Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/825

 1869.] Penn Square for the Municipal Buildings. 667 made, in the name of liberty, through- out the Christian world, to elevate the working-classes, is fast educating the masses in the belief, that capital is an- tagonistic to labor ; and that labor must organize politically for defence, or ag- gression, as the circumstances may arise. The whole tendency of events is towards agrarianism in its most ob- noxious shape. The prudent mariner prepares his vessel for the coming storm ; and those who manage the various ships of state must exercise the greatest care and judgment to provide against the coming conflict. The " Value of Man " will be the great question, for political economists to solve, as the labor of the world intends to determine and regulate the value of gold, as compared w.th the sweat of the laborer's brow. PENN SQUARE FOE THE MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS. By H. M. B. PENN SQUARE is the only spot for the New Court Houses, the Mu- nicipal Offices, and the City Hall ; and these will be there erected, if the will of the people is obeyed. It seems almost incredible, that, in this nineteenth centuiy, the age of intel- ligence, improvement, and progress, we find so many men with dwarfed and nar- row intellects sitting in high places, a clog to advancement, an incubus to the grand and rapid march oiiM'ard of a city, destined soon to eclipse the most popu- lous on this continent. It requires a liberal and extended view, a broad and expansive comprehen- sion of the wants of a people, to decide upon the erection of municipal improve- ments, intended, not for the present merely, but for the use of centuries to come. A man must be able to discern, through the dim vista of the future, the magnitude of the requirements of pos- terity. Instead of comparing what has been sufficient, with what is now re- quired, he must compare the present requirements with a calculation based on fifty years hence [as it were foolish for any one to do otherwise] and then project a building to be super-adequate at that time. At the present ratio of increase, in this city, it requires no mean order of intellect, to arrange a plan for such a building. It is necessary, even in that view of the case, to have ample grounds adjacent for additional improve- ments. There are men, in this community, whose minds can first conceive such a building, then plan it, and finally make, of wood and stone, a practical realiza- tion of their ideal. And should we, who boast so much of our beautiful city, its magnificence, and wealth, build in an inferior order of architecture ? Shall we sacrifice to parsimony an opportunity offered us to build an edifice that may out-rival Michael Angelo's grandest dream of magnificence ? Heaven forbid ! Let us wake up the slumbering genius of our architects, and, in this century, erect a building that will shame the an- tiquities of Greece and Rome, that will exceed the vastness of the past, and transmit to posterity the glory of the age in which we live immortalized in our works. And where can we erect such a build- ing? The ground must be spacious; and the view must be unobstructed. It must be at the junction of some great spacious thoroughfares, giving to the beholder an extended view. No place is so appropriate, as Penn Square, at the junction of two of the widest streets in the city: Market street extending from the Delaware to the Schuylkill, the great centre of traffic, and the main art-