Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/41

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THE NEW WEST POINT.
37

additional academic accommodations; the new chapel—decidedly the most ornate and conspicuous of the new buildings—lifted upon a spur of the hills overlooking the plain. The barracks also will be kept, with material additions and changes needed for the housing of the increased number of cadets. To the north of the Cullum Memorial and balancing the officers' mess-hall will be located a building for use as bachelors' quarters, of the same Georgian style of architecture.

The enmity of styles, as far as possible, will be propitiated, one blending with the other, without actually mingling, masses of foliage serving to keep a measure of peace between them. Where the hotel now stands it is proposed to erect the quarters of the superintendent, the present battle monument duplicated on the right of what may be termed the major axis of the scenic system. The avenue now existing vistas upon the center of academic life, while other avenues will be made to radiate from here, across the plain, sweeping down the hillside.

The approach to the academy will probably be completely altered; the landing either from railway or boats being made not only commodious but imposing. Access to the high level will be as now by means of a gently winding ramp, while a large passenger elevator will conduct to a public square, to the restaurant and hotel; these being located where they vsdll be apart from the real activities of either academic or military life, and yet conducing more readily to the convenience and comfort of visitors. From the south, the post will be approached through elaborate arched gateways, with appropriate towers, the strongest emphasis being placed upon this prime avenue, while between the two sections of the academy will be a monumental arch, to be adorned with statues and memorials.

As seen from the river the riding-hall, greatly enlarged, will be the most imposing of structures, rising as it will from the perpendicular crags, growing out of them and seeming a part of them, buttressed on front and flank and crowned with a line of battlements. Above will rise the fine elevation of the post headquarters, which will form also a striking background from the southern approach.

The dominant style of the construction will be the Gothic, not American architecture as it has grown pliant and flexible from the studiously archeological, but suggestive of the ascendant impulses of formality of former British models. The material will be generally stone, treated with greater or less elaboration, according to the value pictorially of the buildings, due harmony being preserved or achieved by judicious alterations in effect. Several of the minor structures will be of red brick in Flemish bond, trimmed with stone.

Perhaps the most difficult problem was that of the judicious enlargement of the cadet barracks, to accommodate double or more the