Read Ebook: The American Architect and Building News Vol. 27 Jan-Mar 1890 by Various

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SUMMARY:--

The Incomes of Architects.--Death of Mr. George F. Durand, Architect.--Concrete Arches.--An Architect's Responsibility for Exceeding the Stipulated Cost of a Building.--A French Case in Point.--A Contractor Engages in Profit-Sharing with his Workmen. 1

THE APARTMENT-HOUSE. 3

ARCHITECTURE IN BROOKLYN. 5

THE STRUCTURE OF SANDSTONE. 9

THE BARYE EXHIBITION. 10

"The Lion and the Serpent."--Auditorium of the Palace of the Trocad?ro, Paris, France.--An Interior in the Ch?teau de Josselin, Morbihan, France.--Torre del Vino, Alhambra, Granada, Spain.--Ruins of the Chapel of Charles V, Yuste, Spain.--Coombe Warren, Kingston, England: Garden Front.--Coombe Warren, Kingston, England: Entrance Front.--A Gentleman's Country House.--Wrought-Iron Gates, Duke Street, England.--Historical Figures from Lord Mayor's Procession, 1889.--House of Mrs. Charles Blake, Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.--Competitive Designs for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, N.Y.--Abbey of Aberbrothwick: Gallery over Entrance.--Abbey of Aberbrothwick: The Western Doorway.--Design for a Store. 12

SOCIETIES. 14

COMMUNICATIONS.--

Barye's Admirer.--Evaporation of Water in Traps. 15

NOTES AND CLIPPINGS. 15

TRADE SURVEYS. 16

Some interesting experiments on concrete arches were made recently, during the construction of the new railway station at Erfurt. Some of the rooms were to be covered with concrete floors, carried on iron beams, while others, of smaller size, were intended to be spanned by arches extending from wall to wall. One of the latter, something over seven feet in width, was covered with concrete, flat on top, and forming on the underside a segmental arch, the thickness of the material at the crown of the arch being four inches, and about eleven inches at the springing. The concrete was made of "Germania" Portland cement, mixed dry with gravel, moistened as required, and well rammed on the centring; and skew-backs were cut in the brick walls at the springing line, extending two courses higher, so as to give room for the concrete to take a firm hold on the walls. Fourteen days after completion, this floor was loaded with bricks and sacks of cement to the amount of more than six hundred pounds per square foot, without suffering any injury, although, after the load was on, a workman hammered with a pick on the concrete, close to the loaded portion, so as to provoke the cracking of the arch if there had been any tendency to rupture. In the other cases, the concrete arches being turned between iron beams, the strength of the floor was limited by that of the beams, so the extreme load could not be put on; but the curious fact was established that a section of concrete flat on top, and forming a regular segmental arc beneath, was far stronger than one in which a portion of the under surface was parallel to the upper; showing, apparently, that the arched form, even with homogeneous concrete, causes the conversion of a large part of a vertical pressure into lateral thrust, reducing by so much the tendency of the load to break the concrete transversely. This observation is important theoretically as well as practically. It has been of late generally maintained that a concrete arch is not an arch at all, but a lintel, without thrust, and that the common form, flat above and arched beneath, is objectionable, as it gives least material at the centre, where a lintel is most strained. The Erfurt experiments directly contradict this view, and it remains for some students of architecture to render the profession a service by repeating them, and, at the same time, actually determining the thrust, for a given load, of arches of particular forms. Until this is done, the concrete construction, which is likely, we may hope, to become before many years the prevailing one in our cities, will be practised with difficulty and uncertainty, if not with danger. Incidentally, a trial was made of the effect of freezing on the concrete. The floor of a room arched in four bays, between iron beams, had just been finished when the weather became cold, and on the morning after its completion the thermometer stood at twenty above zero. The concrete had not been protected in any way, and the contractor was notified that it had been frozen, and must be removed. This was early in December, and it was about the first of April before the work of removal, preliminary to replacing the concrete with new material, was begun. Three bays had been wholly or partly removed when the hardness of the concrete under the workmen's tools attracted attention, and the arch remaining intact was tested with a load of three hundred pounds per square foot, which it bore perfectly.

With all these opportunities for revising and testing the correctness of an architect's estimate, the man who neglects to avail himself of any of them, and who allows the work on his house to go on, after it has become evident that it will cost more than the estimate, has, according to M. Fr?my-Ligneville, no claim against any one on account of his disappointment. Of course, the architect should be as careful in his estimates as his experience allows him to be, and any conscientious man would try not to mislead a client, but both he and his client must remember that when the tenders of the builders themselves usually vary from fifty to a hundred per cent for the same piece of work, an architect's estimate cannot be anything more than an opinion. Moreover, the architect should not forget that, being an opinion, and not a guaranty, he is not only at liberty to modify it as much and as often as he sees fit, but is bound to do so, and to inform his client at once of the change, when fuller information, or alteration in the circumstances, shall show him that the original estimate is likely to be exceeded. If he does this frankly, although his client may be disappointed, he cannot reproach the architect with trying to deceive him, and there will probably still be time to make the changes necessary for reducing the expense to the desired point. In a case decided in Paris in July, 1855, a man was condemned to pay fifty-four thousand francs for repairs done on a house. He proved that his architect had estimated the expense at seven or eight thousand, but it was shown that the architect had subsequently informed him that it would be necessary to do more work than was at first contemplated, and that he had made inquiries about the matter, and had turned out his tenants so that the work might be done, and had paid the contractors more than the sum originally estimated; and the court thought he had no case at all against the architect.

THE APARTMENT-HOUSE.

Most people are willing to admit that they cannot afford to pay over twice as much for a thing as it is worth; but few in this country are aware that they do this very thing when they build for themselves an independent city dwelling-house or pay a rent equivalent to or greater than the interest on this outlay.

Nothing shows more clearly than this, how much man is a creature of habit. In his savage state, the nature of his existence necessitated the isolated hut. As civilization advanced, however, the necessity for, and enormous advantages of co?peration became evident, but habit perpetuated the isolated dwelling long after the reasons for its existence had disappeared, and it required centuries for civilized men to learn that co?peration is an element as essential to perfection in the arrangement of their habitations as it is in other things.

The form of comparison herein presented has never, to my knowledge, been heretofore made, and the results are as surprising as they are important and interesting.

The estimates of cost have been made by several competent contractors on scale drawings and accurate specifications, are easily verified and hence may be accepted as reliable.

Figure 1 is one of the plans of our apartment-house which is to be built on the Back Bay, Boston.

Figure 2 shows the floor-plans of an independent house which might be built on the same land. Both figures are drawn to the same scale for convenience in comparing the dimensions. The independent-house contains a kitchen, pantry, furnace-room, fuel-cellar, laundry, dining-room, china-closet, parlor, eight bed-chambers provided with suitable closets, two bath-rooms, a trunk-room, a front staircase extending from the first floor to the attic, and a back staircase extending from the basement to the third floor. What will these accommodations cost in this form and what in the form of a "flat" in an apartment-house?

Assuming now at first in our comparison those conditions which are least favorable to the apartment-house, we will take one of the "housekeeping" suites, having precisely the same number and size of rooms as we find in our independent house or "tower" and compare costs.

The only difference in the accommodation in each case is that, in the "flat," the rooms are accessible to one another without the use of stairs, while in the "tower" six flights of stairs in all are used, constituting in the aggregate a ladder, as it were, of about a hundred steps; also in the fact that in the "tower" the owner has to manage his own heating, ventilating and hot-water supply apparatus, while in the "flat" this work is done for him; that in the "tower" wooden staircases and no elevators are used, while in the "flat" fireproof staircases enclosing elevators are provided; that in the "tower" the main partitions are often of wood while in the flat they are of brick a foot thick and each "flat" is separated from its neighbor by a brick wall a foot thick and all the floors are completely deadened against the transmission of sound; and finally that in the "tower" no external fire-escape is provided, while the "flat" has convenient external fire-escapes of iron. Otherwise the accommodations are in both cases precisely the same.

The total cost of this apartment-house, including the building-lot valued at, say, a square foot, has been carefully estimated at 7,771.

This is the highest of two competitive estimates given by two responsible builders, and comprises general cooking-plant, electric-lighting, steam-heating and ventilating apparatus, iron staircases and fire-escapes, elevators, copper roofing, architect's commission, and, in short, everything required for occupancy and use except wall-paper.

The first floor contains 16,688 square feet of available room. The six floors above contain 23,288 square feet of available room each, making a total of 156,416 square feet. Adding 10,880 square feet for basement storage and trunk-room for the suites, and 2,000 square feet in the basement for barber's shop, apothecary, carriage and other offices along the street fronts, we have a total of 169,296 square feet of available room in the entire apartment-house. Dividing the total cost 7,771 by this figure we have .65 for the cost of each square foot of available room in the building.

Our "tower" measures twenty-five feet front on party lines, by seventy feet deep. Its available rooms comprise parlor, library, music-room, eight closeted-chambers, two bath-rooms, a trunk-room, a dining-room, and we may add a kitchen for those who still believe in having an independent cook.

The area of these rooms is as follows:

Parlor 374 sq. ft. Library 374 " Music-room 154 " Chamber No. 1 384 " Chamber No. 2 528 " Chamber No. 3 170 " Chamber No. 4 252 " Chamber No. 5 162 " Chamber No. 6 286 " Chamber No. 7 242 " Chamber No. 8 315 " 2 Bath-rooms 144 " Trunk-room 136 " Dining-room 408 " Kitchen 384 " China-closet 136 " Other closets 410 "

If now we consider that the management of a private kitchen and an Irish cook does not actually constitute the essence of a home in its broadest sense, but, that on the contrary, it really deprives a home of its greatest charm, namely, peace of mind and rest of body, the kitchen and the cook's bed-chamber may be omitted from our "flat" in view of the public kitchen. The area of our "flat" then becomes 4,475 square feet, which, at .65 per foot, brings the cost down to a little over ,000.

Finally, if we omit the dining-room also, with its china-closet, our area becomes 3,931 square feet, and the cost only ,350 for the "flat," against ,000 for the "tower," the former being but little over a third of the latter.

So much for the saving in the case of a large family and large suite. For a small suite, such as would be required for a single person, or a small family of two or three persons, the saving at once mounts to a very much larger figure; so much so, indeed, as to render the use of the isolated house in such cases a most inordinate extravagance, except for the very rich. Thus a single person, or a family of two or three, could be very comfortably provided for with three or four rooms, and a bath-room in an apartment-house having a good caf?. Estimating the rooms to measure 18 x 22 feet, their area would be a little over 400 feet each, including closets, and their cost ,460 apiece; or for smaller rooms of, say, 14 x 15 feet, or 224 square-feet surface, the cost would be but 8 apiece. An isolated dwelling, on the same land, of only eighteen feet frontage and fifty feet deep, would cost, including the lot at a foot, not less than ,000 or ,000, without the land. Of course, in such an isolated dwelling, electric-lighting, steam-heating, fireproof stairs, and other luxuries of the "flat," would hardly be expected.

The foregoing figures are easily explained, and their correctness verified by the following simple diagrams and considerations:

In Figure 2 the shaded parts of the plans represent the unavailable room which, under the apartment-house system, are rendered unnecessary, and they are practically wasted. Thus the eighty families, by uniting their eighty homes in one co?perative apartment, save 156 staircases consisting of seventy-six front and eighty back staircases, seventy-eight furnaces, seventy-nine laundries, etc., and nearly all the space they occupy, and the land, foundation and roof they represent.

This waste space may be graphically shown by the diagrams in Figure 3. The large black-and-white line represents the "tower," and the shorter the "flat." The black part of each line denotes unavailable, and the white part available room, the sum of the two denoting the total cubical contents of each dwelling. The white parts of the lines measure the same length in each case, because the amount of available room in "tower" and "flat" is assumed at the outset to be the same. Thus in the "tower," the front and back staircases and halls take up 22,000 cubic feet out of the total 106,000 cubic feet covered by the entire building. In the "flat" the proportional part of the halls and staircases for each suite is represented by a comparatively insignificant quantity as shown.

Again, an enormous waste is shown in the flooring, roof and air-spaces of the "tower," while this item is but a trifle in the "flat." The six floors, each 16 inches thick, and the roofing make up together in the "tower" 12,000 cubic feet, or nearly the equivalent of an entire story. Add to this 12,000 cubic feet of air-space under the roof and over the concrete, and we have in these items a waste of 24,000 cubic feet, against only 4,000 in the "flat."

Thus we see that the waste space in the "tower" actually exceeds the available. Yet it must be paid for at the same rate with the latter. Deducting the waste in the "flat" from that in the "tower," we find the balance of waste space in the "tower" to be equal to the available, showing graphically that the "tower" must cost, in these items alone, just twice as much as the "flat."

Figure 4 shows a block-plan on a very small scale of the apartment-house, and a block-plan on the same scale of 40 "towers" adjoining each other, and having the same available space as the apartment-house. These plans show how much more land is required to give the same accommodations in the "tower" system than in the "flat."

The shaded portions in each block-plan represent the aggregate of available room in each case. This shows very strikingly what an enormous proportion of land and material is wasted in the "tower" system.

In short, the possible saving in first cost for each family adopting the "flat" system of building lies between ,265 and ,758, making an aggregate saving for the 80 families occupying the apartment of between one and two millions of dollars.

The annual running expenses are also greatly in favor of the "flat" system when the advantages of co?peration are used to its greatest extent.

Corresponding savings are evidently possible in every other department of housekeeping, including steam-heating, ventilating, laundry-work, lighting and elevator-work. In all of these particulars, co?peration, judiciously conducted, has been shown to yield surprising economies.

But there are other advantages even more important than its economy in favor of the "flat." Freedom from housekeeping cares has already been touched upon. In the "tower," life is spent in training and treating with servants, mechanics and market-men. The private cook is a volcano in a house, slumbering at times, but always ready to burst forth into destructive eruption. True repose is out of the question, and we are told that "the motive for foreign travel of perhaps one-half of Americans is rest from household cares and the enjoyment of good attendance, freed from any responsibility in its organization and management."

Security against burglary and fire is another. In a good apartment-house, trained watchmen stand on guard night and day to protect the occupants, and stand-pipes, hose and fire-buckets are provided in all the halls, and kept in repair for emergency.

The family may leave their apartments for travel summer or winter, knowing that their property is as secure as modern appliances, system and ingenuity can make it. Not so with our isolated dwelling. The cost of providing all these means of protection is too great to make them practicable. The result is that the fear of burglary and fire at all times causes uneasiness, particularly on the part of the wife during the absence of her husband.

Beauty in the architectural arrangement of the rooms is a third advantage of the "flat." In this it has all the advantage of the double house or residence of the immensely rich. The rooms may be grouped in a manner which renders possible the highest architectural effect, whereas in the "tower" the perpendicular arrangement evidently precludes such opportunity by limiting the design to a wearisome and monotonous repetition from basement to attic.

No argument can be sustained against the "flat" on the ground of transmission of sound or want of privacy and isolation, for sound may be as fully deadened as in the "tower" by means of the 12-inch brick separating walls shown in our plan, and the most improved deafening treatment of the floor-joists.

Isolation may be made complete in the "flat," the private halls and front doors of each suite being in every respect the equivalent of those in the "tower"; the only difference being that with the "flat" the outer world begins with the public hall and its elevator, while with the "tower" it begins with the public street and its horse-car.

Add to these advantages the possibility for a greatly enlarged and delightful social intercourse which a properly arranged and conducted apartment-house provides, and we have as near an approach to the ideal of a human habitation as has yet been devised.

J. P. PUTNAM.

ARCHITECTURE IN BROOKLYN.

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