If the outline had been clean, it would have achieved the soaring effect so essential to an inspiring tower, creating the sense of reaching up to the sky, like an invocation.
Thomas Hastings had a sound idea when he made that design.He wanted to do something Expositional, exactly as Guerin did when he applied the coloring.Now there were critics who said that the coloring was too pronounced.It reminded them of the theater.Well, that was just what it ought to remind them of.It had life, gaiety, abandon.The critic who said that the orange domes provided just the right tone, and that this tone ought to have been followed throughout, didn't make sufficient allowance for public taste.He wanted the Exposition to be an impressionistic picture in one key.But one key was exactly what Guerin didn't want.His purpose was to catch the excitement in variety of color as well as the warmth, to stimulate the mind.He succeeded in adapting his color scheme to architecture that had breadth and dignity.At first he expected to use orange, blue, and gold, carefully avoiding white.He did avoid white; but he expanded his color scheme and included brown and yellow and green.But, in that tower, Hastings did something out of harmony with the architecture, something barbaric and crude.
Here and there the bits of Austrian cut glass were sparkling on the tower like huge diamonds."At times the thing is wonderfully impressive.
There's always something impressive about a mass if it has any kind of uniformity, and here you can detect an intention on the part of the architect.There are certain lights that have a way of dressing up the tower as a whole, giving it unity and hiding its ugliness.And at all times it has a kind of barbaric splendor.It might have come out of an Aztec mind, rather childish in expression, and seeking for beauty in an elemental way.I can imagine Aztecs living up there in a barbaric fashion, their houses piled, one above another, like our uncivilized apartment houses."In studying the Tower of Jewels in detail, we decided that it was not really so crude as it seemed on first sight.Much might be done even now by a process of elimination.And the arch was magnificent."In its present condition the tower unquestionably provides a strong accent.It has already become a dominating influence here.But it's an influence that teaches people to feel and to think in the wrong way.It encourages a liking for what I call messy art, instead of developing a taste for the simplicity that always characterizes the best kind of beauty, the kind that develops naturally out of a central idea."From the Tower of Jewels we turned our attention to those other towers, the four so charming in design and in proportion, Renaissance in feeling, their simplicity seeming all the more graceful on account of the contrast with the other tower's over-ornamentation."I wonder what the world would have done without the Giralda Tower in Seville? It has inspired many of the most beautiful towers in the world.It helped to inspire McKim, Mead and White when they built the Madison Square Tower, and the Madison Square Tower might be described as a relative of our own Ferry Tower, which is decidedly one of the best pieces of architecture in San Francisco.And it's plain enough that these four towers and the Ferry Tower are related.The top of the four towers, by the way, has a history.It comes from the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, the little temple in Athens that was built by one of the successful chorus-leaders in the competitive choral dances of the Greeks, who happened to be a man of wealth.Afterward, when a chorus-leader won a prize, which consisted of a tripod, it was shown to the people on that monument.""Some critics," I said, "have complained of the coloring and the pattern on those towers.""They can't justify themselves, however.Though this plaster looks like Travertine, it nevertheless remains plaster, and it lends itself to plastic decoration.The Greeks and the Romans often used plaster, and they did not hesitate to paint it whenever they chose.Kelham's four towers have been criticised on account of their plastic design, which has a good deal of pink in it.But that design provides one of the strongest color notes in the whole Exposition, a delightful note, too.
It happens that makers of wallpaper have had the good sense to use a design somewhat similar.But this fact does not make the design any the less attractive or serviceable."Between the houses on the hill we could catch glimpses of the South Gardens between the glass dome of the Horticultural Palace and Festival Hall.The architects rightly felt that in general appearance they had to be French to harmonize with the French architecture on either side.In the distance the Fountain of Energy stood out, like a weird skeleton that did not wholly explain itself.Stirling Calder, the sculptor, must have forgotten that the outline of those little symbolic figures perched on the shoulder of his horseman would not carry their meaning.
Now, before our eyes, the Exposition revealed itself as a picture, with all the arts contributing.It suggested the earlier periods of art, when the art-worker was architect, painter and sculptor all in one.
