Compromise
Almost immediately, Furness's original vision was compromised as the company expanded. Within a couple years, a low, curved balcony was added at the rear, and another at the front beneath the great Gothic window, accessed by a spiral staircase to the banking floor and later from the building to the east. The bank was expanded north to Ranstead Street, the clerestory windows blocked, and a second balcony added at the rear. By 1888, the Provident had bought up all the adjacent properties to the east, and hired Furness, Evans & Company to build a 10-story office building.
Furness's Provident Building (1888–90) was a disappointment, a busy Bavarian fantasy attached to a model of creative rationalism. On its lower stories, he replicated the polychromatic materials of the bank and echoed the Gothic arch, but mostly the office building was ponderous and pretentious. Its steep, 3-story red-tile roof was matched by a new pyramidical roof for the bank's tower—a duncecap on what had been the brightest student. The office building's 1945 demolition (and the removal of the duncecap) enabled architects to look at the original bank anew.
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Famous quotes containing the word compromise:
“To achieve the larger goal of teaching her children consideration of others, a mother can tolerate some frustration of her own wishes, she can delay having what she wants, she can be flexible enough to compromise. And this is exactly what her child must also learn: that it is possible to survive frustration, it is possible to wait for what he wants, it is possible to compromise without capitulating.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“To win this war, we have been forced into a strategic compromise which will most certainly offend the Russians.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)