"PASSING-THROUGH" PARKS 



CHARACTER OF DECORATIVE FEATURES 



The decorative features of such parks would best be kept archi- 

 tectural, the embellishments taking the form of fountains, statues or 

 urns. The design of these features when placed within the park 

 should be foursquare in so far as possible, for they will be viewed 

 from all directions. Exedra types or features with architectural 

 background should be placed on the edge of the park and facing out, 

 for parks of this variety should be considered in their street aspect. 

 Facing in, such would-be embellishment becomes unintelligible — dis- 

 figuring in that respect; and even when placed within the park, 

 interrupts the cross views without explanation except for a forty-five- 

 degree segment. For this same general reason fountains are pref- 

 erable to statues for the embellishment of passing-through parks, as 

 permitting inspection from all sides. 



Water display should be dominating and forceful, suggesting the 

 energy and action of the environment. Idle pools or lily basins 

 appear incongruous in such a setting; and naturalistic water treat- 

 ments, as the cascade in the Public Square at Cleveland, are absurdly 

 misplaced in such location. The intermittently playing fountain in 

 Madison Square Park in New York, which keeps up a constantly 

 rising and falling jet of water, has perhaps a somewhat neurotic 

 appearance inconsonant with the idea of park repose, but in rare 

 keeping with the high-tension, alternating current of humanity 

 constantly passing through the park where it is located. The effect 

 of the five vertical jets in the circular basin ornamenting the south 

 portion of the Circus in Detroit, replacing the iron disfigurement 

 formerly there, is forceful without being spectacular. One also 

 recalls as a particularly adequate fountain for its position in a passing- 

 through park the symbolic Norrenbrunnen, in the Karlsplatz at 

 Munich. Fountains in such location need not exhibit the conspicuous 



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