668 CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 



of cornice lines must be enforced by municipal authority ; otherwise the 

 vista vanishes, camouflaged by vertical strips. 



The necessary increase in height of houses is reasonably lamented 

 when disproportionate to width of thoroughfare, but the erection of lines 

 of lofty buildings facing great open spaces is free from this drawback. 

 The beginning of the epoch of steel-framed sky-scrapers has, it is true, 

 the inevitable disadvantage of rearing isolated blocks which cut the sky 

 harshly with square quoins, but as the type of building becomes more 

 general these blocks unite in a long facade more imposing than any 

 vertical plane in scenery except the cliff which rises sheer from the waters 

 of the ocean. 



Hearing that lofty steel-frame building had begun in Park Lane, I 

 went to see the effect. In Victorian days I spent so many pleasant and 

 idle hours on the shady lawns of Hyde Park between the Achilles statue 

 and Grosvenor Gate that I grew fond of the irregular line of miscellaneous 

 architecture seen through the plane trees and beyond the border of 

 brilliant flowers. The new building dwarfs them all, and by breaking a 

 pattern blurs the pleasant memories woven into a view of which the 

 pattern was a part. But this drawback was compensated by a new 

 element of nobility in the scene, that of imposing loftiness, which was 

 most felt when the new building was viewed through the bare boughs of 

 the plane trees. I found also another improvement, for when looking 

 across the open Park with its spacious sky the presence of a lofty fa9ade 

 gave what was wanted to complete an opulent impression of general 

 amplitude. I returned to the spot a few months later when the lattice 

 of the boughs was improved by the perforated screen of half-opened 

 leaves, and the satisfactory impression of the first visit was not only 

 confirmed but strengthened. Yet what is happening makes many people 

 shudder and prompts gloomy comment on the commercialism of the age. 

 If Park Lane were destined to remain as it is at the present moment I 

 would not undertake to say that the break in the pattern was pictorially 

 justified, but I am visualising the pattern as it will be when complete. 

 Hyde Park will then be glorified by a long and lofty fa9ade,' as a spacious 

 plain is more glorious if bounded by a range of mountains than a line of 

 hills. Meanwhile the individual buildings will gain in the details of their 

 structure as the artists gain greater mastery of the new medium. 



In most great cities there are lofty outlook stations accessible only 

 with much labour, as at the Monument and St. Paul's in London. In 

 Edinburgh and elsewhere an Outlook Tower has been built through the 

 prescience of Mr. Patrick Geddes. In the lifts which are necessarily 

 installed in lofty steel-frame buildings, municipalities have ready to their 

 hand a means of providing the public with easy access to outlook points 

 selected for the beauty of their prospect. 



The city skyline of spire and pinnacle is never more imposing than in 

 misty air, which emphasises outline as much as it diminishes relief, and the 

 ruddy tinge of sunshine struggling through a pall of smoke confers excite- 

 ment of colour which counteracts the dulling effect of lessened light. But 

 in our climate there will never be lack of misty days, and, even apart from 



' The assumption is made that the local authority will insist upon a sufficient 

 measure of uniformity to secure this result. 



