There are public buildings to be found arranged on what may be called
the rabbit warren system, in which perhaps a great number of apartments
are got upon the ground, but which the visitor is obliged laboriously to
learn before he can find his way about them. That is not only
inconvenient but inartistic planning, and shows a want of logic and
consideration, and, in addition to this, a want of feeling for artistic
effect. I saw not long ago, for instance, in a set of competitive
designs for an important public building, a design exhibiting a great
deal of grace and elegance in the exterior architectural embellishment,
but in which the principal entrance led right up to a blank wall facing
the entrance, and the spectator had to turn aside to the left and then
to the right before finding himself on the principal axis of the plan.
That is what I should call inartistic or unarchitectural planning. The
building may be just as convenient when you once know its dodges, but it
does not appear so, and it loses the great effect of direct vista and
climax.
An able architect, who had given much thought to a plan of a large
building of this kind, said to me, in showing me his plan, with a
justifiable gratification in it, "It has cost me endless trouble, but it
is a satisfaction to feel that you have got a plan with backbone in it.
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