Of Banks and Insurance Buildings we certainly have a large number which are to all intents fire-proof, though but few are thoroughly so. It is generally admitted that such buildings are not in danger from their contents, and to this belief may be ascribed the fact that we already have so many of this class. The Continental Bank, the American Exchange Bank, the Mutual Life Insurance Company’s building, the Park Bank, and the City Bank building, recently remodeled, are absolutely fire-proof. Nothing less than a bonfire of all the furniture, books, and papers that could be collected together in any one room of any of these buildings would endanger its destruction. They are safe from any ordinary casualty. But in all the rest there is enough wood-work to make the word “fire-proof,” as applied to them, of very doubtful significance. To show what a practical eye the Insurance Companies have, let me say that in nearly all the so-called fire-proof bank buddings the rates of insurance are as high as in ordinary business buildings. The rates are unusually high in the building which I happen to occupy, on account of a well hole in the centre which is trimmed with wood, and would carry a fire through the whole building in an instant. What I might say in relation to buildings of this class will be comprised in some practical suggestions upon fire-proof buildings generally. Let us then look for a few moments into the matter of constructive details.
And, firstly, how shall floors be constructed? Before the “iron period,” when our Washington Capitol, our City Hall, our old Exchange and Custom House were built, the Roman Mediæval vaults only, were used—either of stone or of brick plastered. When the width of a room was too great for one span, granite columns or brick piers were used, as in our old Exchange, now the Custom house. The floors above the vaults were leveled up and paved with flags or marble tiles. As far as grace, strength and absolute relief from the dangers of fire were concerned, this was a perfect system. But now space is demanded; there must be no more heavy piers and no great thickness of floors. We are therefore forced to use a material which, though not combustible of itself, will do little work if exposed to great heat; and in this is seen the great difference between our fire-proof buildings of the brick period and those of the iron period, and the inferior fire-proof qualities of the latter. The problem now is, to use the minimum of brick and the maximum of iron. I think, therefore, it must be conceded that with the best we can do with this material, there is danger; and the problem might be put thus: “Given Iron, make as nearly fire-proof buildings as possible out of it.” What, then, has been done with it thus far? For columns, we have used cast tubes of all shapes and sizes and the wrought-iron pillars of the Phoenix Iron Company; for girders, we have used compound beams of cast-iron, with wrought ties—built up beams of various forms of rolled and plate iron, bolted and riveted together—and common rolled beams, used double; for floor beams we first used deck beams for wide spans and railroad iron for narrow spans; these have now been superseded by the I beam of various sizes. The Rolling Mills now have on their circulars I beams of great dimensions and suitable for girders, but refuse to fill any but large orders; indeed, I believe that only one mill has rollers for beams larger than thirteen inches, while the others will not put up machinery until they get large enough offers. So we are thus far deprived of large smooth beams of one piece, for girders of long span—beams which no one would desire to hide from view, but which might honestly tell their use to every beholder. For supports between beams we have had Peter Cooper’s terra cotta pots and the four inch brick arches. The former are out of use and the latter are almost universally employed. Corrugated iron—first used in the Columbian Insurance building by Mr. Diaper—has also gone out of use. The destruction of the Fulton Bank, a so-called fire-proof building, sealed its fate as far as floors are concerned.[B] We have also had the experiment of stone floors in the American Exchange Bank, by Mr. Eidlitz, and repeated by another architect in the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Building, at Newark, N. J. The stone slabs, brick arches, and the Parisian floors—of plaster or concrete, bedded upon bar iron gratings inserted between the beams—are the only practical systems of fire-proof floor construction, now in use. The only attempt to lay the floor on the beams, of which I have knowledge, is in the sugar house above mentioned. This has suggested to me several methods of laying rigid floors upon beams at considerable spaces (three to five feet) from one another. Preliminary to so doing, I have above suggested the revival of the deck beam, or the I beam with a better form for the bottom flange, and the adoption of cast-iron shoes for the bearings.
The objections to the brick arches are that their great weight requires heavier beams than would otherwise be used, and that the form of their soffits is not beautiful; for they have the appearance of a long succession of little wagon vaults, requiring a resort to the doubtful expedient of furring the ceiling with iron lath. I think it might be objected to the French system of floors, that the expense would be too great, plaster being a dear article with us in comparison with its price in France, while our own cement has not the requisite properties to enable it to be substituted, besides being almost equally costly. The stone slabs, of Mr. Eidlitz, are the only rigid material thus far used successfully with iron beams, and could be used to better advantage if laid on the beams rather than resting upon their lower flanges, as is done in the American Exchange Bank. They are doubtless the handsomest material that can be used for this purpose, but are open to the objection of being heavy and expensive—where expense is a question, and utility only is sought—requiring heavy beams and calling for elaborate cutting on the under side. It will be pertinent to our inquiry, therefore, to ask if there are any other rigid materials adaptable to this purpose, and possessing the desired quality of lightness and cheapness. A former draughtsman of mine, now a member of the Institute, first suggested the use of slabs of slate, about two inches in thickness, for spans of four feet, and thicker or thinner in proportion to the distance of the beams from centres. I give his suggestion for what it is worth. But it led me to believe that we would eventually come to cast-iron as the practicable material for this purpose, possessing the requisite qualities of lightness and cheapness and capable of being bolted to the beams, thus answering all the purposes of flooring and bridging. Cast-iron plates may be used for flooring in two ways; first, when deafening and finished floor covering are required; second, when neither is required, as in manufacturing buildings, wherein a reasonably smooth flooring is required, and a few planks, laid where workmen habitually stand, will answer the purpose of non-conductors of heat. Experiment must determine the minimum quantity of iron (in proportion to the strength required) to be used in the floor plates. In obtaining the proper form for strength, and to ensure true castings, the bottoms of the plates will naturally be covered with raised flanges, except at the edges, where they bear on the beams. These flanges or ribs may assume a decorative form, either a plain diaper or a larger pattern to form a complete design for the ceiling when many of them are combined. By a judicious arrangement of the flanges the actual thickness of the iron may be reduced to three-eighths, or a quarter of an inch. When deafening is required, strengthening flanges may also be cast on top of the plates, and consequently the beams can be placed at wide intervals. The flanges on the top will then serve to keep the concrete, used for deafening, in its place, and avoid the cracks which might occur in a large surface of cement. The deafening may be of any thickness required, and will serve as a bed for the floor tiles. All that is then required for the underside is judicious decoration of the beams and floor plates. When deafening is not required, as in manufacturing buildings, the tops should be smooth. It has been objected by a manufacturer, to whom I explained this system of construction, that the floors of iron would be too cold for the feet of workmen. But it would be very easy to put down platforms of wood where the men habitually stand. Besides, when the lower story is heated, the stratum of hot air immediately under the ceiling would naturally keep the floor at a higher temperature than that of the air in the room, and the greater conductibility of the iron would rather tend to warm the feet of those who stand upon it. The plates, in all cases, being bolted to the flanges of the beams, would serve as bridging for the floors.
By the above-described construction of floors, I would attempt to get rid of the obnoxious and expensive iron lath, so generally used. But it is more difficult to avoid their use on side walls, when the walls are to be plastered—and let me say here, that there can be no excuse for plastering the side walls in a fire-proof building, except for economy’s sake. The easiest and by all means the cheapest expedient when plastering is required is to build four inch walls, secured to the main exterior walls by iron straps. These will not conflict with the building laws, provided you build your walls thick enough at the outset. There is, however, no better way in which to finish interior walls than to line them with stone or marble, or both combined. Where decorative effect is desired, I would use stone with marble panels. Our native quarries now afford stone light enough in color to set at rest all objections that may be made to its use on the score of light. But if those should hold good the material might be marble paneled with marble, the former white, and the latter colored. Obviously the cheapest material for wall covering in natural materials would be slabs of white marble. Let us then make some comparison of figures, and see what can be done with this material. Iron lath, of the form generally used, cost $1.25 per foot. Three coat plastering costs nine cents per foot. A responsible dealer in marble informs me that he will put up inch slabs of Italian veined or Vermont marble for one dollar and a half per foot. Which, then, would you choose, polished marble at $1.50, or plaster, as good in appearance as that in any tenement house, at $1.34? This is a fair comparison for exterior walls or ceilings. Italian marble slabs can be procured in any quantity, from eight to nine feet long and three feet wide. In a room fifteen feet high, allowing four feet for wainscot and two feet for cornice, you may line your walls with one length of marble.
What treatment do we now give to doors? We build brick jambs with wooden or iron lintels, as if we would trial the doors with wood. We then put up cast-iron jambs, rivet to their edges pilasters or architraves of the same material, and then surmount the whole perhaps, with a cast-iron cornice and pediment. Some have gone so far as to inlay the panels of the iron work with bits of colored marble, thus heightening the effect of the already rough finish of the iron, a roughness which the best foundrymen have been unable to prevent, and which, it would cost untold money to reduce down to the smoothness of ordinary work in pine wood. In one of our most pretentious houses on Fifth Avenue, they are now putting up jambs, architraves and cornices made of sawn slabs of marble or marble boards, in the same manner in which wood and iron have been used. And what does all this amount to? In the category of shams, there is no equal to this monstrous succession. You have imitated a Greek or Roman architrave and cornice by a wooden sham, your wooden sham has been imitated by an iron sham, your iron sham has been imitated by a marble sham; and what is the result? You have kept the form all along; you have come back to the original material by a succession of imitations, and have at last a shell without meat, marble carpentry instead of marble architecture. In all the stages of your attempt to revive the old forms, you have sham imitation of shams down to the final achievement of your carpenter in marble. Next must follow, I suppose, the imitation marble-vender, who will crown the whole fabric of shams and give you something which can as much be called architecture as Mr. Shoddy’s painted “red backs” and “blue backs” resemble standard literature. I offer no original suggestion to remedy this condition of affairs. Go back to your old Greek, go back to your old Roman models, if you like them, and seeing how they are built, go and do likewise; but spare us these sham contrivances. Set up your door posts and plant your lintel upon them, whether for exterior or interior use, and carve them to suit your fancy. They will be at least good so long as they be genuine and strong. Then figure up the cost of this kind of work, and see how much you have saved for your clients.
In conclusion, let me urge you to study diligently the various problems affecting this subject, which, in your experience, are continually offered for solution. In so doing, look mainly to a practical solution of the questions which may arise, and free yourselves from all consideration of so-called rules of art, which might control you. The development of architectural design was no less affected by local and circumstantial conditions, with the ancients, than it is with us; but the conditions at the present time are essentially different from, and decidedly more various than those which controlled our ancestors, whether of the classic or mediæval period. Whatever may have been achieved by art in those times, was the result of, and co-ordinate with the practical solution of problems then offered.
We have ignored the conditions which specially affect us, and the result is that our architecture, for whatever purpose, is without originality, and wholly irrational. As long as we allow ourselves to be governed by rules of art founded on the experience of the past, and precedents established by conditions which now do not exist, we need hope neither for good construction nor good art. The attempt to engraft the traditions of the past upon the practical work of this century has resulted in failures involving the waste of hundreds of millions of capital in this country alone; I might name from memory a score of buildings, many of them the most prominent, and all the most costly that have been erected, in proof of this assertion. I would commence with our national Capitol, in whose dome may be seen the most flagrant attempt in all modern time to perpetuate a traditionary style in a material entirely different from that in which the style was developed; so different that the foundations under it could not carry the superstructure, if it were erected of the material for which it would appear to have been designed; and for want of foundations of sufficient breadth, even to carry the iron work, it has been necessary to carry the whole exterior iron colonnade upon iron brackets, concealed beneath what appears to be the podium for the whole dome, but which is in reality a box of thin plates of cast-iron, secured to a light framework, built out over the roof of the building.
In erecting modern fire-proof buildings, especially in so far as iron work is concerned, all the conditions imposed upon the architect are different from those which existed in past ages. The same may be said of the use of iron in any building. Subserviency to style, when the material used is not such as was the controlling element of that style, is destructive to all good art; for there can be no truly artistic effect except that which is produced by the best use of material, and its decoration in best accordance with its nature. If the use of iron is ever to lead to the erection of buildings worthy of being called works of art, such a result must be attained only by the recognition of this principle.
The best thinkers have doubted whether there can be any such thing as architecture in iron, assuming, of course, that to be called architecture, the material must be constructively used; and there is good reason for these doubts. An iron building does not always require the force of gravity to maintain the cohesion of its parts; it possesses such properties that it may be swung in the air or balanced on a single point, if it is necessary so to do. It is a machine admitting of as little decoration as a steam engine or a printing press. If iron alone were used for buildings, constructive necessity and economy combined, might lead us to build houses like steam boilers or water tanks.
What has been done thus far toward the erection of iron buildings on constructive principles? We can only recur to the buildings of the Crystal Palace pattern. We had a beautiful one in New York, admirably constructed, and well designed for its purpose; but even that building was decorated in the Moresque style, perhaps as nearly appropriate to the material employed as any that could have been selected. Here originality in treatment failed, just where it was wanted. The same constructive principles were involved in the design of this building which would have been involved in the erection of a fire-proof building. In this respect it was a success.