64 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY 



imaginative that the proper display 

 and grouping of fine buildings is diffi- 

 cult or impossible. 



A village or city should be designed, 

 not with regard to conventional no- 

 tions of planning, but to fit the topo- 

 graphy and other basic conditions. 

 The plan should grow out of the site, 

 not be arbitrarily imposed on it. A 

 city that is well planned for the prac- 

 tical uses of business and living will 

 be the easiest to beautify. 



The planning of the street structure, 

 the arteries of the city's life has, in 

 the past, been left in perfunctory 

 hands because they were able to wield 

 a T square and ruling pen ; seldom 

 does a town show that its planners 

 realized that the responsibility for its 

 future depended, in no small measure, 

 on them. 



City Planning is logically the pre- 

 cursor, not the successor of communi- 

 ty building. It has arrived last in the 

 field of building design, although it 

 should have been the first. Now that 



it is here, let not a young country like 

 the United States, with so many and 

 gigantic building enterprises before it, 

 make the mistake of ignoring this be- 

 lated visitor, without whose help our 

 national household can never be set 

 in order. 



MEMORIALS IN PUBLIC PLACES 



In defense of the rights of the com- 

 munity in its public places the A. S. L. A. 

 urges the greatest care by all concerned 

 in the selection of both design and site 

 of public memorials, whether buildings, 

 sculpture, or of any other kind. It urges 

 that it should always be borne in mind 

 that the effect of a memorial may be 

 greatly enhanced or injured by its set- 

 ting or surroundings. That no memorial 

 design should be decided on until ample 

 time has been given to its consideration, 

 and that the choice of both site and de- 

 sign should, whenever possible, be sub- 

 ject to the approval of an art commission 

 legally qualified. 



