ARCHITECTURE AT THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN DRAWN BY A. BRENNAN. EXPOSITION.-V. JOSEPH RICHTER, SCULPTOR. CAPITAL FOR FISHERIES BUILDING. THE visitor, approaching from the south the district which lies between the northernand central divisions of the park, at the point where the apparently capricious and accidental windings of the Lagoon find their northern connection with the lake, will presently catch glimpses of certain long stretches of roof, gaily broken by towers and decorated belvederes, rising above the skirting shrubbery and wood-growth of the shores, and suggesting the hidden luxuries of a "stately pleasure house," decreed by some Kubla Khan of Oriental romance. As he advances nearer, he will discover that this romantic pleasance is accessible from the south by a bridge spanning the waters of the canal, or estuary, connecting the Lagoon with the lake, the architectural masses will become coherent and symmetrical, and finally he will learn from unmistakable characteristics that the Fisheries Pavilion lies before him. This pavilion is set in the axis of the Liberal Arts Building extended northward, and between the two buildings in the same axis rise the masses of the great structure built by the United States for the Government exposition. Apparently the architect, Mr. Henry Ives Cobb of Chicago, in preparing his preliminary studies for this interesting exhibit, finally arrived at the conclusion that, in respect to his plan, its general form must be largely controlled by its adjustment to the shape and limited area of the irregular stretch of shore which he was to Occupy with his water-front, and, in respect to his elevations, that they should rather affect VOL. XLIV. 117. playfulness than formality in outline, so that they might be in more natural relations with their environment; at the same time, the connection established by the main axial line between his building and those composing the Court, the proper classification and arrangement of the collections which he was to accommodate, and the dignity and importance of the task assigned him, seemed to impose a symmetrical treatment both on plan and elevation. In this case it was the good fortune of the architect to have to deal with a department of the Exposition which invited a treatment almost as characteristic as that of the Horticultural department, which had the type of the glazed conservatory as its point of departure. Marine life seemed to suggest to the architectural mind types of form nearly as marked, while all the other great buildings had to be based more or less on the conventional idea of a palace or office of state, depending rather on their details of decoration than on their general features of structure to indicate the purposes for which they were built. This statement is especially applicable to the formal Renaissance buildings around the Court; but even those outside of the Court, like the Mines and Transportation pavilions, which were more free to adopt forms characteristic of service, could hardly confess their objects so clearly as the two buildings which we have noted. The architect found that his site would be most conveniently occupied by a compact mass of building hardly larger than 365 feet in length by 165 feet in width; but as this was insufficient for his exhibition, he set aside two distinctive divisions, the aquarial and the angling divisions, to be accommodated in separate pavilions, connected with the ends of the main structure by one-storied corridors, so curved forward in plan that the main frontage should seem to be set back between the two smaller buildings. Thus arranged, the main façade faces southward toward the Government Building, and, being closely connected with the shoreline of the estuary, the whole pile assumes the characteristics of a marine pavilion. Mr. Cobb found that the most convenient unit of dimension in his construction was 20 feet, and, following the simplest and most obvious arrangement for lighting the interior spaces, he planned to provide for a lofty central hall illuminated by a range of clearstory windows and surrounded by lean-tos, or aisles. To the width of this hall he gave four of his units or modules (80 feet), and to the length fourteen (280 feet), thus leaving for the width of his surrounding aisle, or lean-to, two modules, or 40 feet. The entire area found practicable for the main building was in this way fully occupied. A very characteristic feature was imposed upon his exterior forms by the fact that, unlike the other buildings, two full stories were not required in order to obtain the requisite floor-area. Allowing only one module for the height of his aisle-story, he obtained for the outside walls, including a stylobate, or basement, of 31⁄2 feet, a height limited to 24 feet. This frontage, exceptionally low in comparison with the large area of the building, made it necessary to give to the roofs a pitch sufficiently steep to bring them into the design, and to make them important features in the composition as a whole. A proportionate height for the clearstory walls was found by experiment to be 14 feet, and above this the upper roofs, sloping at the same angle as those below, reached a total height of 65 feet from the floor. In this natural way the exterior expression of the building, distinguishing it from all the other structures of the Exposition, became one of roofs and clearstories. The area in the triforium space under the slope of the aisle roofs being required for exhibition purposes, access to it is obtained by projecting the floor of the triforium, or half second story, into the nave area far enough to form a gallery, or balcony, all around on that level, approached by staircases grouped near the center of the building. The architect thus obtained a mass of building composed of a comparatively low wall, from which roofs sloped steeply to a central ridge, interrupted only by the clearstory of the nave. The conditions clearly demanded an important culminating feature. This he obtained by erecting in the center of his nave a great circular tower, of which the diameter is equal to the whole width of the nave (80 feet), and by providing it with polygonal turrets at the corners to mask the awkwardness occasioned by the passing of a round tower through the slopes of the nave roof. These turrets he arranged to contain staircases, by which access is obtained to an exterior and interior gallery, or balcony, boldly projecting at the level of the apex of the nave roof. Above this he established a high clearstory stage still accompanied by the polygonal towers, and, following the roof-motive of his design, he covered his rounded tower with a steep conical roof, crowned with an upper balcony and a delicate belvedere, which he repeated on a lower level in finishing his four polygonal turrets. The total height thus obtained is 150 feet. To provide for the main entrances it remained to project transepts 80 feet wide from the tower to the center of the long fronts and thence 40 feet outside the walls of the aisles. These transepts preserved the lowness of effect characteristic of the rest of the buildings, by continuing around them the aisle walls, and covering them with pitched roofs without clearstories. The fronts of these transepts are flanked by low polygonal barbican towers belonging to the same family as those already mentioned. The architectural character of the two separate pavilions is fixed by the results of the study of the unusual conditions involved in providing for the department of aquaria, to which that on the right of the main building is devoted. The fortunate outcome of this study is a polygonal building 60 feet in diameter and 67 feet high, with a windowed clearstory, all arranged in plan and elevation like an Italian baptistery or English chapter-house, with a glass-roofed aisle 37 feet wide, carried around it in the form of a lean-to, exactly as in the main building. A fountain is provided in the circular central hall, which opens into the aisle by an arcade. The aisle is divided into three concentric divisions forming annular spaces encompassing the circular chamber. Of these the middle one is made a vaulted passage, with a groined ceiling supported by columns and arches, corresponding to those separating the central circular chamber from the aisles. The other two annular spaces on each side of this passage are occupied by the aquarial tanks. All these arches on both sides of the passage and in the central chamber are glazed from top to bottom with transparent glass, the lower eight feet, with polished plate, forming the walls of the aquaria, the rest with decorative glass stained with marine tones. In these aquaria the architect has provided for the display of salt-water and fresh-water fishes and every form of marine life. The only light which will reach the vaulted passage will pass through the glazed walls of the tanks, and the visitor, in making the circuit of the building through this passage, will seem to be walking dry beneath the water, with all the secrets of the great deep betrayed to him on each hand, according to the systems in use in some of the greater marine museums in the Old World. The angling pavilion on the other side naturally assumes the same exterior character, and both closely follow the motives of the greater building, which are based very frankly on Southern Romanesque, the outer walls everywhere being formed with a continuous open arcade, the round stilted arches of which are supported on small round columns coupled in the thickness of the wall, as in a cloister. There are three of these arches to each 20-foot bay. Between the coupled columns passes a continuous perforated balustrade, and the building is inclosed by a glazed screen behind this arcade and clear of it. The treatment of the clearstory walls corresponds to this, but with five arches to each bay, and the great clearstory of the tower has a loftier and richer arrangement of arches with grouped jamb-shafts, mullion-shafts, and Romanesque tracery. All the cornices are corbeled according to the style. The Romanesque arcade appears also as the decorative feature of all the belvederes and towers. The only variation made in this arcade treatment to give dignity to the main entrance is to advance slightly from the face of the transept a highly decorated triplet of larger arches covered with a gable, whose outline the architect has enriched with crockets in the form of fishes. The tympanum inclosed by the gable will be occupied by a bas-relief representation of the most heroic business done by fishermen on the great deep -the capture of a whale. Very properly Mr. Cobb has borrowed from marine life the decorative details of his capitals and of the columnar shafts of his porches, and there is nothing in the familiar but inexhaustible range of conventional Romanesque ornament, as applied to this building, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Fishes in every form, crabs, lobsters, watersnakes, frogs, shells, and the infinite algæ of the great deep, are grouped to decorate capital and corbel, but always so massed as to preserve the characteristic outlines and functions of the architectural members. Under the immediate direction of the architect, Mr. Joseph Richter of Chicago has in this way composed from sixty to eighty models of capitals, corbels, and shaft ornaments, each differing from the other in the idea which it conveys, but all loyal to the conventional type. The Romanesque of southern France and northern Spain, even in the religious buildings, is distinguished by a semibarbaric humor expressed in grotesque and caricature. There is therefore no unnecessary audacity of imagination in the playful treatment of the details of the Fisheries Pavilion; it not only brings it into harmony with the spirit of the style, but serves to make it joyous and festive without loss of dignity, grace, and fitness. The whole building shows clearly enough how the modern architect can, on the one hand, use precedent with loyal intelligence, but without being enslaved by it; and on the other, how, when occasion requires, he can be original without going through the superfluous and dangerous process of inventing a new language in which to express himself, as is the custom with the unlettered and the untrained. AFTER much controversy and many changes of plan and site, the department of Fine Arts found its most appropriate position near the middle of the northern division of the park, surrounded by the smaller pavilions which are to form the headquarters of the several State commissions, and by those to be erected by foreign gov ernments. SSIN MICHAEL ANCELO RAPHAEL TVRN DRAWN BY ALEXANDER SANDIER. AN INTERIOR VIEW OF THE DOME OF FINE ARTS BUILDING. This building, the design of which was prepared by Charles B. Atwood, the designer-in-chief in the Bureau of Construction, was practically confined by conditions of site and cost to a frontage of 500 feet, facing north and south, and to a depth of 320 feet, with opportunities for lateral extension by detached wings, connected with the main structure by galleries of communication. It was to be strictly fire-proof, and on this account was carefully isolated. Through this isolation it was freed from the necessity of submitting to concessions for the sake of harmony with neighboring buildings, so that, surrounded by ample grounds dedicated to art, its form and character as a symmetrical monument could be freely developed. In formulating the plan, it was found convenient to adopt a decimal module of proportion. In the beginning it was evident that the scheme would be fundamentally affected by the fact that the area was to be occupied, not by one great hall with continuous floor-space, as was the case with all the industrial buildings, but by a series of halls or chambers; and that of these there must be two divisions, one set devoted to the exposition of sculpture and the plastic arts, requiring conditions of area, shape, height, and lighting different from the other set, which had to be arranged for the accommodation of paintings, drawings, and engravings. The former called for ample uninterrupted floor-space, indefinite height, light from above so diffused as to avoid, as far as possible, conflicts of shadows and confusion of reflections, and, in general, a largeness and nobility of aspect entirely consistent with monumental architecture in its highest sense. On the other hand, the galleries of chambers for the exposition of |