Arts and Letters

Arthur Brown, Jr., architect, of San Francisco, died on July 7th, 1957. I am delighted to have this opportunity to pay tribute to this distinguished architect who was my close friend for over sixty years and whom I esteemed highly. This will, of necessity, be a rather personal tribute.

We first met in Paris, where I went to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the fall of 1898. I joined the atelier of Monsieur Victor Laloux, then considered the foremost architect in France, where Arthur Brown had been a pupil for nearly a year and had established a well-deserved reputation as designer and draftsman, a reputation which followed him the rest of his career among those who still believe in the scholastic approach to the art of architecture. He won many coveted prizes at the school. He was never an innovator but a devoted and accomplished student of the classical tradition. Unfortunately, too few of us in the East have had the opportunity of seeing his executed works, which abound in California, but his reputation in the West was widespread and led to his appointment on many committees in the East; notably on Mr. Mellon's Board of Architectural Consultants, the members of which designed the buildings which made up the so-called "Triangle" in Washington—now frowned upon by the more modern critics.

But to revert to our European days, Arthur was one of a small group who shared with me an apartment at No. 18 rue Bonaparte, where we came in daily contact. When he and I had received our diplomas from the school, we started off to explore Italy. We took train to Rome, where we spent over a month "slaving" in the mornings for our friend, Bigot, a graduate of our atelier, who had won the Prix de Rome and was far behind in the measured drawings he was supposed to send back to the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France. Arthur, with a pair of binoculars, made a supposedly measured drawing of the Farnesi Palace cornice; and I, from photographs, made a measured drawing of one of the temples at Paestum, which I never saw until many years later. These drawings now repose at the Institut in Paris. You can imagine what archaeological value they have! It was a wonderful month, working at the Villa Medici in the mornings and, in the afternoons; exploring with delight the wonders of Rome—not all architectural.

We then started on a tour of Northern Italy. There were few towns, large or small, that contained works of architectural merit which we failed to visit. Our trip was by train, carriage, and on foot; motors were scarce and far too expensive for students. The tour ended in Venice, where we lolled in gondolas or followed on foot the riches that that city has to offer. We stayed there for nearly a month and then returned to Paris to pack our belongings and leave for our native land. On this Italian trip we came to know each other's most intimate thoughts.

Arthur had a gift for friendship, largely because he had no reserve in talking about himself, and was always interested in what the other fellow had to offer. When in New York he spent many hours in talk at the Century Club, often until the bar closed. I wish our fellow members of the Academy had seen more of him at our gatherings; he died too soon after his election.

Arthur was an Associate Member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France; an officer of the Legion d'Honneur; and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He left as his monuments, to name only a few, the group of buildings known as the Civic Center and the Coit Tower—both in San Francisco; the Hoover Library at Leland Stanford University and the building for the Departments of Labor and Interstate Commerce on Constitution Avenue in Washington.