Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 57.djvu/285

Rh Prof. F. W. Chandler, who at the same time is head of the Architectural Department of the city and member of the Fine Arts Commission, it has now attained a most enviable reputation. Institute students competed for several years for the prizes offered by the New York Société des Beaux Arts, and in each competition in which they entered they carried off the gold medal and the highest honors. In the three competitions of '94-'95, no less than seventy sets of drawings were submitted by all competitors. The two gold medals, four first mentions and two second mentions were awarded to Institute students. Of the nine designs sent from the Institute, six were placed by the jury among the first eight of the seventy designs submitted; two received second place and one was put out of competition because of too great deviation from the preliminary sketch. This great success is doubtless due to the rigorous training which the students receive in architectural design at the hands of Professor Despradelle, himself a graduate of the École des Beaux Arts, a winner of high honors in Paris, and of the third prize in the recent Phoebe Hearst world competition for the new buildings of the University of California, and within a few weeks the winner of the first medal in architecture in the Paris Salon of 1900. For three years the students are continually engaged upon architectural design, and the work of each student is examined and criticised before the class by a jury from the Boston Society of Architects. Students in architecture have also the opportunity, if they desire, of taking an option in architectural engineering, in which they are given a course in the theory and design of structures as rigid as that received by the students in civil engineering. The relations between architecture and engineering are exceedingly close and are becoming closer every year. The work of the architect, aside from the aesthetic design of his buildings, is becoming more and more like the work of the engineer, and requires a thorough knowledge of engineering construction.

During the past year, after very careful consideration, the faculty has also established an option in the course of architecture, devoted particularly to landscape architecture, including, besides a large amount of work in architecture proper, instruction in horticulture and landscape design, on the one hand, and in surveying, topographical drawing, drainage, etc., on the other hand. The landscape architect has heretofore had no opportunity to secure a thorough training in his profession, except by passing through an apprenticeship, as was formerly necessary in the older professions. On account of the steady increase in this country in the demand for trained landscape architects and the increasing attention which is now being paid by our municipalities to questions concerning public parks, and also by private individuals to the beautifying of private grounds, there seems now to be an unusual opportunity for young men to devote themselves to this branch of