"In earlier ages, architecture in the Western world was evolved to suit Church, State and aristocracy. In America, it turned to new tasks:

Buildings for commerce

Small homes for middle-class families

Parks and squares to make the cities habitable."

That's the first omnibus admission. Architecture, traditionally the grand representation of the spirit of a people, had, in America become separated from any public-inspired or culturally-attractive purposes, and had begun to lick the heels of business.

The bourgeoisie of any country, the ruling classes of any culture, have a perfect right to leave for posterity examples of their conception of beauty. That may be history's only consolation. But that art, like most of their business, begins to be criminal when millions of people have to suffer because of it.

The Met's exhibit tries to examine the main representation of American commercial architecture, the skyscraper. New York's monsters, the illuminated posters tell us, are the grandchildren of the Babylonian ziggurats, medieval siege towers, Notre Dame, and Christopher Wren's churches.

THE MET stresses that artistic tradition which gave birth to the first American skyscrapers- and the Met uses New York's Flatiron Building as the prototype. Certainly the Flatiron's architect was at least partly conscious of the heritage. He modeled the building after traditional towers and columns, separating it into three discrete sections: base, shaft and capital. Similarly, America's earliest settlers made a conscious effort to tap the main streams of Western architecture. Doric, Ionic and Corinthian pillars grace the front of many New England homes.

But the tradition did not grow from the soil. It was simply laid on the newly-discovered ground with the hope that it would take root. Mean- while, the kingdoms of production- Iron and steel among them- dug into the dirt and took over the garden like weeds. American business became extremely pragmatic, and consequently could no longer find purpose in the tradition.

Indeed, in very few places was the tradition ever more than mimicked anyway. The Western architectural conventions were transferred intact, without any thought to modify them to suit the environment. The only exceptions are relatively small, like the Spanish missions in California. Buildings were built like Greek temples and were used as banks: Gothic cathedrals grew up in downtown Manhattan.

Without any thought about purpose, buildings were transferred mindlessly to the New World, So behind the stylized show of solidarity with the conventions of centuries of Western culture, behind the false facades

of cast iron Greek columns that are displayed in the exhibit, America's real values began to take root insidiously. Corporate pragmatism was about to usurp the throne.

The Met's exhibit shows a picture of the newly-completed Flatiron Building meekly poking its head out of downtown New York at the turn of the century- somewhat like a shy, prematurely tall sixth grader. A proud New York in 1903 might well have boasted of the Flatiron Building and the subjugation of business to beauty. Just a little myopic, we would say.

Because even the Flatiron was largely determined by business considerations. It barely displays the tripartite divisions, and very clearly the building's owners, the Fuller Construction Company, wanted to squeeze as much business space as possible from the small triangular lot they owned.

And now the cousins of the Flatiron Building, like the new Trade Commission Building, sit like gigantic boxes on their square lots. They would never fit into any environment. The only reason the new ones are not totally ridiculous is that they take their place beside older, slightly smaller models of the same thing. Trans planted in any other city, they'd look like the Pru in Boston. For an experiment one day, look at Boston as you cross the Charles on the MTA, Cover the four or five skyscrapers with your hands and see how much closer to the land the red brick looks, clustered around the State House's gold dome.