Anonymous
American Architect and Building News 76 (April 19, 1902):17
We are very glad to receive from the Municipal Art Society of New York an official statement of the plan which has been drawn up by its committee on the proposed exhibit of a model city at the St. Louis Exposition of next year. This plan,; which is founded on one prepared three years ago by Mr. William S. Crandall, as secretary of the Exhibition Committee, and submitted to the management of the Buffalo Exposition,; but not carried out, from lack of funds, is far more comprehensive than the schemes published in the newspapers and magazines, including even an exhibit of the methods for securing uniformity in municipal accounts which have, of late, engaged the attention of reformers, as well as one of a model health department, introducing, for example, the sterilized-milk stations maintained by the municipality in Rochester, N.Y., and in New York City by private benevolence, by which the mortality among infants has been greatly reduced. These features, although not architectural, are quite as essential to a well-organized city as asphalt pavements or well-designed park railings; and it is very much to the credit of the Municipal Art Society and its representative that this fact should have been recognized. While the profession, naturally,; interests itself more in the artistic features of a city, people generally will be more attracted by the novelties in sanitation, transportation, lighting and sewage-disposal which the Society includes in its programme, and the people who come to look at the sewage-irrigation model, or the vestibuled electric-cars, or the acetylene street-lamps, will finish their visit by an inspection of the artistic signboards and aesthetic bridges, which they would never have looked at by themselves.
It seems to us that, with proper management, a comprehensive scheme
of the sort proposed by the Municipal Art Society might be made the most
valuable and conspicuous feature of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.
In Paris, in 1900, a great deal of attention was attracted by the scattered
elements of what would,; under this scheme, be advantageously collected
and systematized. In one series of rooms at Paris, for example, was a collection
of plans, models and pictures of hospitals and asylums, which offered great
interest. Some of the Russian hospitals were shown by means of miniature
buildings, the roof of which opened like a lid, showing the little beds,
with the tiny patients, half an inch long, in the wards; many other establishments
were represented by models in relief of the buildings and grounds; and
in general, great efforts were made to have the exhibits as realistic as
possible. So, in the school department, rooms of the actual size were shown,
the Russians, who were conspicuous in all these branches, presenting, for
example, a village library complete, including all the fittings and furniture,
even to the books on the shelves. In another building, at some distance,
was an exhibit with real babies, of the "couveuses d'enfants," or establishments
for bringing up sickly or prematurely-born infants by keeping them in a
uniform temperature, in plate-glass cases, which have been found so valuable
in France; and in other portions of the Exposition grounds, even as far
as Vincennes, ;were scattered extremely interesting examples of municipal
utilities of various kinds. The plan of the Municipal Art Society, to show
these things together, as they actually occur, would add greatly, not only
to the convenience of studying them, but to the interest of each, and we
earnestly hope that it may be found practicable to carry it out.
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