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| PORTAL OF THE GREAT MANUFACTURES BUILDING - The Manufactures Building at Chicago was by
all odds the largest house ever reared by man. Even its plan was a
growth, for the architect, George B. Post, of New York, did not
contemplate more that a rectangular facade, enclosing a field in
which other buildings might be placed, as was the case at Horticultural Hall. It was at the demand of
Commissioner De Young, of California, that the Hall of Arches was
reared within, and Choral Hall and the Leather Building ousted to
other parts of the park. These facts will explain to the reader why
the form of the building was so peculiar, seeming to lack
architectural symmetry; for the original facades were retained, the
four central pylons and the four corner pavilions being curtained
together like the outsides of Horticultural Hall, while the great
roof arches sprang from a point inside the original court. We have
before us one of the four pylons. They are triumphal arches of the
Roman and Parisian order. This pylon standing so high above the side
curtains, offered room for a third gallery inside, which probably
many million visitors never discovered. On the east side of the
Manufactures the orchestrions and automatic musical instruments
occupied this attic with many wonders. The notable thing about these
portals was the height of the eagles, eighteen feet, the magnitude of
their surroundings dwarfing them to an astonishing extent. |
