The Soldiers and Sailors' Monument Competition 
THE SOLDIERS’ AND SAILORS’ 
MON L MENT COM PETITION. 
IN PHILADELPHIA. 
W 1I EN the competition for the Soldiers’ 
and Sailors’ Monument, to be placed 
in Logan Square, Philadelphia, closed on 
March 3d, sixty-two designs and seven mod¬ 
els were submitted. The sub-committee of 
the City Councils, which had the work in 
charge, was fortunately open to professional 
suggestions, and assistance in the preparation 
of an equitable program was accepted from 
the T-Square Club and the Philadelphia 
Chapter of the American Institute of Archi¬ 
tects. One juror, it was announced, would 
be selected by each of those societies, and 
these two persons would select a third. In 
this manner the decision upon the designs 
lay in the excellent judgment of Mr. C. 
Howard Walker of Boston, Mr. John M. 
Carrere ot New York and Mr. Charles 
Graflv ot Philadelphia. On March 25th 
awards were announced as follows: 
FIRST-LORD AND HEWLETT, NEW YORK 
CITY. 
SECOND-C. F. ROSBORG, NEW YORK CITY. 
THIRD-W. L. COTTRELL, NEW YORK CITY. 
FOURTH-ACKERMAN & ROSS, NEW YORK 
CITY. 
FIFTH-CARY & LYLE, BUFFALO. 
Design number three received favorable 
comment in the report of the Jury, in being 
“ especially worthy of praise for its dis¬ 
tinction and appropriateness.” The author 
of the best design is to receive a prize of 
one thousand dollars; of the second, 
six hundred dollars; of the third, four 
hundred dollars ; of the fourth, three hun¬ 
dred dollars ; and of the fifth, two hundred 
dollars. The first, second and third prize 
designs are illustrated on the following pages. 
The competition did not provoke a very 
general response throughout the country. 
'The reward may have been considered trivial, 
and the publicity the project enjoyed was, 
perhaps, insufficient for many strong designs 
to be entered. Among all these, real com¬ 
petition existed only between six or eight. 
It was a matter of regret that the names of 
local firms did not appear among those of 
the successful competitors. Though a num¬ 
ber of Philadelphia architects entered draw¬ 
ings, the best designers of this city held aloof 
from the competition chiefly because of their 
belief that the monument would never be 
built. This opinion reflects, perhaps, the 
earnest desire of public-spirited Philadelphi¬ 
ans that the expenditure of half a million 
dollars for this structure, in the particular 
part of the city where it is now proposed to be 
placed, shall never be made ; or at least, not 
until such an improvement can be devised to 
have a more far-reaching effect in the improve¬ 
ment of the city’s plan than the burdening of 
this unimportant square. To isolate such an 
ambitious monument, “ In honor of the 
soldiers, sailors and marines who served in 
the war for the suppression of the rebellion,” 
upon a rectangular space only 650 x 560 feet, 
in an uninteresting section of the city, and 
enclosed by streets indifferent in their archi¬ 
tectural character, is certainly to be deprecated, 
in the absence of any broader architectural 
scheme by which the surroundings would be 
improved. 
In spite of Logan Square’s location in the 
midst of a painfully rectilinear street plan, 
not a single vista for viewing a monument is 
afforded by the adjacent streets (except from 
a small one two blocks in length), for the 
center of the square, and therefore the neces¬ 
sary center of the shaft, is out of axis with 
the thoroughfares. This project, if here car¬ 
ried out, would be only another sad mistake 
in placing such as we find exhibited in the 
Washington Monument at the Green Street 
Entrance to Fairmount Park, and in a score 
of other errors recently made throughout the 
country in sporadic and short-sighted efforts 
at beautifying our cities. Says the Monu¬ 
ment Committee’s report to the Philadelphia 
City Councils, “Your Committee approved 
the award of the Board of Jurors, and rec¬ 
ommend that in the event of the execution 
of the work Messrs. Lord & Hewlett be 
appointed the Architects, and we further 
recommend the importance of making an 
appropriation in the near future for the be¬ 
ginning of the work.” It is quite improbable 
that the project will be hastened; and it it is 
ever carried out at all, it is to be hoped 
that an existing ordinance authorizing the 
site of Logan Square may be repealed or so 
amended that a more effective location can 
be obtained. 
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