|
| MACHINERY HALL - The Palace of Mechanic Arts
of 1893 is here portrayed as it looked on its two exhibitory facades,
and it is doubtful if a more original or beautiful building was ever
erected. Its remarkable features were undoubtedly the figures of
flying angels just alighting on its many spires with laurel wreaths
of victory, and the eye will detect these visitors all over the
structure, and in postures most airy and inspiring. The company of
heroic figures that seemed to assemble at each portal, too, gave
force and interest to those needfully accentuated points, and the
great loggias were the largest and most ornate of all those which
fronted on the Court of Honor. This building had one, perhaps,
necessary fault. It was under three roofs. These roofs drained
together, and when avalanches of snow slid down the arches, there was
no place for the accumulations to escape except upon the floor below.
A picture of the eastern portal
occupies a page of this volume, and the statuary may there be fully
inspected. Machinery Hall was the creation of Peabody & Stearns, of
Boston. The long facade which we see, measured eight hundred and
forty-two feet; the shorter one four hundred and ninety-two feet.
There was an annex, four hundred and ninety by five hundred and fifty
feet. The floor area was thus spread to twenty-three acres without
gallery, and the amount of money expended was $1,200,000. The style
of architecture was called Spanish Renaissance but it should be named
more justly after its ingenious and adventurous authors. |
