Architecture Galore

Manhattan's Grand Central Palace was filled, last week, with the Architectural and Allied Arts Exposition, a giant fashion show displaying (April 15-27) the latest modes in which man adorns the earth for his comfort and amusement. Dominant was the 44th exhibition of the Architectural League of New York. But since architecture is more than, ever a synthesis of many elements -- pure design, clients' specifications, construction engineering, interior decorating, landscape architecture, plumbing -- much of the space was devoted to the Allied Arts. The architectural gamut ran through garages, houses, churches, public buildings, reached a skyward climax in Manhattan Architect William Van Alen's plans for the new Chrysler Building, to be world's highest (68 stories), now under construction in midtown Manhattan. Everywhere apparent was the tendency toward simplification of form, and the invention of new forms rather than reliance on archaeology. Colorists now apply a vivid spectrum to polychrome decoration and colored tiles. Aviation architecture proved a feature instead of a novelty. The New York Times displayed a plaster model of Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd's winter headquarters in Antarctica, with four T-shaped landing and take-off platforms, three skeleton wireless masts, a group of gabled buildings. From famed Naval Architect Henry J. Gielow came designs of the Armstrong Seadrome, a floating platform intended to be anchored far at sea, first between Manhattan and Bermuda, later perhaps in a chain across the Atlantic. In another scheme an airport was built on trestles over the Manhattan water front. Gorham's craftsmen exhibited a bronze door for the Detroit home of Edsel Ford and a silver tea set valued at $38,000 which was hidden each evening in a safety vault. Ten construction companies joined in presenting a series of scenic tableaux representing modern processes of building.

Manhattan Architect Harvey Wiley Corbett was Exposition Chairman. He is 55, small, white-haired, a native Californian. Both his father and mother were physicians. After being graduated from the University of California as a Mechanical Engineer, he studied Architecture at the Paris Beaux Arts and took medals in architecture, mathematics, modeling, free-hand drawing. He was the first foreign member of the London Architecture Club. In 1912 he formed a partnership with Frank J. Helmle of New York.

Helmle & Corbett have raised spires and pediments throughout the East. Most famed is the tan, delicately Gothicized tower of their Bush Terminal office building in Manhattan. In London they thrust up the robust U. S. contours of Bush House among the fragile graces of Christopher Wrenn and Inigo Jones. In Alexandria, Va., they are now building the George Washington Masonic National Memorial.

The gold medal for architecture fell to William Pope Barney (Davis, Dunlap & Barney of Philadelphia) for his American Bank & Trust Co. building in Philadelphia. This is a small structure of classic sobriety, whose regular, massy walls are relieved by exquisite bas-reliefs and a rich composite order in columns and pilasters. Because Architect Barney previously designed many another, the bank is splendidly utilitarian.