Architecture

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



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.



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.



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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