Chapter II: The Modern Situation (1)

Following the trend of modern civilisation, architecture to-day, in so far as it is not continuing to imitate the past, is becoming, on the one hand, more cosmopolitan and, on the other, more individualistic. The free-trade in ideas, encouraged by travel and through the interchange of architectural magazines, is obliterating the distinctions of nationality. Moreover, the immense variety and the newness of problems that now confront the architect are tending toward a personal solution of them. They demand invention on his part and stimulate him to individual expression.

=The Student’s Attitude.=--Hitherto in this book we have studied the historic styles of architecture, in their origins and revivals; but, if it has served its purpose of awakening interest in the art, we shall for the future think less of styles and acquire the habit of studying a building very much as we study an individual. We do not estimate an individual, in the first analysis, at any rate, by comparing him with some worthy of history, but by his fitness to the present--the front he presents to society at large and his value in the specific part that he plays in the common life. Has he, for example, dignity and some other charm of character? Are his motives sincere? Does he possess the qualities that make his work not only well-intentioned but practically efficient, and so forth?

Similarly, we shall estimate a building not as a thing

Courtesy The Encyclopædia Britannica Company

SCOTLAND YARD, BY RICHARD NORMAN SHAW]

Courtesy of Architect, Wm Harmon Beers

WOODBURN HALL

RESIDENCE OF MRS. COOPER HEWITT, NEW WINDSOR, N. Y. P. 468]

© Detroit Publishing Co.

TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON

BY HENRY H. RICHARDSON. P. 462]

© J. G. Bragdon, Pittsburgh, Pa.

COUNTY BUILDINGS, PITTSBURGH

BY HENRY H. RICHARDSON. P. 462]

© Frank H Child Courtesy of Architect

THE BREAKERS, NEWPORT, R. I.

RESIDENCE OF CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, BY RICHARD MORRIS HUNT. P. 462]

© The American Architect. Courtesy Architects, Carrere & Hastings

DETAIL OF RESIDENCE OF MR. THOMAS HASTINGS

WESTBURY, LONG ISLAND. P. 468]

BY LOUIS H. SULLIVAN. A DESIGN THAT ASSERTS THE HEIGHT AND UPWARD GROWTH OF THE STRUCTURE. ONLY CENTRAL PART CARRIED TO FULL HEIGHT, SO AN ALL-AROUND CORNICE WAS POSSIBLE. P. 474]

Courtesy of Thompson-Starrett Co

WOOLWORTH BUILDING

BY CASS GILBERT. FIFTY-ONE STORIES. PP. 471, 476]

Courtesy of Thompson-Starrett Co.

STEEL CAGE CONSTRUCTION

SCENE IN LOWER NEW YORK; SPIRE OF TRINITY CHURCH IN THE FOREGROUND. P. 470]

apart from our lives, but as a product and expression of and a contribution to, the living present. We shall think of it in terms of life, as simulating the organic and functional qualities of a living thing. It will be all but a living thing, both as it takes its place amid the life of its surroundings and also as it serves the needs of life in its specific capacity.

Already we have thought of buildings as organic, as structures that have been built upon a well-considered plan, with parts that perform their individual functions in the common purpose. We have also noted that the character of the structure was affected by the actual methods of building and the material employed. We have learned to be critical on certain points. Was the plan a fit one for its purpose? Did the façades conform to or confuse or contradict the character of the plan? Did the design conform to the purpose of the building and the methods of construction, or was it, however handsome, in effect a sham? Was it overladen with arbitrary enrichments that had little or no relation to structure and were mainly or only designed for display? Did it sacrifice the necessities of the interior to merely æsthetic considerations?

And these processes of appreciation which we have acquired the habit of applying to buildings of the past, we have but to bring to bear upon the buildings of the present. For the architecture of to-day is true or false, good or bad, reasonable and admirable, not because it does or does not conform to such and such types, but because it succeeds or fails in meeting the practical and æsthetic requirements of to-day.

=Need of Public Appreciation of the Art.=--Hence the need of an intelligent appreciation of architecture on the part of the public. It is requisite for their own sake as well as for that of the architect. One of the great difficulties with which the latter has to contend is the ignorance and indifference not only of the public but also of official authorities. They do not give the sincere architect the encouragement of intelligent praise; they exercise no restraint upon the insincere and inefficient. They dismiss all responsibility for the result by “putting it up” to the “expert.” Architecture, in consequence, is liable to be regarded not as an art but merely as a profession. Thus aid and encouragement are given to those architects who practise it mainly or solely as a “business proposition.”

And in these days the responsibility of the public is more necessary than it ever was. For the problems of architecture are so infinitely more various and exacting, that they demand for their successful solution the co-operation of the layman. But, although people profess democratic ideas, they act in the matter of architecture as though they were living in aristocratic times, when respect was paid to birth, and not in times when we are trying to cultivate respect for common humanity. To-day, if we are true to our professed ideals, the tenement house of the worker is as important in the social scheme as the palace of the rich or the country house of the well-to-do. And it should be a subject of public concern.

Or, to consider another of the many new types demanded by modern conditions--the factory. It must meet the need of the specific industry. That is its utilitarian necessity. But there is also the humanitarian necessity that it shall be a fit place for the men and women who spend in it one-half of their waking lives. And, again, there is what we may call the communal necessity, as it affects the outside lives of the community, that the factory shall not be a thing of ugliness or drear monotony, sordidly devastating the possible beauty of the locality. For we have advanced little in civilisation if we are content to substitute for the grim castle of the Middle Ages, surrounded by its huddle of retainers’ huts, a grim fortress of industry, entrenched amid the mean homes of men and women, not considered in their individual and collective capacity as human beings, but massed under the mechanical term--“operatives.”

And what is true of the factory is true of the retail shops and department stores, city markets, warehouses, docks, and watersides, and of the hundred and one varieties of need created by modern industry and commerce. It is also as true of the provision for the cultural needs of the community in churches, schools, colleges, libraries, and museums, as well as for needs of recreation and health--theatres, concert halls, moving picture houses, dance-halls, baths, hospitals and parks. But why attempt to enumerate the innumerable problems that modern life presents to the architect? The point is that all involve sociological considerations, affecting intimately the lives of common humanity. Architecture, in fact, when properly considered and practised, is the great democratic art, which through co-operation of artist and layman, may become one of the greatest means of human betterment. How essential, therefore, that the understanding and appreciation of it should be fostered by public education!

Since this is the purpose of the present book, which only incidentally has suggested the history of the art, it is not possible or necessary to attempt to cover the modern manifestation of it in all the countries. It must suffice to allude briefly to those of Great Britain and the United States, in which architectural activity has been conspicuous, though the results are widely different.

MODERN MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN

In Great Britain the modern tendency has been especially marked in the direction of independence and individuality. It began with certain movements, which perhaps might be more correctly styled fashions. There was the =Queen Anne= revival, which, although it involved much that was tricky and much gerrymandering in construction, drew renewed attention to the capabilities of brick and its suitability to the climate. Further, from the fact that it gained the popularity of a fashion, it encouraged the public to take some sort of interest in architecture. And this interest was further stimulated by the “Morris Movement.”

=William Morris’s Movement.=--It was the limitation of William Morris, that in his zeal for things Mediæval he had no toleration for any other forms of decoration. Moreover, he assumed that the art of the Middle Ages was created solely by craftsmen working in harmonious co-operation. He refused to believe that their work was controlled by a master designer and inveighed in general against architects as the cause of everything that is objectionable in subsequent architecture. In both respects, therefore, his influence was reactionary rather than helping forward. But, on the other hand, it has lasted and borne valuable fruit in promoting a regard for honest craftsmanship, on which he laid essential stress, and in reviving a recognition of the parts played by painting and sculpture and the decorative arts generally in alliance with architecture. Accordingly, one indirect result of Morris’s influence has been the increased attention given to the character and quality of simple masonry, a refreshing and salutary reaction from the notion that the interest of architecture depends on picturesque variety of detail and ornament. There was even a group of young architects who, inspired by Morris’s idea of craftsmanwork, sought to confine their designs to the simplest elements of building. They would be first, last, and all the time, builders; all precedents of architectural detail should be disregarded; they would confine themselves to the simplest abstractions of structural elements and out of these in time a new decorative vernacular might be evolved.

It is interesting to note the analogy between this aim and that of Matisse and others in painting. In both arts it represents a revolt against the sophistication and mechanicalism that are apt to result from the repetition of school-learned styles. It would dig away the surface and get down to the sub-soil, in which elemental principles are rooted, in order to encourage a growth that more nearly may conform to modern needs and ideals.

On the other hand, there is the obvious objection, too obvious by the way to be accepted as conclusive, that the past has so grown into the present, the inheritance has become so integral a part of present understanding and feeling, that one cannot eliminate it from one’s consciousness by taking thought, as one can strip one’s body of clothes. Meanwhile, although this argument seems plausible the fact remains that in painting, at any rate, many artists, ignoring argument in favour of actual doing, are clothing their ideas in new forms that are coming to seem reasonable to an increasing number of people.

=“Free Classic” Movement.=--However, many architects, accepting the inheritance of the past and yet themselves in revolt against the scholastic reproduction of the styles, initiated a movement in favour of what they called “Free Classic.” Their endeavour was to discover the elementals in a given style and to use them with flexible understanding and feeling and with free play, especially of decorative accessories. The first to give practical evidence of this idea was R. Norman Shaw, R. A., in the =New Zealand Chambers=, in Leadenhall Street, =London=, which were erected as far back as 1873.

It was an artist’s essay in personal liberation; the work of a man who, while he did not love the Classics less, loved life and his own participation in it more, who claimed for himself the artist’s birthright of personal expression and creativeness. Fortunately his adventure aroused considerable interest in the intelligent public, while other architects saw in it a promise of their own artistic deliverance. The result has been for Great Britain a genuine rebirth of architecture as a living and personal art. In no other country have the variety and versatility of our modern life been more freely expressed in its buildings. Not always happily, no doubt. The purist may point to some as “awful examples,” and thus seek to justify his belief in safe mediocrity rather than what he considers dangerous latitude. But the purist is not an individualist and Great Britain is individualistic, even to a fault. Therefore, what her architects are doing is racy of the country’s temperament--a thing commendable in itself. Meanwhile, there is an abundance of recent buildings in which reasonableness and adventure are happily united and a sound regard for the utilities and for structural logic are wedded to originality and taste.

In the past twenty-five years London, for example, has been transformed into one of the most architecturally impressive cities of Europe. And not in the way of aping in more or less perfunctory fashion the splendours of imperial Rome; but in a spirit of artistic individual enterprise, and with that courage even to make mistakes, provided the end be liberty, that befits the Metropolis of self-governing Dominions.

MODERN MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

Since the middle of the nineteenth century the United States has experienced an extraordinary activity in building. An unprecedented demand was created by the opening up of the West and the rapid increase of population and wealth, as well as by the destruction wrought by the great fires in Chicago and Boston. On the other hand, circumstances led to the development of a new method of construction--that of the “steel cage.” Meanwhile the new period discovered two architects--Richard Morris Hunt (1828-1895) and Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886)--whose influence had a marked effect upon the architectural development.

=Hunt and Richardson.=--The former, younger brother of W. M. Hunt, the painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1828; while Richardson, ten years his junior, was a native of Louisiana. Both received their training in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and by their influence established the vogue for that celebrated school which has so strongly affected architectural progress in America. When they returned home--Hunt in 1855 and Richardson in 1865--they brought back a thoroughly scientific training, already reinforced by practical experience in Paris. And the genius of the one complemented that of the other; for while both had a personal force that commanded attention and compelled respect, Hunt’s special faculty was executive and organising, while Richardson’s was more specifically that of the artist. Thus between them they established in the public mind the understanding of architecture as, not merely a process of building, but one of the Fine Arts, and also set the profession of architecture on a sound basis. For in 1885 Hunt took a prominent part in founding the American Institute of Architects, of which he was the first president.

Among his most important works are the =Theological Library= and =Marquand Chapel= at =Princeton University=; the =Divinity College= and =Scroll and Key House= at =Yale=; the =Lenox Library, New York=, since removed; the =New York residences= of =W. K. Vanderbilt= and =Henry G. Marquand=; George W. Vanderbilt’s country house at =Biltmore= and some of the palatial “cottages” at =Newport=, including “=Marble House=” and “=The Breakers=.” He also exhibited his genius for planning in the laying out of the =Metropolitan Museum of Arts= in =New York=.

Richardson took as his model the Romanesque of Southern France, but used it with so much freedom and adaptability that, it has been said, he came very near creating a style of his own. It is seen to best advantage in those examples in which he was unhindered by outside interference, especially in the =County Buildings= in =Pittsburgh= and =Trinity Church, Boston=. Both of these are distinguished by structural significance; dignity of mass, fine correlation of parts to the whole and by a decorative distinction that avoided alike the flamboyance of some of his earlier embellishment and the baldness of simplicity that characterised the work of some of his imitators. Other notable instances of his art are: =Sever Hall= and =Austin Hall=, =Harvard=; the =City Halls= of =Albany= and =Springfield=; the =Public Libraries= of =Woburn=, =North Easton=, =Quincy=, =Maiden= and =Burlington= and the =Chamber of Commerce, Cincinnati=.

While Richardson’s artistic seriousness and refined taste left a lasting impression, his selection of the Romanesque style, although it obtained some following, was abandoned in favour of the Roman and the Renaissance; the change being due to the way in which the subsequent American students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts reacted to its teaching.

=Beaux Arts Training.=--The “Beaux Arts” training is based upon the study of Greek, Roman, and Renaissance Styles. The Greek, within a limited range of building types, exhibits the most perfected relation of plan to elevation, of form to function; the most harmonious combination of mind and feeling. The Roman represents a genius of constructive logic and practical inventiveness in applying principles to a wide variety of problems. The Renaissance replaced constructive logic by a logic of taste and rehandled Roman details with a finesse of skill that was as subtle as the Greek. Moreover, the Greek, Roman, and Renaissance are (to use a modern word) _standardised_ styles; in which proportions have been calculated and the principles reduced to certain recognised relations of harmonious agreement. Thus they lend themselves to a more exactly determined kind of study than is possible with the Gothic, which more nearly corresponds to the free growths of nature, involving all the principles of structure and the elements of beauty, but with a freedom of application that makes formulation difficult.

Now the effects of this Beaux Arts training by no means always corresponds with its aim. The aim of the School, responding to the French aptitude for logical processes, is to teach the student to reason, to cultivate the habit of applying to every problem an independent and individual process of logic. He is taught to get down to the bone of any problem and discover its cleanest and simplest solution. The historic styles are treated not as models for imitation but rather as a grammar of principles and applications, by means of which the student may fit himself for original composition. The system, in a word, encourages originality and not imitation.

=Effect of Beaux Arts Training.=--Meanwhile, among the many architects in America whose names are associated with the “Beaux Arts,” only a minority is composed of actual graduates of the school. The remainder have availed themselves more or less of the courtesies that the school extends to foreign students; but have not enjoyed the exhaustive training in the direction of independent reasoning that it is the school’s purpose to impart. The result is that many of them acquired the habit, not of approaching the solution of each problem independently, but of becoming more or less intelligent and tactful adapters of Roman and Renaissance characteristics. In consequence of thus misrepresenting the aim of the Beaux Arts, the latter has incurred in this country the unjust charge of promoting imitation--the precise antithesis of what the school actually stands for. Accordingly, there has arisen a reaction against what is supposed to be the “Beaux Arts” influence.

In this reaction there is a possibility of less than justice being done to some of these quasi-Beaux-Arts architects. Many of them have been men of exceptionally fine taste. They raised the standard of taste in the community, accustomed the public to consider beauty as well as utility, and added greatly to the dignity and beauty of the externals of life. They played not only an excellent part but a necessary one in the evolution of architecture in America. They will be looked back to as the men of the transition, who established the recognition of architecture as an art, fostered higher standards of taste and compelled a public that was chiefly interested in commercial expansion to begin to regard art as an indispensable element in progress.

=Influence of Chicago Exposition.=--The opportunity of propagating these ideas on a large scale was furnished by the International Exposition at Chicago in 1892-93. Already the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876 had awakened manufacturers to a need of artistic design, if their products were to compete successfully with those of the older countries. Moreover, innumerable persons had found their imaginations stimulated by the varied display of the Department of Fine Arts. The ground was thus prepared for the organised effort in the direction of an object lesson in beauty, such as that of “The White City” at Chicago.

Here the Directors virtually gave free hand to the Committee of Architects, in the lay-out of the grounds and the disposition of all the buildings. The result was an ensemble on a scale, not only more magnificent than ever had been attempted before for such a purpose, but complete in its union of variety and harmony. It represented, on the one hand, what could be accomplished by the co-operation of the allied arts of landscape and garden design, architecture, sculpture, and painting, and, on the other, an extraordinary lesson in the desirability of beauty as a practical asset. The impression that it made was nation-wide. Everywhere the dry bones of indifference to beauty began to quicken into a living interest in beauty as the fit and natural expression of the nation’s progress in civilisation. It has found abundant activity during the past twenty-five years in Federal, State, Municipal, and commercial buildings, in the development of parks and boulevards and, more recently, in the increased attention given to the scientific and artistic planning of cities.

And this movement, which has transformed the character of public buildings, has worked as freely in the case of domestic buildings, and, on the whole, with more originality. For the principle of the movement has been _eclecticism_; the more or less intelligent adaptation of old styles to new needs; the styles especially followed being the Roman and the Italian Renaissance. The axiom of the body of men which had controlled the movement has been that it is safer and better to follow good models than to try to be original. And for the time being very possibly they were right. But this has always been the plea of eclectics, whenever and wherever they have occurred in the history of all the arts; and such eclecticism has always marked a transition period, leading up to a fresh outburst of original creativeness.

=Weakness of Imitation-Tendency.=--The immediate and great advantage to the architects of thus following old models has been, to establish, through the Roman, a familiarity with large problems of construction and, through the Italian Renaissance, a refinement of taste in the handling of details. Meanwhile, the disadvantage has been a tendency to take an excess of interest in merely stylistic considerations. The architect has often seemed more intent upon reproducing with taste an old style than upon adapting it to the practical needs of the living present.

It would be possible to point to libraries, for example, that have been designed with a view to beautiful exteriors rather than to that of storing and distributing books. The design has not grown out of the practical needs but has been more or less arbitrarily adopted for its own sake. The architectural principle of fitness has been violated. Furthermore, this preoccupation with the faithful reproduction of an old style has made a fetish of consistency. Everything in and out of the building must be “in the style.” The architect, being an imitator, compels all his co-operating artists to imitation. The painter must imitate such and such a style of mural decoration; the sculptor, such and such a style of sculptural embellishment. Sculptors and painters alike have been trained to forget that they might be interpreters of the life of the present and to work and feel in the manner of the past. The manner--not the spirit--for the spirit of the old decorators was keenly alive to the life of their own times. Hence these architects of the transition have done much to find employment for painters and sculptors, but practically nothing to promote the development of creative artists. Indeed, their influence in this respect has been quite the other way--retrogressive rather than progressive.

Possibly an even more flagrant illustration of this tendency is to be found in the palatial residences, erected during this period in town and country. So slavish was the insistence upon conformity, that the furniture and fittings had to be either antiques or imitations of antiques. The occupants of such houses were trained to be blind to the beauty of anything that was not in the style of their surroundings; and were forced to try to feel at home in surroundings of the past. Typical, possibly, is the story of the millionaire, who fled from his stylistic apartments to one of the attic bedrooms, provided for the servants, and fitted it up to suit his own ideas of comfort.

The result of all this has been that the majority of the rich, who might have been leaders of taste and played the part of Mycænas or Medici to the artists of to-day, have been the victims of an obsession, imposed upon them by architects, that has made them neglect and even discourage the art of the present. They have put a premium on antiques and a devastating discount on contemporary art. While bled by the speculators in antiques and near-antiques, they have doled out patronage, for the most part, only to those workers in metal, wood, and other fabrics who were willing or compelled by necessity to imitate. The idea of encouraging native art or of fostering the genius of some individual creator has been all but entirely overlooked. Creative genius has been stifled.

=Freer Tendency in Domestic Architecture.=--On the other hand, in the case of domestic buildings, erected during say, the past ten years, especially country houses, there are the evidences of a veritable renaissance of architectural art. It is due in a great measure to the improved taste of the community. A new generation has grown up which by travel and study has familiarised itself to a more or less extent with art and has come to think of art as an expression of life and, therefore, has desired to embody its sense of beauty in the home. Such people have co-operated with the architects who are no longer designing merely for them but also with them. The result has been an increased attention to the question of fitness; fitness of design to the character of the locality; to the conditions of climate and to the various needs and necessities arising out of the modern circumstances of living. To cite but one example: the problem of domestic help in America is so urgent that labour-saving considerations have affected the planning of the homes, tending to concentration rather than diffusion in the arrangement of rooms, service offices, staircases, and so-forth; and out of this organic lay-out of the interior a suitable exterior treatment has developed.

Thus, while the architect may still be adapting motives derived from old styles, he is no longer doing so for the main purpose of reproducing a given style; he has ceased to be a stylistic pedant. He adapts with flexibility and freedom; using a style in so far as it conforms to the character of his plan. The plan is his own creation and, if in the development of his design he feels the fitness of adapting, he adapts creatively. The result is that, since the domestic architecture of the past has been made to contribute to the needs of the present, a new kind of domestic architecture has been evolved in America, characterised by variety of design, originality of treatment, and, more and more, by a regard for that fitness to the special requirements of each problem, which is the foundation of every true advance in architectural design.

=Office Buildings.=--Side by side with this progress toward originality in domestic architecture has been a similar tendency in that of public buildings, especially the office building. The office building is distinctively a feature of American cities, because it grew out of conditions in certain cities which imperatively demanded some such expedient; and, having in these cases proved its fitness to business situations, has been adopted elsewhere. Though the earliest of these tall buildings, characteristically known as “sky-scrapers,” were erected in Chicago, the spot which now contains the greatest aggregation of them is Manhattan Island, the section of New York City bounded by the North, East, and Harlem Rivers, in which the business of the city is concentrated.

In the situation thus existing was an area, limited in size and incapable of being enlarged, while the business demands upon it were continually expanding, in the way both of increased accommodation and adequate financial return upon the value and cost of the land. It was impossible to meet these conditions by spreading out laterally; the only alternative was to build skyward. By the time the necessity of this was realised, two inventions made it practicable--an improved method of rolling steel and the development of elevator connection. The problem of accessibility was solved by the latter; that of economical and efficient construction by the former. Accordingly, once again, as so often in the history of architecture, practical expediency, methods of building, and the material employed were operative in evolving a new kind of form.

=“Steel-Cage” Construction.=--The method of building is that of the so-called “steel-cage” construction: a new application of the principle of “post and beam” construction, in which the vertical and horizontal members are composed of steel and riveted together. The foundation posts are anchored to the ground, which in the case of Manhattan Island mostly consists of a very hard species of rock. The posts are connected at the top by cross beams, thus forming the skeleton frame of a complete story, upon which other similar skeleton stories are erected, their number varying up to the present extreme in the =Woolworth Building=, of fifty-one stories. This mode of construction does away with the necessity of external buttressing; the strain is one of tension on the ground, the problem of wind pressure being met by the introduction of interior cross-braces. By this system also the downward pressure is distributed throughout the several stories, each carrying its own weight of exterior and interior walls; so that, in the process of construction it is not unusual to see some of the upper stories apparently completed, while lower ones are still in a skeleton state, awaiting the arrival of the material that is to sheathe them.

The character of the sheathing, representing the design of the building from the outside, will be considered presently, for of primary and essential importance is the character of the interior. Here is manifested at its highest the creative originality of the American architect in constructive adaptability to the needs and necessities of the problem. These office buildings and their counterparts in domestic life--the tall apartment-houses--represent the economic tendency of this age in its progress through combination to possible co-operation. They also embody the latest achievements of science and invention, applicable to the requirements of convenience and health. They are thus in a distinctively modern way, as well as with remarkable completeness, organic architectural structures. In a singular degree, they are self-efficient. Their cellular arrangement comprises an elaborate aggregation of members, each having its special function; while the whole is provided with its own system of power plants for the supply of heat, air, light, and locomotion. They are in a way the equivalent of the Roman basilica and insula, developed to that higher degree of complexity that the modern age demands and modern progress in science and invention has made possible. In their organic completeness one discovers conspicuous evidence that architecture, after a long period of revivals, has recovered its creativeness.

=Exterior Design of Office Buildings.=--It is in studying the exterior design of these sky-scrapers that one finds the progress toward originality has been more halting and uncertain. The explanation of this cuts deep down to the fundamentals of all progress in art and life. It is out of man’s needs and necessities, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual, that he is impelled to advance, and the advance is most sure according as it most closely fits the circumstances. In so far as the architects were dealing with the practical problems of the interior of these buildings they conformed consistently to the demands of fitness, and their advance was sure. But when they approached the problem of the exterior, the necessities of which are few and comparatively unexacting, the logic of fitness was apt to be superseded by mere caprice of choice. They experimented, for the most part rather aimlessly, with various historic styles of treatment; clapping on to the façade embellishments derived from Roman, Italian, Renaissance, Venetian Gothic, and so forth; treating the design mainly as a matter of added ornamentation instead of something to be evolved out of the special character of the structure.

We must remind ourselves that the façades of these buildings, whether the material be stone or marble, brick, terra-cotta, or reinforced concrete, are virtually only a sheathing to the actual organic structure inside of them. They correspond to the clothes on a human body. There are certain necessities to be served in the case of the building: on the one hand, financial; on the other constructive. The investors demand a certain return on the cost or value of the site, which determines the aggregate of rentable floor space, and hence the height of the building and the amount to be expended on the façades. Again, the lay-out of the floors calls for a certain quantity of window-spaces and there is the further constructive necessity that, while parts of the building may under certain restrictions overhang the sidewalks, nothing may project over adjoining property. Within these limitations the architect is usually free to adopt such design for the exterior as he chooses.

In the early days of the sky-scraper, which coincided with the period of more or less imitative reproduction of old models, the architect found himself confronted with an entirely new problem in design. His classical studies had familiarised him with buildings comparatively low and characteristically horizontal in design. His experience of Italian Renaissance had involved buildings, still inconsiderable in height though they included several stories, and had led him to be pre-occupied with details of design, especially with the effectiveness of a cornice. On the other hand, the characteristic of the new problem was vertical instead of horizontal, and on a scale that gave predominance to mass over detail; while the specific detail of the crowning cornice could only be fully adopted in the case of structures that did not abut on adjoining property.

=Height--the Principle of the Design.=--But, for a time, the architect failed to grasp the newness of his problem. He was confronted with height, but did not start with it as a principle of design. Instead, he tried to accommodate the old principles to the new conditions; experimenting with various methods of embellishment near the ground and at the top, and treating the main, intermediate part as merely a repetition of floors.

Gradually, however, he realised the fact that the new buildings actually presented a new problem which could only be solved by taking the vertical principle as the basis of the design. So he bethought himself of a precedent in the column. It is the vertical member in the Classic design, and comprises three subdivisions: base, shaft and capital. The base might be emulated in the treatment of the lower part of the façade, which generally encloses a bank or some feature of special importance, surmounted by a mezzanine floor. The counterpart of the column’s shaft was the repetition of stories, while the effect of the capital could be reproduced in some emphatic crowning treatment. And those architects who most logically adopted the precedent of the column, recognising that the beauty of a tall building must be evolved from its special characteristic of height and that the beauty would be enhanced by a suggestion of height growing up in its own strength, abandoned the mere repetition of stories for a vertical treatment that would emphasise the suggestion of upward growth.

In some cases they applied to the masonry between the windows continuous bands of vertical ornament, projecting in the nature of shafting or piers, which by their effect of light and shade carry the eye upward, giving to the whole structure a suggestion of soaring. Or, in other cases, they so proportioned the width of the windows to the width of the masonry that the latter, especially at the angles of the building, gave the suggestion of soaring piers. Meanwhile there still continued to be architects who ignored these devices, treating the windows and masonry solely as recurring horizontal features, with the result that their repetition contradicts both the vertical feeling and that of upward growth.

By degrees, however, as the principles of verticality and growth came to be generally accepted, it was recognised that the analogy of a tall building to a Classic column was fallacious, since the building should involve a complete design, while the column is only a constituent member of a structure and one, too, that is designed to support a horizontal member. Possibly the realisation of this was assisted by the difficulty of treating the top of the building. For the most frequent conditions permitted the projection of a cornice only on one side, that of the front side of the building, where it sticks out like a prodigious mantelshelf. That architects should have persisted so long in reproducing this futile expedient seems only to be explained by a habit of seeing a design on the drawing board as an elevation to be viewed from one fixed point, instead of as a structural composition, occupying space and to be seen from a variety of directions. Moreover, it is a fact that, as one walks along a street, it is the side of a building that is chiefly and longest visible, while, by the time one is opposite the front, the narrowness of the street and the height of the building make it difficult to view the façade as a whole.

=Gothic Influence.=--Accordingly, in time, as the logic of the problem of the tall building came to be more resolutely grasped, it was realised that, if a precedent was to be adopted, it might be found in the Gothic style. This is essentially the style of vertical design and upward growth, and its characteristic profile has a tendency to set back from the ground line instead of projecting over it. Furthermore, if you choose to consider it, it was the style of the Northern nations as contrasted with the horizontal styles of the Mediterranean nations; the style of the races most represented in our population, evolved by them as an expression of their adventurous and daring spirit. Even in relation to inherited racial genius, as well as to fitness of design and practicability of conditions of site, the Gothic is full of suggestion.

Its influence at first appeared in the character of detail of some of the later sky-scrapers; but gradually more fundamentally, as the architect began to give fuller attention to the masses of his composition. Up to the present, the noblest example of this new movement is the =Woolworth Building=, which is not only the tallest of the tall buildings but a monument of arresting and persuasive dignity. The repetition of ornamental detail may be somewhat dry and mechanical; but from a short distance off this melts into the mass, which vies with mediæval towers and spires in its splendid assertion of organic upward growth.

Such a building supplies an uplift to the spirit, whereas the exteriors of many sky-scrapers, conveying no suggestion of organic growth, being only monstrous piles of masonry, produce instead an oppression of the spirit. Nor is such an impression imaginary; it is a physical result of the sunless, airless canyons into which these cliff-like walls have transformed the narrow streets. Architects, in fact, realise that the problem they present is one not only of construction and design but also of relation to the general city plan. Various proposals have been made to confine them to certain areas; to restrict their height on the street line, while setting back the higher portions, which would rise like towers above the rest of the building; to limit the number of such towers in a given space, and so forth. Some such restrictions are enforced in certain cities; but in New York, where the problem is greatest and most urgent, the consideration of the question has not made much headway against the general indifference to matters of large public concern. Here, as in so many other instances, the welfare of the community, as a collective whole, is not properly adjusted to individualistic interests.

=Architect and Engineer.=--This and other matters of “city planning”--a subject that is more and more engaging the attention of progressive communities--demands the co-operation of the architect and engineer. Indeed, the co-operation of their functions in all important works, especially those of a public character, is one of the urgent needs of the age. There is scarcely an architectural scheme that does not involve problems of engineering; and many an engineering achievement would have been of greater public utility if beauty of design had been considered. For it is only a narrow view of utility that overlooks the utility of beauty. It is in the power of an engineer to improve or mar the appearance of a locality, and hence to add to or detract from the happiness of the human lives which inhabit it.

Nor is the union of the functions of engineer and architect a new thing. The only difference between the past and the present is, that in Classic, Gothic, and Renaissance periods the functions were united in one person, whereas with the advent of the age of iron, followed by that of steel, they have been specialised in separate individuals. Accordingly, to-day there is one school of Architecture, and another school of Engineering; and the separation has caused each to disregard the points at which their respective arts can and should unite. The desirability, however, of some affiliation is being recognised and certain schools of engineering now include a course in the principles of architectonic design.

* * * * *

Any termination of a book on Architecture is but an abrupt stop in the telling of a story that is perpetually continuous. It will go on as long as man applies his creative ability to the solution of new problems of construction as they arise, and persists in stamping the work of his hands with the evidence of his desire of beauty. This little book, however imperfect, will add its mite to human progress if it has awakened or stimulated in the reader a realisation of the rich and varied humanness of the art of Architecture in its intimate relation to the lives of individuals and the progress and welfare of the community.

GLOSSARY

=Abacus=: the block that forms the uppermost member of the capital of
a column. Usually a square block; but in Roman Ionic and
Corinthian, the sides are concave, while in Gothic the block may
also be circular, octagonal or clustered.

=Abutment=: a member of solid masonry to sustain a lateral strain or
thrust; e.g., that of an arch.

=Acanthus=: a plant of the warmer regions of Europe, distinguished by
large, handsome leaves, with indented and sharply pointed edges.
Conventionalised as a decorative motive in Classic architecture:
specially in the Corinthian capital.

=Acropolis=: a hill within a city, converted into a citadel; often
containing, as at Athens, the temples of the tutelary or guardian
divinities.

=Acroteria=: plinths or blocks, placed on the apex and ends of a
=Pediment= (which see), for the support of a carved ornament.

=Æsthetic=: of or pertaining to beauty. That quality in anything,
especially a work of art, that stimulates the senses, emotions or
imagination to an appreciation and love of the beautiful.

=Aisles= (lit. “wings”): the lateral divisions of a church or
cathedral, parallel to the nave and separated from it by columns.

=Alcove=: a covered recess, opening from a room or corridor.

=Ambo=: plural Ambones: raised pulpits from which the Epistles and
Gospels, respectively, were read.

=Ambulatory=: a space, usually covered, for walking in.

=Amphi-prostyle=: used to designate a temple-plan that has a rear as
well as a front portico. Compare =Prostyle=.

=Anta=: plural Antæ (lit. opposite): specially in Classic
architecture, the pilaster attached to the side of a temple,
opposite a column. Generally, any pilaster opposite a column. For
=In Antis= see =Portico=.

=Antefixæ=: ornamental blocks placed along the lower edge of the roof
of a temple, to cover the joints of the tiles.

=Anthemion=: a decorative device, also called =Honeysuckle= or =Palmette=
ornament, composed of flower forms or fronds, radiating from a
single point. Used especially on the cyma recta moulding, round the
necks of columns and on stele-heads and antefixæ.

=Annula= or =Annulet=: a small fillet or flat band, encircling a Doric
column below the =Echinus= (which see).

=Apse=: originally, the semi-circular projection at one end of a
basilica hall; later, the semi-circular or polygonal termination of
a choir in a Continental Gothic cathedral, as contrasted with the
square-ended choir of English Gothic.

=Apsidal=: having the form of an Apse.

=Apteral= (Gk. “without wings”): applied to a temple that has no
colonnade on the sides.

=Arabesque=: a fanciful, painted, modelled, or carved ornamentation,
composed of plant forms, often combined with human, animal, and
grotesque forms. Used by the Romans and revived by the Renaissance
decorators. Also used by the Arabs--hence the name--for a flatly
modelled and coloured ornament of intricate design, without human
or, generally, animal forms.

=Arcade=: a system or range of arches, supported on columns, e.g.,
the range of arches and columns on each side of the nave of a
cathedral or church. When used as an embellishment of exterior or
interior walls, it is distinguished as Open or Blind Arcade,
according as it is detached from or attached to the plane of the
wall.

=Arch=: generally, a structure supported at the sides or ends and
composed of pieces, no one of which spans the whole interval.
Specifically, a structure, involving one or more curves, supported
at the sides, spanning an opening and capable of supporting weight.
Distinguished according to the nature of the curve as, segmental,
semi-circular, ogee, pointed, horseshoe, four-centred, trefoil,
cinquefoil, and multifoil. Arches, involving straight lines as well
as curved, are known as “shouldered.”

=Architect= (pr. ar-ki-tect): lit. the master-builder.

=Architectonic=: possessing an architectural, or organically
constructive, character. See =Organic=.

=Architecture=: the science and art of designing and constructing
buildings, with a view to Utility and Beauty. See =Beauty=.

=Architrave= (lit. “principal beam”): the lowest member of an
=Entablature= (which see); hence applied to any beam that rests on
columns and carries a superstructure; also to the moulded frame
which bounds the sides as well as the head of a door or window
opening.

=Archivolt=: the mouldings around the face of an arch.

=Arris=: the sharp edge at which meet two flutings of a Doric Column.

=Ashlar=: applied to masonry of which the stones are squared and
dressed with hammer or chisel.

=Astragal=: a convex moulding with a profile semi-circular, like that
of the Torus, only smaller in width. Often decorated with Bead and
Spool ornament.

=Astylar=: used of a façade, not treated with columns.

=Asymmetries=: deviations from geometrical symmetry and precision;
such as substituting a slight curve for horizontal and vertical
straight lines; varying slightly the spaces between columns,
setting columns on a curving instead of a straight line, and so
forth. Refinements which Hellenic, Byzantine, and Gothic architects
introduced to give flexibility and rhythm to their structures. See
=Refinements=.

=Atlantes=: See =Caryatid=.

=Atrium=: in Roman houses an entrance court open to the sky, but
surrounded by a covered ambulatory. In Early Christian
architecture, a similar entrance court in front of churches.

=Attic=: the upper story of a building, above the cornice.

=Axis=: an imaginary line, about which an architect arranges the
symmetry of his design. The main axis usually runs through the
longest direction of the building and may be intersected at right
angles by a second axis. See =Crossing=.

=Baldachino=: or Baldachin: a canopy supported on uprights; used
especially to surmount an altar.

=Baluster=: a small ornamental pillar supporting a rail or coping;
the whole structure being called a =Balustrade=.

=Balustrade=: See =Baluster=.

=Baroque=: fantastic, grotesque, applied to some of the heavily
decorated architecture of the eighteenth century.

=Barrel-vault=: also called Semi-circular or Wagon-headed vault: a
continuous arched roof over an oblong space, resting on the side
walls.

=Barrow=: an artificial mound of earth, forming a prehistoric
sepulchral monument.

=Bar Tracery=: See =Tracery=.

=Base=: the lower member of any structure; compare =Plinth=.

=Basilica=: originally a building erected for business or legal
procedure; specifically the large hall of such a building; later,
in Christian times, a church that more or less retains the plan of
such a hall.

=Batter=: the upward, inward slope of a wall, affording greater
resistance to =Thrust= (which see).

=Battlement=: the termination of a =Parapet= (which see) in a series of
indentations, called embrasures, while the intervening solid parts
are called merlons.

=Bay=: each of the principal compartments into which the vaulting of
a roof is divided; also used of the space between any two columns
of an =Arcade= (which see) of a Gothic church.

=Bay-window=: a window of angular plan, that projects from the wall
and reaches to the ground. Distinguished from an Oriel window that
is supported on a bracket or =Corbel= (which see) and from a
Bow-window which is curved in plan.

=Bead=: a small convex moulding; often decorated with =Bead and Spool=
ornament.

=Bead and Spool=: an ornamental device of small halved spheres,
alternating with halved spools; used on small convex mouldings.

=Beauty=: as applied to Architecture, those qualities in a building
that stimulate and gratify the æsthetic sense. They result from the
architect having created an Organic structure according to the
principles of =Fitness=, =Unity=, =Proportion=, =Harmony=, and =Rhythm= (see
these terms).

=Bel Étage=: French term for the principal story of a building.
Compare Italian, =Piano Nobile=.

=Belfry=: specifically, the part of a tower in which the bells are
hung; hence, sometimes, the whole tower.

=Bema=: a raised platform, reserved for the clergy in Early Christian
churches.

=Blind Arcades=: See =Arcade=.

=Bond=: the method of laying bricks or stones to bind the masonry. In
=English Bond=, the courses are composed alternately of =Headers= and
=Stretchers= (which see); =in Flemish Bond= the Headers and Stretchers
are laid alternately in each =Course= (which see).

=Boss=: ornamental projection at the intersection of the ribs of
vaults and ceilings.

=Bow-window=: See =Bay-window=.

=Branch Tracery=: See =Tracery=.

=Broken Entablature=: one that projects over each column or pilaster
instead of maintaining a single straight plane.

=Broken Pediment=: where the triangular or curved form is broken into
in the centre; an ornamental device adopted in the Renaissance.

=Buttress=: a mass of masonry, projecting from the face of the wall
to resist the thrust of an arch or vault. When the mass is
separated from the wall and connected with it by an arch, the arch
and mass form a =Flying Buttress=.

=Byzantine=: the style evolved in Byzantium (Constantinople) in the
fifth century, <small>A.D.</small>

=Cairn=: an artificial heap of stones, sometimes piled about a
corpse-chamber, which served as a prehistoric sepulchre and
monument.

=Campanile= (cam-pah-neé-la): Italian term for bell-tower.

=Canopy=: specifically, the carved ornamentation that surmounts a
niche, altar or tomb.

=Capella Major=: the space in a Spanish cathedral, enclosed with
screens or =Rejas= (which see) and containing the High Altar.

=Capital=: the upper member of a column, pier, pillar or pilaster.

=Carillon=: a set of stationary bells, played upon by a mechanical
contrivance, regulated from a keyboard.

=Caryatid=: plural Caryatides: sculptured female figures, used
instead of columns or pilasters to support an entablature or
cornice. Said to be so called after the women of Caria, who aided
the Persians and were made slaves. Male figures, so used, are
called =Atlantes=.

=Caulicoli=: the eight stalks of the acanthus ornament, supporting
the volutes of a Corinthian capital.

=Cavetto=: a simple concave moulding.

=Cavetto Cornice=: the hollow member that crowns a wall or door in
Egyptian architecture.

=Cella=: the portion of a temple enclosed by walls.

=Cerce=: a mechanical supporting device used in the construction of
vault ribs and light arches. Shaped like a bow, in sections that
work telescopically, so that it can be adjusted to the width of the
span.

=Chamfer=: the edge produced by chamfering; that is to say cutting a
square edge or corner to a flattened or grooved surface.

=Chancel= (Lat. cancellus, a screen): See =Choir=.

=Chapter-house=: originally the assembly place of the Chapter or
fraternity of abbot and monks of a monastery, for the transaction
of business. Now attached to English cathedrals for the
transactions of the Chapter of bishop and canons.

=Chevêt= (pr. shev-ay): term applied to the east end of a Romanesque
or Gothic church, when it takes the form of a circular or polygonal
apse, surrounded by an aisle which opens into chapels.

=Chevron=: a decorative device, like a V, repeated either vertically
or horizontally; forming in the latter case a zig-zag.

=Chryselephantine= (Gk. “gold-ivory”): applied to a sculptured figure
of wood, when the nude parts are covered with gold and the
draperies with ivory.

=Choir= or =Chancel=: the portion of the church or cathedral east of
the nave, screened off for the use of the choir. See =Coro=.

=Cimborio=: See =Lantern=.

=Cinquecento=: Italian term for the period called in English the
sixteenth century.