This Comes Of Choosing The Site Of A New City, And
Decreeing That It Shall Be Built On This Or On That Spot.
Large
cities, especially in these latter days, do not collect themselves
in unhealthy places.
Men desert such localities - or at least do not
congregate at them when their character is once known. But the poor
President cannot desert the White House. He must make the most of
the residence which the nation has prepared for him.
Of the other considerable public building of Washington, called the
Smithsonian Institution, I have said that its style was bastard
Gothic; by this I mean that its main attributes are Gothic, but that
liberties have been taken with it, which, whether they may injure
its beauty or no, certainly are subversive of architectural purity.
It is built of red stone, and is not ugly in itself. There is a
very nice Norman porch to it, and little bits of Lombard Gothic have
been well copied from Cologne. But windows have been fitted in with
stilted arches, of which the stilts seem to crack and bend, so
narrow are they and so high. And then the towers with high
pinnacled roofs are a mistake - unless indeed they be needed to give
to the whole structure that name of Romanesque which it has assumed.
The building is used for museums and lectures, and was given to the
city by one James Smithsonian, an Englishman. I cannot say that the
City of Washington seems to be grateful, for all to whom I spoke on
the subject hinted that the Institution was a failure.
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