I—THE HOTEL ON THE LANDSCAPE
I do not mean the picturesque and gabled construction which on our own country-side has been restored to prosperity, though not to efficiency, by Americans travelling with money and motor-cars. I mean the uncompromising grand hotel—Majestic, Palace, Métropole, Royal, Splendide, Victoria, Belle Vue, Ritz, Savoy, Windsor, Continental, and supereminently Grand—which was perhaps first invented and compiled in Northumberland Avenue, and has now spread with its thousand windows and balconies over the entire world. I mean the hotel which is invariably referred to in daily newspapers as a “huge modern caravanserai.” This hotel cannot be judged in a town. In a town, unless it possesses a river-front or a sea-esplanade, the eye never gets higher than its second storey, and as a spectacle the hotel resolves itself usually into a row of shops (for the sale of uselessness), with a large square hole in the middle manned by laced officials who die after a career devoted exclusively to the opening and shutting of glazed double-doors.
To be fairly judged, the grand hotel must be seen alone on a landscape as vast as itself. The best country in which to see it is therefore Switzerland. True, the Riviera is regularly fringed with grand hotels from Toulon to the other side of San Remo; but there they are so closely packed as to interfere with each other’s impressiveness, and as a rule they are at too low an altitude. In Switzerland they occur in all conceivable and inconceivable situations. The official guide of the Swiss Society of Hotel Keepers gives us photographs of over eight hundred grand hotels, and it is by no means complete; in fact, some of the grandest consider themselves too grand to be in it, pictorially. Just as Germany is the land of pundits and aniline dyes, France of revolutions, England of beautiful women, and Scotland of sixpences, so is Switzerland the land of huge modern caravanserais.
You may put Snowdon on the top of Ben Nevis and climb up the height of the total by the aid of railways, funiculars, racks and pinions, diligences and sledges; and when nothing but your own feet will take you any farther, you will see, in Switzerland, a grand hotel, magically and incredibly raised aloft in the mountains; solitary—no town, no houses, nothing but this hotel hemmed in on all sides by snowy crags, and made impregnable by precipices and treacherous snow and ice. I always imagine that at the next great re-drawing of the map of Europe, when the lesser nationalities are to disappear, the Switzers will take armed refuge in their farthest grand hotels, and there defy the mandates of the Concert. For the hotel, no matter how remote it be, lacks nothing that is mentioned in the dictionary of comfort. Beyond its walls your life is not worth twelve hours’ purchase. You would not die of hunger, because you would perish of cold. At best you might hit on some peasant’s cottage in which the standards of existence had not changed for a century. But once pass within the portals of the grand hotel, and you become the spoiled darling of an intricate organisation that laughts at mountains, avalanches, and frost. You are surrounded by luxuries surpassing even the luxuries off ered by the huge modern caravanserais of London. (For example, I believe that no London caravanserai was, until quite lately, steam-heated throughout.) You have the temperature of the South, or of the North, by turning a handle, and the light of suns at midnight. You have the restaurants of Piccadilly and the tea-rooms of St. James’s Street. You eat to the music of wild artistes in red uniforms. You are amused by conjurers, bridge-drives, and cotillons. You can read the periodical literature of the world while reclining on upholstery from the most expensive houses in Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. You have a post-office, a telegraph-office, and a telephone; pianos, pianolas, and musical-boxes. You go up to bed in a lift, and come down again to lunch in one. You need only ring a bell, and a specially trained man in clothes more glittering than yours will answer you softly in any language you please, and do anything you want except carry you bodily.. . . And on the other side of a pane of glass is the white peak, the virgin glacier, twenty degrees of frost, starvation, death—and Nature as obdurate as she was ten thousand years ago. Within the grand hotel civilisation is so powerful that it governs the very colour of your necktie of an evening. Without it, cut off from it, in those mountains you would be fighting your fellows for existence according to the codes of primitive humanity. Put your nose against the dark window, after dinner, while the band is soothing your digestion with a waltz, and in the distance you may see a greenish light. It is a star. And a little below it you may see a yellow light glimmering. It is another grand hotel, by day generally invisible, another eyrie de luxe.
You go home and calmly say that you have been staying at the Grand Hotel Blank. But does it ever occur to you to wonder how it was all done? Does it ever occur to you that orchestras, lampshades, fresh eggs, fresh fish, vanilla ices, champagne, and cut flowers do not grow on snow-wreathed crags? You have not been staying in a hotel, but in a miracle of seven storeys. In the sub-basement lie the wines. In the basement women are for ever washing linen and men for ever cooking. On the ground-floor all is eating and drinking and rhythm. Then come five storeys of slumber; and above that the attics where the tips are divided.
In judging the hotel on the landscape, you must thus imaginatively realise what it is and what it means.
The eye needs to be trained before it can look seeingly at a grand hotel and disengage its beauty from the mists and distortions which prejudice has created. This age (like any other age, for the matter of that) has so little confidence in itself that it cannot believe that it has created anything beautiful. It is incapable of conceiving that an insurance office may be beautiful. It is convinced, with the late Sir William Harcourt, that New Scotland Yard is a monstrosity. It talks of the cost, not of the beauty, of the Piccadilly Hotel. No doubt the Romans, who were nevertheless a sound artistic race of the second rank, talked of the cost (in slaves) of their aqueducts, and would have been puzzled could they have seen us staring at the imperfect remains of the said aqueducts as interesting works of art. The notion that a hotel, even the most comfortable, is anything but a blot on the landscape, has probably never yet occurred to a single one of the thousands of dilettanti who wander restlessly over the face of Europe admiring architecture and scenery. Hotels as visual objects are condemned offhand, without leave to appeal, unheard, or rather unseen—I mean really unseen.
For several weeks, once, I passed daily in the vicinity of a huge modern caravanserai, which stood by itself on a mountain side in Switzerland; and my attitude towards that hotel was as abusive and violent as Ruskin’s towards railways. And then one evening, early, in the middle dusk, I came across it unexpectedly, when I was not prepared for it: it took me unawares and suddenly conquered me. I saw it in the mass, rising in an immense, irregular rectangle out of a floor of snow and a background of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What I saw was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, as one organism and entity. Only its eight floors were indicated by illuminated windows, and behind those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense of its lifts continually ascending and descending. The apparition was impressive, poetic, almost overwhelming. It was of a piece with the mountains. It had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It was indubitably and movingly ground of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What I saw was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, as one organism and entity. Only its eight floors were indicated by illuminated windows, and behind those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense of its lifts continually ascending and descending. The apparition was impressive, poetic, almost overwhelming. It was of a piece with the mountains. It had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It was indubitably and movingly beautiful. My eye had been opened; the training had been begun.
I expected, naturally, that the next morning I should see the hotel again in its original ugliness. But no! My view of it had been permanently altered. I had glimpsed the secret of the true manner of seeing a grand hotel. A grand hotel must be seen grandiosely—that is to say, it must be seen with a large sweep of the eye, and from a distance, and while the eye is upon its form the brain must appreciate its moral significance; for the one explains the other. You do not examine Mont Blanc or an oil painting by Turner with a microscope, and you must not look at a grand hotel as you would look at a marble fountain or a miniature.
Since the crepuscular hour above described, I have learnt to observe sympathetically the physiognomy of grand hotels, and I have discovered a new source of æsthetic pleasure. I remember on a morning in autumn, standing on a suspension bridge over the Dordogne and gazing at a feudal castle perched on a pre-feudal crag. I could not decide whether the feudal castle or the suspension bridge was the more romantic fact (for I am so constituted as to see the phenomena of the nineteenth century with the vision of the twenty-third), but the feudal castle, silhouetted against the flank of a great hill that shimmered in the sunshine, had an extraordinary beauty—moral as well as physical, possibly more moral than physical. As architecture it could not compare with the Parthenon or New Scotland Yard. But it was far from ugly, and it had an exquisite rightness in the landscape. I understood that it had been put precisely there because that was the unique place for it. And I understood that its turrets and windows and roofs and walls had been constructed precisely as they were constructed because a whole series of complicated ends had to be attained which could have been attained in no other way. Here was a simple result of an unaffected human activity which had endeavoured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, while succeeding, had succeeded also in producing a work of art that gave pleasure to a mind entirely unfeudal. A feudal castle on a crag as impossible to climb as to descend is, and always was, exotic, artificial, and against nature—like every effort of man!—but it does, and always did, contribute to the happiness of peoples.
Similarly I remember, on a morning in winter, standing on a wild country, road, gazing at another castle perched on a pre-feudal crag. But this castle was about fifteen times as big as the former one, and the crag had its earthy foot in a lake about a mile below. The scale of everything was terrifically larger. Still, the two castles, seen at proportionate distances, bore a strange, disconcerting, resemblance the one to the other. The architecture of the second, as of the first, would not compare with the Parthenon or New Scotland Yard. But it was not ugly. And assuredly it had an exquisite rightness in the landscape. I understood, far better than in the former instance, that it had been put precisely where it was, because no other spot would have been so suited to its purposes; its geographical relation to the sun and the lake and the mountains had been perfectly adjusted. I understood profoundly the meaning of all those rows of windows and all those balconies facing the south and southeast. I understood profoundly the intention of the great glazed box at the base of the castle. I could read the words that the wreath of smoke from behind the turreted roof was writing on the slate of the sky, and those words were “Chauffage central” From the façades I could construct the plan and arrangement of the interior of the castle. I could instantly decide which of its two hundred chambers were the costliest, and which would be the last to be occupied and the first to be left. I could feel the valves of its heart rising and falling. Here was the simple result of an unaffected human activity, which had endeavoured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, while succeeding, had succeeded also in giving pleasure to a mind representative of the twenty-third century. A grand hotel on a crag as impossible to climb as to descend is, and always will be, exotic, artificial, and against nature—like every effort of man! Why should a man want to leave that pancake, England, and reside for weeks at a time in dizzy altitudes in order to stare at mountains and propel himself over snow and ice by means of skis, skates, sledges, and other unnatural dodges? No one knows. But the ultimate sequel, gathered up and symbolised in the grand hotel, contributes to the happiness of peoples and gives joy to the eye that is not afflicted with moral cataract.
And I am under no compulsion to confine myself to Switzerland. I do not object to go to the other extreme and flit to the Sahara. Who that from afar off in the Algerian desert has seen the white tower of the Royal Hotel at Biskra, oasis of a hundred thousand palm-trees and twenty grand hotels, will deny either its moral or its physical beauty in that tremendously beautiful landscape?
Conceivably, the judgment against hotel architecture was fatally biassed in its origin by the horrible libels pictured on hotel notepapers.
In estimating the architecture of hotels, it must be borne in mind that they constitute the sole genuine contribution made by the modern epoch to the real history of architecture. The last previous contribution took the shape of railway stations, which, until the erection of the Lyons and the Orleans stations in Paris—about seventy years after the birth of stations—were almost without exception desolate failures. It will not be seriously argued, I suppose, that the first twenty years of grand hotels have added as much ugliness to the world’s stock of ugliness as the first twenty years of railway stations. If there exists a grand hotel as direfully squalid as King’s Cross Station (palace of an undertaking with a capital of over sixty millions sterling) I should like to see it. Hotel architecture is the outcome of a new feature in the activity of society, and this fact must be taken into account. When a new grand hotel takes a page of a daily paper to announce itself as the “last word” of hotels—what it means is, roughly, the “first word,” as distinguished from inarticulate babbling.
Of course it is based on strictly utilitarian principles—and rightly. Even when the grand hotel blossoms into rich ornamentation, the aim is not beauty, but the attracting of clients. And the practical conditions, the shackles of utility, in which the architecture of hotels has to evolve, are extremely severe and galling. In the end this will probably lead to a finer form of beauty than would otherwise have been achieved. In the first place a grand hotel, especially when it is situated “on the landscape,” can have only one authentic face, and to this face the other three must be sacrificed. Already many hotels advertise that every bedroom without exception looks south, or at any rate looks direct at whatever prospect the visitors have come to look at. This means that the hotel must have length without depth—that it must be a sort of vast wall pierced with windows. Further, the democratic quality of the social microcosm of a hotel necessitates an external monotony of detail. In general, all the rooms on each floor must resemble each other, possessing the same advantages. If one has a balcony, all must have balconies. There must be no sacrificing of the amenities of a room here and there to demands of variety or balance in the elevation. Again, the hotel must be relatively lofty—not because of lack of space, but to facilitate a complex service. The kitchens of Buckingham Palace may be a quarter of a mile from the dining-room, and people will say, “How wonderful!” But if a pot of tea had to be carried a quarter of a mile in a grand hotel, from the kitchen to a bedroom, people would say, “How absurd!” or, “How stewed!” The “layer” system of architecture is from all points of view indispensable to the grand hotel, and its scenic disadvantages must be met by the exercise of ingenuity. There are other problems confronting the hotel architecture, such as the fitting together of very large public rooms with very small private rooms, and the obligation to minimise externally a whole vital department of the hotel (the kitchens, etc.); and I conceive that these problems are perhaps not the least exasperating.
From the utilitarian standpoint the architect of hotels has unquestionably succeeded. The latest hotels are admirably planned; and a good plan cannot result in an elevation entirely bad. One might say, indeed, that a good plan implies an elevation good in, at any rate, elementals. Save that bedrooms are seldom sound-proof, and that they are nearly always too long for their breadth (the reason is obvious), not much fault can be found with the practical features of the newest hotel architecture. In essential matters hotel architecture is good. You may dissolve in ecstasy before the façade of the Chateau de Chambord; but it is certainly the whited sepulchre of sacrificed comfort, health, and practicability. There also, but from a different and a less defensible cause, and to a different and not a better end, the importance of the main front rides roughly over numerous other considerations. In skilful planning no architecture of any period equals ours; and ours is the architecture of grand hotels.
The beholder, before abruptly condemning that uniformity of feature which is the chief characteristic of the hotel on the landscape, must reflect that this is the natural outer expression of the spirit and needs of the hotel, and that it neither can be nor ought to be disguised. It is of the very essence of the building. It may be very slightly relieved by the employment of certain devices of grouping—as some architects in the United States have shown—but it must remain patent and paramount; and the ultimate beauty of more advanced styles will undoubtedly spring from it and, in a minor degree, from the other inner conditions to which I have referred. And even when the ultimate beauty has been accomplished the same thing will come to pass as has always come to pass in the gradual progress of schools of architecture. The pendulum will swing too far, and the best critics of those future days will point to the primitive erections of the early twentieth century and affirm that there has been a decadence since then, and that if the virtue of architecture is to be maintained inspiration must be sought by returning to the first models, when men did not consciously think of beauty, but produced beauty unawares!
It was ever thus.
The salvation of hotel architecture, up to this present, is that the grand hotel on the landscape, in nineteen cases out of twenty, is remuneratively occupied only during some three or four months in the year. Which means that the annual interest on capital expenditure must be earned in that brief period. Which in turn means that architects have no money to squander on ornament in an age notorious for its bad ornament. If the architect of the grand hotel were as little disturbed by the question of dividends as Francis the First was in creating his Chambord and other marvels, the consequences might have been offensive even to the sympathetic eye.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the hotel architect may flatter himself that he has suddenly given architecture to a country which had none. This is a highly curious phenomenon. “Next door” to the grand hotel which so surprised me in the twilight is another human habitation, fairly representative of all the non-hotel architecture on the Swiss countryside. It is quaint, and it would not hurt a fly. But surely the grand hotel is man’s more fitting answer to the challenge of the mountains?