Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1916 — HOME TOWN HELPS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME TOWN HELPS

HIS VISION OF FUTURE CITY French Architect Sees Great Changes to Be Brought About In the Years to Come.

_ At a recent gathering of world-re-nowned architects Edouard Henard, architect fbr the city of Paris, presented a paper which included a number of novel suggest tons as to the requirements in the city plan of the future. He predicted that public service within the next quarter of a century will include many details not yet even under consideration. Most of these are to be supplied by tube and provision for a perfect network of service tubes must be made in city planning. They would seriously Interfere with present arrangements. Vacuum cleaning may lie one of these and It will require a pipe from every house for the pneumatic dust removal which will be as an essential part of public health work. As the uses of cold air increase, other tubes will supply it to lower the temperature as desired and for the distribution of fresh air from the sea or the mountains. Mr. Henard emphasized the feasibility of this fresh air supply as a health measure, because of the fact that a meter of fresh air from a nearby street contained 6,000 disease germs, while the same amount from the mountains or the sea need contain almost none. As coal oil is largely used for fuel purposes in Paris and is productive of less smoke and than other fuels, he suggests the possibility of an oil pipe service for all residences similar to the gas pipes now in use.

The old idea that the street should be level with the ground may in future be considered erroneous. It should be sufficiently above, the surface it is held, to give room for all these service utilities between it and the ground. The adjacent houses should have basement floors. The sidewalks and roadways should be built like continuous substantial bridges, which after proper construction. would not need .tp. be meddled . with except for repairs. They should be supported by walls of masonry parallel to the adjacent houses and on a level with the second story. Such a plan would make the modern city street two storied, the upper part for pedestrians and light weight vehicles, the lower for service and heavy traffic. This arrangement has already been introduced in "Chicago for traffic between the railway stations and certain private warehouses. Re-enforced concrete roofs, Mr. Henard holds, will provide gardens and also landing places for the aeroplanes which will come into more general use. Garages and hangars will be available below the surface and great elevators will lift these machines from their subterranean quarters as desired. The beginning of these innovations is said to be already in sight. At least one large American hotel has already provided a roof landing for aeroplanes. New York has now a public playground and garden built upon bridge trestling fifty feet from the ground.