam e into our little circle of architectural studies in Paris a charming youth, fresh from Cambridge from the Scientific School and the ball' field a merry, cheerfiil friend, an athlete, a serious student. We lived a simple, frugal life in the splendid Paris of Louis Napoleon, working hard and he especially with a dogged earnestness. There were, however, happy interludes in this working life between charreltes, when, on rare occasions ice formed on the lakes in the Bois, he, a perfect skater, was the center of admiring throngs. 104, McKIM THE MAN when in the Luxembourg Gardens beneath our windows, we passed around an American base'ball, the Parisians lined up three deep at the tennis court to see him throw the ball to incredible heights. Fired by his enthusiasm, we even joined gymnasium classes, and, though that now seems improbable, we became pro-- ficient on the flying trapeze . In summer we rowed on the Seine and in the ever'to'be'remembered trip for several days down that river no one, French or American, joined with greater enthusiasm than the comrade we used to call affectionately "Follen" or the Frenchmen — by some unrecognizable pervert sion of the name so hard for French lips — McKim. In view of his later career it doubtless sounds strange to say that for a long time it was harder for McKim than for most for' eigners to find himself in sympathy with the atelier and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. What little experience he brought with him had been obtained with Mr. Russell Sturgis of New York. That master and Mr. Babb were his ultimate arbiters. Mr. Rus' kin was the prophet of all that was good and true in Art. Plunged into a world that did not know these masters, even by name, and that looked on Victorian Gothic as romantic archeology, but in no possible sense as architecture, McKim's inflexible nature had some hard rebuffs and conflicts. It required time and other in^ fluences to bring him to a sense of the great worth of the under/ lying principles of the Parisian training, but his sympathies were always more with the earlier than the later French masters. He never really liked modern French taste and he was, in fact, more close to Rome than to Paris. Often the active and feverish life that is creating a Renais/ sance of Art in New York tO/day makes us think of the bril/ liant periods of that other Renaissance in Tuscany. I would not claim for McKim the character of universal genius which his' 105 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM tory attributes to many of the early sons of the Italian Renais/ sance, but when we read how Alberti, that fore-runner of Lee nardo, was skilled in arms and horsemanship and all the bodily exercises proper to the estate of a young nobleman — that he en' joyed feats of strength and skill, that he possessed a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation, that for music he had a genius of the highest order — we are reminded of our friend. Still more, when we find this accomplished son of the Renais' sance fusing classic art with mediaeval standards of taste and in' troducing Roman arches and Corinthian pilasters to a world that had long forgotten them, we are again brought back to New York. These two artists were alike even in the principles that guided their art. They did not seek an " architecture raisonee." They were not greatly interested in Logic. They sought beauty. They found it in its most perfect forms in classic art and they each applied it to the structures of their day. It is enough for most of us that their art was beautiful, and we find ourselves de' bating whether our friend and his associates were more charm' ing in their earlier work when in the Herald Building and the Century Club they dealt with the loveKness of the early Renais' sance, or when the noonday splendors of the great Roman orders appeared at Columbia College and the Pennsylvania Railroad Sta' tion and rivaled not only the Renaissance but ancient Rome itself. In all of this, however, we see McKim, as in the case of Al' berti, the handsome gentleman, the cultured scholar making his city beautiful and adapting the beauties of classic architecture to the life of his day. So perfectly has Mr. Peabody brought before us the man as he actually was that anything more I may say must seem like an anti-climax. A man is always 106 McKIM THE MAN judged by his friends, and no man had a richer supply of loyal friends among the choicest spirits of his day than Charles McKim. I have quoted Mr. Choate and Senator Root and Mr. Cadwalader and President Nich^ olas Murray Butler as among that number, but there were many others of equal distinction, to say nothing of those closer friends of his life, his partners, who were more than brothers. A chapter might be written of his friendship with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the great sculptor, who was so often the companion of his travels and with whom he worked in closest sympathy until the death of Saint-Gaudens ended their earthly com-' panionship. McKim did not linger long after, and one likes to think of these two rare souls walking the Ely- sian Fields arm in arm and carrying on above the same wonderful talks about those things which are true and earnest and beautiful, as they had done on earth. Aside from men of his own social circle there lay a much larger circle of friendships and these were perhaps the rarest of his life, that large, very large number of draughtsmen, students and younger practitioners who looked upon McKim, as long as he lived, as " guide, counselor, and friend," and who since his death hold his memory in sacred veneration and treasure most deeply everything they learned from him. 107 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM Among his friends of his own age McKim was a.V ways the genial, urbane gentleman, but the natural reserve of his temperament, which seemed to increase with the years, made his conversation even among inti^ mates somewhat formal and dignified. With younger men he was able to throw off this reserve, to accept and enter into their point of view. He never forgot the dreams and struggles of his own youth and so was ever ready to give himself to help younger architects to arrive. Without apparently seeming to do so he watched the development of each man in his office who had shown any possibilities of creative work, and when he felt that this one or that had reached the point where he could develop more rapidly in personal practice it was McKim's custom to secure for this man some job and thus enable him to start out for himself. It would be difficult to recall the exact number of successful practicing architects who were thus launched through his kindly and sympathetic influences. This unselfish practice has been the invariable rule of McKim, Mead, and White, and is carried on just as extensively to-day by Mr. Mead and his associates. McKim may almost be said to have had no private life. At the age of twenty-five he married Miss Bige- low, of Boston. That marriage was not a happy one, 108 RESIDENCE OF JOHN INNES KANE, ESC^., FIFTH AVENUE^ NEW YORK McKIM THE MAN and they were later divorced without any breath of scandal being attached to either. Of this marriage there was one daughter — Miss Margaret McKim — who was her father's companion during the later years of his life. On June 23, 1885, he married Miss Julia Amory Appleton, of Lenox. This marriage gave every promise of most complete happiness to both, but was only short-lived owing to the death of Mrs. McKim in 1887. In her memory he founded the Julia Amory Appleton Fellowship in Architecture at Harvard, which provides an annual stipend of one thousand dol- lars for a traveling student. He also may be said to have had no fixed abiding-place. He builded for his friends many beautiful houses, of which the most beau- tiful in my judgment is the Kane house on the north- west corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street, New York, but, like the cobbler of old, he never had time to build a home for himself. In reviewing all that has been written of him and in listening to countless anecdotes from his intimate friends, I have come to the conclusion that McKim never had time to do anything for his own personal advancement or gratification. Perhaps that is the secret of real success in life; he lived and worked for others, and in that fact lies the foundation of his radiating 109 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM charm. Most men leave behind them letters out of which their biographers can easily weave an interest^ ing story of their lives, but McKim hated to write letters. He might be said to have had the telegraph habit, so constantly did he use the wire even when to do so was almost a luxury, but unfortunately tele^ grams are seldom if ever kept. I have spoken in the beginning of what to me are his greatest characteristics: his modesty and his enthu^ siasm for helping young men to develop in the profes^ sion of architecture. The keenest and finest analysis that has been made of the man and the architect was made by Mr. Choate on the occasion of the Memorial Services in New York from which I have permission to quote. I have told of the difficulty of locating him at the great dinner in Washington when it seemed as if all the talent in America were gathered together to do him honor. Mr. Choate gives a graphic account of the occasion in London in i 903 when he received the Royal Gold Medal for services to architecture the world over. He was so nervously diffident and em^ barrassed that he begged Mr. Choate and Mr. Henry White to go with him and stand by him through what he considered a terrible ordeal. When he re^ ceived the medal, he accepted it, not as an honor to 110 McKIM THE MAN himself personally, but as an honor to his profession in America of which he proudly considered him- self to be only the representative. Not only in Eng- land, but in Italy also, the highest authorities in Art have distinguished him with special honors. To us, in America, this seems most fitting, for surely it is to McKim, Mead, and White that America is indebted for her knowledge of the principles of Italian art and architecture and the knowledge that these principles are not national but fundamental and apply to all architecture. In America, particularly, in his own profession, he was not only honored ; he was loved. The number of young men who derived the foundations of knowl- edge in the office of McKim, Mead, and White is legion, and they carry into actual work the inspiration and influence of McKim's large imagination, his con- stant encouragement, his abiding faith in the purity and strength of an ideal, and his deeply rooted love for and belief in beauty as an essential in life. Unlike those geniuses of the Renaissance, McKim did not scatter his energies, but by the closest study and hard- est work he concentrated his whole heart and mind and feeling upon his work as an architect. The crown of architecture was for him sufficient ; he sought no other 111 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM and to win this one he gave his hfe's blood. " As some men have the vision of their country rich and pros-' perous, and some men the vision of their country great and powerful, his imagination kept always before him the vision of a country inspired and elevated by a purer and nobler taste; and, unselfishly and with en^ thusiasm, with persistency and high and noble courage, he devoted himself to that work"; these words are Mr. Root's, but their truth is evident to all who have studied the life I am trying to portray. Behind that gentle, ingratiating manner, which he showed to all who came in contact with him, lay an absolutely in^ flexible will. When he seemed most about to sur^ render and to yield to opposition, he was always found to be most determined, most immovable. Disliking conflict of any sort, he never could yield in what he believed to be best for the future of art, but he was never aggressive in his determination and never appeared to realize the victory when he had won it. McKim retired from the presidency of the Amer- ican Institute of Architects in November, i 903. Dur- ing the two years of his presidency he had been much in Washington working with unwearying tact and zeal to impress upon Senators and Representatives 1 12 McKIM THE MAN the importance of literally carrying out the recom^ mendations of the Park Commission in order that the plans o£ L'Enfant and Washington might be pre^ served. In his last address to the Convention of the Institute he dwells upon the necessity for constant ef- fort on the part of the Institute until this great plan should be completed, and here I make one quotation from his speech because it shows so clearly his whole method of procedure in dealing with bodies of men who did not in the beginning understand him or his ideals : — Bearing in mind this great volume of work the [Park Com' mission Plan] and the intimate relations that have for so many years been maintained between our profession and the central government, it should be by no means a cause of astonishment that from time to time a difference of opinion should arise as to the exact form that these relations should assume. We should not feel that representatives of governments, zealous in what they consider wise economies, are inimical to those principles that we regard as fundamental. Yet we must bear in mind that there are times when right relations are to be maintained only by the greatest tact and moderation. If, as some fear, such times are upon us now, it behooves us to meet each situation as it arises fairly, calmly and above all, without heat, remembering that nothing is to be gained by mere assertion, everything by convincing proof ; remembering that we have lair minded men to deal with, but men who can look at things from our point of view only when they have been convinced that that point 113 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM of view is right and for the good of all. We must approach them in a spirit of the highest consideration, prepared to yield every/ thing except principle. It was this quality more than any other which made out of his ch'ents warm personal friends. So many anecdotes have been told me, full of the personality and charm, the purity and integrity, of the man, that it is hard to select among them those which most viv' idly portray him. Such personalities are rare in any profession, in any nation, and the main object in the writing of this memoir is to bring before the younger men in his profession, who were born too late to have known him personally, but have seen and are seeing the distinguished work which has been and is being done by the firm which he founded to carry on the great tradition of a noble architecture, a knowledge of the man himself who lived and died to establish this tradition in America. The last few years of McKim's life were clouded by sickness and sorrow. Saint'-GaU' dens and White preceded him, and he never quite recovered from their loss, but he fought bravely on against serious physical disability planning, directing, and encouraging until the end. As a last picture of him I want to quote from his lifelong friend Mr. John L. Cadwalader: — 1 14 McKIM THE MAN And now what shall be said of the personality of Charles Mc'Kim ? With my relationship with him for years and years, I am unable, almost unable, to enter upon that subject. It seemed to me he was almost the most attractive personality I have ever known. I defy any man to attempt to oppose McKim when he was really disposing of some subject in which he was largely in' terested. His manner, his smile, his treatment of the subject were all conclusive, and I defy any man to fail to enlist when McKim was the recruiting officer. In the sunshine of his presence, acquaintance warmly blos' somed into friendship. In the charm and shadow of his smile a statement became a demonstration, difficulties passed away, things that were uncertain took a certain shape and became pos' sible and natural and imagination became actuality. He really burned out life's candle in the effort to elevate his own profession. He has passed away. That timid fluttering soul has ceased to beat against the bars of life. His body is at rest, and yet we know — The soul of Adonais, like a star Beacons from above where the Eternal are. CHAPTER X THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS After an illness which really lasted for nearly three years, Charles McKim died on the 1 4th of September, 1909. So widespread was the grief felt, not only among his own immediate circle, but also by the American people at large, that the New York Chapter of American Institute of Architects and the various societies of which he was an honored member deter^ mined to hold a memorial meeting in his honor in the city of New York. The national body of the Amer-' ican Institute, while in thorough sympathy with the New York movement, felt that some recognition of his services to the nation should also be held in the National Capital which had been the scene of so much of his splendid work. The meeting in New York was held in the New Theatre on Central Park West on November 23,1909. At this meeting appropriate ad' dresses were made by Mr. George B. Post on behalf of the New York Chapter, by Honorable Elihu Root, Mr. Walter Cook, Professor H. Langford Warren, Mr. Josiah H. Benton, President Nicholas Murray 116 ;«■:•"; fh€ vat ! svp'ipa "nil!' iw ih-Ai. uM>;a v'nV\\>oc^ THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS Butler, Mr. John L. Cadwalader, and Professor Wil- liam M. Sloane. The music at this meeting was fur- nished by the Mendelssohn Glee Club, of which Mr. McKim had been an enthusiastic member. From some of the addresses at this meeting I have already quoted so extensively that I will not report them in full, but the others are of great interest and show how highly esteemed and how deeply loved was McKim in his own city and are reported just as they were delivered. REMARKS OF MR. GEORGE B. POST The members of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Na' tional Academy of Design, the American Academy in Rome, the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Faculty of Fine Arts of Columbia University, the American Acad' emy of Arts and Letters, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science, the Mc Dowell Association, the Municipal Art Society, the National Sculpture Society, the National Society of Mural Painters, the Society of Beaux Arts Architects, and the Architectural League of New York, have called this meeting in honor of the late Charles Follen McKim. Were it not that I am to have the honor of introducing distinguished orators, far better qualified than I to speak of his character and career, I might well tell you how, by distinguished ability, great attainments, sterling worth, sin' gular and insistent devotion to whatever he undertook, enthu' siasm for the good and beautiful and hatred of sham, combined 117 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM with a courteous consideration for all, he has won the devoted affection of his fellows and a dominating influence in the profes' sion which he loved. He won the respectful admiration of the community; his genius has stamped an imprint on the art of a continent. He was a Master of Arts of Bowdoin and Harvard Universities, Doctor of Letters of Columbia University, Doctor of Laws of the Pennsylvania University, National Academician, Member of the Academy di San Lucca of Rome, twice President of the American Institute of Architects, and Honorary Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, whose gold medal he has received. He was an early member of and deeply interested in the Mendelssohn Glee Club, and it is very appropriate that the Club should open these ceremonies by a song. ADDRESS BY MR. WALTER H. COOK Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — On Sir Christopher Wren's tomb in St. Paul's there is a Latin inscription, to which Mr. Choate has referred, which says, " If you seek his monument, look about you " ; and we may well repeat these words when we think about Charles McKim. It is useless to enumerate all the buildings, in this city and elsewhere, which bear witness to his talent, his almost unerring taste and his loving care. And it is one of the rewards which his and my profession offers, that when we are gone, our monuments, whether they be great and imposing structures or not, stand in the great open-air museum of city or country, to be seen by all men, and not shut up in galleries. "If you seek his monument, look about you." All this production of a most active career he has left as a herif age to his country; but more especially is it the heritage of the architects who follow him. To them it is a very precious one; 118 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS for with these examples before us, we cannot fail to approach our work with something of the love and devotion to the beautiful which he possessed in so high a degree. And in thinking over the names of those who have gone before him in our time — Richardson and Hunt and the others — it seems to me that no one of them has left a stronger and more definite message to their successors than our friend in whose honor we are gathered here tO/day. In all the arts, and especially in the arts of the present time, there is such a striving for the individual note, for a different mode of expression than anyone else has used — a different lan- guage I might say — that this desire threatens sometimes to de' stroy all other impulses. Let us at least be different, is the cry, though we may not be beautiful. Architecture, in common with the other arts, has suffered from this malady. But we in this country, have not been the worst offenders ; and that we have not been so, I think is due more to the inliuence of McKim than to any other cause. I have followed his work from the beginning to the end; and ever since those little cottages at Elberon,at the beginning of his career — such wonderful contrast to the work we know him best by — one guiding principle was always his. He, too, sought as earnestly as the rest of us for individuality ; and when I think how easy it is to recognize his hand, I cannot but think that he has attained it. But above all was his unwritten law — never, in the name of originality or with an ambition to be hailed as a daring innovator, to create anything which did not primarily appeal to him as beautiful. From this he never swerved an instant. And I believe that this loyalty to a pure and unselfish ideal will live as an example, as a good tradition among us long after his generation has disap' 1 10 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM peared ; and that McKim dead will preserve us from as many monstrous and grotesque creations as McKim living did. As a kind and generous friend to all of us, his fellowworkers, it is needless for me to speak to you of him. I knew him when he was at Harvard, I knew him when he was studying his art in Paris and was frill of that generous enthusiasm which never failed him, and I knew him during the whole of his brilliant career in this country. And it is hard for me to think that I shall look into his kind eyes no more. REMARKS OF PROFESSOR H. LANGFORD WARREN OF HARVARD Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : — Harvard University gladly joins in doing honor to the mem' mory of Charles Follen McKim. Mr. McKim's relations to the University were close. He had been a student in the Lawrence Scientific School in 1866—67, ^^'^' though his residence was so short, he always looked back to that period with pleasure and thought of Harvard as his alma mater. His brilliant career as an architect, reaching as he did the position of recognized leader of his profession, led the University in 1890 to give him the honor' ary degree of Master of Arts. The University is fortunate in having from his design three im' portant structures, the Harvard Union and Robinson Hall, built for the Department of Architecture, both completed in 1901, and the Foot'Ball Stadium on Soldier's Field. But the general as' pect of the university buildings in Cambridge has been more pro' foundly affected by the noble fence and series of gates which he designed and which, built from year to year by different college classes, are still incomplete. 120 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS His interest in the Department ot Architecture was always keen. He followed his work sympathetically and in 1904 founded in honor of his wife the JuUa Amory Appleton Fellowship in Ar' chitecture, which provides an annual stipend of one thousand dol' lars for a traveling student. But his interest in architectural edu' cation, which had led him also to endow a similar fellowship at Columbia, was chieliy shown in his being the virtual founder of the American Academy in Rome, in which the university has been greatly interested, which has been the home of its travel' ing fellows in architecture, and which may justly be regarded as the culminating school of the American system of architectural education. Harvard University, therefore, has special reasons for grateful recognition of Mr. McKim. But the University desires chiefly to join in honoring his memory as that of a great artist, whose spleu' did work has done more perhaps than that of any other Ameri' can architect to raise the standard of taste throughout the country. REMARKS OF MR. JOSIAH H. BENTON The City of Boston owes its beautiful Public Library building to the wisdom and the courage of a board of trustees who sought the best architect without reference to where he lived. This building was the first important public building designed and constructed by McKim, Mead, and White. It was the first building in the United States designed as a complete work of art, combining architecture, sculptural decorations, and mural paint' ing. As such it certainly ranks among the first, and we believe is the first, of the inimitable creations of the great architect Charles F. McKim. Like many great works of art, its proportion, its outlines, 121 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM and its color are so harmonious and perfect that it does not pro' duce its effect at the first view. The people of Boston received it with the cautious hesitation with which they receive most things, but as they have lived with it and come to know it, they apprc ciate its rare beauty more and more. It is the finest ornament of our beautiful city, and our people are more and more proud of it as the years go by. ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR WILLIAM M. SLOANE Ladies and Gentlemen : — It has been my duty to compress into a few short resolutions something of what has been expressed here so ably and so bril' liantly. Fourteen associations, artistic, technical, and literary, here unite to commemorate the distinction of Charles Follen McKim as a citizen, as a craftsman, as an artist. To this end they join in recording these convictions. His life was an example of that which a creative architect must imperatively choose. His secondary training completed, he devoted ten years to his professional education ; five to that of discipline, five to that of knowledge. He was stimulated togreat thoughts, and he had acquired the power to express them. His genius was exhibited in his supreme power of collabora'' tion; he linked his work and tame inseparably with those of his two original partners, primarily for the sake ot comprehensive mastery, but this incidently for the perfecting of achievement of each singly as well as by all in combination. By such means were attracted a great body of important clients, individual, corporate, and national; among these he easily com' manded a leadership which they as readily accepted, and from its 122 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS consequences he never shrank, assuming responsibility to any extent for design, procedure, and results. His choice ot style was predetermined by ancestry, temper' ament, and training, for his soul was akin to that highest form of civilization which is marked by dignity, repose and proportion. As the great painter elaborates on the basis of strong drawing, whether of brush or pencil, so this great architect imagined and used structure that was itself poetic, the degree of elaboration and ornament being determined by adaptation to use and environ' ment. To the ancillary arts of the engineer, the painter, and the sculp' tor his indebtedness was freely acknowledged, and their splendors are nowhere more manifest than in the buildings of his firm, be' cause of the opportunity there afforded and the zeal they there exhibited to be parts of an harmonious whole. His work, like that of all true artists, was the expression of his manhood. His character was strong as it was pure ; his disposi' tion affectionate and self-sacrificing ; his mind vigorous, helpful, and noble. He was a lover of his kind, discerning reality behind the ideals of his fellow Americans, intolerant only of pose and sham. Because of his strong and courageous heart he was genial but modest, joyous, even gay, and gentle. There is no perfection in humanity, but the nearest approach to it in a man is discernment of tendencies, emancipation of up' lifting qualities, and the interpretation of a community to itself Holding this as a selfevident truth, we are firmly convinced that the loving and grateful memory in which his generation holds him, that the beneficent institutions which he founded or vivi' fied ; that the structures, public and private alike, which he dc signed and built and which testify to the aspirations of an epoch, — that these all bear witness that as man, citizen, and artist there 123 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM is the highest fame, permanent and deserved, for Charles Fol' len McKim. The meeting in Washington was held in the Cor- coran Gallery of Art during the Convention of the American Institute of Architects, on the evening of December 13,1 909. This meeting was distinctly na- tional in character and was attended by the President of the United States, members of his Cabinet, Senators and Representatives, foreign ambassadors, and distin- guished literary and professional men from various parts of the country, as well as by his brother practi- tioners from every Chapter of the American Insti- tute. Mr. Cass Gilbert, of New York, who was at that time President of the Institute, presided at this meeting, introducing each of the speakers. Addresses were made by William H. Taft, President of the United States; Elihu Root, Senator from New York; Joseph H. Choate, former Ambassador to Great Britain ; Cass Gilbert, President of the American Institute of Architects; William Rutherford Mead, President of the American Academy at Rome. Tributes of respect were read from the National Academy of Art, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, Joint Action of fourteen New York Societies, the National Academy of De- 124 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS sign, the National Sculpture Society, the National So-' ciety of Mural Painters, the Architectural League of New York, Harvard University, Columbia Uni^ versity, the American Academy in Rome. At this meeting the Gold Medal which had been awarded to Mr. McKim by the American Institute for distinguished services to the profession was received by Mr. Mead and by him presented to Miss Margaret McKim, the great architect's daughter. With the exception of the address of Mr. Root, which has been incorporated in the text of this memoir, the addresses and tributes are here printed in full. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Ladies and Gentlemen : — We are here to d o honor to the memory of an American leader in one of the great arts. I do not feel justified in saying much with respect to Mr. McKim, for the reason that the period of my ac quaintance with him and friendship for him was very short. My acquaintance with him arose from the fact that I was Secretary of War, and had to do with that plan in an official way, which he held most dear, I think, of all the subjects to which he devoted his great artistic genius — the plan for carrying onward the design with respect to Washington. He was sensitive, as I presume most geniuses and men of talent are, and he suffered much as he ran against that abruptness and cocksureness that we are apt to find 125 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM in the neighborhood of Washington, both in the Executive and the Legislative branches. He was the last person to give you the impression that he had either abruptness or cocksureness, but 1 don't know anyone who, when he had set his mind at a thing and had determined to reach a result, had more steadfastness and manifested more willingness to use every possible means to achieve his purpose than Mr. McKim. I don't know whether I dare tell you a story with reference to him, which as a member of the Cabinet, I am able to certify is true ; but it illustrates his qualities to such a degree that perhaps I may be pardoned for going into the confidences of a Cabinet of an administration. The Mall was Mr. McKim's chief anxiety lest Congress should forget that important part of the plan of the improvement of Washington. The cellar and the foundation for the Agricultural Department Building had been begun, and some eight or ten thousand dollars expended when it came to Mr. McKim's knowl' edge that the building if erected according to that plan, would be a few feet too high and a few feet too near the center, and he came to prevent it. The Secretary of Agriculture was not disposed to regard that variation from the plan as substantial, and was very much opposed to the change. Mr. McKim came to me, after Mr. Root left the Cabinet, as his only true sympathizer and friend, and asked me to speak to the President, whom he also regarded as a friend and sympathizer, but one who at times needed convincing. So I went to see the Presi' dent and explained to him the situation, and he at once agreed that we ought to change it. " But," said he, " the trouble is with Uncle Jimmy, who has a real cause for complaint. He says that these architects have delayed too long, and the public money cannot be wasted and expended in this way." 126 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS " Well," said I, " can't we call a council, or something of that sort, and solemnly sit on the subject, and then finally reach the right conclusion." He said, " We can, and we will," and we did. Mr. McKim was of counsel and Mr. Green and two or three others. The President took Mr. McKim to task at once at the audacity of the architects who wait 30 or 60 days, until plans have been completed, and then come in and attempt to make a change. Well, that was not a very good beginning, and I am afraid that our brother McKim thought the jig was up. But it so suited the Secretary of Agriculture that when there appeared a suggestion from an engineer that pos' sibly not ten or five thousand dollars would be sacrificed, but an economy might be introduced in another way, the Secretary, at the suggestion or the invitation of the President, said that he thought possibly it might be worked out that way, but the Presi' dent insisted that if we did, we did not intend to waive the criti-- cism that we would make against the profession of architects by reason of their delay. And so we separated. The Agricultural Building was moved. McKim and I walked up the steps of the War Department. I said " Mr. McKim, I con-" gratulate you on your victory." He turned and looked at me a moment, and said "Was it a victory? Another such and I am dead." But it was a victory, and it illustrates his character in quietly pushing and pushing for the highest ideals of his art, and insisting on everything that was best, and in yielding in nothing that seemed to him a detriment and a retrograde step. No one could come in contact with him and not feel that gen' erous, disinterested spirit of his in favor of the promotion of all art, and his willingness to devote time and effort to promote it everywhere. I had the honor to appoint him as a member of the Board to 127 CHARLES FOLLEN McKIM assist the Secretary of War in preserving what he could of the scenery of Niagara, and he devoted a great deal of time, w^ith very little compensation, to planning out what could be done on the American side of the river so that the people on the other side should not think it was the back yard of the United States. And so it was with respect to everything that came out of his character to one who had to deal with him in public matters. I did not come here to make a speech. I hoped that I should not be thrown on to the audience without some leader like Mr. Root or Mr. Choate, who have known Mr. McKim so long, and who have shown by their works and their speeches how much more artistic they are than I who have had no experience in art, until I came here to be made responsible for a great department, should begin this encomium ; but I feel in my heart so strongly the debt of gratitude that the nation owes to Mr. McKim for leading an art and making the ideals of that art even higher, and trying to make them national, that I am glad to lend any empha' sis that I may to a memorial to him. I am living in a house to'day that has been made beautiful by Mr. McKim. It is a house to which you can invite any foreigner from any country, however artistic, and feel that it is a worthy Executive Mansion for a great nation like this, combining dig' nity and simplicity, and reflecting in all its lines (it does to me) the dignity and simplicity of the art of Mr. McKim. JOSEPH H. CHOATE, EX-AMBASSADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN Ladies and Gentlemen : — This splendid audience of men, and especially of women, is in itself a noble tribute to the character and memory of Mr. Mc 128 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS Kim. It is not to be put to too severe a test, however, and I shall content myself almost with saying ditto to what has already been said by the President and Mr. Root. I cannot bear the idea of keep' ing so many ladies standing longer. I come here as a lifelong personal friend of Mr. McKim, who knew him from his boyhood up, to bear testimony to hiswonder^ ful virtues and merits and the signal beauty of his character. I have hardly ever known in human form a personahty more charming, more fascinating than his. Whether it was the Quaker discipline under which his early days were passed, the strict hard' ships which he underwent, the spur of necessity that drove him on, his innate love of perfect form and beauty, his innate hatred of all that was hideous and ugly; there was a sweet reasonableness about him always and everywhere ; there seemed to be always accompanying him, flowing out from his person, a charming hu' manity which warmly attached to him all who came in contact with him. I do not believe it was possible to know Charles Mc Kim without loving him, or to have come in personal contact with him without admiring the wonderful features of his char' acter. One single trait that he had was absolute loyalty in his friendships. And let me give you a single illustration of that, be/ cause it was so conspicuous and life'long and made such an im' pression in the community in which the three lived, that I must refer to the personal ties that bound together three great artists, three such brilliant geniuses as Charles McKim, Stanford White, and Augustus St.'Gaudens. They were always united, always to' gether, always in perfect sympathy, aiding each other, criticising each other, and all three inspired with the same ambition to ele' vate the noble arts to which they were devoted, and it was a ter' rible blow to the community and to the country when in the short space of three years, all three were taken from us. Let me remind 129 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM you also of one other thing — his absolute devotion and loyalty to the members of the great firm which he formed and which is likely to continue his work, to transmit his great repute and the impress of his genius for many years to come. He was such a guiding spirit among them, so prominent, so active, so recog' nized by the community, and yet from first to last, during the whole period of their organization, he would never permit any/ thing to be known or recognized except as the work of the firm; no personal claims of his own, no putting forward of one in pre/ ference to the other, and from beginning to end, as I believe, there never was a contract taken, there never was a piece of work com/ menced, except as the joint work of all three, which he insisted it should be from the beginning to the end. And then he was so modest withal. That was one of the most charming traits of his character — beautiful in person, lofty in ideas, commanding in influence, he was as modest, sensitive, tender as any woman or child could possibly be. I might tell again what I told in New York, a personal experience of him, when he came to London to receive — what, if he had been living he would again receive here, the tribute of his whole profession — the gold medal of the British Institute of Architects, which was given to him in 1903. Why, he absolutely shrank from what he regarded as the terrible ordeal to which he was to be subjected in coming forward to receive that medal and say the few words of recognition and thanks that were expected of him. He was as modest as Washington when he appeared before the House of Burgesses on his return from his first successfiil military excursion into Western Virginia, and the Speaker, when he took his place among the Burgesses, said a few words of compliment to him. You remember that he rose to re-- ply and was wholly unable to command words, and the Speaker said to him, " Sit down, Mr. Washington, your modesty is only 130 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS equaled by your merit, and that is such that no language can possibly do it justice." So when Mr. McKim came, Mr. Henry White, whom I am happy to see here to-night, and myself being lifelong friends of his, he threw himself into our arms and said we must help him and carry him through this terrible ordeal. And we did stand by him. He appeared with most characteristic modesty and dignity; he received the medal; he accepted it not as a tribute to himself, but to the great profession in America that he was proud to represent, and then, when congratulations began to come to him from this side of the water, he replied by cable, " Many thanks, but I still wear the same hat." Now, that was the beauty of him — no matter what happened, no matter what avalanches of praise and congratulations were heaped upon him, he always wore the same hat, his head never swelled in the face of tributes and honors and praises that might well have turned the heads of far more public men than he. I really do not feel at liberty longer to detain the audience. I merely came to say how much I loved him — to bear witness, as one of countless friends that he made wherever he went, to the dignity, the sweetness, and the beauty of his character." CASS GILBERT, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN I INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — This medal has been awarded to Charles Follen McKim for his distinguished services to the Arts, by the unanimous vote of the Convention of the American Institute of Architects. It is customary that on such an occasion the works and serv ices of the man should be recounted and the basis of the award stated, with the reasons governing his selection. But in this in' 131 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM stance, it is not necessary to add one word to what has already been said, nor to recount the list of the works in which he had a distinguished part, so well known and so imposing. His monuments in bronze and marble will long enrich his native land ; his benefactions, not measured alone in the stan^ dards of commerce, have laid the sure foundations of even greater monuments in the hearts of his countrymen. But it is not for these alone that we offer this token of our praise and love. The award of this medal can add nothing to his honor. Titles, nor decorations, nor medals, nor any worldly thing can add to worth. Character and merit are intrinsic. They are not conferred. Nothing we can do or say can add to their sum. Patriotism, self-sacrifice, patience, courage, achievement, are the evidences of greatness, and of these he gave full measure. Such a man needs no acclaim, but that our estimate of his life and works shall be known of men, and that thereby others be inspired in noble emulation ; that we may testify to the world that in this age and among this people the great ideals common to the race are held in honor, and in reverence this medal is awarded. Mr. Mead, it now becomes my duty, and my privilege, on be' half of the Institute, to deliver to you, his associate, coadjutor and friend, this token of the respect, love and honor in which we all held him. WILLIAM RUTHERFORD MEAD Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: — As the close friend and associate of Mr.McKim for thirtyfive years, it is with a mingled feeling of sadness and pride that I stand here to-'night to receive for him this medal. 132 THE TWO MEMORIAL MEETINGS Mr. Choate, who stood by Mr. McKim in London, when the medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects was conferred upon him, has told you of his feelings of diffidence, amounting almost to panic, on that occasion. Here at home, and among old friends, he would have felt the same diffidence and modesty in accepting this great honor. He would have expressed himself in a hesitating manner, somewhat as follows: "Whatever I have been able to accomplish in the field of architecture has been jfrom devotion to a great art and in the interest of a noble profession. That my efforts have been recognized by this representative body of American architects is a reward which I shall always cherish." I well remember when I told him a year ago, on one of his last visits to his office, that this medal had been voted to him, the de-' predating smile he gave, a smile expressing both modesty and pleasure. Such was the man — modestly sinking his own personality, but always strong for the best, not only in his own work, but for the profession of which he was such an honored member. Accepting the medal in his behalf, I shall place it in the hands of his daughter, who will preserve it as a precious memento of the regard in which her father was held by the American Insti' tute of Architects which he served so faithfully. Resolutions expressive of the deep reverence in which he was held and the great grief felt because of his death were presented from : — The National Academy of Art ; American Academy of Art ; National Institute of Arts and Letters; 133 CHARLES POLLEN McKIM United Action of New York Societies; National Society of Mural Painters ; Architectural League of New York ; National Academy of Design ; Harvard University; American Academy of Rome. These tributes from his confreres who revered and loved him, and from men of varied professions who admired him, tell his story and bring before us who follow him a vivid picture of the master. In thinking of him unconsciously there come to me, but with a very different association from the one in which they were written, those ringing words of Browning which so express the feeling of the younger men in his pro^ fession to Charles McKim : — "We that have loved him so, honored him, followed him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his deep language, caught his clear accents, Made him our motto to live w^ith or die." THE END APPENDIX APPENDIX THE PRESENTATION OF THE ROYAL GOLD MEDAL TO MR. McKIM BY THE ROYAL INSTI- TUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS The President's Address Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen : — As you aU know, we are met together to-night to present the Royal Gold Medal for the promotion of Architecture, annually given by His Majesty the King to " Some distinguished archi-- tect or man of science or letters who has designed or executed a building of high merit, or produced a work tending to promote or facilitate the knowledge of architecture or the various branches of science connected therewith." The mode of selection is that a name is brought forward by the Council and submitted to the general body of members of this Institute, after which it is submitted to the King for his gracious approval. Amongst those to whom the Medal has been awarded, and who are now no longer amongst us, are Professor Cockerell, the first recipient in 1848; Sir Charles Barry ; Owen Jones; Sir Gil' bert Scott ; Viollet'le^Duc ; Sir James Pennethorne ; George Ed' mund Street ; John Pearson ; Baron von Ferstel ; F. C. Penrose ; H. Schliemann; Charles Garnier; Baron von Hansen; R. M. Hunt ; Lord Leighton. In selecting a recipient for this honor it has almost become an unwritten rule to select in rotation an English architect, a foreign architect, and a literary man with architectural instincts. This 137 APPENDIX year we have somewhat departed from this rule, and, as you know, our Institute has selected Mr. Charles FoUen McKim of New York, and Mr. McKim has returned us the compliment by crossing the Atlantic especially to receive the Medal in person to'night ; and here he is, I am glad to say, safe and sound with us this evening, and very heartily we all welcome him. I have said that in selecting Mr. McKim we have somewhat departed from our rule, for we cannot claim him as an English architect, we have not selected him for his literary attainments, and least of all can we consider him as a foreign architect. No, we have selected him as a highly distinguished American archi/ tect, a very near relation of ours, and a representative man, in order that we may show to him personally and to the whole world of American artists our high appreciation and admira' tion of the great work that marvelous country is doing on the other side of the world ; an appreciation not only of what they are doing, but also of what we expect them to do untram' meled by traditions, full of youth, energy, imagination and initiative, and supported by almost boundless resources; and we are confident that as time goes on they will not only develop fresh types and plans of buildings, but they will, still mindful of the past, clothe those buildings in a language that will be distinctly their own. As I have already said, this selection has met with the foil approval of His Majesty the King; and I venture to hope the presence here to-night of the Ambassador himself from the American people to our Court may be taken as setting the American seal on this selection of ours. And now I must introduce you to Mr. McKim a little more in detail, in order that not only those present, but also those who read these proceedings, may flally understand our choice. 138 APPENDIX I may say my facts may be depended upon, for I have received them from the best authority — Mr. McKim himself He was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, five^and' fifty years ago, and at eighteen entered Harvard University with a view to becoming a mining engineer. A year later, finding the work uncongenial, he entered the office of Mr. Russell Sturgis, architect, of New York, and, in the autumn of the same year, the Atelier Daumet in Paris, where he was pre pared for, and admitted to, the Ecole des Beaux Arts, remaining till the outbreak of the war, some three years later. During this time Mr. McKim also traveled in Europe, and visited England in 1869, where, he tells me, through the kindness of Mr. Phene Spiers, Mr. Florence, and others, he was able to make profitable use of his time, as far as cricket matches would permit. He also was made an Honorary Member of the Archi' tectural Association. Returning to New York in 1870, Mr. McKim entered the office of the well-known architect H. H. Richardson ; and in 1872, at the age of twenty^five, commenced practice on his own account, being joined in 1877 by Mr. William Ruther/ ford Mead, and in 1879 by Mr. Stanford White, and since that time they have continued their practice as " McKim, Mead, and White." Some drawings and photographs of Mr. McKim's buildings are exhibited on the walls of this room, and a list of them will appear in the Journal. In 1887 Messrs. McKim, Mead, and White were appointed architects to the new public library of the City of Boston, now a famous building. In 1889 two Fellowships in the School of Architecture, Columbia University, known as the McKim Feh lowships, were established. In 1891 Mr. McKim was made a 139 APPENDIX member of a Commission often architects from throughout the United States to design the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. In 1894 his firm were appointed architects to the new Capitol building of the State of Rhode Island. In 1 897 the American Academy of Architecture in Rome was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York, and Mr. McKim was made President. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Academy of San Luca, and in the same year was appointed to serve as a member of the first Municipal Art Commission of the City of New York. In 1 90 1 Mr. McKim was appointed a member of the Art Commission for the improvement of the park system of the District of Columbia, and assisted in drawing up the magnifi/ cent scheme, photographs of which are exhibited here to'night. Here is to be an avenue 1600 feet wide and a mile and a half long, architecturally treated at various points, with great public buildings, incorporated in the scheme. The cost is put at some three to four millions, some half of which has already been voted. A Bill has also passed Congress for locating the me^ morial. Mr. McKim was elected President of the American Institute of Architects in 1901, and reelected in 1902, and in the same year was appointed by President Roosevelt to restore the White House, and also as architect for the new Army War College. Of the buildings erected some idea may be gained from the splendid series of photographs and drawings Mr. McKim has kindly shown us here to-night. He seems equally at home with a palace or a bungalow, with a university or a railway station, with laying out a great park scheme or arranging a charming little formal garden. In all I think you will find true artistic feel^ 140 APPENDIX ing, nobility of plan, breadth ot treatment, absence of unneces' saryor meretricious ornament, and a suitability of purpose. The style, based largely on Italian examples, shows the influence of French training, and while founded on traditional lines appears to me to possess just that amount of individuality required, with' out which the best work must be dull and uninteresting. Then, again, Mr. McKim has set all us architects an example by the opportunities he has given to painters and sculptors to further adorn his works. The decorations of the Boston Library by Mr. E. A. Abbey, who I am glad to say is here to-night, and by Mr. Sargent, who would have liked to have been here but is still abroad, are a case in point, and are well illustrated by the photographs here. And now, Mr. McKim, it only remains for me to present you with this Medal as an English token of our admiration and esteem of yourself and your colleagues. May you long live to adorn your country still further with your works ! Mr. McKim's Response Mr. President, Your Excellency, Ladies, and Gentlemen: — I AM no speaker, and if I were it would be quite beyond me adequately to express to you my appreciation and deep sense of obligation to His Gracious Majesty King Edward and to the members of this Royal Institute of British Architects. The broad philanthropy which created this Medal, not alone for British subjects, but that it might help and encourage the successful development of the art of Architecture in other countries, was characteristic of the most gracious queen whose memory we, next to you, hold in veneration. That it should have a second time within a single decade come to our shores 141 APPENDIX is indeed cause for felicitation, since it attests, in lasting form, the progress and achievement your eminent body has been pleased to recognize in the work of your younger colleagues in America. The Medal which you do me the high honor to bestow on me, is pure at least in virtue of my accidental Presidency of the American Institute, but is, I feel, to be regarded in a far larger sense than as a personal recognition of the ties which unite the builder's art on both sides of the Atlantic. As a spur and incentive, and as a token of the friendship and respect that for many years have been growing up between our two bodies, I accept with grateful pride this Medal, tendered as to my countrymen by the Royal Institute. I accept it for the whole profession in the United States, and I accept it for my associ' ates of twentyfive years to whom I owe everything. As the bearer of many messages from across the seas, I can' not let such an occasion as this pass by without at least briefly adverting to the ties which have united us in the past, and which must render the development of our future of something more than passing interest to you. I will add also a word concerning recent events on our side of the water. The early buildings of the New England coast, dating back to the eighteenth century, and more rarely to the seventeenth, from the once vice/regal town of Portsmouth, to Charleston, South Carolina, have happily descended to us despite political revolutions. Notwithstanding their simpler forms, both of con' struction and design, made necessary by slender means and the circumstances of transplantation, they still reflect the mother country, in their excellence of construction as well as in sound and correct taste. Precisely the most interesting, and in their sphere the most admirable, architectural monuments of my native 142 APPENDIX land, private dwellings and public buildings alike, are those that most strongly recall their English prototypes. Our obligations, for instance, to Sir Christopher Wren are very imperfectly understood even at home, yet the cities of the Atlantic seaboard, especially in New England, abound in examples showing the influence of his school. The struggle of these land/ marks for existence in the advancing tide of commercial pros' perity, before which they are gradually being swept away, is a melancholy daily spectacle — not alone deplorable in the loss of historic monuments, but for the lessons they invariably teach of sound proportion, simplicity, and good manners. Happily some of the best examples remain to us. At the seat of Government, for instance, our Capitol, and the home of the President, the White House, are both singularly animated by a pure taste and devoted love of beauty, not to mention the City Hall and the old Department buildings of the city of Washing' ton. Of these, for our information at home, as well as yours, let us gratefully acknowledge that the Capitol, though enlarged and changed since, was originally designed by one William Thornton, the White House by a certain James Hoban, while the City Hall and old Department buildings were the creation of a man of the name of Hadfield — all Englishmen! I can well remember the thrill of surprise and pleasure which I experienced on my first visit to England, more than thirty years ago, in the discovery of a strange familiarity in the appearance of things, and in the sense of not being after all so far from home. Though I did not understand it then, the reason, as has been shown, was not far to seek! I will venture to refer to one more building, of the era which we call early and you ingloriously late, albeit of the period of Adam — the Octagon. 143 APPENDIX Our Institute, which has urged upon governments — national, state and municipal — the duty of preserving Historic Monu' ments, has itself recently secured possession of one of the historic houses of America, known from its shape as the " Octagon," and designed by the same William Thornton, architect of the Capitol. Here in the early days were dispensed a liberal hospitality by President Madison, whose home it was. Under its roof, too, the Treaty of Ghent was signed. The house was finished in a man/ ner befitting its importance, and to-day is in an excellent state of preservation. Thus the expressed desire and often recurring efforts of the Institute to secure for itself a permanent home have been accomplished after nearly half a century of existence. May it typify to those who assemble in it, as well as to the people of the City of Washington, the spirit of public service! The Institute has ample reason for felicitation in both the increase and betterment of our own schools of architecture, in Harvard, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Cornell, and Chicago Univer' sities, as well as in the admirable and still older foundation of the Institute of Technology in Boston. The movement to en' dow an American Academy of Fine Arts in Rome on the gen' eral lines of the French Academy in the Villa Medicis is not new. Till now dependent for support upon the insufficient means at the command of the incorporators (members of the Institute), the number of scholars has of necessity been small, and the convenience for work not such as would be afforded by an older, well equipped, and well^endowed institution. Indeed we seem to be living in a new age, not only in our private enterprises, but in our relations with the Government. It was no small thing that a committee of the United States Senate, under the leadership of the deeply mourned Senator McMillan, called into consultation, officially, the Institute and 144 APPENDIX accepted the advice of its Committee in the formation of a commission to prepare plans for the improvement of the park system of the District of Columbia, including the location of public buildings. Following this lead have come frequent requests from Gov ernment officials on the various and often perplexing problems of their departments, so that, informally and unofficially, there has come to pass a seeking for expert advice as gratifying as it has been unusual. The forces which have brought about plans for the im' provement of the National Capital are acting throughout the land. Not only in the Atlantic seaboard city of New York and the cities of the lake region, like Buffalo, Cleveland, and St. Paul, but even from far away Seattle, on the Pacific Coast, comes the news of attempts to treat the city as a unit and to develop a municipality as a consistent work of art. It is worthy of note also that as the star of progress takes its western way, the effort at improvement is made with increasing vigor in both enthusiasm and money. As evidence of the times, and amongst the measures voted by the last (fiftyseventh) Congress for new buildings to be erected within the District of Columbia alone, I wiU quote the substance of a single paragraph from the Report of the Senate Commission of the District of Columbia, dated 14th March, 1903: — "The fiftyseventh Congress, besides the restoration of the White House authorized the construction of the Army War College and the Engineer School of Application ; a building for the National Museum . . . ; the Union Railroad Station ; (an office) building for the use of the members of the House of Representatives; a Municipal Building for the District of Co' 145 APPENDIX lumbia, and a Hall of Records." The cost of these buildings completed will approximate to not less than fifteen millions of dollars, or over three millions sterling. I cannot close even these brief remarks without an expres' sion of appreciation for one to whom your eminent body so recently did honor. After nearly half a century of success' ful endeavor, during which Mr. Hunt held aloft the banner and fought the battles of the Institute, and in the ftillness of his powers, at a time when his influence was greatest, he was suddenly taken away. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to thank you for the great patience and forbearance with which you have listened to these fragmentary remarks that but poorly express my appreciation of the great honor which you have seen fit to confer upon me.