Commercial building

“ For some distance up all the radii of which we have spoken, the arteries which lead from this heart of the commercial world, a similar process has been going on to a greater or less extent. Banking-houses, insurance-offices, and commercial buildings, have been built or rebuilt at an immense cost, the outlay depending rather on the rapidly increasing value of the ground than on the actual charge for building. ”

“ There is a definite connexion here also with the rise of the skyscraper, for those very large commercial buildings already required a vast amount of uninspired draughting that could be efficiently undertaken only by a large force of assistants working in what came later to be derisively called ‘plan-factories’. ”

“ The tendency toward centralization in modern business has led to the erection of a number of lofty buildings for commercial purposes. The building regulations restrict buildings on residential streets to a maximum height of 80 feet, and in business sections to 110-130 feet, according to the width of the thoroughfare on which they front. ”

“ In recent years the mill-owners have abandoned the old low, two-story type of building with its narrow windows and dingy aspect of gray stone, and erected in its stead these enormous structures—the only approach to the American sky-scraper I saw in England. They are magnificent mills, far superior to those you will see to-day in this country, clean, bright and—every one I saw—new. ”

“ The fine new Public Market occupying a whole square, about two and a half acres, deserves a visit. The building which cost $280,000 is of a pink and white volcanic stone locally called sillar, with a roof of corrugated iron arranged to give good ventilation. At the four corners are four buildings, one a hotel and restaurant, the other three for storage of surplus stocks of fish, meat, and vegetables. ”

“ As time passes we may hope to witness the disappearance of the hideous sheds and huts that survive to remind us of the War, now so long ended.
Apart from national and municipal architecture, the design of which must be assumed to be in competent hands, there is a great deal of building carried out by large corporate bodies who have it in their power to insist [79] on good design, and above all on design which accords with local surroundings. Among these are railway companies, banks, “multiple” shops, and brewery companies. ”

“ Banks and insurance companies, and enterprises of a similar kind, to whom a prosperous façade was an advertising asset, were the first to use special structures, but the giant progress of modern business has made the building of great edifices like the Equitable and Woolworth buildings of New York a necessity. ”

“ Then with the ever-increasing wants of a civilization, eager for progress, in the presence of the important discoveries of science, before the invasions of finance and the extension of governmental machinery, architectural designs are indefinitely multiplied to supply suitable departmental buildings, banking-houses, houses of commerce, quarters for public officers and public boards, railway-stations, inns, custom-houses and toll-houses ”

“ The construction of factory buildings has been evolved into a science. Why cannot the same thing be done with the whole scheme of economic organization? Men no longer erect factory buildings according to personal whim or to the chance ideas of some budding architect. Instead they consult scientists in factory construction who have devoted years to the study and to the practical supervision of the detail of factory building. Can less be demanded of the community which hopes to build its economic life soundly and solidly? ”

“ Where land is expensive, or there are limitations in the space suitable for building, it is frequently necessary to build mills and shops higher than would be warranted by good judgment under other conditions; but where circumstances will permit it, the one-story mill has been very successful, not merely in immunity from fire, and very low cost per square foot of floor, but also in the advantages of manufacturing, particularly in regard to cost of supervision and movement of the stock in process of manufacture. ”

“ Beyond the water front and Alaskan Way, a broad commercial avenue, are the warehouses and the factories, and behind them the ragged skyline of the business area, marked by some eight or ten modern skyscrapers, which tower above the smaller business blocks. ”

“ The treatment of our modern mercantile and business structures, particularly those ten or twelve stories in height, is more successful than any other work of the kind in the world; the planning of our office-buildings is unrivalled anywhere, and some of our apartment-houses will bear comparison with the best in Paris—which are the best anywhere—and are more interesting, on account of the more complex character of the services which we must provide for. ”

“ The construction of each building has been studied with very great care, so as to secure the minimum amount of material, the least possible amount of work in construction or erection, and the means of arranging all the parts in separate packages capable each of being carried by two men; and the result is that each building is the cheapest and lightest that has yet been constructed in proportion to the area covered. ”

“ During recent years an interesting change has been gradually brought about in the various methods of building construction employed in France, and more especially at Paris, where the size and importance of public buildings and the many-storied houses divided up into flats necessitate special systems of construction, which possess the advantages of combining economy in cost with strength and durability. ”

“ Such houses, erected in the vicinity of New York, and many of our large cities, would add a large value to the ground they stand on, and pay a handsome rate of interest on their cost; better than any other class of building investments, as the supply is in nowise equal to the demand. ”

“ A further illustration of the economy of open planning, leads into an extremely complicated discussion of the technique of architectural planning, dealing with the relationship of land value to the percentage of site area covered by building. It may be stated, however, that when the building covers too high a percentage of area, it inevitably becomes more complicated and more wasteful of space ”

“ The architect may do a great deal for housekeepers by keeping this thought in mind.
To recur to the idea of economical house-building in a direct sense, it may be borne in mind that economy and good construction go hand in hand; that none of the conditions of permanency are sacrificed for the sake of cheapness. ”

“ Within the short period, therefore, of seven months, owing to the energy of the contractors and the active industry of the workmen employed by them, a building has been erected, entirely novel in its construction, covering a space of more than eighteen acres, measuring 1,851 feet in length, and 456 feet in extreme breadth, capable of containing 40,000 visitors, and affording a frontage for the exhibition of goods to the extent of more than ten miles. ”

“ Only such team-work, perhaps, can organize the logistics of building production in such a way that extensive and ramified ventures are carried rapidly to completion, a desideratum of the first order in a boom period for skyscrapers that must be finished quickly in order to begin repaying their enormous cost. ”

“ Whereas in the first stages of industrial development the factory affected the environment of architecture, in its latest state the factory has become the environment. A modern building is an establishment devoted to the manufacture of light, the circulation of air, the maintenance of a uniform temperature, and the vertical transportation of its occupants. Judged by the standards of the laboratory, the modern building is, alas! ”

“ The school-room, laboratory, or college class-room could be used at midnight, it is true, but not conveniently; and as students increase, buildings must be added. The same is true of any industry. We cannot conveniently increase the business of a lumber-yard without a larger yard-space, or of a factory without a larger floor-space. But the added space may be gotten by spreading horizontally or piling up perpendicularly. A ten-story building on an acre lot represents ten acres of floor-space. Putting up higher buildings is an expansion in area by the more intensive utilization of the land. ”

“ The present market-house is a substantial, two-story brick building, with market lot in the rear, market stalls in the basement and work shops for the city water and gas works. It has two wings, which have been at different times used for school rooms and printing offices, but are now used, the south wing for the Council Chamber and the north wing for the commissioner of revenue and city tax collector. ”

“ These by-laws are an expense to ratepayers, and they increase the cost of buildings. Elaborate plans and descriptions have to be furnished, and the buildings have to be inspected at various periods of their construction, and, of course, all variations of plan which may appear necessary in the course of construction must also be submitted and 'passed' by the local authority. It may happen that there are members of the local council who understand the technicalities of the building trade ”

“ The buildings were built cheaply, yet were designed by certain talented engineers so that their structures were considerably stronger than those of conventional buildings using costlier materials—a not too difficult feat, considering the outmoded building codes which governed most construction—and were surprisingly sleek and ultra-modern, as well. ”

“ The general requirements are—simplicity of arrangement; economy of space; capability of extending or curtailing the building without destroying its symmetry as a whole, or interfering with the general arrangement, it being impossible to determine the exact extent of roof required until a late period of construction. Adaptation for the erection of separate portions of the building at different periods. Conveniences of ingress and egress, with facilities of access to all parts of the Exhibition, either from the exterior or interior. ”

“ THE RISE OF COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA The line of technical development which runs from the cast-iron-framed textile mills of the 1790s in England to the steel-framed skyscrapers of the 1890s in America seems to posterity a simple and obvious one. ”

“ They have sold their valuable holdings at a low figure, have seen the buyer realize a tremendous profit, and have been obliged to purchase sites at a greatly increased figure when by retaining their holdings they would have had adequate land for their needs. Buildings have been planted in parks in the supposed interest of economy, and by filling up the site the building has been robbed of distinction and the people of needed open space. ”

“ Whilst buildings are erected to increase site values, whilst houses are produced in block to be sold to the first wretch who must put a roof over his family’s head, it is useless to dwell upon the ministrations of art; and, unfortunately, too much of our building today rests upon this basis and exhibits all the infirmities of our present economic structure. ”

“ The reason why he owns a skyscraper is that science has proved that certain materials, used in a given way, can save space and increase rental incomes. A building thirty stories high needs no more ground space than one five stories high. Getting along with the old-style architecture costs the five-story man the income of twenty-five floors. Save ten steps a day for each of twelve thousand employees and you will have saved fifty miles of wasted motion and misspent energy.
Those are the principles on which the production of my plant was built up. ”

“ The Great Industrial Building now in the course of erection, and which forms the subject of the present paper, was not the production of a momentary consideration of the subject. Its peculiar construction, in cast-iron and glass, together with the manner of forming the vast roof, is the result of much experience in the erection of buildings of a similar kind, although on a smaller scale, which has gradually developed itself through a series of years. ”

“ This simple fact, that a building of glass and iron, covering eighteen acres, affording room for nine miles of tables, should have been completed in less than five months from the day when the contract was entered into, at a cost less than that of the humblest hovel, opens a new era in the science of building. ”

“ Even the old warehouses on the opposite side of the river are paintable, being pleasing in outline and good in colour—a fact proving that commercial structures need not of necessity be ugly, though alas! they mostly are. Then rambling on in a delightfully aimless fashion, at the same time keeping our eyes well open for the picturesque, we chanced, in a field a little beyond the outskirts of the town, upon an old ruined red-brick tower, standing there alone in crumbling and pathetic solitude. ”

“ Factories both in England and France must be planned and erected to meet the separate acts that deal with these buildings. The fire insurance companies lay down certain requirements according to the size of the building, and the special trade for which it is erected, and fix their rate of premium accordingly. Dwelling-houses in London must be erected in accordance with the many building acts which govern the materials to be used, and the methods by which they shall be employed, the thickness of walls, rates of inclination of roofs, means of escape from fire, drainage, space at rear, &c. ”