Mussolini's Wicket

The proposed streamlined steel arch for St. Louis had already been rudely compared to a wicket (TIME, March i). Last week a more damaging comparison was made. The chairman of the National Commission of Fine Arts said that it looked to him just like an arch once planned for Mussolini.

Nonsense, said Architect Eero Saarinen, who designed the St. Louis arch. He had never heard of Mussolini's design. But he was so eager to absolve his own arch of fascism that he also absolved it of originality. It was, he said, "preposterous to think that a basic form should have any ideological connection. The Egyptian obelisks were built by slaves, and the same form was used in the Washington Monument. I suppose [we therefore should] tear that down, eh?"

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