The Treatment of City Squares 
Wilhelms-Platz, Berlin, a statue that can be 
viewed only against a background of verdure 
is, by a clever device of the landscape archi¬ 
tect, kept apparently in the highway, as part 
of the street’s adornment—when the tempta¬ 
tion must have been to enclose it in the platz, 
and so to some extent to hide it. In the 
Piazza Cavour, at Milan, there is, perhaps, 
offered a yet 
better example 
of the street 
statue thus 
backed, and 
still an example 
typical of a 
large class. 
Phis ten¬ 
dency of the 
planted open 
space to hide 
the sculpture it 
encloses can be 
overcome it 
care be taken. 
And since the 
true function 
of these deco¬ 
rative squares 
is the city’s 
adornment by 
entering into its 
very anatomy, 
as necessary 
parts of it, there 
is great need 
that such care 
be given. At 
Washington BOWLINC 0REEN 
Place in Balti¬ 
more, there is a very interesting illustration. 
Charles Street broadens here so that the 
roadway, dividing, encloses an ornamental 
square. The treatment adopted has been 
extremely formal, too stiltedly so to be 
wholly pleasing; but that detail need not 
now concern us. The point to be made is 
that a statue in the center of the square is 
rendered a part of the street decoration. A 
line of trees planted along either side of the 
square, exactly on the extension of the street’s 
building line, prolongs the street’s vista. 
And this is, further, preserved carefully by 
the absence of conspicuous screens at the 
ends of the square. The very entrances are 
placed at the corners; and the statue, which 
occupies the middle of the space and can be 
seen only against a background of turf, is 
exactly in line with the axis of the street and 
thus appears to belong to it. The conse¬ 
quence is that Washington Place seems to 
be a glorified bit of Charles Street, and not a 
distinct square. 
Another inter¬ 
esting detail 
here, deserving 
note for its 
suggestiveness, 
is that, while 
the walks curve 
in apparently 
luxurious indo- 
1 e n c e , their 
curves 
are so 
adjusted to one 
another 
that 
the hurried 
pedes 
t r i a n , 
leaving the 
Charles 
Street 
sidewalk and 
oblige 
? d to 
traverse the 
square, 
, need 
barely 
deviate 
from a 
straight 
line 
in so 
doing. 
He can 
loiter 
it he 
wishes, 
but he 
is not 
obliged 
NEW YORK 
to do so. A 
number of the 
“circles” in Washington, with their sculptured 
heroes, also illustrate so well the adornment 
of the street that their provision is regarded 
as a conspicuous merit of the Washington 
street-plan. 
This consideration of squares that are 
large enough to admit of planting, most 
incomplete though it has had to be, has yet 
been sufficient to bring out certain general 
principles of value, tor all these squares 
have been types. It is clear, first, that since 
the function of the open spaces is to adorn, 
as far as compatible with the needs of traffic, 
the treatment adopted, however simple, 
3° 4 
