BUILDING FRAGMENTS

Architectural Comparison

Although Horgan and Slattery, the architects of the Fiss, Doerr, & Carroll building, used steel trusses and window walls to provide the large, obstacle-free, light-flooded interior space required for the auction ring, they clad the lower portion of the building with stone in the form of the Ionic Order of architecture on pedestals superimposed on piers and arches. The use of these forms connected the building to the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome, to the revival of ancient forms in the Renaissance, and to the widespread use of classical forms throughout the world. The juxtaposition of expansive space enclosed with unadorned modern materials inside stone walls with traditional forms of architectural ornament is similar to that of McKim, Mead, and White's monumental Pennsylvania Station begun in 1906, the year this Fiss, Doerr, & Carroll building was completed, and also now lost where the steel and glass train shed was concealed by a façade articulated with the Doric Order.