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University of Northern Iowa
ArchitectureAuthor(s): Ralph WalkerSource: The North American Review, Vol. 231, No. 6 (Jun., 1931), pp. 528-531Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25113840 .
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528 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
the proper equipping of the building in which the business is conducted, the reception and care of customers
during their visit to the shop, the
handling and delivery of merchan
dise, and the careful selection,
adequate training, and proper con
sideration for the welfare of em
ployes.
Although ultimate success in de
partment store work may be attained
through a variety of channels, it has its source in experience behind the
counter or other places where cus
tomers are met and served satis
factorily. The great importance of a
customer's viewpoint to the buyer, to the merchandise manager, to the
fashion adviser, to the advertis
ing copywriter, to the personnel worker, or to the man or woman in
any other executive position in a
retail store should never be over
looked.
Only through frequent contact
with the customer can the buyer or
merchandise manager discriminate
successfully in the selection of mer
chandise. Only through a real inter
est in customers and their needs can the fashion adviser anticipate
changes in the nature of consumer
demand. Only through a knowledge of human nature, gained in a selling
department, can the advertising
copywriter catch and hold the at
tention of the buying public. With the various departments of
these great stores, each with its
many problems of style, fashion, and
satisfactory service, work in them
offers a bigger challenge and greater
opportunity to grow, than in almost
any other business.
Architecture
By Ralph Walker
Member of the Architectural Commission of the Chicago World's Fair Exposition, 1933
Y \i sjhe young architect, upon the
II completion of his preliminary JA- education, is not different from
other young professional men in find
ing in the new world which he enters
that it seems a long climb from the
bottom rung, on which he starts, to
the top. He, as well as all youth, is
told that the dizzy height is only to be achieved by hard work and a certain undefined amount of genius. Unfortu
nately, because of an insufficient
supply of daughters, the Victorian idea of success in which hard work
especially is finally rewarded by gaining the boss' daughter in mar
riage and therefore obtaining in one
magnificent leap the step immedi
ately below that of the boss, no
longer seems a possible opportunity to the young man of the present day.
He observes also that in opportunity there is to be found a fickle element of chance, for how otherwise can the
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ARCHITECTURE 529
success of some of the men he meets
be explained. The office in which he finds him
self, again because of chance, seems
to offer but small openings for the future. He is likely to find a draughts
man class strangely content with
moderate incomes, but that content
ment is soon explained
? for archi
tecture is a pleasant profession in
which most men somehow manage to enjoy the fine things of life with small means. The young architect,
nevertheless, has the opportunity of
judging in part the type of work
that, as a student, interests him the
most, and by careful thought can
eventually find the office and the
guidance he desires. This is a neces
sary step, because as his reputation grows he will find that it sets up limitations on his future practice,
which, in an age of specialization is
difficult to overcome. For example, the architect doing small residence
work finds it very hard to obtain the
opportunity of larger work.
The
work of the profession, more
over, is of vital interest to the
world, and its problems ?
which are
rarely the same on successive days ?
are extremely diversified. The men
who are especially fitted to work
within it have, as a rule, a life of more
than usual fullness, for the art of
building necessitates the possession of a variety of knowledge and under
standing. The average student gains at col
lege the impression that architectural
design consists in making pretty pictures of buildings, and to a large extent the same misconception ap
plies also to that held by the lay pub lic. Very often the architect is asked
immediately to draw a picture, as if
that were what his job consisted of. The architect is not an exterior dec
orator, he is a designer of buildings, a molder of communities. The archi
tect must prepare himself for a larger
responsibility than that which, up to the present, he has acknowledged.
Architecture
is a business in L which the architect holds in
trust and spends for his client large sums of money. This he must do more
efficiently than any manufacturer.
He must work within the financial limitations of his client's problem,
preparing cost analyses and evaluat
ing the economics of first cost and
maintenance. In commercial work
he is called in more and more to help determine the financial return of the
contemplated project. His judgment must be balanced and at the same
time sufficiently foresighted not to create for his client future liabilities.
He acts as agent for his client
throughout the entire project and
looks to the protection of his inter ests.
The architect must be an engineer. He is responsible for the structural, mechanical and electrical efficiency of the buildings he designs. He should have sufficient knowledge of all these parts of his work, not neces
sarily to be considered as an expert but to enable his client properly to
appraise the final result. He so cor
relates the methods and means of
these different mechanical usages in
harmony, one with the other, as
to obtain a balance which otherwise
would be lacking. This coordination is properly the architect's work, and his relationship to the several spe cialists should be that of leader.
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53o THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW
Knowing the client's needs, having
helped to ascertain the programme for their development, he is in the
position to demand new methods of
structure, to assist in creating them
and to perfect new methods in de
sign. The economy of factory produced
articles in the building art can only be possible with his knowledge and assistance. The architect and the
engineer are here performing an
identical function when assisting in
the development of new design; they differ only when the sense of human
factors is lost sight of in that devel
opment.
Building
is an art devoted to in '
terpreting human needs, and the
successful result is only attained
through a careful analysis of the
problem in all its phases. It is an ap
plied art and not an "art for art's
sake." It is an art in which everyday,
commonplace circumstances of living are expressed, and in which for that
very reason the factor of beauty is
important. Economic, structural
and use efficiency are not enough, are not sufficient unto themselves.
Architecture should achieve beauty, for in the final result beauty condi tions men's lives long after all other
types of function, as expressed in
architecture, cease to be vital. The
demand for beauty increases in ratio
to the distance people are removed
from the pioneering stage of civiliza
tion, and in this country we have
reached an advanced stage in the de
velopment. The creation of wealth, unless it fulfills itself in the creation of beauty, is sterile.
The architect then, besides being practical, besides being business
like, also has the function of helping the community to an appreciation of
the beautiful. He calls to his aid the fine and applied arts. He is inter
ested in all creative effort that goes to make for comfort and happiness ?
the sculptor, the painter, the
maker of furniture, the craftsman in
wood and metals look to him for
guidance and for inspiration. He has a close relationship with
the life about him. He becomes as intimate in people's lives as a father
confessor. He interprets a way of
living, and because of that relation
ship and of the compromise that is
necessary for him to make possible a
proper interpretation, he must as
sume control. He is a leader in the
market place, for it is both his in
spiration and his audience. Business
competition, finance, and all social
questions are as much his problem
as is the problem of the building, and he must aid in finding a way of living well under these conditions or in
helping to change them.
There
is a statesmanship in archi
tecture as well as in politics. The
architect is interested in city plan
ning not only in the showy effect of monumental civic centers but in the
disposition of all life in the broadest realization of the relationship of the
country to the city. The problem
again is the one of a full life and transcends the engineering prob lems of transport and transit, because
the planning should be based on
fundamental equations and not on
designing expedients. The architect's
problem of the future will be the
planning of communities and not
solely the planning of individual
buildings.
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RADIO 531
The art of building has become, within the past fifty years, a great deal more complex. The improve
ment in building methods and me
chanical appliances is constantly
increasing. There would seem at pres ent no indication that this has reached a degree of perfection that
will call a halt on future develop ment. On the contrary, in many of
the mechanical branches of the in
dustry the indication is that the de
velopment has but started.
It is not possible, as it was fifty years ago, for one man to compre hend all the knowledge necessary in
modern construction. Even the small est building requires its "special ist." The profession has become
largely a group activity in which
specialized effort has to be molded into a balanced whole. As indicated, the architect, using the word in a
collective sense, must be many-sided, so that architectural firms will com
prise men interested in all branches
of the building art from the concep tion of the building through the different engineering phases to the
equipment for the actual use of the tenant-to-be.
In so large a group activity it is evident that some one must be the
leader, and the architect, because of
his humanistic training, is the best fitted for that task. However, there
is and will be plenty of opportunity for individual expression in every part of these organizations.
The opportunities then are wide
and many. How they are accepted and improved is the problem of the
individual, and his success will be due to an ability to move forward
unprejudiced by tradition, un
hampered by sentimentality, and
finally by attaining a broad un
derstanding of the needs of soci
ety. The profession of architecture
lacks the opportunity of creating
great personal wealth, although as
the building operations grow greater there will be for many a satisfactory financial return. All creative work
furnishes, however, a personal grati
fication, and that to many will be
compensation enough.
Radio
By James G. Harbord
Chairman of the Board, Radio Corporation of America
From campus paths the 1931
graduates, carrying diplomas awarded amid appropriate
handclapping, are stepping forth into a life sprinkled with opportuni ties and "No Help Wanted" signs.
The fact that the most conservative
economist will admit that there is an
overproduction of those discouraging
signs this year makes the problem of selecting the best opportunities in business even more acute than
usual.
Yet, even in 1931,1 should say to
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