The Studio yearbook of decorative art (1916)

UNITED STATES
to the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, the
controlling committee of which has only just been disbanded. It is
quite possible, therefore, that the most recent enterprise of the kind may
yield educational assets far beyond the financial return, which, it may
be hoped, will prove to be even in excess of expectations. One result of
the Panama-Pacific Exposition will be to popularize the movement for
founding a permanent art collection on the Pacific coast, an object which
finds influential support in many places.
The doings of American artists in every department are of perennial
interest and importance, like those of the engineers and industrial
pioneers. Their opportunities are so great and unique, their talents so
marked and adaptable, that the future seems to hold in store a succession
of openings for work in the United States. The possibilities are so en-
gaging that they may well cause a certain amount of envy in the-hearts
of practitioners in the Eastern Hemisphere, especially architects who
are usually bound by traditions and cramped for space in which to de-
velop their ideas. The majority of professional men in England spend
their lives in executing minor schemes, useful enough and often distin-
guished in their way, but lacking the supreme qualities derived from
the stimulating influences of magnitude. The powers of human beings
are broadened by the contemplation and fulfilment of ambitious pro-
jects, but opportunities are all too rare in an old-established country. Such
large works as the Whiteley Homes in Surrey, and the Lord Wandsworth
Trust buildings in Hampshire, to name two of the most extensive build-
ing operations now in progress in England, provide scope for design on
the grand scale, and some modern garden cities have been conceived
occasionally in an imaginative way. But in England the work is apt to
be divided up, to the detriment of comprehensive handling and the de-
velopment of individual genius. Great powers of design are doomed to
remain dormant through the absence of incentive.
In America it is otherwise. There, the significance of individual fore-
sight in planning is fully realized, and generalship in design is required
constantly. Great tracts of land are brought to productiveness under the
guidance of architects skilled in lay-outs and trained to estimate the
relative value of large sites. Cities, universities, and industrial com-
munities spring up in all directions on bold, preconceived plans, un-
hampered by the presence of those ancient and sometimes noble buildings
which in older countries are a perpetual menace to originality and pre-
cision in urban development. This freedom of mind in dealing with
elaborate compositions is invaluable, and helps considerably towards the
solution of the problems and the attainment of the ideals which inspire
thinkers in the United States. So much importance is attached to the
consideration of schemes as a whole that, apart from Civic Art, all forms
of landscape architecture are considered specially in many training
centres. One of the most recent movements in this direction is the
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