Architectural Ethics The Case of the Ottawa Terminal Station and Hotel An interesting and peculiar situation has arisen out of the laudable purpose of the Grand. Trunk Railway Company, in- stigated by theCCa?nadian Premier, to provide for the" Capital of Canada new and greatly enlarged terminal facilities. These were intended to consist of a Union Station and of a Station Hotel. In the course of execution, the comple- tiOn of which it has not yet nearly ap- proached, this project has furnished questions of interest and concern for the Architectural profession in the ?Domin? ion, in the United States, and "in the United Kingdom, for the municipal gov- ernment of Ottawa, and for the Govern- ment of Canada. To present these ques- tions, it is unnecessary to characterize. It is necessary only to describe. As a great Englishman has said: ?Strong facts do not need strong language.? As a great American has said: ?Let facts be submitted to a candid world.? When the Grand Trunk Railway con- ceived the notion of the new terminal buildings at the Canadian Capital, the ?Ottawa Terminals Company? was formed ?ad hoc.? But the presiding genius of both companies was Mr. C. M. Hays, Second Vice-President and General Manager of the Grand Trunk. The selection of an architect seems to have been a simple matter. Mr. Brad- ford Lee Gilbert, by reason of an un? usual, if not unequalled, experience in railroad work, as the author of the Twelfth Street Terminal in Chicago, as the reconstructor of the Grand Central in New York, according to the scheme as now executed (although under a suc? ceeding administration the details of the waiting room were altered from those of his design) and as the architect of the terminals in the city of Mexico, at Atlanta and Concord in the States, and at Halifax in the Dominion, appeared to ?impose himself? for this particular work. He was accordingly engaged as ,architect. to design and superintend the erection of the Terminal Station and its appurtenances and of the Ter- minal Hotel, the ?Chateau Laurier.? The Station was at ?rst intended for a different site, and was acordingly de- signed in classic architecture. But it was all along recognized that the ideally desirable site for both Station and Ho- tel was the plateau along the easterly side of the Rideau Canal, affording an outlook northwesterly, down the ravine of the canal, more westerly and more nearly opposite over the Ottawa River, and, closer at hand, a view upward to the Parliament Buildings on a higher plateau. That was the site in fact which, more than a generation ago, when the Federation of Canada had just become an accomplished fact, and the selection of Ottawa as the Capital had just been made sure, had been reserved for the Capitoline Buildings of the new Domin- ion, as the most commanding that the Capital afforded. But to the acquisi- tion of this site there were obstacles ap- parently insuperable. The reservation for the public buildings had been wisely extended so as to comprise the lower plateau and to preserve it from private and possibly occupation, se- curing the predominance and the visibil- ity of the Government Buildings. These were, upon the whole, worthy of their eminence, their conspicuousness and their isolation, a commanding and pic- turesque group. It was the clear duty of the Dominion?s authorities not to brook any competing or con?icting oc- cupatiOn of the ?Ordnance Land? re- served expressly to prevent such a con- ?ict. The land on the right bank of the canal had in fact been laid out as a pub- lic park, ?Major?s Hill Park,? from the walks of which the visitor could get con? tinual glimpses, across the ravine and above the scarp of the bluff, of the pic- turesque group of buildings ?set On a hill.? and of a projected range of Gov? ernment buildings on the other side of 294 THE the park. It would have been little less than a crime to mar this admirable ar- rangement, little less than a crime on the part of its of?cial custodians to con? sent to the dis?gurement of it. The if It IIAJJ Ililli?idl?l'ljilnHillIlwi ORIGINAL DESIGN FOR STATION HOTEL, Ottawa, Canada. ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. ing the hotel in the park itself were so manifest that Mr. Gilbert at once ad- dressed himself to the task of making of the two great buildings of his project what may be called the ?Propylaea? of Bradford L. Gilbert, Architect. mf?r .va cu?53mrgiawmmawf; I i Inwardtmv5:5 511~13? A ?fusORIGINAL BLOCK PLAN FOR TERMINAL STATION AND HOTEL: Ottawa, Canada. railroad people had in fact given up hope of being permitted to occupy any portion of this park. But the advantage of placing the Station on the site orig? inally chosen for the hotel, and of build- Bradford L. Gilbert, Architect. the Canadian Capital and of harmoniz- ing them with the buildings of what may be called its ?Acropolis.? To this end he discarded the classic design devised for the Station, as originally intended 295 ARCHITECTURAL ETHICS. DESIGN FOR STATION HOTEL Ottawa, Canada. Ross Macfarlane, Architects L, 1? 18mm PM WEN mmra: {mm j? LAUMER ?m mm x; 136531 .. Far y. - I (A, 'AyKw*V?an?(?13338 9 a; 9? (?Norm - STATION AND Ross Macfarlane, Architects, Ottawa, Canada. BLOCK PLAN FOR TERMINAL 296 for a site around the corner and outside of the great group. Associating with himself, for this purpose, one of the most distinguished of American design- ers of Gothic detail, he produced designs for the two buildings in harmony with the buildings that were to be seen above and opposite, and arranged to sink the tracks out of sight, and also to screen with his Station the rather buildings of private ownership and oc- cupation that were already in view and THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. yond the hope of the officers of the com- pany, gave consent to the erection of the hotel in the park, and tllus enabled the construction of the Station on the site originally chosen for the hotel. Why the corporation whose architect had obtained for it this unhoped for success should do anything but vote him thanks and tell him to go on with the good work does not at ?rst glance at all appear. As Thackeray remarks, ?The milk of the cocoanut has often refreshed THE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS AT OTTAWA, CANADA FROM HILL PARK. the still more ones that might be apprehended in the future. No arch- itect needs to be told that this layout on an irregular site and on uneven ground was the gist of the design, the thing over which the designer must ?sweat blood that if he succeeded in accom- plishing this his design was successful, and that the architect who did this was the real author of the design, whatever subsequent changes of detail might be made in his work. The design was so successful that the Government of the Dominion, quite be? Thomas Fuller, Architect. the traveler and perplexed the natural philosopher.? But the presence of the milk in this particular cocoanut is easily explicable. The Terminals Company had asked the city of Ottawa for a ??xed assessment? on their new buildings, to obtain which they were obliged to guar- antee a certain value. Moreover, there was local opposition to placing the hotel in the park. To comply with the re- quirements and to conciliate the opposi- tion, Vice-President Hays assured a deputation from the City Council which met him in the of?ce of the Premier, Sir ARCHITECTURAL ETHICS. Wilfred Laurier, that the Station was to cost a million and the hotel a million and a half, that these two millions and a half had been appropriated by the direc- tors, and that the decision to spend this amount on the improvement was ??nal and irrevocable.? This announcement conciliated the opposition and produced a rati?cation by the municipality of the arrangement proposed by the Terminals Company. Mr. Gilbert?s estimates had in fact footed up $2,370,000. ?But,? and this is a most pregnant ?but,? after Mr. Hays had secured the agreement of the Governor-in?Council to the execu- tion of the plans, and that of the City Council of Ottawa on the score of the ??nal and irrevocable decision? of his company to spend $2,500,000 on the im- provement of Ottawa to the ??xed as- sessment??after these things were se? cured, and six days before the plans were to be submitted to the City Council for ?nal adoption, he instructed his architect by telegraph, to cut down the plans so as to save a million dollars. This was donesuch drastic measures as the omission of en- tire stories from each of the buildings, to their grievous injury, practical and architectural. When the revised plans were submitted to the City Council, Feb- ruary I4, 1908, the change did not es- cape notice, and an observant Council- man inquired whether these plans would cost $2,500,000 to execute. Mr. Kelley, the Chief Engineer of the road, who had them in charge, admitted that they would not, but explained the discrepancy by saying that the Architect had ?exceeded his instructions,? though it does not ap- pear that he undertook to explain the discrepancy between the million and a half plans and the two million and a half ??nal and' irrevocable decision.? But the architect, who happened to be pres- ent, resented and exposed the misstatement regarding himself. The occurrence of the lacteal ?uid in the nuclear cavity is thus not only explica- ble. It is explained. The presentation of plans which would cost but a million and half, by a corporation which had announced its ??nal and irrevocable? purpose to spend two millions and a half 7 297 was a circumstance which, when once noted, required explanation. It was the pliant architect who was relied upon to furnish this dif?cult explanation. When he declined to certify that plans out of which he had just cut a million dollars would cost the amount of his original estimate, and when he showed hesitation about galloping into the wilderness as a scapegoat, laden with all the incompati- bilities of statement of the of?cers of the Grand Trunk and the Ottawa Ter- minals, then these august corporations had no further use for so unpliant a de- signer. Exit, accordingly, at this point, Mr. Bradford Lee Gilbert. Enter, ac- cordingly, only a little later, that egre- gious Canadian architectural ?rm, Messrs. Ross Macfarlane. Only a little later. For the hearing before the City Council at Ottawa at which Mr. Gilbert had displayed his in- compatibility with the requirements of the projectors, his employers, was on February I4, 19085th that the elastic and undiscouraged Vice-President Hays re?bobbed up se- renely before the City Council of Ottawa with a ?new? set of plans, estimated to cost ?for the hotel and appurtenances something in excess of and for the station, ?about $525,000.? ?The plans,? he gracefully adds, ?are presented by our architects, Messrs. Ross Mac- farlane, of Montreal.? Remarkable ?new? plans they are. What is most remarkable about them is that, in the intervals between February I4th and May I 5th the lightning-like in- tuition of these British architects had not only traversed the entire ?eld over which the slower-witted American Architect had been painfully plodding for the better part of two years, but in the briefer space they had reached iden- tically the same conclusion as his! As to the hotel, indeed, the cheerful Hays set forth, ?it is substantially in accord- ance with the plans and models which have been heretofore presented and which I understand were satisfactory.? Not quite identical, for our ?new? archi- tects have had the happy thought, for example, of turning all the bathrooms inward upon a dark corridor instead of 298 giving them outside light and air. Not quite identical exteriorly, for they have here had the happy thought of cheap? ening the execution at the tri?ing sacri- ?ce of the artistic character of the detail. As to the plans for the station, which, the Vice-President sets forth ?are more appropriate in their design and appear? ance than those heretofore produced,? the appropriateness is far less clear than the appropriation. For in effect, the ?new? station is an amalgam of Mr. Gilbert?s ground plan and arrangement with the ?classic? mask which he had originally intended for the station on another site, but had found himself forced to discard when the station was to become a member of an architectural group already committed to Gothic. There is no use in quibbling about de? tails. We have said that no architect could fail to see that the general lay?out, on so irregular a terrain, and with the necessity of conciliating the new build? ings with previous erections, was the gist of the design. No layman, with the photograph of the Government Buildings before him, can fail to see that the block-plan is in fact the design, that the block-plans are identical, that the author of the earlier is unquestionably the architect of the work and that the of the later, the ?new? architects, are?what shall we say? What can we say, seeing we have prom? ised not to use ?language?? Ancient Pistol may help us out: ?Convey,? the wise it call ?steal,? fob, a ?co for the phrase. Marry, we have fallen in with an egregious ?rm of Canadian convey? ancers. They have not added to what they found the in?nitesimal fraction of an architectural idea. If this be ?archi? teCture? a supply of tracing paper and a brazen front are the main requisites for the practice of that noble art. Readers of Charles Reade?s ?Hard Cash? will remember how the American inventor, Joshua Fullalove, got justice in a British court, according to his own account ?against a varmint that was breaking the seventh and eighth Com- mandments over me, adulterating my THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD. patent and then stealing it. Blast him!? Here is another American inventor who it seems must appeal to British justice from a similar injury, though he would probably not express himself in similar language. Doubtless the Canadian courts will do him justice upon the of?cials who seem quite shamelessly to have broken their contract with him. But how about the Canadian architects who have lent themselves to the purposes of these of?- cials and put their own names to plans with the authorship of which they had nothing whatever to do, and of the real authorship of which they were fully ap- prised by stamps upon the plans that they were?well, ?conveyancing?? The senior member of the conveyancing ?rm is, it appears, an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects, which undertakes to discipline any member ?contravening the Declaration signed by him or conducting himself in a manner, which, in the opinion of the Council is inconsistent with the profession of an Architect.? It would be interesting to know whether the act of signing an? other architect?s plans is, in the opinion of the Council, ?consistent with the pro? fession of an Architect? and altogether amazing to learn that it is so. The junior conveyancer is, it seems, at least responsible to the Province of Quebec Association of Architects. Paragraph No. 5 of ?The Professional Duties of the Architect toward his Fellow Members? of that Association says: ?An architect shall abstain from plagiarism from his fellow member. He must not seek to acquire the position or patronage enjoyed by a brother architect. So it seems that the case of the conveyancers may be intrusted to the professional tri? bunals, British and Canadian, with as much con?dence as that of the muborn- ers of conveyancing to the Canadian courts of justice. It is but fair to point out that there is no ?international? moral to be drawn from this story. While it is true that Messrs. Ross MacFarlane are orna? ments to the British Empire, it is equally true that Vice-President Hays and Vice? President Fitzhugh and Chief Engineer Kelley, who were associated with him in ARCHITECTURAL ETHICS. these transactions, decorate the citizen- ship of the United States. Internation- ally speaking, dishonors appear to be fairly divided. It is fair also to suppose that the at- tention of the municipal government of Ottawa and of the general Government of Canada will be drawn to the present phase of the matter. The former would be apt to resent the attempt to trick it into granting a ??xed assessment? 299 to a project so far cheapened from that to which it gave assent. The latter will be apt to enquire very curiously whether the consent which it gave for a noble group harmonizing with its own buildings shall stand when the buildings for which it gave consent to the erection in a public park has been cheapened to the extent of being architecturally de- graded, and when the ?group? has be- come a higgledy-piggledy. NATIONAL BANK OF OWATONNA, Louis H. Sullivan, Architect.