Urban Ideals and the Design of Railroad Stations

Abstract

Urban Ideals and the Design of Railroad Stations SALLY A. KITT CHAPPELL In the middle ages, communities built magnificent cathedrals—and paid for them—and who questions the ennobling effects of these rich and spacious struc­ tures on all beholders? They satisfied and glorified the lives not only of those who built them, but also of their descendants. The genius of the American people runs to transportation and to business. Why not ex­ press througfi those mediums the artistic soul of the nation? Who that ever stood before the massive pillars of the North Western in Chicago, who that ever walked the floor of the wasteful concourse in the Pennsylvania Station in New York, with its noble space and sim­ plicity, its astonishing and grateful silence, can ever think of them without a thrill? [John Henry Zuver, South Bend, Indiana, 1916] During America’s great railway age, railroad stations played a key role in the nation’s technological development and cultural life. At first merely providing waiting space and a ticket counter, stations soon developed into the nerve centers of our continental transportation system. They provided an interface between that system and local and suburban transit, taxicabs, ferries, streets, and sidewalks, knitting to­ gether a complex organic unit. In addition, they catalyzed surround­ ing development, often serving as a central component of a major urban plan. Most important, they became a means of expressing civic and personal values. Nearly all large railroad stations constructed in Dr. Chappell teaches in the Department of Art at DePaul University. A shorter version of this article, “From Sign to Cynosure,” was read at the March 1983 meeting of the Midwest Art History Society in Iowa City; another version, ‘‘Railroad Terminals in Urban Life: Examples in the Works of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White,” was published in Threshold 3 (1985): 36—48. The author wishes to express thanks to Carl Condit for valuable suggestions and leads.© 1989 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/89/3002-0006$01.00 354 Urban Ideals and the Design of Railroad Stations 355 the United States between the 1890s and the 1930s proved to have far-reaching effects on the cities they served.1 There were four archetypal designs for large stations in the United States: the two great New York stations, Pennsylvania Station (1902—10) and Grand Central Terminal (1903—13),2 and two that came from the office of Daniel Burnham—the Terminal Station at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, and Union Station in Washington, D.C. (1903—7). American architects were strongly affected by these four structures, and most large railroad stations in the following generation showed their influence. Later, designers adapted and modified the ar­ chetypes in order to take advantage of new technological develop­ ments and to meet new demands engendered by the increasingly important role railroads played in the changing fabric of large cities. In this article I shall examine the two archetypes from Burnham’s firm and three stations from successor firms that exemplify a continuing evolution from the Columbian Exposition and Washington, D.C., sta­ tions—one in Chicago, one in Cleveland, and one in Philadelphia. These stations all reflect the monumental layouts that were part of the French planning tradition of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where Peirce Anderson (1870—1924) had studied. Anderson became chief designer, successively, for D. H. Burnham and Company (until 1912, when Burnham died), for Graham, Burnham and Company (1912—17), and for Graham, Anderson, Probst and White (CAPW) (after 1917). Before his arrival in Chicago in 1899, Anderson saw dozens of projects by his fellow students; his room in Paris was not far from Victor Baltard’s Halles Central, or Les Halles (1845 —70, demolished in 1973), Louis Due’s Palais de Justice (1852—69), and the Gare d’Orsay (1897—1900) of Victor Laloux.3 'See William J. Wilgus, “The Grand Central Terminal in Perspective,” American Society of Civil Engineers, Transactions 106 (1941): 1028—29; also the source of the epigraph. Joyce Hug provided information on John Henry Zuver, a feature and edi­ torial writer for the South Bend News-Times from 1912 to 1921...