House C? Garden 
T HE untimely death of Walter Cope 
leaves a sad vacancy in the professional 
life of Philadelphia and of America. After 
the death of Ids brilliant associate, John 
Stewardson, in 1896, an increasing amount 
of professional work laid Mr. Cope under 
a constant and heavy strain. Too great it 
was ; or perhaps, too great was the expend¬ 
iture of energy by one who delegated little 
care to others, but conscientiously gave 
his own unrelenting thought to his labor. 
A stroke of apoplexy on October 31 
caused his death at the age of forty-two 
years. As architect of some of the most 
important buildings in the country, the 
responsibility of uniting the esthetic with 
economic and moral forces was great. It 
was laid upon one who bore it well and 
carried it to high issues ; and in the death 
of Walter Cope not only the field of archi¬ 
tecture, but all those influences which aim 
at the betterment of life’s surroundings, 
have been robbed ot a strong and active 
personality. 
Since it is in the power of architecture to 
ameliorate the lives and conditions of those 
it shelters and serves, the crown of an archi¬ 
tect’s work must lie in the educational build¬ 
ings he is asked to create. In these must be 
expressed the best spirit of his age. 
The University of Pennsylvania Dormi¬ 
tories, the halls at Bryn Mawr, Princeton 
and St. Louis, all designed and carried out 
by Walter Cope, mark a great forward 
step in college architecture in this country. 
They were inspired by English examples— 
those at Oxford and Cambridge—but Mr. 
Cope’s buildings are no copies of these. The 
dignity and sobriety of English work well 
accord with the traditions, the language, the 
law and science of our educational centers. 
But Pembroke Hall at Bryn Mawr, and 
Blair Hall at Princeton have that quiet out¬ 
line and ornament which we associate with 
the collegiate English work, and yet their 
plan and arrangement completely fulfill 
American practical conditions ot convenience 
and maintenance. Their color is thoroughly 
individual; and because of the materials 
used, and the skill in controlling them, 
these halls are perfectlv in harmony with 
their surroundings, even to their tones of 
maturity and age. 
The authorities of college after college 
asked aid of Walter Cope in their building 
undertakings. Within the last two years 
and a half he completed five main buildings 
of the Washington University at St. Louis, 
at present occupied by the administration of 
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He had 
completed drawings of lour other buildings 
for that University, and the plan of the 
planting and grounds around these struc¬ 
tures he was engaged on at the time of his 
death. The Mary I nstitute, at St. Louis, and 
the University of Missouri at Columbia were 
also among his last works. But college 
architecture far from occupied all his atten¬ 
tion. He built more residences than any 
other architect who has practised in Phila¬ 
delphia, and his commercial buildings are by 
no means lew in number. Of the latter 
may be named the Harrison Building at 
Fifteenth and Market Streets, Philadelphia, 
the Institution for the Instruction of the 
Blind at Overbrook, Pennsylvania, the Free 
Museum of Science and Art in West Phila¬ 
delphia (designed in association with Wilson 
E.yre and Frank Miles Day and Bro.), the 
Leamy Home at Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, 
the Ivy Club at Princeton, the City Hall at 
Atlantic City, the House of Refuge at Glen 
Mills, Pennsylvania, and a number ol banks 
and railway stations. 
In all his occupations the earnestness ol 
Walter Cope won the laith and confidence 
of his clients and friends, indeed of all with 
whom he came in contact. His activities 
were necessarily confined to his professional 
work, but his interests were many and varied ; 
and burdened as he was with responsibilities 
he shouldered alone, his generous and per¬ 
sonal support of public-spirited movements 
was almost unlimited. The affection he had 
for his own assistants and draughtsmen will 
probably never be fully known ; but in the 
comradeship among those that worked for 
him—a comradeship and esprit de corps 
beautiful to contemplate by those who knew 
it—was constantly felt his sympathy with 
high creative effort strengthened by bonds of 
the finest friendship. The death of Walter 
Cope is not merely a loss to a firm, a pro¬ 
fession or a single community. It is a 
check to progress; it is a loss to other gen¬ 
erations than his own. 
643 
