The result of the debate in the Park Board upon the Mayor’s letter we understood to be that H. & R. are to prepare the third plan of the park refectory under instructions which you, as representative of the Mayor and over-architect of the city, will give them. (Your function corresponding in principle to that which the A.I.A. have asked Congress to make that of the architect of the treasury).

I want to be very sure that you understand the history of this work thus far. It was partly explained in our conversation with you, but I would now go a step further back.

This refectory building is a minor part of the park; a piece of furniture, as it were, of the park. We are the designers of the park. Presumably we understand better than the Mayor, the Commissioners, Hartwell & Richardson, or the City Architect the relation of this part to the whole, and the dependence of the whole upon its parts.

I enclose two suggestive sketches. One is a tracing from our first design for the park prepared in 1885—eight years ago; adopted by the Commission [745]and accepted by the City Council the following year. The other is a tracing from the design map of the park published by the Commission last year.

The view upon which we proceeded in making these sketches was not the usual view upon which an architect proceeds. The building was regarded as a detail of, and a secondary matter to, a design for a work not of building; the usual process of an architect being reversed. That is to say, the building was to be subordinate and auxiliary to the design of a larger work, as a staircase or a balcony or a porch would be to the general design of a building. Please see this point clearly and fix it in your mind.

What was the object, motive, nature of this larger work to which the building was to be auxiliary and contributive? It was to provide a comparatively easy escape from and a counteractive influence to, the oppression of a big town; a part of this oppression coming from an excessive crowding on vision of walled structures. Means of relief from the sight of walls was an important part of what the park was to supply.

What excuse, then, for any walled structure?

Simply this; that people while in the park must, to get the intended benefit of it, not be bothered with wants which would prevent their enjoyment of it. Among other wants thus to be considered is that provision for the supply of which the word refectory implies.

But if there is to be a refectory, is it not to be laid down that the less noticeable it is, the better; the less it intrudes upon or supplants sylvan, pastoral, ideallic scenery, the better? Consequently, the less it is set up, the better?

Yes, with a reservation; and that reservation is that if you put your refectory in a hole it must occur that while people are using it, there will be an interruption and stoppage of that which it is the design of the park as a whole to provide. The right thing is to put the refectory on an elevation; let the wind pass through it, and let it be so arranged that while people are using it there will be as little interruption as possible of their enjoyment of rural conditions, out of door and open air conditions; conditions of natural greenery, conditions of rural scenery. Do this and provide systematically and ingeniously for this, and therefore do exactly what, under other circumstances, an architect does not do, make your refectory no more prominent than is necessary; contrive it so that it will break no more than it must into the general rural, pastoral, sylvan, verdurous, recreative conditions of the park. Do this with no subterfuges or falsities. There is no need to disguise the fact that there is a certain amount of building. Not much choice of good food is to be had without some buildings in which it is prepared. At the entrance the building should be evident; it should plainly be a good structure, and a refined as well as a staunch structure. Promise of good service should appear. A man driving to the entrance should not be at a loss to know what he can do with his horse. But once past the entrance lobby of the building, and your orders once given, you should get as quickly as possible into open air again, and, even, while you are eating and drinking be able to enjoy greenery and hazy landscape distances and aerial perspectives. The [746]interruption of the park experience should be as slight as ingenuity of design directed to this purpose can make it.

I realize that I have not made as good an explanation of our views as I wanted to, but I think you will be able to see what I mean; if so, you will see that the leading motive in this case should be almost the antithesis of the usual motive of design of an architectural structure.

We often have to make our art becomingly secondary to the magnification of the art of architecture; to help out the motive of an architectural work. We have done so sometimes with a degree of success for which the designers of buildings have been grateful. The President of the Institute of Architects said that a study of ours for treating the environs of a monumental building of his designing would be “the making” of it. In this case it is not a building that is to be made; it is an anti-building; a retreat from buildings. There should be the least show possible of building consistently with convenience and a frank avowal of purpose and an honest use of building materials.

Yours Faithfully