Hull-House Highlights

"The Coffee Room at Hull House"
Immigrants Congregating in Coffee House, ca. 1900.

The accompanying illustrations of the interior of the new Hull House coffee-room needs to be observed by an eye somewhat sophisticated in the ways of photographs. By noticing the diminution of the furniture from the foreground to the inmost recesses of the picture, one becomes aware of a room that has an extensive long dimension, of which, however, only three-fourths is shown in the photograph. A line taken at right angles to this line of diminution will give the width – thirty feet – in its relation to the length.

In order to clear the ground for somewhat of a panegyric, it is necessary to admit that the new coffee-room – more in itself than in the illustration – contains details which even to a panegyrically inclined mind are indefensible. But while admitting the existence of these blemishes, which are serious enough viewed by themselves, they are yet almost neglectable quantities in view of a certain characteristic that the room possesses. This quality, which I wish to state as simply as possible, lies in the fact that the room is structurally what is seems to be, and that for the most part all charm of color and of texture proceeds directly from the actual structural material.

This seems such a rational thing to do, that it is necessary to remind ourselves that our usual custom is to build a very rough brick wall, and to cover its roughness with plaster, the unpleasant surface of which has in its turn to be covered with wall-paper or color decoration. In this interior the architects, Messrs. Pond and Pond, have eliminated this three-ply decoration, and have allowed the structural brick-work and the tile arches to speak for themselves. And very prettily they do so; with an accent that is clear and somewhat distinguished. In front of any structure that has a form which, culled from photographs of historical work, is merely the result of good selective judgment, one has the feeling that the object is very charming, and the knowledge that it might be equally so under any one of half a dozen other forms, also cullable from photographs. The spectator’s emotion on such occasions is that described by Bunthorne as modified rapture. Mere selection of this sort might have endowed the coffee-room with a full equipment of caissons, volutes, and pediments, and a full-fledged classic ap- [end page 107] pearance, for instance; and the resulting rapture would, undoubtedly have been largely modified, first by the query, “Why classic?” and after by competing visions of a renaissance, a Gothic, or even a rococo coffee-room. But when the ultimate appearance, as in the major part of this example, is not something selected and nailed on, but proceeds from an indigenous quality of the structure, the emphasis and bringing out of which seems to be not only a good line of conduct, but to be the only one; when the charm is integral to the structure – then there is no dissipation of the attention over the tinted possibilities of alternative appearances, but instead, that direct aesthetic satisfaction which nothing but a lack of alternatives can give. Criticism may then concern itself with the degree to which this integration has been carried out; but in the present case, in view of the fine dominating motive, such analysis might easily become captiousness.

To sum up, the aesthetic quality is derived form the color and texture and disposition of the actual constituent material. The bricks and the terra-cotta blocks have each an evident function ability, usually recognized, and an aesthetic quality, usually disregarded, especially for interior work, and the finished appearance has been achieved by allowing these aesthetic qualities to build up the aesthetic structure, just as the structural qualities were used for the material edifice. Considered in connection with the three-ply system, it is what I should call decorative integration, [end page 108] or a perfecting that which is; as opposed to applied decoration, or a covering of the unpleasant by something frequently more unpleasant still. This has resulted in a room which is a singularly good and unaffected one. The social advantage of such a restaurant, in a neighborhood which has had, as is usual in dense groups of the public, no accommodation whatever of a dignified public nature, is too obvious to need remark. [ends on page 109]

George M. R. Twose, “The Coffee-Room at Hull House,” The House Beautiful VII, no. 2 (January 1900): 107-9.

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