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| THE SOUTHERN COLONNADE - The architectural
device portrayed in this picture was presented to the eye of the
visitor for the purpose of shutting from view the car-yards,
packing-case houses, and stock pavilions of the exposition. Looking
from the porch of the Art Palace, this south screen was the end of
things; the north and west sides of the park lacked a similar
dignity. It must be said that though the blue and illimitable lake
was the eastern boundary of the Fair, its west and its north was a
board fence - a stockage no better and less excusable than the walls
of Camp Douglas or Andersonville. This Southern Colonnade, the
exemplar of future outside walls for World's Fairs, connected, or
nearly connected, Machinery Hall with the Agricultural building. Its
columns were Corinthian, and some of them were further enriched with
success. The archway offered an entrance to the amphitheatre in
which were displayed the world's thorough-bred beasts, and a station
of the Intramural Railroad offered to those visitors who stopped at
this point not only the greatest vista of the exposition, but, at
night, an advantageous point from which to remark the play of
rainbow-lights on sparkling waters, and the other illuminations which
elicited the praise of mankind. Both chariot-groups on high, and the
lion below, were by M. A. Waagen; the jaguars were by Kemeys and
Proctor. The architect of the Colonnade was C. B. Atwood, of
Chicago. |
