House £s? Garden 
THE TREATMENT OF CITY 
SQUARES.—III. 
[concluded] 
THE SQUARE BEFORE THE RAILROAD STATION. 
I T has been suggested, cleverly and with 
not a little historical philosophy, that in the 
modern city the architectural treatment of the 
railroad station should be portal-like. The 
argument is that the station is to-day as dis¬ 
tinctly the point of egress and entrance for 
the town as ever in former times was the gate 
in the city wall. To emphasize this function, 
then, should be the duty of the architect who 
would give to his structure an appropriate 
character. So runs the argument, and in prac¬ 
tice the giant curve of the train-shed offers a 
good opportunity for portal-like effect. 
That there is a difference of opinion on 
this point, that many an architect prefers to 
screen the train-shed by putting before it 
a structure that might be a hotel—as it very 
often is in Great Britain ; or an office build¬ 
ing—as it so frequently is in the United 
States—is clear 
from some of the 
most elaborate 
and most recent 
ter m i n a 1 con¬ 
structions. The 
Reading station 
in Philadelphia, 
for e x a m p 1 e, 
does not suggest 
the gate of an 
ancient city wall 
and the slight 
suggestion of it 
in the transition 
style of the 
Pennsylvania’s 
old Broad Street 
Station is wholly 
lost in the new ; 
St. Pancras, in London, is plainly a hotel; and 
the Grand Central in New York, even as re¬ 
modeled, might be a hotel if one were guess¬ 
ing from its exterior. But architects are not 
always free to choose, and even difference 
of opinion is mainly of value as showing that 
a question has two sides, without necessarily 
robbing one side of its special claims. And 
of the three commoner types of station con¬ 
struction in large cities, the portal-like effect 
is, indeed, more commendable and interesting 
in its theory than is the hotel or office building 
disguise or than the structure which is only the 
glorified or amplified shelter and waiting-plat¬ 
form of the way station and suburb. To 
make the station frankly the portal to the city 
is to stamp it with importance, character and 
an accurate railroad significance. 
Perhaps a facade of the Gare du Nord in 
Paris, as seen from the short street leading 
up to it, illustrates the application of this 
principle as well as does any other example. 
But the station at Hamburg, with the turrets 
flanking its castellated main pavilion ; and 
the many portaled front of the Gare de l’Est 
in Paris; and the station in Genoa with its 
enclosing arms—these are striking examples 
of this sort of treatment. 
And the application of this to station 
squares? If the theoretical desirability of 
treating a station as the gate of a city wall 
is to be urged on the architect, clearly the 
city itself should be induced to provide such 
topographical 
arrangement as 
will best empha¬ 
size this struc¬ 
tural importance 
of the edifice. 
Such an arrange- 
m ent would 
place an open 
space before the 
building; and 
this, further, will 
be convenient 
for the heavy 
travel of a busy 
center. It ought 
to be noted, in 
this connection, 
that aside from 
the public build- 
ingsof the town,the principal railroad stationis 
theonly structure thecivic importance of which 
cannot be unduly exaggerated by topographi¬ 
cal arrangement. In the illustration which 
is here shown of the Gare du Nord, the Place 
de Roubaix before the station—too narrow in 
any case—is still further narrowed in the per¬ 
spective, and there is emphasized the awk¬ 
wardness and unfitness of a street location. 
Copyrighted by William H. Rau 
THE NEW BROAD ST. STATION PHILADELPHIA 
Upon the City Hall Plaza 
377 
