International studio (59.1916)

Philadelphia s New Pl rt Museum


PROPOSED ART MUSEUM, FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA

PHILADELPHIA’S NEW ART MU-
SEUM
BY CHRISTIAN BRINTON
We are living in an era of expansion
not alone physical but cultural. With that spirit
of ready initiative so characteristic of the Amer-
ican temperament we translate our ideas and am-
bitions into realities with startling celerity. A
few decades since,, civic beauty was with us an
unknown, or at least an unregarded issue. To-
day wellnigh every city in the land makes some
concession to aesthetic considerations. We are
striving to rectify the mistakes of our forbears.
It is a formidable undertaking, yet the results are
already substantial.
The architectural monotony of Philadelphia
B. C.—before the Centennial—bids fair, for ex-
ample, to be dispelled by the comprehensive
scheme of city planning now under way. Of chief
moment in this process of haussmannizing is the
majestic Parkway which sweeps from the City
Hall in a northwesterly direction and ends at the
foot of Fairmount Hill. It is here upon an im-
posing natural eminence that it is proposed to
establish the new Philadelphia Museum of Art,
while across the Plaza at the foot of the hill
sites have been reserved for the Academy of the
Fine Arts and the School of Industrial Art.
Nothing could be more appropriate than this
centralizing of the intellectual and artistic activi-
ties of the community, for the projected munici-
pal Museum, while the most prominent individual

unit, comprises but a portion of the general plan.
The reasons for erecting a new and spacious tem-
ple of art in Philadelphia are not alone theoretical
but practical, there being ample grounds for as-
suming that, once the proper accommodation is
provided, certain important collections now in
private possession will logically gravitate toward
the museum. Philadelphians, you see, are prop-
erly looking toward the future and, in matters
artistic, a brilliant future it promises to be.
Situated in the geographical centre of the city,
but one mile from City Hall, the Philadelphia
Art Museum will be readily accessible from all
points. The model, which is classic in style,
discloses a building that, upon completion,
will cover an area of approximately 5,000
square feet. The available hanging space will be
something over 10,000 lineal feet, while other
accommodations such as library, assembly rooms,
etc., will be in keeping. A feature of par-
ticular interest and charm will be the handsome
forecourt and ornamental garden approached by
broad flights of steps leading from the street be-
low to a height of some fifty feet.
While certain details remain to be worked out
with more care and precision, the general plan of
the structure is rapidly nearing the point of com-
pletion. The Philadelphia Museum of Art forms
the climax and crowning feature of an architec-
tural ensemble which is Periclesian in breadth and
simplicity. It should mark an epoch not alone in
the construction of an art gallery but in the his-
tory of American civic embellishment.

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