|
| THE GERMAN BUILDING - Easily foremost among
the foreign structures at the Exposition stood the German Building,
on a choice site, with the waves of Lake Michigan beating over the
granite-paved strand not fifty feet away. The German Building
preserved the peculiarities of architecture in the Fatherland, as was
done at the German Village, on Midway Plaisance; but there was added
to the imperial edifice at the lake shore, a grace and a beauty that
all were swift to admire and praise. "The German House" was
poetical; it had a hundred delicacies of color and ornament that
gladdened the hours in Jackson Park. It cost $250,000, so that the
light and airy in architecture does not appeal to economy. There
hung in its tall belfry a set of the deepest and sweetest bells that
ever came West, and they were returned to the Church of Mercy, in
Berlin, which was erecting in memory of the late Empress Augusta.
The ground area was one hundred and fifty by one hundred and seventy
-five feet. The cupola rose to one hundred and fifty feet. The
notable things were the Swiss veranda, the Gothic bays, the high
colors, and the ingenious adjustment of the Exposition plaster or
"staff" to the South German methods of "castle"- building. The main
portion of the fabric simulated a chapel, and by the inner timbering
and furnishings of sacred figures, organs, candles and bibles, bore
out the ecclesiastical idea. The right-hand region of the raftered
and galleried house was filled with rare displays of books, and the
visitor might there behold, often for the first time, a full set of
Tauchnicz's volumes, or Handel's, Bach's and Mozart's complete works. |
