Beaux-Arts Theory and Rational Expressionism - Stern

PSFS: Beaux-Arts Theory and Rational Expressionism
Author(s): Robert A. M. Stern

Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1962), pp. 84102
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians
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Beaux-Arts
PSFS:
Theory
and
Rational Exressionism1
ROBERT
A. M. STERN
Yale University
question the thirty-two-story bank and office

at
12th and Market streets, designed for the
building
Philadelphia Saving Fund Society by the architectural
firm of Howe & Lescaze and completed in 1932, is the
leading monument of the International Style in its first
American phase.2 More remarkablethough is the fact that
PSFS, radical in composition and forms as it may appear
to be, owes some of its successful compositional achievements, as well as much of the implied theory upon which
such composition was based, not to the writings and
buildings of the European practitioners and propagandists of the International Style, but to the still discredited
teaching of the French Ecole des Beaux Arts.3 Perhaps
PSFS is even more significant as a modern composition
derived from Beaux-Arts principles than as a synthesis of
WITHOUT
1. I wish to thank Mr. John Entenza and the Graham Foundation
forAdvancedStudiesin theFineArtsforgrantingthefundswhich
madethe researchleadingto this paperpossible.I wish also to
thankMr. Philip Johnson, A.I.A., and Mr. Adolf K. Placzek,Avery
Librarian,ColumbiaUniversity,for their manycourtesies,and

ProfessorVincentScully,YaleUniversity,for his invaluablesugWilliamJordy,notonlyforhis
gestions.I amindebtedto Professor
but alsoforhis assistance.Like
initialsuggestionof collaboration,
Mr.Jordy, I am gratefulto Mr. WilliamLescaze,F.A.I.A.,Mr. Louis
McAllister, A.I.A., and Mr. Donaldson Cresswell. All have read and
commented on the manuscript.
2. William Jordy has pointed out that the Lovell House rivals
PSFS in importance and quality. Nonetheless, in terms of prominence, PSFS has the advantage, both for sheer size and for its fortuitous location in the downtown district of an important eastern
city.
3. Reyner Banham in his Theory and Design in the First Machine
Age (New York, 1961), pp. 14-34, has done much toward making
us aware of the positive side of the Beaux-Arts system of design and
its influence on modern architecture. Unfortunately, his researches
have been almost exclusively confined to European events. The
best recent evaluation of the Beaux-Arts from an American point of
view is, in this author's opinion, the brief section in John Ely
Burchard and Albert Bush-Brown, The Architectureof America (Boston, 1961), pp. 248-250. See, however, the review by Carroll L. V.
Meeks in Yale Review L (Summer 1961), 618-622, for an excellent
criticism of the work considered in its entirety.
'. .. the two basic approaches to the machine which underlay the range of personal expression in what HenryRussell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson termed the International Style....'4 These two approaches were attitudes
to the machine whereas Beaux-Arts theory concerned itself with fundamental principles of architecture.5
Beaux-Arts theory has many aspects. The specific side
of that theory with which I am concerned here, and which
I would call rational expressionism, is that which derived
from Gothic Revival technological determinism and was
partly transformed by the Beaux-Arts' own pervasively
classicizing predilections. This side was concerned with
structure. The emphasis was on its expression rather than
its revelation. That is to say, the structure was most of all
to look right and was to make the spaces and define the
form. In the same way, as Banham has shown, the scientism of Viollet-le-Duc was given aesthetic expression
by the painter Charles Blanc.6
No American architect better understood the meaning
of Beaux-Arts theory than did George Howe (1886-1955),
co-designer of PSFS. In his long and distinguished career
Howe succeeded in applying the architectural theories
learned fromCharlesH. Moore (1840-1930), under whom
he studied at Harvard (Class of 1908), and Victor Laloux
(1850-1937), in whose atelier he was enrolled while a student at the Ecole between 1908 and 1913. In addition
Howe came into close professional and personal contact
with Paul P. Cret (1876-1945) a French-born graduate of
the Ecole (enrolled in 1897) and a distinguished architect
of Philadelphia.7 The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society
Building, then, is worth consideration not only as a lead4. William Jordy in the accompanying article.
5. Charles H. Moore, 'Training for the Practice of Architecture',
The Architectural Record XLIX (1921), 57.
6. Banham, Theory and Design, pp. 14-34. It is interesting to
note the similarities between Blanc and Moore, both artists first,
architectural theorists second.
7. Moore has been the subject of a biographyby FrankJewett

Mather, Charles Herbert Moore,Landscape Painter (Princeton, 1957).
84

85
ing monument of both the International Style and the
Beaux-Arts but also as the fulfillment of Howe's own
search for a coherent way of building and for a system of
architectural thought concentrated upon structural expression and seeking form appropriate to modern materials and ideals.
As a member of the second generation of American architects to be trained at the Ecole, Howe was typical of
them all in his effort to find a means of architectural expression consonant with traditional theories of composition and design while at the same time suited to modern
needs. Almost all the other Americans who attended the
Ecole in this period, and who in later years were to achieve
success in architecturalpractice, attempted either to simplify or streamline the vocabularyof Beaux-Arts forms or
to invent a new vocabulary suited to Beaux-Arts principles. Any list of such men must include, in the former
category, Harvey Wiley Corbett who enrolled in 1896,
Paul P. Cret (1897), H. Van Buren Magonigle (1906),
Raymond M. Hood (1905), and Ely Jacques Kahn (1907).
Clarence S. Stein (1907), William Van Alen (1910), and
Philip L. Goodwin were all important participants in the
latter attempt. Interestingly enough the architect who
carried Beaux-Arts forms furthest in their most eclectic
vein was neither a graduate of the Ecole nor quite of the
generation under discussion: Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869-1924).8
Howe's career at the Ecole was relatively undistinguished.9 He does tell us, in an autobiographical statement published in 1930, that his many hours in the atelier of Victor Laloux taught him the 'relation between
plan and elevation .. .', but it was Charles H. Moore, an
American landscapist, historian, and critic, who was to
This is concernedprimarily
withMooreas artistandis verybrief
in its treatmentof his careeras teacher,critic, and historian.
Ialouxhasnot,as yet,beenthesubjectof anymajorstudy.A brief,
thoughexcellent,analysisof Cret'sworkappearsin GeorgeB.
Tatum,Penn'sGreatTown(Philadelphia,
1961),pp. 129-130,201203.FrancisBiddle,A CasualPast(Garden
City,N. Y., 1961),refers
to thefriendship
betweenHoweandCret.
8. JamesP. Noffsinger,TheInfluence
of theEcoledesBeauxArts
on theArchitecture
of the UnitedStates(Washington,1955).Noffusefulas a sourceof statisticalinformation,
singeris primarily
but
he does dividehis bookinto fourimportantsections:The First
Americans,1846-72;The Rise of EcoleInfluence,1872-96;The
PeakYears,1897-1921;
The Gradual
Decline,1922-55.Onlyin the
groupscomprisingsections two and three were there enough
Americans
studyingat theEcoleto constitutewhatI chooseto refer
to as 'generations'.
9. Howestatedthatonlyhis lastdesignat thetcole reflectedthe

currentarchitectural
withtheGermans
thoughtwhichhe associated
andwhichhe believedto havegivenriseto the International
Style.
This designwas stigmatized
by one of the criticsas 'tresboche'.
GeorgeHowe, 'GeorgeHowe, An Architectural
Biography',TSquareII (January1932),21. MaxwellLevinson,the editorof Tin August1961thatthearticle
Square,informedmein an interview
wasautobiographical.
exert the greatest influence upon him.10 Howe was indebted to Moore's philosophical insistence
. . . on struc-
tural significanceas the only dignity of architecturalstyle.

. . .1 Moore's ideas, unlike Laloux's, were readily avail-
able to American readers in his books on the Gothic and

the Renaissance as well as in his frequent articles which
dealt with the more abstract problems of form and structure.12Moore tells us that the great structural consideration in masonry architecture, even beyond the necessities
of structural soundness itself, is the satisfactionof the eye.
In the matter of materials, the thoughtful designer takes
into consideration the 'imaginative sense of the material'
as well as the 'manual means by which it is realized'.13
In its concern for structural integrity Moore's theory
leads to a conception of the art of building as the result of
'artistic aptitudes and constructive facilities', a synthesis
of imagination and intellect.14The form and the way one
builds the form must be completely integrated. Architecture is primarily an art of construction. The disciplined
disposition of structure yielding '.. . purposed expression
of beauty transcending that of mere utility . . .', distin-
guishes architecture from building. Structure, for Moore,

is concerned not with engineering but with the 'requisite
knowledge of the strength of materials and their proper
forms and adjustments . . . .' In other words, clarity of
structure has nothing to do with its revelation. The latter

is the product of morality and honesty. The former derives from a thoughtful arrangement of the parts of the
building which, when carefully studied, will consequently
yield a clear conception of the way a building was built.
All historical styles of architecture should be studied in
lo. This is borneout not only by remarksmadein the 'Biography'
cited in footnote 9, but also by the fact that when George Howe
himself, at the end of his career,becamean architecturaleducator
(Chairman,Department of Architecture, Yale University, 19501954), he, like Moorein 1921, statedhis philosophyof architectural
educationas 'Trainingfor the Practiceof Architecture'.This paper
was readbeforethe Departmentof Architecturein September1951
and reprintedin Perspecta,The YaleArchitecturalJournal I (Summer 1952), 2-5.
11. Howe, 'George Howe, An ArchitecturalBiography',p. 21.
12. CharlesH. Moore,Development
and Characterof GothicArchitecture(NewYork, 1890); Character
Architecture
of Renaissance
(New
York, 1905); The MedievalChurchArchitectureof England (New
York, 1912); 'Trainingfor the Practiceof Architecture',ArchitecturalRecordXLIX
(1921), 56-61; 'UniversityInstructionin Architecture', ArchitecturalRecordL (1921), 407-412; 'ConditionsConducive to Architecture', Architectural Record LVIII(1925), 211-215.
13. Moore,'Trainingfor the Practice...', p. 60.

14. Moore,'Trainingfor the Practice...', p. 60. A logical extension of this and other ideas found in Mooreand Cret can be seen in
the workof the PhiladelphiaarchitectLouis I. Kahn. In his architectureand writingsKahnseems much involvedwith an expression
of ideals resemblingthose of the Beaux-Arts.He had alwaysbeen
close to that traditionthroughhis trainingunder Paul Cretand his
associationwith George Howe as the latter's architecturalpartner
and as a professor under him in the Department of Architecture at
Yale.

86
terms of their structure, since 'a habit of critical discrimination in respect to construction cannot be formed too
early.'15
Moore suggests that the great obstacle to quality in
modern architecture is the isolation of the architect from
his materials. The student must be '. . . exercised in the
building craft. . .' because a new, modern, restatement of
the understanding of the craftsman for his materials, always present in earlier phases of architecture, could best
be achieved through an understanding of the 'manual
processes' of building. Architecture, for Moore, is less
concerned with design than with construction; more concerned with how a building got to be than with the aesthetics of the building itself. The great architecture of the
past has always been well within the 'common tradition of
building'. Only the 'inventive genius' and 'best inspiration' of men personally involved in that tradition 'made
their work their own in the proper sense.'16 For in the
knowledge of the how lies the understanding of the what.17
Moore goes on: The great architecture of the past has
been built of masonry-and without masonry there can be
no great architecture. To Moore tall buildings were the
products of excessive industrialism. Because of the 'haste
and cheapness' of their construction, they are not worthy
of real architecturalthought. The tall building as executed
in New York City is a sham; the faSade, which seeks to
evoke the intentions of masonry architecture by copying
its forms, is merely a 'revetment' affixed to the structure.
A steel-framed building can never be a pleasant object to
behold. If such buildings must exist let them at least have
the honesty of articulated structure. Moore denies the
claims of some architects, engineers, and potential clients
that there are new conditions, new programs, new methods, and new materials, when he states that
.. there are no new conditions, and there is no call for new methods; though new forms may be evolved in the future as in the past.
The only materials suitable for architecture have been long established, and are the same now as in former times. The present use
of iron and steel-which indeed requires new methods-comes of
no needs of architecture. It is destructive of architecture if it is not
kept apart from it.
Indeed, for Moore, the demands of the business and industrial community are economic and not architectural.
Functionalism, the making of buildings for tutilitarian
ends', is dangerous, leading to a confusion of roles and
intentions between architects and engineers. Out of this
confusion is produced not an architecture of significant
form and significant structure but one merely of expedient use.18
15. Moore, 'University Instruction. ..', pp. 408-409.
16. Moore, 'Training for the Practice. . .', p. 60.
17. This idea is carried to its logical conclusion in the work of
Kahn; see note 31.
18. Moore, 'Training for the Practice . ..', p. 61. Louis I. Kahn
has restated, in modern terms, Moore's preference for an architec-
So Moore presents his view of architecture as an art, a

way of building which produced, in his favorite period,
the Gothic, what was to him an incredible integration of
structure and space, thus wholly significant form. For him
the significance of Gothic architecture lay not in its actual
structural advances over the Romanesque but in its conception of a structure where weight and thrust were given
unmistakably visual expression through the plastic manipulation of vaults, buttresses, columns, and ribs. The significance of the forms arose, for Moore, from the brilliant
statement in masonry of the dynamism of the structure.
Thus the forms dramaticallyexpressed their purpose, and
the grandeur of the space was the logical outcome.19As
much as this philosophy of structure and form owes to
Viollet-le-Duc and the rationalists of the nineteenth century, it yet departs significantly from them in its concern
for the visual effects of structural forms rather than for
the simple revelation of structure in and for itself. Thus
in Moore we find an integration of Viollet-le-Duc's insistence on structuralintegrity with an aestheticism which
recalls, for example, Ruskin and Blanc. Other men of
Moore's generation were to attempt similar syntheses.
The insistence on craftsmanshipand rational forms in the
work of William Morris and his group also come to mind:
engineering and architecture. The distinctions are clearly, if not at first obviously, drawn.
Another influence on Howe's architectural thought was
that exerted by Paul P. Cret. Cret was at first a teacher at
the University of Pennsylvania rather than a practicing
architect. In 19o8-19go he wrote a series of articles in
which he set out to explain the nature of Beaux-Arts education. Initially Cret quotes Guadet's Elementsand Theory
of Architecturewith its insistence upon the program as the
dictate of the character of the building and its emphasis
on the necessary constructability of every scheme by the
simplest means. Truth is demanded, and the eye must be
satisfied in matters of construction-'Effective strength is
not sufficient.' A beautiful building is a building with
character, and character is obtained by variety.20All this
recalls Moore, but Cret goes on to call for an architecture
which dares to experiment with new forms that will give
new life to itself, an architecture which embodies its period. There is an artistic 'morality . . . higher than the
simple honesty which is called professional ethics', and
ture of masonry rather than one of steel. See Walter McQuade,
'Architect Louis I. Kahn and His Strong-Boned Structure', Architectural Forum cvii (October 1957), 135-142.
19. Mather, Charles Moore, sees Moore as a functionalist. In my
opinion only the broadest interpretation of function could so characterize Moore's viewpoint which was avowedly antiengineering and
antimechanical, and concerned with essential relationships of form
and structure as interpretations, not results, of programmatic requirements.
20. Paul P. Cret, The Ecole des Beaux Arts: What Its Architectural Teaching Means', Architectural Record xxIII (1908), 367-371.

87
which 'prefers to run the chance of failure in experiment,
rather than follow established precedent.' Architectural
forms '. . . are transformedvery slowly and without much
regard for the rules which we would like to establish. But
what remains is our power to use these forms in giving
expression to our own ideas.... 21
Here, stated by Moore and Cret, were the premises of
an architecture with rules indeed so broad as to admit of
no exceptions. George Howe understood these rules and
was able to do two things with them: to develop a working
theory and to build buildings. Howe's theory of architecture is '. . the occupation, with intent to create significant form, of producing designs for and procuring the
execution of, any and every sort of work constructed for
the use of man.' To this end all considerations, economic,
technological, and sociological, were to be directed. Every
building must be a contribution to architecture; each
must be built for architecture. Architecture is significant
form built out of imagination and intellect. Only when
these two streams unite do we have style. Style is not
made, but discovered. It is '. . . full of the thoughts and
feelings . . . of the day and when it is discovered it becomes the property of a whole culture, to draw on as it
will, until it has been sucked dry of its meaning in its
turn.'22Intention and form, intellect and imagination, are
thus theoretically combined by Howe upon a Beaux-Arts
basis provided by Moore and Cret.
So much for theory. What of building? Here the significant sequence is providedby the series of commissionsexecuted by Howe for the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society.
Howe's first commissions for the Philadelphia Saving
Fund Society were two identical branch banks (fig. 7).23
The use of Italian Renaissance precedent in their design
leads us to the inevitable question concerning the BeauxArts: Why, in the light of this seemingly tough and workable theory, were the formal intentions of the architects
so eclectic? Why, when faced with an actual commission,
did they borrow in so wholesale a manner from the past?
Two answers come to mind, both of which can be predicted from Howe's use of Renaissance precedent. First,
the Ecole based its teachings on the forms of classic antiquity and the neoclassic Renaissance. Thus when a designer such as Howe was presented with a commission for
a type of structure he had never designed before, he first
sought a solution in terms of the theoretical education of
his youth. Yet, in so turning to that theory he was automatically confronted by the forms of the Beaux-Arts
ward a literary conception of architecture, endemic in the

nineteenth-century past as a whole, and in the BeauxArts in particular. Thus, in the America of the twenties,
a bank was classic or, even better, Renaissance in origin.
It was considered proper, indeed logical, to associate
banking with the Medicis: John Q. Banker, in turn, with
Lorenzo the Magnificent. Nonetheless, despite the deadness of the forms of Beaux-Arts architecture, its better
examples show the theories applied with understanding
to create buildings at once logical and clear.
So it was with those first Renaissance branch banks. In
them Howe grafted onto a simple floor plan his intentions
to give form to '. .. the double function of the savings bank
building, first as a magnified strong box, and second as a
working space.' The heavy rustication and the nailstudded oak door enhance the image of strength and enclosure, while the large windows indicate an ample working area, well lighted. The design conforms to 'accepted
tradition' for bank architecture. It has, in addition, the
merit of clearly expressed structure, affordingsatisfaction
to the eye. Structural methods are clearly articulated in
the careful piling of elements: the heavy base and the less
thick bearing walls receiving the weight of the vaulted
ceiling above.24
In 1926 Howe was called upon to add electric signs to
his Renaissance banks. He declined, pointing out to the
client the obvious inappropriatenessof such an anachronistic feature. 'But why', the client asked, 'if my business
will benefit by it, shouldn't I have it?' On reflection this
demand seemed reasonable enough, and Howe promised
to 'incorporate the most blazing and beautiful specimen
in existence' in his (the client's) next building. 'Though
this concession to the machine age necessitated a superficial change in . . . method of design it did not involve a
complete abandonment .. .' of Howe's accustomed approach.25
The next two designs, again twins, are freer in their

conception and represent Howe's growing perception of
an architecture reconciled to 'modern commercial practice' (fig. 8). Abandoning the idea of a strongbox, literary
in its associations of treasure house and private stronghold, Howe still wished to preserve 'solidity of aspect'.
Thus the fortified base was eliminated in an attempt to
make the building 'more inviting to the timid public'.
Once again a design was conceived which was based on a
double intent: a '. . . large hospitable entrance door',
closed only at the bottom by a richly ornamented grille,
which were held to be the proper expression of it. These
and the illuminated inscriptions, which necessitated, or
were strictly eclectic. Second, there was the tendency to-
rather suggested, the service balconies and the multiple
21. Paul P. Cret, 'The Training of the Designer', American Architect xcv (April 1909), 116, 128, 131-134, 138-139.
22. Howe, 'Training for the Practice . . .', p. 5.
23. Figure references through number 44 are located in the preceding article.
24. GeorgeHowe, 'The PhiladelphiaSavingFund SocietyBranch

ForumXLIX
Offices',Architectural
(1928), 881.
25. GeorgeHowe, 'Why I Becamea Functionalist',a paper read
before the Symposium of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 19
February 1932, and now deposited in the vertical file of the Museum
library, p. 3 f.

88
Fig. 45. Detail of ornament,Number 2 Park Avenue, New York,

1927, by Ely Jacques Kahn (from ContemporaryAmerican Architects:
Ely Jacques Kahn).
reflectors of wrought iron which form the chief features of

the elevations.26 The inclusion of the illuminated sign,
and the simplification leading to a less forbidding exterior,
reflect not so much Howe's concern for an increasingly
demanding machine technology as the realities of business
practice. The need for advertising and for a bank which
was not forbidding were herein given suitable expression
without compromising design or composition. Other men
of Howe's generation, faced with similar commissions,
approached the problem differently. Ely Jacques Kahn,
for example, attempted to give form to the rush and anxiety of the commercial world through a system of zig-zag
ornament and bright, clashing colors applied to his many
office buildings (fig. 45). These seemed to have . . . the
aspect of vernissage day at a competition for apprentice
pastry cooks.'27 Still others, seeing the machine as the
great force of our age, sought to glorify it rather than
merely to regard it as Howe did, . . as the symbol of the
social ideal, the greatest good for the greatest number.'28
Raymond M. Hood was one of these. When he built, in
1931, a showroom for refrigerators, which were just com26. Howe, 'The PSFS BranchOffices',p. 881.
27. Howe, 'Why I Becamea Functionalist',p. 2.
28. Howe, 'Why I Becamea Functionalist',p. 2.
ing to replace nonmechanical ice boxes, Hood imagined

the display area as the cooling box (fig. 46). Atop this he
applied, on the exterior, a penthouse having no ascertainable justification in engineering or use. This was made to
resemble the refrigerator motors which, at that archaic
period, were round in shape and located at the top.
Against such gaucheries Howe's conception of a bank as
a single space simply spanned stands out as refreshing
and pure.
Other architects sought to freshen Beaux-Arts forms,
among them Paul P. Cret. His Folger Library in Washington, completed in 1932, was the result of such an attempt (fig. 47). On the exterior it compares with Howe's
second bank design. Its neo-neoclassicism is chaste and
well-proportioned. The Tudor interior, however, bears
no relationship to it. The building is two notions unintegrated and conceptually unrelated. Certainly Guadet's
insistence on truth above all has been given short shrift.
By contrast, Howe's design is a simple, geometricalstatement entirely consistent in its structure, space, mass, and
detailing. A masonry building, with slag roof which demands no cornice, its neoclassicism is well rooted in the
tradition of Soane. Clear and crisp, it is also logical and
straightforward.
The temporary branch bank erected on 12th Street,
just south of Market, was designed to test the feasibility
of building a larger and more permanent office on this
choice site in the center of Philadelphia (fig. 9). Executed
in simple materials, it was a spartan conception, with
brick bearing walls carrying the weight of exposed iron
trusses down to a base of rough cast concrete. The building was interesting as an 'experimentin the use of modern
mechanical elements and methods in the design of utilitarian and ornamental features' (fig. lo).29 The cast concrete, handled as cut stone, somewhat denies the dictum
of truth to materialsin favorof a constructionwhich would
have satisfied Moore's eye.
In April 1926 Howe was asked by the Society to prepare
designs for a large bank, store, and office building combination (fig. 13).30His first solution constituted a tacit
acknowledgmentof the need for a thorough reinvestigation of his architecturalphilosophy. Here was a problem
which could not be solved in the tradition of the masonry
structure and was not compatible to a conception of architecture as sculpture in mass. On the other hand,
Moore and other theoreticians had relegated the tall
building to an inferior architecturalposition, emphasizing
structural articulation and regularity. Thus Howe's first
project, discussed by Jordy, attempted to synthesize ar29. Howe, The PSFS BranchOffices',p. 881.
30. The chronologyis ratherconfusing.The Renaissancebanks
were built in 1924. Those in extendedBeaux-Artsformsdate from
1926.The temporarybranchdid not come until 1927,after,thatis,
one design for a tall office building and the two branchbanks in
extended Beaux-Artsforms had alreadybeen submitted.

89
Fig. 46. Rex Cole Showroom, Long Island, New York, 1931, by Raymond M. Hood (from ContemporaryAmerican Architects:Raymond
M. Hood).
Fig. 47. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., 1932, by
chitectural mass and articulated structure. This was to be

achieved by sheathing the building in a revetment of
stone which expressed the structure it concealed but was
still visually appropriate to masonry. Thus the band of
stonework above the banking room, in spirit similar to a
cornice, conceals and expresses the trusswork.The big
steel columns which carry the trusses are expressed by
broad panels of stone set between the high windows of the
banking room. The two mezzaninesof that space are also
expressed. The sheathing is bolted to the structure. Bolts
are left exposed to clarify the nature of the construction
technique, in the same way that Otto Wagner, twenty-one
years before had bolted the marble revetment, but to a
masonry structure, in his design for the Postal Savings
Bank Building in Vienna, so announcing that the marble
was a nonstructuralfacing materialand calling out, clearly, its dimensions.31
The fenestration is carefully controlled in an effort to
articulatecolumns and bays. The building, conceived as a
column rather more literally than Sullivan had done, is
given an imposing space at the ground level. The twentysixth floor also receives elaborate treatment. It includes
board rooms, a kitchen, and a dining room for the bank
staff. The building had been intended only as a branch
officefor the Society. The provision of executive space was
the result of Howe's faith in the new location and in the
building as a better symbol for the bank than its old main
office at Seventh and Walnut.
The scheme as a whole emphasizes the possibilities of

steel construction only so far as it is a ... bold recognition of a great mass of masonry, standing on stilts and devoid of meaningless mouldings.'32Jordy has indicated its
relationship not only to Otto Wagner but also to Olbrich's
building for the Vienna Secession, and Frank Lloyd
Wright's Larkin Building. Decoration is used solely to
achieve variety. The facades conform to principles of masonry construction but are expressed as a revetment. The
fault of this design lies not in the principles employed
but in the confusion between an architecture of facades
and an architectureof integrated structure. The structure
is not sufficiently revealed. The problem of making architecture in steel is approached through the back door,
hesitatingly. Howe conceives of a building that is so big
as to be possible only in steel, and then details it in masonry. Never denying the former, the latter is not yet a satisfactory solution. Engineering is, in this scheme, still a
. .. shameful secret of the architectural family . . .' just
barely being let out, like a skeleton from the closet. The
remaining schemes for PSFS would all be concerned with
a search for a way of building in which engineering, considered as 'materialorder', would be reconciled to architecture, considered as 'emotional intensity in the field of
structuraldesign.'33
Yet the series of buildings just discussed retains a twofold interest: first, as documents of a thoughtful search
for suitable expression; second, as important statements
about the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, its preferences for masonry, its peculiar brands of classicism and archaeology,
and the fundamental eclecticism which overrode its the-
31. Kahn, at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and in
his Mill Creek Housing in Philadelphia (designed in association
with Kenneth Day and Louis McAllister), and in his Richards Medical Research Building, did much the same thing when he left the
cone holes, used in securing the formwork in place, exposed in the
concrete walls.
Paul P. Cret (courtesyYale UniversitySlide Collection).
32. Appendix: Howe to Willcox, 25 July 1930.

33. Howe, 'Why I Became a Functionalist', p. 1.

9o
ory. Thus the bank designs clearly show the limitations

of Beaux-Arts forms in practice. Later designs for PSFS
demonstrate the wider applicability of its principles. Modern theory was the catalyst which released the progressive
elements in Howe's Beaux-Arts theory. When, early in
1929, the Society decided to realize the potentialities of
their site at 12th and Market streets, they commissioned
George Howe, now practicing alone, to prepare new
schemes.34 Scheme number 2 of these, dated 28 March
1929, is significant in its freestanding tower slab, set
back from street and property lines and composed of
horizontal window layers (fig. 18). These are continuous
around the corners but interrupted at column points. The
interplay of columnar acknowledgment and horizontal
windows is carried out on three sides of the tower; the
pattern of support and supported is clearly established.
The south wall, with its peculiar systems of setbacks,
employed no doubt to express the decreasing number of
elevators in the upper floors of the tower, is not yet a
separate element in the design. The banking room, still
at street level, is a cage of glass and steel encased by columns. The changes in fenestration patterns, setbacks,
and cantilevered planes, in addition to the bold treatment
of the air-conditioning grilles and chimney, make for an
exciting terminal effect.
This design, scheme number 2, drawn up early in 1929,
represents Howe's personal interpretation of the International Style which was just becoming known in America. This was a major break with the forms of the past.
Nonetheless, Howe's ability and even his desire to design
in the forms of the International Style were tempered by
his theoretical beliefs. Thus the insistent horizontality
which came to be associated with the Style in America is
modified by Howe's constructive sense, while his compositional instincts, still attuned to formal precepts of
Beaux-Arts design, fall back on an automatic symmetry
when faced with the problem of the end elevations. Confused between his desire to articulate structure and at the
same time to have that structure mean something in terms
of the interior spaces, Howe moves the columns at the
north wall (over Market Street) near to the center. This
breaks the rhythm of the structure, although it does make
the end space, in many ways the choicest, usable. He then
34. A listing of Howe's partnerships and their dates would seem

appropriate here: Mellor, Meigs & Howe, 1916-1928; Howe & Lescaze, 1929-1934; George Howe & Norman Bel Geddes, 1935; Howe
& Kahn, 1940-1941; Howe, Stonorov & Kahn, 1941-1944; George
Howe & Robert Montgomery Brown, 1949-1955. At other times
Howe was in practice alone except for the period 1914-1916 when
he was employed in a number of capacities in the firm of Furness,
Evans & Company. It should be noted that in the Mellor, Meigs &
Howe association each of the architects practiced more or less independently. The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society was a client of
Howe's and all designs issued from the Mellor, Meigs & Howe firm
for the Society were his work.
Fig. 48. Showroom for Nudelman and Conti, New York, 1928, by
William Lescaze (from The Arts xiv, 1928).
places a stairway in the narrow space between the two

columns and lights it with a continuous vertical window.
Thus the integrity of a separation between service space
in the form of vertical circulation and rentable space in
the form of lofts is compromised, and a rather too simple
solution is substituted.
In terms of previous American skyscraper design this
project of March 1929 stands as a synthesis between Sullivan's concern for horizontal and vertical interplay, best
seen in the Bayard and Guaranty buildings, and the design, not so refined structurally and concerned more with
a big statement of power, produced by Frank Lloyd
Wright for the San Francisco Call in 1912. Howe's project
represents an advance over these in its careful composition not only of structural but also functional elements as
seen in the careful distinction made between the nature of
the slab of offices and the vertical circulation core, and the
sophisticated treatment of mechanical elements at the
roof. Its forced symmetry, its impractical arrangement of
elevators within the core, and the vertical window strip on
the north elevation are less successful. Urbane, selfcontained, and carefully composed its inconsistencies can
be attributed to a lingering mental habit of symmetry.
This scheme for PSFS needs no illuminated spheres or
red neon letters to proclaim its quality.
In May 1929 George Howe entered into an architectural partnership with William Lescaze. There were few
commissions for a young and radical architect in New
York in the twenties and Lescaze, who settled there after
studying under Karl Moser, had to content himself with
designing interiors for apartments and showrooms.35 Typ35. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, Modern Architecture (New York, 1932), p. 144. Howe in 'Modern Architecture',
USA I (Spring 1930), 23, wrote that Moser produced in Switzerland

91
Fig. 50. Capital Bus Terminal, New York, 1927, by William Lescaze
(from H. R. Hitchcock and P. Johnson, Modern Architecture.)
Fig. 49. Penthouse Studio, Macy's International Exposition of Art in
Industry, New York, 1928, by William Lescaze (from The Arts xm,
1928).
ical of these is a display room for Nudelman and Conti

(fig. 48). Visual interest is centered on an overly clever
treatment of the door and display cases. These employ
mirrors and plaques of brass, and blue and white glass.
Treated in a flat two-dimensional and insistently asymmetrical manner, this detail lacks the measured restraint of
De Stijl aesthetic to which it otherwise owes a great deal.
The curved corner, here used on the chrome railings, was
a favorite motif of Lescaze and became, by the early thirties, a symbol of modernity.
Lescaze's imagination was given freer play in his design
for a Penthouse Studio commissioned by the R. H. Macy
Company for its International Exposition of Art in Industry of 1928 (fig. 49). The space is dominated by the treatment of the floor with its overlapping circles of color. The
steps seem too big for the room, especially in their solidity
and lack of articulation where they join the wall and floor
planes. Curves are employed in the chromium and white
leather furniture. The use of the constructivist chair of
rectangular planes is inharmonious. The walls, though
treated simply, suffer from the inclusion of various small
objects seemingly placed at random and out of scale with
... .the most strikingreligiousedificeof recent times.'Lescazetells
us that in 1927, on a trip to Paris, he met Le Corbusier, to whom he
complained that he was commissioned to do nothing but interiors.
Le Corbusier replied: 'That's the way it always is. I didn't do anything else myself for years, besides writing articles and giving lectures. Keep it up.' Perhaps in this lack of building experience, the
contact with construction as part of the post-educational process,
lies the origin of the relatively unimaginative approach to structure
seen in the early work of Lescaze and Le Corbusier alike. Quotation
is from William Lescaze, On Being An Architect (New York, 1942),
p. 134.
their bold planar treatment. Although startling, the design fails on close inspection for lack of a unifying idea.
It suffers also from its two dimensional quality which
seems to bear greater relationship to graphic design than
to architecture.36
Lescaze also designed a house at Mount Kisco, New
York, which Hitchcock and Johnson characterized as
'fundamentally traditional' despite its large windows and
horizontality.37 His only other architectural commission
was a small bus terminal in New York City, built in 1927
and destroyed
before
1932 (fig. 50). The crudity
of de-
tailing and materials make this a minor work. The ambivalence between a structure suspended from cables and
walls that appear to be bearing is apparent. Relatively inexperienced in the art of building, William Lescaze
brought to his partnership with Howe a lively, fairly vigorous, but as yet rather unconsidered vocabulary of modern forms.
Not until 2 December 1929 did the first sketch for
PSFS emanate from the office of Howe & Lescaze. The
nature of the partnership was a matter of mystery to
knowledgeable contemporaries, even during the very period of its existence. To some, as to young modernists such
as Philip Johnson who felt an intense revulsion for all
things having to do with the Beaux-Arts, it seemed incredible initially that George Howe should have played a
very active role in the firm's design.38 Lescaze, despite his
previous acknowledgment of PSFS as the product of a
36. C. Adolph Glassgold, 'The Decorative Arts', The Arts xiv

(October 1928), 215.
37. Hitchcock and Johnson, Modern Architecture,p. 144.
38. Conversation with Philip C. Johnson, New Canaan, Connecticut, April 1961.

92
collaborative effort, has, in recent years, advanced this

misconception by relegating to Howe the role of 'business
partner'. In an interview with the author in July 1961
Lescaze asserted his position as sole designer in the partnership. Howe's criticism was welcomed, Lescaze relates,
although it embodied no consistent point of view.39
The question of authorship is aggravated by the fact
that Howe rarely worked alone. Yet the designs for PSFS
by Howe, when in practice by himself in the early part of
1929, but hitherto unpublished, indicate quite clearly his
conceptions of the nature of a tall building. We have already seen that Howe's scheme number 2 of 1929 was
nearly as fully advanced in massing and in functional and
structural expression as the final design for PSFS completed in 1932.
But Howe was much more an intellectual than an imaginative architect. He had carried the forms as far as he
could. This he realized was not sufficient and he entered
into partnership with Lescaze whose great contribution
was the dramatic skin which envelopes the building. Undoubtedly, in the final scheme it was Lescaze's imagination which led Howe on. But from Howe's scheme number 2 in 1929 it can safely be inferred that its structural
and functional theory was the decisive contribution. Almost all of Howe's partnerships were with men who were
more imaginative if not as disciplined or experienced as
he. For this very reason, with the exception of Louis I.
Kahn, none of Howe's partners have achieved as great a
success working alone as they did in collaboration with
him. This is strikingly true of Lescaze.40
William Jordy, in the accompanying article, discusses
those qualities which make PSFS a significant monument
in American architectural history, one worth special examination for its classic solution to the basic problems of
the tall building as well as for the unique role it played in
the acceptance of the International Style in America. For
William Lescaze this important commission was a rare
opportunity. For George Howe it was a daring expression
of deep personal conviction, an intellectual and aesthetic
breakthrough unprecedented in American architecture.
No other American architect of his generation and his
Beaux-Arts training was possessed of Howe's magnificent
combination of intellect, imagination, and deep personal
courage. No other architect gave up the kind of architectural career which, in 1929, was not only financially lu39. Lescaze referred to Howe as a 'business partner' in his On
Being An Architect,p. 133. In a letter to Jordy, a copy of which was
sent to me, dated 25 January 1962, Lescaze reasserted his claim to
be considered as sole designer of PSFS, although he had earlier sent
both Jordy and me copies of the letter quoted by Jordy above, p. 61.
I should like to emphasize my conviction that PSFS is clearly the
product of two distinct sensibilities.
40. Witness his 711 Third Avenue in New York City (1956)
which is, in my opinion, an overly massive restatement of the
original PSFS parti.
crative, but also highly regarded by students and fellow

practitioners alike, in an effort to find greater meaning in
his art. To the generation of Philadelphia architects just
younger than Howe, the Beaux-Arts work of his firm had
already become a revelation and a beacon. They felt that
it embodied a spirit of youthful romanticism and antiacademicism and typified '. .. a kind of simplicity that is
a fact, not a fad.... Materials,design, planning and furniture all reflect a new sincerity, a new freedom from affectation.'41 Paul Cret, the leading architectural figure in
Philadelphia in the twenties, accurately characterized
Howe's architecturewhen he wrote that'. . . it is free from
an archaeologicalimitation as it is devoid of a pretentious
striving for originality . . . the good breeding asserts itself.'42Howe, in other words, staked all.
Briefly then, the architectureof William Lescaze is typical of that special outlook of the International Style which
Jordy calls the 'cubist container'. Long engaged in interior decoration, Lescaze imagines an architecture arising
from the arrangement of planes enclosing a regular and
aesthetically neutral structural system. Howe, on the other hand, envisaged a modern architecture which should
be a return to 'sound tradition, as opposed to stylistic tradition, that is to say, to the interpretation of function,
spiritual as well as material, logically and imaginatively,
in terms of modern materials, internally structural as well
as visable.' It is an architecture of 'character'which is important; beautiful forms or dazzling effects are not the
prime consideration.43
It is therefore important to investigate PSFS in terms of
Howe's contribution to it and of the Beaux-Arts theory
which nurtured that contribution.
The great success of PSFS arose from its resolutions of
the horizontal floor slab with the vertical support. It is
very ironical that this most important development did
not grow directly out of a desire on the part of the architects for an expression of vertical support. While it is
true that Howe had, in his own scheme number 2 of March
1929, established such a relationship, it was not incorporated into the early Howe & Lescazeproposals. Influenced
by the insistent horizontality of European International
Esq.,
41. MatlackPrice,'The Houseof RobertT. McCracken,
Germantown', Arts and Decoration (September 1921) reprinted in

A Monograph of the Work of Mellor, Meigs and Howe (New York,
1923) pp. 61-64.
42. Paul P. Cret, 'High Hollow, The Property of George Howe,
Esq., Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia', The ArchitecturalRecord (August
192o), reprinted in Work of Mellor, Meigs and Howe, pp. 24-27.
43. In addition to William Jordy's discussion of the 'cubist container' and the 'constructivist component' in the preceding article,
note Vincent Scully's discussion of cubism and constructivism and
of'containers' and 'skeletons' in his, 'Modern Architecture: Toward
A Redefinition of Style', Perspecta, The Yale Architectural Journal
Iv (1957), 5-10. The quotation is from Howe's article, 'Modern
Architecture'.

93
Style designs, Howe & Lescaze produced a scheme composed of a slab of unrelieved horizontals visually cantilevered from a vertical service core. These were given their
theoreticaljustification in Howe's letter to James R. Willcox, president of the Society, dated 26 May 1930, already
quoted and discussed by Jordy. In this Howe returns to
a position which was essentially the same as that of 1926
when, apparently influenced by Moore's writings, he had
last engaged in this particular form of architectural rationalization. Howe was able to convince Willcox of the
merits of this aspect of the design. But Mr. Willcox remained intractable in his desire for some expression of
vertical support in the tower. This Philadelphian was
ready to concede that a banking room did not need to be
surrounded by a colonnade in order to be dignified, but
he would not accept the possibilities of a thirty-two-story
tower which betrayed no obvious signs of vertical structure (figs. 22, 23). Nonetheless
it is important to re-
member that the Howe & Lescaze proposals went far beyond the 1926 design in their extensive use of metal and,
more importantly, in their structural justification of the
envelope. In his demand for such vertical structural expression Mr. Willcox was asking no more than Moore had
always demanded. Howe was willing to depart from his
accepted belief in a particular kind of structural expression, but not from the principle of structural expression
itself. To this end he was able to convince himself that the
horizontality of the design was an expression of the structural nature of the exterior sheathing.44
There is no question that Howe was involved in BeauxArts theory as well as modern theory at this time. Not
only did he acquire a copy of Choisy about 1930 but he
also expressed his indebtedness to Moore and Laloux in
the autobiographicalstatement he published in T-Square
in 1930 which I referred to earlier. In addition, other architects interested in advancing Beaux-Arts theories beyond rigid archaeology and in making the skyscraper a
'proper' architectural type saw in PSFS a fulfillment of
their search. Paul Cret saw it asjust that, an expression of
'that same doctrine' which he had been 'preaching' for
the last ten years.45In a letter to I-owe, dated 28 March
1931, Cret writes of PSFS: 'It is excellent, and I have an
idea it will establish an epoch in Philadelphia.' He goes
on to say that with well-chosen materials, which he feels
certain Howe will employ, the building will be a 'very
beautiful work'. Howe's reply refers to the vast amount of
adverse criticism that he and Lescaze, as architects of a
radical building, had been subjected to. Especially irksome was the 'weight of external criticism . . . from our
44. Appendix: Howe to Willcox, 26 May 1930.
45. Howe's library remains nearly intact. It is in the possession
of his daughter, Mrs. Walter West, Jr., who has been most helpful
in providi;n me with biographical data. The quotation is from
Arthur I. Meigs, 'Paul Phillippe Cret', T-Square Club Journal I
(May 1931), 11.
own colleagues. It is therefore a great source of strength

and encouragement to be assured of a good opinion which
I prize so highly.'46
Variety is achieved in PSFS through the use of contrasts. The success of the building varies directly with the
success of its calculated oppositions. The treatment of the
tower carries out this series of contrasts in its opposition
of horizontal floor slab and vertical support. Its hardness
of forms has its opposite in the richly textured smoky-gray
brick spandrels which in turn contrast with the glass.
The banking room with its mutually responsive curves at
the corners is composed of a series of contrasting wall
planes executed in gray and white marbles, glass and
nubble curtains. It is interesting to note that the columns
are treated simply as a '. .. piece of the wall moved out.'
The sides parallel to the dark gray wall are of dark gray
marble, the other two sides are of white marble. John
Harbeson has demonstrated the similarity between the
use of this device by Howe and the treatment of the
moldings on the columns in Frank Furness' Broad
Street Station, also in Philadelphia.47These are not the
stark contrasts employed so frequently and effectively in
International Style building. Rather, these are the subtle
oppositions of structure, materials, and textures which
enhance the total image and aim at a synthesis.
The separation of the vertical circulation core from the
stack of horizontal floor slabs was the great theoretical and
visual innovation of PSFS.48The origins of this feature
lie ultimately in that point of view which has been described by Banhamas the:
. . design philosophy that was common [in the early years of the
twentiethcentury] to Academicsand Modernsalike. The approach
[was] particulate;small structuraland functional members (elements of architecture)are assembledto make functionalvolumes,
and these (elementsof composition)are assembledto make whole
buildings. To do this is to compose in the literal and derivational
sense of the word, to put together.49
The key word here for the history of the modern movement as it actually developed during the 1920S is 'volumes' rather than 'structure'. The concept of composition
by parts had in fact come to concern itself more with
volumetric boxes of space than with the structural elements which made the space.
But this is not the whole story, since the architecture
of the first ten years after the Great War was marked by
46. These letters are in the possessionof Louis McAllister.
47. John Harbeson,'Philadelphia'sVictorianArchitecture,18601890', The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography LXVII
(1943), 269-270.
48. Vincent Scully in his Modern Architecture (New York, 1961),
p. 118, refers to PSFS as a 'remarkablyinventive achievement

[wherein] . . . a neutrally cladded service tower is articulated from
the main office tower of verticallycontinuous columns and cantileveredfloor slabs.'

49. Banham, Theoryand Design, p. 2o.

94
at least three different attitudes toward building. One attitude, which might be called 'positivistic functionalism',
produced an extensive body of pretentious sociological,
economic, and technological theory and almost no important architecture. It insisted that the forms of buildings
developed solely from a pragmatic diagrammatizationof
their functional areas and structural systems. This theoretical side had little appeal to American architects at the
time, since, with some justification, they already believed
American architecture to be more advanced in those ways
than European.
The second attitude, the one which Hitchcock and
Johnson isolated as the International Style, was concerned
with architectural design in the abstract. It was based on
a set of very definite aesthetic criteria, and came to be
focused primarily upon a purity of building shape, with
special reference to the pristine envelope and its skin.
Among the principles of the International Style, therefore, were an insistence upon volume rather than mass,
upon the elimination of ornament, and so on. These
formalprinciples were demonstrated by a corpus of works
which comprise, for most architects and critics today, the
leading monuments of the early modern movement. Their
relationship to machine culture was purely symbolic.
Structure was regularized in order to be ignored and was
considered independent of space and facade. Space was
conceived almost exclusively in terms of interlocked volumes, more or less in movement, or in what Giedion came
later to insist upon as 'flow'. Indeed, the memorable
images of the International Style lie, for the most part, in
tight-drawn facades and geometric volumes, 'the play ...
of forms under the light.' It was the International Style,
with this clearly perceptible set of modern formal images,
which had the greatest influence on modern architecture
at the end of the 1920S. And American architects, satiated with Beaux-Arts classicism, sought architectural
meaning precisely in such easily apprehended forms. But,
in their enthusiasm, the vast majority of them merely
grafted onto their technology a set of shapes more or less
appropriate but hardly intrinsic to it.
The third attitude, as yet relatively undiscussed by historians, was what I would like to call 'rational expressionism'. It differed from positivistic functionalism precisely
in its belief that there could be no true function without
art. To use Hugo Haering's terms, architecture was concerned with Organwerk,the task of developing the functional program, and Gestaltwerk,the task of finding 'the
adequate image'. In varying degrees, such architects as
Duiker and Mendelsohn shared with Haering his desire
to '. . . examine things and allow them to discover their
own images.'50Howe, at heart, was closest to this third
50. Jurgen Joedicke, 'Haering at Garkau', Architectural Review
(May 1960), pp. 317-318. See also Colin St. John Wilson, 'Open
and Closed', Perspecta,The YaleArchitecturalJournal vii (December 1961), 97-102.
point of view, although he was probably not aware of its

existence within the modern movement, but for a time
allowed himself to accept the second, probablyin an effort
to overcome the excesses of his architecturalpast through
a newly redisciplined geometry. Yet he never allowed
himself, as so many were later to do, to espouse both the
first and second points of view together, since he was always intelligent enough to recognize their fundamental
incompatibility.
Thus it is possible to look at the relationship between
the spine and the slabs in PSFS as a demonstration of
'particulate'composition employing principles which were
in one way or another both Beaux-Arts and rationally expressive. The expression of function was achieved by a
volume of uninterrupted verticality whose structure was
ignored and sheathed in a carefully designed International-Style skin. But, aside from the nature of the skin,
there is little here that can be specifically identified with
the aesthetic of the International Style, since that aesthetic was in rebellion against the vertical emphasis customary to many tall buildings. Neutra's project for Rush
City Reformed (fig. 41), for example, despite the bold
verticality of its projecting piers, hides the circulation
core within the building itself; similarly, Eric Mendelsohn's Schocken Store in Stuttgart (fig. 40) partially denies the vertical nature of the stair tower, which is placed
in a cage of horizontals. Howe's theoretical distinction
between usable space and service space, between circulation and destination, is definitely a heritage from the
academic theories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its boldness is similar in spirit to, if not
directly derivative from, the efforts of the rational expressionists. Function in its most general and most meaningful sense was to be given formalexpression: the excitement of vertical transport, the lateral expansion of vast
horizontal spaces.
To sum up: the theoretical source of PSFS was primarily the Beaux-Arts, which was purely formalistic on a
superficial level. But behind its somewhat empty forms
was a body of theory, passed on to Howe by Moore and
Cret, in which the profounder aspects of architecture as
a way of building were stressed. Today, when we seem to
be surrounded by an unlimited variety of forms and
shapes in architecture, many seemingly undisciplined, the
teachings of the Beaux-Arts seem to hold renewed appeal
for many architects. In its theory they find an approach to
building which can make, of imaginative creation, solid
architecture. Many of the innovations of PSFS were skin
deep and have either survived or become irrelevant as our
tastes have changed. These innovations were for the most
part Lescaze's, for it was this Swiss-trained Internationalist who brought to PSFS-as the dramaticrenderings of
the building show-the excitement, in a sense the showmanship, necessary to attract attention to the building in
1932. But those things which are more purely conceptual

95
in their intentions, those features which have as their base
a logic of rational expression, would seem to have been
George Howe's.
The International Style, through its brilliant gestures,
created most persuasive images of modern life. But in its
forty-year history, now drawing to a close, many architects have come to 'question some of the early dogmas,
especially the romanticisms regarding the machine ....'
They have come to realize, as did Paul Rudolph, that
there are 'many ways of organizing a building or, more
importantly an environment . .. The International Style
was only the opening chord in a great movement.'51These
'principles' of design which once seemed so right are no
longer adequate, and all that remains, as Rudolph states
it, is the uneasy knowledge that 'change is the only constant.' Yet the story of PSFS tends to indicate the existence of certain broad and permanent values beneath such
change. That is to say: George Howe's contact with the
forms and intentions of the International Style surely
opened up a whole new life in architecture for him, but he
brought something to it as well. He brought a simple concern for sound 'fundamental principles' of building. At
the present moment in what seems to be the decadence of
the International Style, many architects and critics feel
that same concern anew.52
The great Philadelphia architects have always believed
this. The first of them, Frank Furness, whose crude and
violent forms attempted to express the bravado of the
nouveau riche boldness of his era, was himself a product
of the Ecole, having studied under Richard M. Hunt, just
returned from Paris. Furness understood the best of the
theory and rejected the archaeology. He too faced, as
Howe did later, the realities of the machine in his time,
and explored the possibilities of new effects achieved
through application of machine techniques to traditional
materials. To him, as to Howe, the machine was a tool,
not a product. Furness' architecture was always daring
and innovative. Individual and original, it was '. . . independent in conception, and in it may be found the germs
of much contemporary architectural thought.'53
Louis 1. Kahn, in many ways a spiritual successor to
George Howe, seems to understand, better than any architect alive today, the Beaux-Arts theories of architecture. These he learned from Paul Cret and from his years
of association with Howe. In his actual building Kahn has
not always been able to find suitable expressions for his
theoretical convictions, and his growth has been slow. But
it seems fitting that today it is Kahn who speaks for an
architecture of 'meaningful form' and 'meaningful spaces',

an architecture which seeks to use what Howe called
imaginative gifts', for what he also called a 'penetration
of the meaning of things.'54 Furness, Cret, Howe, and
Kahn perhaps constitute a Philadelphia School, one based
upon principles other than those of simple parochialism
or regionalism. In their architecture of imagination and
intellect PSFS will always hold a central and honorable
51. Paul Rudolph, untitled article, Perspecta,The Yale Architectural Journal vii (December1961), p. 51.
52. GeorgeHowe, 'Why Then, Why Now?'a talkdeliveredon 15
May 1953 at the opening of the exhibition of 'PhiladelphiaArchitecturein the NineteenthCentury'at the PhiladelphiaArt Alliance.
53. Harbeson,'PhiladelphiaVictorian...', p. 266.
1. The documents in this appendix are among those in the Building File at PSFS. Louis McAllister also possesses copies of some of
them.
2. Then a vice-president, and Willcox's successor as president
of PSFS.
3. The contractor for the building.
place.55
54. Peter and Alison Smithson used the phrases 'meaningful
form' and 'meaningful spaces' in their article, 'Louis Kahn', Architects' Yearbookix (1960), 102. George Howe, in 1930, referred to
Clive Bell's use of the phrase 'significant form', as the comprehensive expression of .. the assimilation of the spiritual significance
of the program in terms of its material fulfillment, and the ordering
of its elements, with due emphasis on the important and subordination of the unimportant, in such a way as to produce a work of
art', 'Modern Architecture', p. 20.
55. Jan C. Rowan's application of the term 'Philadelphia School'
to the architects currently practicing and studying in that city
seems to me a bit premature. See Progressive Architecture XLII
(April 1961).
APPENDIX1
April 29, 1930
Stacy B. Lloyd, Esq.,2
The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society,
700 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
Dear Stacy:
This letter is merely a recapitulation of my conversation with you
on the telephone to-day. As I said, I am not urging any course of
action, but merely setting before you certain facts in order that you
may determine the best course for the Saving Fund yourself.
First of all then, we have now reached a stage where certain definite decisions must be made in order that we may continue to study
the proposed building at 12th & Market Streets. We have already
presented a scheme based on Mr. Willcox's general plan comprising:
(a)-A store on the street level;
(b) -A banking room on the second floor approached by a staircase, escalator and elevators;
(c) -Several floors above banking room dedicated to the purposes
of the store on the ground floor and approached by separate elevators;
(d) -An office building comprising about 25 stories of rentable
office space, in addition to the floors presumed to be assigned to
the store and the bank.
In connection with the plans we have presented a preliminary
estimate prepared by the George A. Fuller Company,3 accompanied
by a financial set-up, giving a very close approximation of constriction and operating costs, as well as revenue.

96
These data are sufficient to arrive at certain broad decisions:
1.-As to whether there shall be an office building in connection
with the bank;
2.-As to whether there shall be a store on the street level.
Mr. Willcox has given me to understand that the first question
has to all intents and purposes been decided in the affirmative. As
to the second question, however, he has indicated no definite decision. On the other hand, until such time as it is settled we cannot
continue our studies of structural and mechanical problems without
a possibility that the entire effort and money thus expended will go
to waste if Mr. Willcox and the Building Committee should ultimately decide that a store was undesirable for any reason whatsoever.
The fundamental changes brought about by the omission of a
store are evident when one considers that the plan of the entire
basement and sub-basement of the building is dependent on the
store; that the entrance to the bank with its escalator and elevators,
as well as the freight and passenger elevators provided for the internal use of the store become unnecessary if the store is omitted;
that with the change in location and function of the entrance of the
bank and the liberation of the basement for the bank's own use, the
entire question of the internal disposition of the banking room proper, as well as the location and disposition of the vault is re-opened.
Every functional change of the sort described above entails very
fundamental changes in mechanical equipment and construction.
A store would require certain special provisions in the way of ventilation, sprinkler system, etc. etc., while the presence of the store in
the building affects the entire question of the foundations, on account of the disposition of the basement, and even very probably the
number of stories and therefore the height of the building. You will
therefore see that until the store and its dependent elements are
adopted in principle we have nothing to guide us in any further
studies.
As to the desirability of reaching a decision at the earliest possible
date, I can only say that it is our opinion, as well as that of the
Fuller Company, that the present is a very good time to buy building
material. Furthermore, the further in advance of the inception of
the operation these materials can be ordered and the further the
architects' plans can be completed in anticipation of their absolute
requirement, the more rapid and orderly will be the erection of the
building when once started and the earlier the date of completion.
The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society would therefore benefit in
two ways by an early decision,-first, in actual economy and quality
of construction, and second, through early occupancy of the premises. On the other hand, if a decision is reached six months before
the building operation is to begin, say in June, 1930, there will still
be time to complete the architects' plans and specifications and
order some structural materials, on condition that all decisions subsequent to the fundamental decisions outlined above be made
promptly, so that work on the plans may proceed without the necessity of constant change.
Please give my kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Willcox and wish
them from me the pleasantest of journeys. I shall be in New York
during the few days they will be in Philadelphia before sailing for
California.
Sincerely yours,
George Howe
May 26th, 1930

James M. Willcox, Esq.,
Philadelphia.
My dear Mr. Willcox:
You have asked me whether it would not be possible and desirable
to introduce certain external vertical elements in the design of the
Society's new building. I cannot answer you without going into the
general question of architectural design. I shall be as brief as possible, and if I appear didactic it is only because I have tried to state
certain beliefs in the most concise and clear form.
You are aware that ever since you first asked me to design a
branch bank around an electric sign4 I have been looking for a means
of architectural expression which should not be in conflict with any
form of modern activity outside the field of architecture. I felt I
had failed either to evolve or discover such an expression until I
became conscious of the meaning of the so-called modern system of
design to the west in America and to the east in Europe. It was then
I entered into my present partnership with a man5 who had long
been studying and practising the new system. I feel it is fundamentally an architectural rediscovery of the meaning of the past and
above the mere whims of individual taste. On that basis I shall defend
it without personal bias since it is not my own discovery but that of
many other men seeking a technically and expressively satisfactory
solution of modern architectural problems.
I know that you agree with me that architecture is an art and that
its imaginative productions are to be judged on its fundamental laws
of subject, expression and technique like those of any other art.
In an easel painting the laws are established by the painter himself within the limits of the frame which detaches his work from its
surroundings. The painter may choose his subject, his way of expressing it and his technique. Once he has chosen them, however,
every one recognises that since they are personal to him every portion of the picture must be a consequence of the same momentary
personal attitude. No one would believe that he was obtaining the
equivalent of an original Winslow Homer by commissioning some
one else to make a freely adapted copy of some early work of that
painter, nor would any one who commissioned him to paint a picture suggest that certain portions of a Gainsborough should be introduced as a concession to the client's or the public's personal
taste. In the same way if the collector's taste ran to i8th Century
English portraits he would purchase an original and not commission
some contemporary painter to produce a copy or a freely adapted
modern revision. It would be obvious that such infringements of the
painter's law could not produce satisfactory artistic results.
In music the artist is more restricted because he is part of a
larger system. He may choose his subject and his way of expressing
it, but his technique is imposed by the instruments at his disposal,
none of which he has invented and most of which he cannot play,
and the skill of the performers, most of whom he does not know,
who interpret his compositions. It is obvious that he must observe
the common law which gives us instrumentation and performance
in order to produce satisfactory playable contemporary works.
The architect is even more restricted because he is part of the
whole life of the community. Not only is his technique today imposed by a thousand trades so complex and separated geographically that he cannot possibly control their development, which is
involved with innumerable human needs not directly connected
with architecture, but his subject also is limited to the requirements
of other men and his way of expressing it by the nature of the physical structural fabric necessary to house those requirements. His
proper function is restricted and always has been in the great periods of the past to giving practical and formal expression to his imaginative conceptions within the limits of laws which he may help
to expound and extend but which he cannot make. He can produce
good work only by penetrating their meaning and potentialities.
I shall consider only that portion of the architectural law which
in our opinion imposes an external recognition of the horizontal
subdivisions of an office building, leaving aside all questions of plan
and material.
4. The 1926 branch offices; see fig. 8.
5. William Lescaze.

97
The architectural intention of a civilization in any well-recognized
type of building may be deduced only from the internal form and
significance of the spaces it demands for its purposes. In these
spaces where men live, work and worship is the heart of the problem.
Men have built towers for defense filled with small cells enclosed in
solid masonry, which is the inevitable external expression of the
intuition of military power and the internal economy of the building
it demands. They have built cathedrals for worship with vast vertical
internal spaces to stir men to mystical adoration. These spaces were
inevitably expressed externally in vertical piers and buttresses
framing great stained glass windows. Today men extend the area of
their buildings by superposing a great number of horizontal spaces
for their cooperative convenience in attaining the modern ideal of
the greatest good of the greatest number. The inevitable external
expression of their intention is a series of alternating horizontals
of masonry and glass to express the horizontal spaces and give a
maximum of light and air to the workers.
To compare skyscrapers to the towers of Ilium or Mediaeval
Europe is literary and poetic, not architectural. The similarity ends
with towering mass. By its internal purposes the skyscraper presents
a new problem in external subdivisions and expression.
Structural logic also imposes a horizontal expression. All sound
architecture, however elaborate and complicated in detail, has always been constructed with the simple logic of toy blocks. Each
piece is placed successively in its most natural order and direction
on the last and decoration follows this order and direction. In the
steel frame of the skyscraper the actual supports of the external casing are not the vertical columns but the continuous horizontal
brackets which run around the building at each floor. The logical
way to build is to set horizontal courses on these brackets and not
to form verticals by breaking the apparent lines at right angles to the
natural supports.
Aspect also imposes a horizontal treatment. The fact that streetlevel stores are required in practically every business building, and
that retailers demand continuous plate glass in return for high rentals, makes it impossible to provide a solid masonry base to the skyscraper. Both continuous walls and derivative Gothic verticals demand a solid base for apparent stability. They must therefore be
abandoned. It is the conception underlying modern architecture
that fundamental necessity is to be regarded as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. Since it is necessary to treat the base of the skyscraper visibly as a glass shell around a steel frame, the entire casing
of the building must be treated as a light veil supported in horizontal
bands on successive brackets attached to the steel structure. This
veil visibly does not rest on the glass substructure any more than
it does in reality.
The horizontal treatment therefore seems to be imposed by human intention, construction and aspect alike. This I believe is the
truth and transcends personal taste. It is arguable that if one does
not like the truth one may disregard it in art. It is my own firm
conviction that the truth must prevail sooner or later and that it is
the designer's task not to deny it but to discover it and make the
most of it.
On first utterance the truth is often charged with being cold and
lacking in sentiment. Artistic truth is particularly subject to the
accusation. The new conception of skyscraper design will undoubtedly conflict with certain preconceptions of beauty. The use of
horizontal subdivisions in vertical buildings may seem a retrogression, producing a heavy and unprepossessing exterior, because
men are accustomed to interpreting external aspect in terms of masonry construction. Their minds go back to the heavy belt-courses
of the early skyscrapers. When they actually see the development of
the suspended veil in execution and become used to it I am certain
they will see in it beauties they had not suspected. Such has been
my own experience. What I once thought a radical departure now
seems to me the normal method of architectural expression. It will
become universal just as the new formulation of artistic perception

which was regarded as eccentricity in the revolutionary painters of
fifty years ago is now the commonplace of the exhibition gallery and
illustration.
There is an element of the skyscraper, however, which is intentionally vertical and inseparable from the idea of great height and
accessibility. The elevator, stairway and firetower are vertical communications and must be expressed as such. In designing the building of the Saving Fund Society we have developed these elements to
the south as a strong spine to which the horizontal office floors are
attached as a sort of ribs. This arrangement produces we believe a
sense of organic unity in a visible combination of intention, structure and expression.
Finally, Mr. Seltzer6 reports that the prospective tenants he has
approached have criticized the design as being ugly and like a loft
building. The first criticism I have answered above. The second I
take rather as a compliment. The loft building has been more
honest than the monumental office buildings and herein lies its
similarity to our design. On the other hand the loft building has
been put up in cheap materials without regard to the finer forms of
composition or mechanical order. We can assure you that when the
Society's building is completed in handsome materials and in well
ordered forms no one will reasonably be able to disparage it on the
score of commercialism. As to any serious prospective tenant I think
if you will allow me to interview him personally I can change his
critical attitude to one of enthusiastic approval.
I trust you are having a delightful time and that you will come
back in the best of health and spirits. I look forward to your return
both professionally and personally.
Please remember me most kindly to Mrs. Willcox.
Sincerely yours,
George Howe
June
Third
1930
Mr. George Howe,
414 South 19th Street,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dear George:
I was very glad to get your letter of May 26th, and regret we cannot sit down and talk the matter over.
The way of the innovator is hard, and although my sympathies
are generally with him he is not always right.
In all that man does constructively he aims at the useful or the
beautiful or both. The pagan poet said two thousand years ago,
'Omne punctum tulit qui miscuit utile dulci'.7
In architecture above all things exist the desirability and possibility of combining these two ends. I have not changed my point of
view since our talk on the roof of the hospital. In fact, the more I
have thought over and studied your theory and sketch the more
they commend themselves to my judgment. I don't think that there
is anything in your design which would decide a prospective tenant
against taking space in the building if the matter were properly
presented. It is impossible to take the architect along every time a
prospect is to be interviewed. I think that I would be more convincing than the average layman simply because I have probably given
more thought to the matter than anyone outside of your office. We
6. R. J. Seltzer, the real estate expert retained by PSFS as a consultant on the building.
7. 'He has won every vote who blended profit with pleasure.'
Horace, Art of Poetry, Epistle II, 3, 343.

98
must recognize the fact that there is something in your design which
requires explanation. The first impulse of everyone I have shown it
to is away from it.
On the other hand, its uniqueness-at least in Philadelphiagives it an advertising value that is worth something. My suggestion
of introducing some perpendicular lines was not a very happy one
as it would likely mean a complete abandonment of your idea. After
all when we get down to the basic fact, is there such a radical departure? Whether the perpendicular or horizontal effect is attained
is largely a matter of looking at the design in detail instead of as a
whole. In both cases we have a perpendicular mass or shaft, the purpose being to go up. In one case (yours) the manner of doing it by
laying one segment on another is disclosed; in the other it is concealed, but the perpendicular mass is the objective in both cases.
In discussing the subject a few days ago with a man of decided
artistic cultivation and accomplishments, he said your sketch with
its explanation is very interesting, but he added, why not follow out
the idea to its logical conclusion. If the walls of the building are
only a curtain why not get away from anything that suggests masonry and substitute large units of flat material that would look more
like a curtain and not a wall, heavy glass if you will that will keep out
the weather and could be made to produce decidedly attractive
color effects. Of course, he went too far, but it seems to me he
grasped your idea. For my part I don't see why vertical could not
be combined with horizontal lines as decoration, if they would relieve the monotony and be decorative. That, not structure, would
be their justification.
The point in your argument which to my mind is the strongest is
that the development occasioned by commercial needs to a glass
base, which naturally could not be justified either actually or in
appearance, could not possibly support the superimposed masonry.
Neither could it be justified for such a building as you design, but
the answer there is that the horizontal lines show that the impression of support on the glass would not exist as the exterior manifestations tell the true story.
Nothing will be done with the design until my return early in
July and we can then reconsider the whole subject.
I am getting along very well; the improvement could hardly be
better in such a short time. I shall have to limit my daily work,
however, to a few hours for some time after my return to the office
as every doctor tells me that the danger is a stoppage of the recuperative process by overdoing.
Hoping that you are well, and with greetings from Mrs. Willcox
as well as from myself, I am
Yours sincerely,
James Willcox
July 25th, 1930

Mr. James M. Willcox,
Philadelphia.
Dear Mr. Willcox:
As I told you the other day my thoughts were first turned in the
direction which has led to my adoption of the modern functional
principle in architectural composition by your inquiry some years
ago whether an electric sign could not be appropriately incorporated in the design of your branch bank buildings. My researches
were given a fresh impulse when you commissioned me to study a
project for an office building at 12th & Market Streets.
Up to that time I had been turned away from steel by the illogical
and therefore esthetically unsatisfying use to which it was being put.
An analytical study of any office building disclosed the most absurd
structural and mechanical anomalies arising from a failure to recognize the proper nature and function of skeleton construction and an
attempt to interpret it in forms proper only to masonry. The beauty
arising from this misunderstanding is only superficial. It is not
organically significant as it must be in a true work of architecture
but is rather a form of optical illusion like a mask or stage set. Sound
architecture must be able to bear the closest analytical examination,
externally, internally, structurally and mechanically, and in the
solution of each problem which presents itself in the development
of a design must be not only possible, but possible in a concise and
orderly form as a consequence of the organic foundation of the
original conception.
As a result of my initial dissatisfaction with steel as I saw it in use
I turned at the beginning of my career to masonry. This medium
served me well in domestic work and in your branch banks. The
introduction of the electric sign at the West and Logan offices required only a revision in composition, not in structural medium.
The design of your building at 12th & Market Streets, however,
obliged me to face the problem of steel construction. I looked about
in vain for any precedent that seemed satisfactory from the point of
view of architectural expression. Finding none I evolved a design8
of my own whose chief structural interest lay in an emphasis on the
possibilities of steel, in the bold recognition of a great mass of masonry standing on stilts and in the elimination of meaningless
mouldings. For its external beauty the design depended on purely
decorative elements, such as the great globe at the summit of the
tower, and on a use of set-backs.
This design appeared to me less satisfactory as I studied it during
the years that have intervened since its initial conception and formulation. At the same time I became aware of the modern movement
in which other men were facing the same problems, and developing
an organic steel medium of design making possible their orderly
and beautiful solution. The new medium embodied at one and the
same time structural significance, the treatment of modern illumination and mechanical elements as architectural features, and the
development of an organic beauty far superior to the masking beauty
of Classic and Gothic derivatives.
The apparent novelty of the forms developed by a frank interpretation of modern functions and requirements startled me at first. On
further analytical study, however, I found these forms were traditional in the true sense of the word, namely in the underlying principles governing architectural design rather than in superficial detail. As Lewis Mumford has pointed out in an able article modern
design really began with the extension of the use of glass in the
Elizabethan age.9 The tower of your new building may be likened to
a great English half-timber bay in which the superposed banks of
casements turning around the corners correspond to our modern
continuous window areas and in the intervening bands of brick between the timber to our horizontal limestone spandrils. In other
words steel is an extension of wood frame construction in a stronger
and more flexible material and not a development of masonry construction.
True beauty in architecture is developed primarily by a recognition of and emphasis on internal and structural functions in organized and well-proportioned masses rather than by decoration. The
mere economical use of space and building materials, however, is
not sufficient. The commercial factory and loft building are good
as far as they go, better indeed than their more pretentious pseudotraditional neighbors, but they do not carry the possibilities of modern design far enough. In plan, mass and construction the purpose
and structural significance of a building must be emphasized and
interpreted in significant forms to bring out its full meaning.
8. The 1926 project for the PSFS skyscraper; see fig. 13.
9. Reference unlocated.

99
In the design for your new building we have been governed by
sound principles of architectural analysis. In plan the spaces for the
stores and for the bank have been left unencumbered by placing the
entrances to the bank and office building respectively at the extreme
corners of the property. The stores have been kept low and subordinate, the bank and its entrance have been emphasized in volume,
the sales or bulk floors above the bank have been treated as a separate element, the tower has been developed as a narrow vertical with
side walls set back from the property lines to the east and west to
provide ample light all around. The width of the tower is determined by the economical size of a business office.
By placing the entrances at the sides and setting the tower back
more on the west against the adjoining property than on the east
along the street front, in order to secure for all time an ample light
well at a vulnerable point, an organic assymmetry [sic] has been
produced far more interesting than the usual scholastic and unthinking axial symmetry. The soundest precedent for such assymmetries [sic] are to be found in the grouping of numerous buildings
in Greek architecture, as on the Acropolis, for a modern building is
really a group of many smaller buildings.10 While thinking always
in terms of utility and economic soundness we have constantly kept
architectural effect in view and by a logical and reasoned use of the
elements natural to a business building have produced an irregular
and organic mass of impressive effect.
The fact that each of the superposed floors of the building is
really a great horizontal area only accidentally divided by verticals,
that these spaces demand a maximum of light, and that the structural horizontal brackets around the steel frame are the supporting
members of the shell, has been recognized in the horizontal elements
of wall and window. The fact that the internal steel frame, and not
the visible masonry, is the supporting element has been recognized
by extending the supporting brackets beyond the columns and
treating the exterior shell as a suspended veil of continuous bands
of glass and masonry.
A logical use of functional and structural elements such as I have
described leads easily and naturally to the solution of mechanical
problems. A great part of the complicated equipment of a modern
building must be housed above the basement in the body of the
building. Over the great banking space 18'-o" trusses are required
to carry the superstructure.11 Externally the recognition of these
trusses as a great blank wall above the banking-room windows not
only emphasizes most advantageously from an architectural standpoint the fact that steel and economics have reversed the order of
masonry construction and that the heavy mass no longer necessarily, or even desirably, belongs at the base of the building, which must
be dedicated to revenue producing or useful spaces encased in glass,
but also provides just the right amount of space to house most conveniently the ventilating equipment required for the store and
banking-room. Half-way up the tower a secondary distribution
point for mechanical lines is necessary on account of pressure. By
increasing only slightly the height of one floor at this point not only
can the mechanical equipment be housed but a necessary tenant
storage space available from above and below can be provided with
a 7'-6" ceiling height, while at the same time the recognition of the
fact that this floor differs from the others provides an agreeable
break in the continuity of the superposed horizontals. From a mechanical standpoint also the extension of the brackets supporting
the external wall beyond the face of the columns provides an advantageous location for heating pipes leading directly to radiators
under the windows without duplication or bends. The main structural and mechanical lines of communication and supply, elevators,
o1. Howe seems here to be recalling Le Corbusier's remarks on
the Acropolis in his Vers une architecture, 1st ed. (Paris, 1922).
11. They are actually 161/2 ft. in depth.
stairs, stacks, etc. at the South end of the building, have also been
put to architectural use in design and are expressed in a vertical
spire to which the horizontals are attached like ribs, forming a
strong organic composition.
The adoption of the modern medium of design also leads naturally to the use of machine and factory-produced materials in appropriate forms. The present building is developed in polished granite
at the base, limestone in the tower, black and red glazed and matt
brick at the Southern spire, with aluminum windows throughout.
The effect will be rich and at the same time appropriate to a commercial edifice.
The only criticism of the internal steel frame with suspended veil
of glass and masonry which can be advanced on economic grounds
is that the columns interrupt the office space. As a matter of fact,
however, the available free space in the present design remains the
same as in the original building designed in 1926, which was proportioned in strict relation to the normal economic size of a business
office. The extension of the brackets is outside the columns and
adds to the available rentable area without extending the office
space beyond its economic depth, in which there is obviously a certain latitude. The addition of this space compensates for the presence of the detached columns. The additional cost is negligible.
The Fuller Company, under date of March 21st, 1930, estimated
that if the present size of the building were maintained, and the
same materials were used, the placing of the columns in the exterior
walls would effect a saving of only $5,000. The expenditure of this
sum in decoration would produce a negligible result. Its expenditure in structural significance is all-important.
Since the present building is completely different in design from
that of 1926 it is impossible to say exactly what saving would be
effected if the tower were reduced to its former size. On the other
hand a comparative table of costs and sizes prove conclusively that
the present design, even with the extended brackets, is economical:
1926 Scheme
1930 Scheme
Cubical contents
4,525,989 cu. ft.
7,070,100 cu. ft.
Cost per cu. ft.
$1.01
$0.787
Total Cost
$4,631,000.
$5,566,700.
Gross area
322,973 sq. ft.
525,434 sq. ft.12
In other words, for $930,000, or about 20% more than the cost
of the 1926 building, your institution obtains more than 200,000 sq.
ft. or over 60% additional floor area. Furthermore, the 1930 building
is more completely equipped mechanically than the 1926 building.
Finally it may be asked whether beauty has not been slighted in
a multiplicity of technical considerations. The answer is emphatically no. Modern architecture originated not in a search for a
purely practical solution of modern problems but in a dissatisfaction
with the superficial inorganic beauty of superimposed traditional
architectural elements and ornament. As would naturally be the
case the search for an organic beauty led back to the very conception
of design and it was found that the beauty sought could be found,
as it always had been in the great buildings of the past, only in an
expression of the human, structural and mechanical functions of
architecture. Our purpose as artists, as opposed to mere builders,
in moulding these functions to your purposes has been to achieve
beauty, and it is our opinion that we have.
Sincerely yours,
George Howe
12. This is the first publication of any figures on the cost of the
building. Willcox prohibited their release at the time. Building
economists for Fortune vI (December 1932), i30, made astute
guesses on the economics of the building, although they erred on
the optimistic side. Their estimate was 68c to 78c a cubic foot, at
a time when first-class office buildings averaged 64c and run-of-themill speculative buildings at 45c. Final preliminary estimates went
up to 84c a cubic foot; see reference at note 16.

100
July 30, 1930
James M. Willcox, Esq.
Philadelphia.
When you asked me this morning what particular advantage there
was in moving columns back from the wall in your new office buildsince the
ing, I had not given the matter serious consideration
. meet,
r . analyzed
suggestion that
that
SC
,,S suggestion
Mr. Scott's13
no therefore
ing and
and had
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.
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this change be made. As I recall his suggestion
is
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eeite
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. ,,. ,
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of light for the desks next to the windows,.. which
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1 column,
than to provide a passage
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from one side of the column to the other, as I suggested this morn-s
ing*
that
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ing. However, in order that you may have Mr. Scott's own reportt on
matteI have asked
.1 Mr. Lescaze to. get in touch with him and
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ethinks
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I have also told Lescaze to have such changes made in the model
t.l. a so.*
ILese
toldr
have
as may* be necessary after his revision of the scheme with Seltzer
,
-1 . ,economic
and the Fuller Company.'4
and the Fuller Company.TM
on
I hope very much that I shall findr you
. - thoroughly
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.., i convinced
,
i.and
difficult a
my return. I have already told you that I realize how
,
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decision we have put up to you. On the other hand I believe you
realize that we have studied your problem with the interests of the
Fund
~alwaysS m a ,tnat the
exSaving Fund Society always in mind and that the architectural exa
in
have
arrived
at
is
result
of
these
interests
we
pression
keeping
mind. In other words, we have not tried to force the functions of
the store, bank and office building into a preconceived modernistic
and stylistic shell, but have on the contrary let these functions
guide the formation of the shell under our architectural direction,
so to speak.
Finally, may I say one word in appreciation of your interest in
the architectural side of the problem and your patience in hearing
our side of the case.
Sincerely yours,
George Howe
ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED BUILDING

ILDING
THE PRPSED
ANALSIS SAVING
ARHITETRAL
FUND SOCIETY
FOR THE PHILADELPHIA
AT 12TH
&
MARKET
STREETS.15
The design for the Society's building may be described in a

general way as 'modern' in tendency.
In applying the word 'modern' to a type of design, however, it
h between
in modernism
to
ttendencies
is essential to distinguish
which are diametrically opposed to each other. In the one, which
may be called 'functional', the forms are allowed to grow out of the
requirements of our civilization and the modern technique of building as developed in various trades, architectural or other. The result
is a democratic community architecture, applicable to every problem, whether commercial or monumental. This architecture, though
limited in the number of its examples, has been consistently and
successfully applied to every type of building since the war, and
bids fair to establish that recognizable and coherent modern style
which has so long been heralded in vain. In the other tendency,
13. A representative of the Fuller Company.
14. See notes 3 and 6.
15. This memorandum is undated. It seems probable, however,
that it was submitted with the model of the building toward the end
of July 1930.
which may be called 'decorative', forms are applied without relation

over utilitarian and structural functions at the whim of the individual designer. The result is an individualistic and pseudo-aristocratic
decoration, rather than an architecture, without any framework of
basic principles. It includes all those sporadic and eccentric manifestations popularly
called 'modernistic' and has shown no cono
sistent
development.
sste
development.
the present
dsin
The design
of the
preset building
foos
rs tendency.
iig
endenc
follows
thee first
Though at first sight it may appear to be based on a search for
and original forms
an examination will show that on the
startling
r
rii
ri
contrary every element is the result of a careful search for the best
of the economic and structural problem.
and struceconomic
Snc the
mic ad struca ret
Slnc
of te inerior e
functions these
must be given first consideration. In the fite
fi
i
r
nancial analysis the reasons for and financial results of laying out
three superposed
store spaces,
a buldng
containing
superposed elements, store
spaces,
building conta
ng three
banking space and twenty-seven floors of office space have already
discussed. It has also been shown that the cost of the building
per cubic foot and per square foot of gross rentable area is reasonable in view of its character. It remains to be shown in the larger
economic sense that
i1. the working-spaces are first class as regards availability, light,
e
mechanical equipment, for the operations of the Society and
to attract tenants to the stores and offices, and that
.
i
i
ii
ii
are distributed
2. the working-spaces and communications
the requ in the
most
conenent
relatons
meet
to
the
most convenient relations to each other
requirements
of the
the problem.
of
problem.
THE
STORE
SPACES
These spaces consist of uninterrupted floor areas which may be

subdivided in any way to suit the tenants. Those at the subway
level are approached by an extension of the subway platform on the
south side of Market Street, connecting both the 1 th and i3th Sts.
stations, and connected in its turn by a passage over the tracks to
the north platform and to the P [hiladelphia] & R [eading] terminal.
A sidewalk vault leads from the platform along the entire 12th
Street front of the building and gives direct underground access to
the elevator lobby of the office space. The subway stores have continuous show windows on the platform and the sidewalk vaults.
The store space at the street level is also provided with continuous
show windows on Market and 12th Streets, so that any portion
divided from the remainder will be as advantageous as any other. In
other words the store space is loo% available and desirable.
THE
BANKING
SPACE
The main banking room on the 2nd floor, above the stores, is
loo% available and lighted by continuous windows on two street
fronts. To overcome any possible disadvantage arising from the fact
that i is situated 20" above the sidewalk levelan imposing entrance, marked by an electric sign, is provided on Market Street. In
order not to obstruct the floor area the only location for the entrance is at the N. W. corner of the building. With its sign it will
serve as an indicator to depositors. It leads to a large vestibule in
which the depositor has the choice of approaching the banking
floor in three ways: by a wide stair, by escalator, or by elevator.
Behind the vestibule in the dark corner of the building are situated
the various necessary conveniences for the public and the banking
force. Above these are two mezzanines for additional working space,
and a safe deposit department of ample proportions in a third
mezzanine extending over the vestibule and partially over the ceiling of the banking room. These spaces are conveniently accessible
from the banking floor by stairs and elevators and also directly from
the elevator lobby of the office space if desired. A special elevator
may be assigned at certain times of day to tenants who rent safedeposit boxes from the Society, so that they may obtain direct access
to the safe-deposit department.

101
The officers are placed at the S. E. corner of the building over
the entrance to the elevator lobby of the office space in two fully
lighted floors which are connected by a private staircase and elevator. The President's room on the second floor has direct access
to the mezzanines, an advantage in case the society should ever wish
to establish special departments under his supervision in these
overflow working spaces.
The third floor, which consists of ordinary working space, may
be used in the future to house administrative departments should
they prove necessary or desirable, and is conveniently accessible by
the same means as the mezzanines.
THE
OFFICE
SPACE
The form of the tower containing the twenty-seven floors of

office space is the result of a careful study. It provides the maximum
amount of rentable area per floor given the definite requirements of
loo% light and sound economic office depths. As previously explained a further requirement in the present problem is uninterrupted floor area at the lower levels for banking and store purposes,
as well as a bank entrance on Market Street at the N. W. corner of
the building. Only the S. E. corner of the building, therefore is left
available for the entrance to the elevator lobby and its location at
this point is dictated by necessity.
The lobby at all floors with elevators on both sides is in direct
communication with the office space. The block of building containing the lobby runs across the entire width of the property and
provides additional office spaces with ideal north light at both ends
of the lobby.
The tower is set back about twenty feet on the 12th St. front and
about forty feet on the party line, assuring loo% light to all offices
for all time, even if tall buildings are subsequently erected on both
sides. Continuous windows running from sill to ceiling assure a
maximum use of the available light.
The fourth and fifth floors are somewhat differently disposed from
the floors above. They cover a large part of the lot and provide bulk
space for administrative purposes or for use as a mart.
Every floor of office space is loo% available and no valuable
rentable area or idle dollars are wasted in meaningless set backs,
breaks, pinnacles, or domes.
EXTERIOR
The exterior form and appearance of the building are a result of

meeting all the economic conditions without compromise. An expression has been sought based not on any preconceived traditional
form but on the actual conditions of the modern office building
problem. In order to obtain loo% glass area throughout all working-spaces the columns have been set back from the outside wall.
Complete daylight is thus assured at the window line and less obstruction to light in the rear portions of the offices and other working-spaces, as well as continuous show-windows for the store spaces.
The additional light obtained more than compensates for any obstruction the columns may offer in bulk spaces. In normal offices
the columns will be contained in the partitions.
The result is a sound economic working building which acknowledges itself frankly as such instead of pretending to be a temple or
a cathedral. Steel construction has made such a design possible and
the result of following out the possibilities it offers to their logical
conclusion is a building which announces itself to the seeing eye
as a steel skeleton on which the outer shell of masonry and glass is
suspended independently. No false stone piers or buttresses interfere with the economic availability of the working spaces.
The relative importance of the banking facilities of the Society
has been emphasized by keeping the show windows of the store
spaces low and by frankly expressing and accenting the steel trusses
which span the banking room in a broad band above the continuous
bankingroomwindow.These trussesactuallyoccupy in height the

entire spaceindicatedby the band, and the voids betweenthemare
occupied by the necessary mechanicalequipmentfor the heating
and ventilationof the stores and bankingfacilities.This frankintroductionof apparentweight where it belongs in a steel building,
insteadof at the basewhereit is demandedby stabilityin a masonry
building,as well as the absenceof all verticalelementsin the tower,
accentuatesthe significanceof steel constructionand eliminatesthe
feeling of unsatisfactorysupport produced by buildings in which
large glass areas at the base apparentlycarry solid masonrywalls
or vertical piers.
The whole design is givencoherenceby the treatmentof the various elementsin theirlogicalforms.The blockcontainingthe vertical
communications,elevatorsand stairs, is treatedas a verticalspine.
To this the superposedhorizontalspaces which house the stores,
banking-roomand officefloorsare attachedmore or less like ribsof
varyingcharacterand importance.Thus the exterior is made significantof the internalfunctions.
It has been stated above that the cost of the building, 84c per
cu.ft. including subway approaches,bank finish, and other nonrevenue-producingelementsand $11.32 per sq.ft. of gross rentable
area, is low.16 The economy in construction has been obtained by
intelligent planning. The finish of the building, while not extravagant, is more than adequate to its character.The base is of dark
graypolished graniteup to the top of the bankingroom, the tower
is of light gray17limestone, and the elevatorlobby block of good
quality brick in black and gray. The interior will be finished in
sound practicalmaterialsof good design, simply and without extravagance.The whole scheme of materialsand color will be sober
and harmonious.
In conclusion the architectsstate it as their conviction that economic pressure will make the developmentof buildings of similar
design inevitablein the immediatefuture, and agreewith Mr. R. J.
Seltzerand Mr. Scott of the GeorgeA. FullerCo. that all buildings
not so designed will be obsolete beforelong. In the keen competition for tenantsthe productionof ideal workingspacesat reasonable
constructioncosts is essential. Furthermore,though the design is
not intended to startle,it will inevitablydo so until the public has
overcomethe long-standingoptical habit of judging beauty in architecture according to standardsof masonry stability instead of
steel flexibility.It will thereforebe spoken of from one end of the
country to the other. Though some of the commentit will cause
will be unfavorableat first it cannot fail to elicit praisefromintelligent architects,realestate men and builders.Both praiseand blame
will serve as valuablefree publicity and tenants will flock to share
in the notorietyof the Society'sbuilding.Marblehalls and fantastic
domes have been overdoneand no longer excite the public's interest. They have had their day. An era of sound and handsomebut
loo% practicalbuilding is at hand.
ARCHITECTURAL
P.S.F.S.
BUILDING
DESIGN
AT 12TH
OF THE
PROPOSED
& MARKET
STREET18
The design is 'modern'in the sense that it is based on economic

and structurallogic. It is, however,subduedand dignifiedin ornament and coloring.
The plan achieves the following:
16. Comparewith the lower figurecited aboveat note 12.
17. Sand color as built.
18. Undated memorandumwhich must be approximatelyof the
same date as that immediately above-that

the end of July 1930.

is, somewhere around
102
1. loo% clear and available floor space and show-windows for
stores
2. 100% clear and available floor space and light for banking
purposes
3. loo% clear and available floor space and light for offices
4. Ample elevator service, lobbies, and other communications
The height is determined as nearly as possible scientifically.
Approximately twenty-five office floors appear to be a reasonable
number to assume in the district and on the property according to
experience. The assumption is justified in the present design which
contains twenty-seven. It meets the various tests applied to office
buildings as follows:
a. Cost per cu.ft.
84c everything inc.
Fuller Bldg.
95c
1.00
Chrysler Bldg.
Girard Trust-new
9oc
None of these buildings contains a banking room or includes
subway approaches and other items in the PSFS. Bldg.
b. Cost per sq. ft. of gross rentable area
11.32
Average of five similar new buildings
16.29
c. Cost of steel required per cu.ft. is very reasonable.
d. The elevator service is ample yet does not occupy a disproportionate area of the tower.
e. The relation of one sq.ft. of rentable area to every 14 cu.ft.
of content is good.
f. The relation of the cost of the building to the land is 6.6 to
4.8 or about 1.4. The rule of relation is 1.5. However this relation
is limited by the size of the lot and the amount of rentable area it is
reasonable to provide in the district.
The elevation is a result of meeting all economic and utilitarian
requirements without compromise. It possesses the beauty and
dignity of an honest piece of work. It does not aim to compete with
temples and cathedrals designed for non-utilitarian purposes. Its
character seems peculiarly appropriate to the ideals of the Philadelphia Saving Fund Society.
GH
JOB:
Memo:
Mr. Howe
To Mr. Willcox
1200
MARKET
STREET
Dec. 2nd, 1930
Remarks regarding Scheme 7:

Up to the present only the external structural appearance of the
building as affected by the use of internal or external supports has
been discussed.
In discussing the overhang of the office tower as shown on

Scheme 7 we are touching on the functional and structural foundation of the design.19
This overhang is the result of solving the economic problem. It
can be done away with in only two ways:
1. By bringing the columns supporting the banking room out to
the building line. If this is done the show windows will be reduced
to the size of the spaces between the columns and the view of them
from the street will be obstructed. The desirability of the stores
will be greatly impaired as in the notorious case of the Fidelity
Building.20
2. By placing the face of the tower four feet back of the building
line on the same vertical plane as the curtain wall of the bankingroom. If this is done the rentable area will be reduced about 280
sq.ft. per floor or 7,000 sq.ft. for 25 floors, representing a rental loss
of $17,500 a year. The reduction in area takes place in the most desirable space in the building.
The overhang, which is small in size as compared to the volume
of the whole building, amounting to no more than a single cornice
member in many existing buildings, is nevertheless vital from an
economic standpoint. From an architectural standpoint it is also
vital as expressing the intelligent moulding of a building to its
purpose.
When the present scheme was undertaken you asked me if I could
design a good bank building with stores below and offices above. I
answered yes on the assumption that the possibilities of steel construction could be more boldly developed than they have been up
to the present. If a stone tradition is imposed on the steel design
the result cannot be entirely satisfactory either economically or
architecturally.
19. The issue under discussion here is the narrow cantilevering
over Market Street, which was all that remained of the architects'
original intention to cantilever the office tower on three sides.
20. Fidelity Philadelphia Trust Building, 123 S. Broad St. Construction 1927-1928 by Simon & Simon. The largest office building
in Philadelphia, where PSFS is the tallest, this is a neo-Renaissance
building largely walled at the ground with three widely spaced
glazed arches, the central one serving as the entrance to the bank,
with each of those to either side providing entrance to a small shop.
Since the Fidelity Trust is in the financial district, instead of a
shopping area where PSFS is located, there was no attempt to open
up the ground floor. Hence, whatever one thinks of the scheme, it
was hardly a 'notorious' failure when the architects did not provide
what they had no intention of providing.


Beaux-Arts Theory and Rational Expressionism - Stern

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PSFS: Beaux-Arts Theory and Rational Expressionism

Author(s): Robert A. M. Stern

This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:04:12 PM

question the thirty-two-story bank and office

1. I wish to thank Mr. John Entenza and the Graham Foundation

Librarian,ColumbiaUniversity,for their manycourtesies,and

7. Moore has been the subject of a biographyby FrankJewett

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9. Howestatedthatonlyhis lastdesignat thetcole reflectedthe

tural significanceas the only dignity of architecturalstyle.

able to American readers in his books on the Gothic and

guishes architecture from building. Structure, for Moore,

forms and adjustments . . . .' In other words, clarity of

structure has nothing to do with its revelation. The latter

13. Moore,'Trainingfor the Practice...', p. 60.

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So Moore presents his view of architecture as an art, a

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ward a literary conception of architecture, endemic in the

The next two designs, again twins, are freer in their

which were held to be the proper expression of it. These

and the illuminated inscriptions, which necessitated, or

were strictly eclectic. Second, there was the tendency to-

rather suggested, the service balconies and the multiple

24. GeorgeHowe, 'The PhiladelphiaSavingFund SocietyBranch

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Fig. 45. Detail of ornament,Number 2 Park Avenue, New York,

reflectors of wrought iron which form the chief features of

ing to replace nonmechanical ice boxes, Hood imagined

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Fig. 47. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., 1932, by

chitectural mass and articulated structure. This was to be

The scheme as a whole emphasizes the possibilities of

Paul P. Cret (courtesyYale UniversitySlide Collection).

32. Appendix: Howe to Willcox, 25 July 1930.

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ory. Thus the bank designs clearly show the limitations

34. A listing of Howe's partnerships and their dates would seem

places a stairway in the narrow space between the two

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ical of these is a display room for Nudelman and Conti

1932 (fig. 50). The crudity

36. C. Adolph Glassgold, 'The Decorative Arts', The Arts xiv

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collaborative effort, has, in recent years, advanced this

crative, but also highly regarded by students and fellow

Germantown', Arts and Decoration (September 1921) reprinted in

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own colleagues. It is therefore a great source of strength

p. 118, refers to PSFS as a 'remarkablyinventive achievement

the main office tower of verticallycontinuous columns and cantileveredfloor slabs.'

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point of view, although he was probably not aware of its

This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:04:12 PM

architecture of 'meaningful form' and 'meaningful spaces',

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May 26th, 1930

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become universal just as the new formulation of artistic perception

This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:04:12 PM

July 25th, 1930

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This content downloaded from 202.92.128.135 on Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:04:12 PM

ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSED BUILDING