How to Study Architecture

more than the combination of architecture and sculpture in a Gothic cathedral, because more deliberately, as a result of reasoned logic as well as of feeling, Greek sculpture and architecture were constituent parts of one design. To divorce the architecture from its sculptural enrichments, is to reduce the temperature of feeling in a building, to make it cold and too severe in its refinement. Moreover, the exterior design of a Greek building was so calculated to its plan, which was usually that of a temple, that to attempt to adapt it to the different needs of modern planning is not only a violation of its logic but also an attenuation—a stretching out to thinness—of its expressiveness.

Adaptation Limited.—In fact, a Greek façade cannot be an integral part of a modern building. Instead of growing out of the interior conditions it is merely a screen, as arbitrary in its separation from what is behind it, as was the old painted act-drop of a theatre. The realisation of this has influenced architects to emulate or imitate, as the case may be, the Roman rather than the Greek style. And, so far as Roman architecture was an adaptation of Greek particulars to the new problems of the basilica, palace, public bath, triumphal arch, amphitheatre and so forth, the model may be judiciously followed. But, when the architect essays to adapt the colossal orders of a Roman temple to the front of a bank, library, museum, or railroad station he may display a feeling for impressiveness that gives little proof of intelligent comprehension of design. He commits the same error that he is fond of charging to the layman, who, he says, thinks of the design of a building only as an exterior effect and not also in relation to the plan and internal structure. For, to take but one point, that of the lighting. Windows are an essential of a modern building, while in a Roman temple they played only a subordinate part; so that the pedimented, columned porch at the entrance and the colonnades at the sides were not employed at any sacrifice to the internal requirements.

Greek Model.—The window problem did not enter into the earliest example of the Classical Revival in England—the Greek design of the Bank of England (1788) by Sir John Soane. For, as the building was for the safe-keeping of gold and securities, the walls behind the colonnades and porch could appropriately be solid. Yet, even so, the character of the principal façade is not carried round to the side of the building and the design of the façade is merely a frontispiece. Still more so is the Greek façade of the British Museum, erected (1823-47) by Soane’s pupil, Sir Robert Smirke (1780-1867), which not only has no co-ordination with the interior arrangement, but also obstructs the needed light.

George Basevi, another pupil of Soane’s, contrived a more appropriate use of the Greek style in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, because he was able to avoid the incongruity of windows. H. W. Inwood (1794-1843) applied the results of his study of the Erechtheion to the design of S. Pancras Church; while among the examples of William Wilkins (1778-1839) are the University of London and the National Gallery. The design of the latter, which is very inferior to that of the University, was unhappily fettered with conditions. Most fortunate of all the buildings of this Classical revival in England is St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, by H. L. Elmes (1815-1847). It is lifted well above the level on a stylobate-terrace and the design presents a stately treatment of Greek porticoes and colonnades; but the Greek is abandoned on the threshold, the interior being an adaptation of the Roman thermæ.

The incongruity of the Greek style with modern requirements led to a reaction in favour of astylar or columnless buildings; a return, in fact, to Renaissance design, which was started by Sir Charles Barry, whom we shall meet again in the Gothic Revival.

GERMAN CLASSICAL PERIOD

In Germany the classical revival in architecture was intimately related to the thought-movement of the time, especially as it expressed itself in literature. We have already noted the almost simultaneous publication of Stuart and Revett’s “Antiquities of Athens” and Winckelmann’s “History of Art,” and the welcome which the former received in Germany. It was stimulated by the appearance in 1765 of Lessing’s “Laokoon,” a critical treatise on painting, sculpture, and poetry. He based it upon the Classic Canons; by which he meant not the canons of French pseudo-classicalism, which had hitherto stood for classic in Germany, but the Greek canons of art and literature as laid down by Aristotle. Indeed, he affirmed that Shakespeare, despite the irregularities of his style, was nearer to the spirit of Aristotle than Racine.

Goethe’s Influence.—Goethe, at the court of Weimar, where French pseudo-classicalism was the vogue, espoused the new movement. He had visited Italy and confirmed for himself the studies of Winckelmann and Lessing’s attitude. Being director of the Ducal Theatre, he was able in a large measure to control the dramatic taste of Germany, and encouraged Schiller to write his classical dramas. The aim of both Goethe and Schiller was to reconcile the cultural ideals of the eighteenth century with the models of ancient Greece.

The zeal of this movement spread to architecture. The earliest example is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (1784); but the actual revival did not begin till some thirty years later, when its leaders were Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) and Leo von Klenze (1784-1864). The scene of Schinkel’s achievements is mainly Berlin, where he is responsible for the fine design of the Old Museum and the Royal Theatre. The New Museum of Berlin was erected later (1843-55) by Stühler.

Klenze’s opportunity came with the ambition of Louis I of Bavaria to increase the architectural magnificence of Munich and make it the rival of Berlin and Dresden as an artistic centre. Among the chief works of Klenze are the Glyptothek (Sculpture Gallery), the Pinacothek (Picture Gallery), and the Propylæa. Associated with him in the decoration of these and other buildings were the painters Peter von Cornelius and Wilhelm von Kaulbach and the sculptor, Ludwig Schwanthaler.

To this period belongs the Parliament House (Reichsrathgebande) at Vienna (1843) by Theophil Hansen.

FRENCH CLASSICAL PERIOD

Philosophic and Social Movement.—In France also the Classical revival was due to the momentum of writers and thinkers, impelled, however, in the first place, not so much by æsthetic considerations as by philosophic. It represented a revolution against the degradation of individual and national life, the corruption of the ruling forces of Church and State, the soulless frippery of courtiers and the abject destitution of the masses of the proletariat. The last term was revived from the vocabulary of Imperial Rome and designated the peasantry and labourers of all kinds, whose duty was to labour for the benefit of the privileged classes and whose sole right was that of propagating their species.

The protest against this social rottenness was voiced by Jean Jacques Rousseau in treatises on “The Inequality of Conditions” and “The Social Contract” and by Diderot and the other Encyclopædists, who in the form of a dictionary, the first volume of which appeared in 1751, not only disseminated information but sought to guide thought, especially as to the rights and duties of government and the governed. Notwithstanding the effort of Church and State alike to strangle this intellectual and social movement, its influence spread not alone in France but throughout Europe and reached the American Colonies.

Example of Rome.—Gradually the traditions of Roman culture inherent in the French led them to reason that, since the evils of the State had grown out of the autocracy of Louis XIV, who emulated the authority and magnificence of a Cæsar, alleviation was to be sought in a return to the frugal living and high patriotic thinking of the Early Roman Republic. Suddenly, while all thoughts were being directed to this model, the young painter, Jacques Louis David, returned from Rome and exhibited at the Salon of 1785 his “Oath of the Horatii.” The picture marked the beginning of a new epoch. It gave concrete expression to the fluid thought of the time. The austerity of the early Roman ideal became the watchword and the aim of the many as well as of the few intellectuals. Men began to address one another as Citoyens. When the Revolution burst, David was made Minister of the Fine Arts and dictated the style of fashions and furniture, based on Roman models. From their places in the National Assembly the orators, clad in Roman togas, emulated the oratory of Cicero in his attack on the corrupt Catiline.

Then came the victories of Napoleon, and the ideal of a united and powerful France dictating policies to Europe took the place of the ideal of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality.” David turning his coat and, vying with the rest in acclaiming Napoleon Emperor, painted pictures of Imperial magnificence and designed the so-called Empire furniture and costumes to suit the new ideas of splendour. Napoleon himself emulated the Roman Emperors by becoming a great constructor; on the one hand, prescribing a codified system of law, based on that of Justinian, and on the other patronising the construction of buildings of Imperial grandeur.

In later years, when after an interregnum of the Bourbon Kings Napoleon III snatched the crown, he too was ambitious to be the patron of great building achievements.

Such, in sketch, was the background of the Classical Revival in France.

Panthéon.—The first notable example is that of the Panthéon, originally dedicated to the patron saint of Paris, S. Geneviève. Erected (1755-81) during the reign of Louis XV, by J. J. Soufflot, its plan is a Greek cross, four halls surrounding a central one which is surmounted by a dome. The latter is composed of three shells, the exterior presenting a rare blend of grace and dignity, though the peristyle of Corinthian columns which forms the drum is somewhat lacking in force because of the absence of bases to attach the columns to the stylobate. The façades are of monumental simplicity, consisting of solid masonry unbroken by windows and crowned with a chaste but emphatic cornice; the sole departure from the severity of design being a magnificent portico of Corinthian columns. The vaulted halls have been decorated in recent years by some of the foremost painters of France; but most of the work is pictorial rather than mural, and serves to accentuate the superior decorative quality of the panels by Puvis de Chavannes, which commemorate incidents in the life of Ste. Geneviève.

Imperial Period.—This example of correct classicalism, designed in protest against the rococo of its time, is also by its originality of treatment in marked contrast to the great production of the imperial period—the Madeleine (1804). Dedicated to Glory, it is a direct imitation of a Roman Corinthian temple of vast size; the only deviation from the antique model being the vaulting of the interior, which, inclining toward the Byzantine method, consists of three flattish pendentive domes, pierced with large eyes, the sole source of light to the interior.

Another imitation of the Roman model is the Arc de Triomphe in the Place du Carrousel, commemorating the victories of 1805 and intended as a principal entrance to the Tuileries Palace. On the other hand, the Arc de l’Etoile, largest of all triumphal arches, being 162 feet high by 147 feet wide, represents a free translation of the antique into an imposing design, sufficiently modern to form a fitting background to the passionate intensity of François Rude’s sculptured group of the Volunteers of 1792, known as La Marseillaise. These, and other classical structures, which were planned by Napoleon, were completed after the restoration of the Bourbons.

Between 1830 and 1850 an echo of the Neo-Greek movement was heard in France, but French logic repudiated the direct imitation of Greek forms and strove to reflect the Greek spirit only in a superior refinement of feeling. Its chief exponents were Duc, Duban, and Labrouste, who are represented, respectively, by the remodelling of the Palais de Justice, the Library of the Ecole des Beaux Arts and the Library of Ste. Geneviève.

Second Empire.—Chief among the architectural memorials of the Second Empire (1852-70) are the completion of the Louvre and the Tuileries by Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel; and the Paris Opera House by Charles Garnier. The Tuileries was destroyed by the Commune in 1871, but the two wings of the New Louvre, which occupy the western corners of the Place du Carrousel, worthily continue in a modern spirit the character of Pierre Lescot’s Renaissance façade. They represent, in fact, not Classicalism, but rather a reversion to Renaissance inspiration, as also does Garnier’s masterpiece, which is a brilliant adaptation of the Italian style to the sumptuous requirements of a modern ceremonial theatre and to the extravagant ostentation and somewhat meretricious taste of a society of nouveaux riches.

Paris Re-planned.—A memorable feature of this period is the extensive replanning of Paris, projected under Baron Haussmann. It involved the widening of streets, creation of new boulevards, and general improvements of sanitation, as well as increased magnificence—a scheme of such magnitude that it has been but recently completed. Meanwhile, this gradual development of an organised plan, regulated in its progress so as to reconcile the rights of private ownership with the interests of the community, has been an object lesson in the proper course of city reconstruction.

UNITED STATES CLASSICAL REVIVAL

The United States of America having won their independence as a nation, there was an immediate need for Government buildings. That they should be designed in the classical style naturally followed from the intimate relations which had grown up between the New Republic and France. When Washington had been selected as the seat of the National Government, it was a Frenchman, Major Pierre Charles l’Enfant, who laid out the city on a plan so convenient and ornamental, that it is strange no other city of America, with a similar chance of starting forth from the beginning, has emulated it. Instead, the general practice both with new cities and the extension of older ones, has been to adopt the gridiron plan of a repetition of parallel streets, cut at right angles by another repetition of parallels; a deadly monotonous system and far from convenient. For it makes no adequate provision for the gravitation of government, finance, and so forth to certain centres, which in consequence become inconveniently congested.

Plan of Washington.—The Washington plan, on the contrary, is logically designed about two foci: the Legislative centre, the Capitol, and the Executive centre, the Mansion of the President, The White House.

From these radiate broad avenues, called after the names of States, which in turn are cut by a repetition of streets, running east and west, and by another series, running north and south; the odd-shaped spaces, formed by the intersection of these streets with the avenues, being utilised as little public gardens. Thus Washington is a city of beautiful breathing spaces, its gardens, parks, and tree-bordered avenues comprising one-half of its total area.

The first official building was the Treasury, which was commenced in 1781 by Robert Mills, who held the position of United States Architect. The design, as completed, presents an imposing rectangular mass, the east side of which is masked with a colonnade of 38 Ionic columns, while Ionic porticoes decorate the other three façades. In 1792 work was started on the White House and a year later on the Capitol.

White House.—The Executive mansion, designed by James Hoban after the model, it is said, of a seat of the Duke of Leinster near Dublin, consisted of a two story house, surmounted by a balustrade and fronted by an Ionic portico. Even with the additions, made in recent years to serve as Executive offices, it is characterised by a dignified simplicity, befitting the residence of “the first gentleman of the land.”

The Capitol.—The Capitol is finely placed on a hill some 100 feet above the level of the Potomac River. Its central portion was designed by William Thornton with some modifications suggested by his collaborators, B. H. Latrobe and Charles Bulfinch. The wings and dome were added 1851 to 1865. The main façade is on the east, where three imposing flights of steps lead up to three Corinthian porticoes which indicate the special functions of the building. That on the left, with allegorical sculpture in the pediment by Thomas Crawford, forms the main entrance to the wing occupied by the Senate Chamber, while that on the right, to which sculpture by Paul W. Bartlett has just been added, distinguishes the Hall of Representatives.

The curtain building that connects this south wing with the central block, was formerly occupied by the Hall of Representatives, but now contains the National Hall of Statuary, to which each State may contribute two statues of her “chosen sons.” The corresponding building on the north, which until 1859 housed the Senate, is now devoted to the Supreme Court. The Central Portico is the ceremonial entrance to the whole and here the outgoing President hands over his functions to his successor. It leads into a rotunda which is decorated with the following historical paintings: “Landing of Columbus” by John Vanderlyn; “De Sota Discovering the Mississippi” by William Henry Powell; “Baptism of Pocahontas” by John Gadsby Chapman; “Embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delft Haven” by Robert Walter Weir; “Signing of the Declaration of Independence” by John Trumbull, who also painted the remainder: “Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga,” “Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown” and “Washington resigning his Commission at Annapolis.”

The dome which forms a stately climax to the dignity of the whole design was erected in iron by Thomas Ustic Walter. It rises to a height of 268½ feet and is crowned by a statue of Liberty, nearly 20 feet high, the work of Thomas Crawford.

The organic fitness of the Capitol to the functions of Government has been supplemented in recent years by additional buildings, connected by subways: on the east, by the Congressional Library, primarily for the use of the Legislature, but virtually a national library; and on the northeast and southeast, by office-buildings, respectively, for the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Bulfinch.—Mention has been already made of Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844). The son of a wealthy physician in Boston, he graduated from Harvard and spent some five years travelling and studying in Europe, after which he settled in Boston and practised as an architect. He built the old Federal Street Theatre (1793), the first playhouse erected in New England, and in 1798 completed the work with which his name is most associated, the State House on Beacon Hill. It has been overgrown with additions but the original part, surmounted by a small, well-proportioned dome, still testifies to its designer’s refinement of taste and constructive sincerity.

An exception to the use at this time of the Classical style is the New York City Hall, built 1803-12 by the Frenchman, Mangin. The design is Renaissance, influenced by the manner of the Louis XVI period, and is particularly choice in the refinement of its proportions and details.

Meanwhile, the Sub-Treasury and the Old Custom House in New York were built in the Classical style; as also were the Custom House in Boston, the Mint in Philadelphia, Girard College for Orphans in the same city; Thomas Jefferson’s design for his new foundation, the University of Virginia, and most of the National and State Buildings that were erected before the Civil War.

GOTHIC REVIVAL

The Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century was chiefly confined to England where it grew out of a revival of spiritual energy in the Church itself. This spiritual Renaissance had begun in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, as a protest against the rationalistic temper of the age, its tendency to disregard the claims of faith and dogmatic authority in favour of what appealed to reason.

Religious Revivals.—The Evangelical revival which ensued was an earnest attempt to awaken the Church from the supine indifference into which it had sunk, to kindle in the clergy a higher sense of their responsibilities and generally to promote a spiritual regeneration. The movement was reinforced both within the Church and on the part of the State by the excesses of the French Revolution, which seemed to menace all forms of authority. The revival grew apace during the early years of the nineteenth century and in time was supplemented by another which is known as the Oxford Movement.

For it originated in the University of Oxford with a group of men, including Keble, Newman, and Pusey, who felt that the Church was in danger of becoming merely a humanitarian institution. Accordingly they held that the Church of England was a branch of the Catholic Church and that its priesthood was in direct succession from Apostolic times; and in accordance with this urged a return to the ritual and the rubrical observances, enjoined in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. This movement, known also as the Tractarian movement, from the tracts issued by its advocates, or Puseyite, from the name of its chief exponent, was assailed by the parties in the Church, distinguished as Broad and Low in opposition to the new party which came to be known as High.

The point of the controversy, as it concerns our study, is that the religious revival on the one hand led to a general restoration of the cathedrals and churches which had fallen into a condition of shameful neglect and, on the other, laid stress upon mediæval church architecture as the form which had been inspired by the fervour of the Catholic faith and was alone suited to a Catholic ritual. Hence arose the study and the revived use of Gothic architecture.

Pugin.—Early in the century John Britton and Thomas Rickman had published an illustrated work on “Cathedral Antiquities and the Gothic Style,” which went through many editions. They prepared the way for the influence of Augustus W. N. Pugin (1812-1852), who stood forth as a veritable apostle of the Gothic. For he supplied passion to the movement, so that it represented no shallow fad but, for the time being, a conviction that the characteristic tradition of the English must be the mediæval style. And to the realisation of it he brought a knowledge of detail and ornament, gained from many years spent in measurements and drawings of Gothic buildings; while for the purpose of reproducing the spirit of the originals he established and trained a school of craftsmen. He was, in fact, the pioneer of the later Arts and Crafts Movement. He became a convert to Roman Catholicism and his most important ecclesiastical work was expended on Roman Catholic churches and monasteries.

Houses of Parliament.—When the commission for the New Houses of Parliament was given to Sir Charles Barry with the proviso that the style must be Gothic, Pugin was associated with him as chief designer of the exterior details and interior decorative work.

The style selected by the authorities, under the unfortunate impression that it should correspond with the adjacent Henry VII’s Chapel, was the Tudor Gothic, or late Perpendicular Style, so that the façades in their lineal repetition present a certain stiffness and monotony. This effect, however, is offset by the grandiose scale of the vast building and the picturesque sky-line of towers and spires and turrets. Of these the two dominating features are the lantern over the octagonal central hall, the richly decorated Victoria Tower marking the ceremonial entrance of the sovereign to the House of Lords, and the Clock Tower, which stands at the Commons’ end, proclaiming its simple purpose as a clock tower and, when the summit-light is burning, the fact that the House is sitting.

But the grandest feature of Barry’s conception is the plan, accommodated to the site of the still-existing Westminster Hall. Notwithstanding the cell-like complexity of its innumerable units, the whole presents an organic completeness of comparative simplicity, so adapted to the functions demanded, that it has served more or less closely as a model for many other buildings, notably for the Parliament House in Budapest.

The merit both of the plan and of the façades is emphasised by contrast with the New Law Courts, designed by G. E. Street (1824-1881). Here the zeal for archæological revival ran ahead of reasonable adaptation. So the exterior presents a congeries of mediæval details that have little or no relation to the internal necessities, with the admitted result that the interior is inconvenient, while its one fine feature, the great vaulted Hall, is rendered useless by not being on the same floor as the Courts.

Street was a pupil of Sir Gilbert Scott (1810-1877), under whose influence the Gothic revival reached its full flood. He, too was an archæological enthusiast, with a preference for the Early Decorated style, and his numerous churches are frankly reproductions, as near as possible, of Mediæval architecture.

On the other hand, a freer adaptation of the Gothic to modern needs and feeling appears in William Butterfield (1814-1900); for example, in the design of Keble College, Oxford, All Saints, Margaret Street, London, and his little church at Babbacombe in Devonshire. Other independent Gothicists were J. L. Pearson, architect of Truro Cathedral and eight London churches; James Brooks, who successfully employed brick in ecclesiastical design, and Alfred Waterhouse. The last has proved himself a master of plan in adapting the Gothic to secular buildings, two of his most important designs being the Law Courts and Town Hall, Manchester.

FRANCE

A characteristically French independence distinguishes the few churches in which the influence of the Gothic revival may be traced. The most essentially Gothic church of the period is S. Clotilde, Paris, designed by Theodore Ballin, who, however, in his later work, La Trinité, exhibits a remarkably interesting blend of Renaissance details with Gothic feeling. But the tendency in French ecclesiastical architecture was rather toward Byzantine, a movement which culminated in the great church of Sacré Cœur on Montmartre, erected by Paul Abadia (1774-1812).

UNITED STATES

In the United States the Gothic Revival made its appearance as early as 1839-40, in the work of two English architects, Richard M. Upjohn and James Renwick. The former was entrusted with the rebuilding of Trinity Church, New York and later erected the State Capitol of Connecticut, while Renwick is responsible for Grace Church and S. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York.

With the advent, to be noted later, of architects trained in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the Gothic vogue declined. But in the past ten years it has taken on a new life of remarkable achievement, under the leadership of the New York and Boston firm of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson, which recently has been dissolved, the late partners now working independently. The vitality which they have succeeded in giving to their work in the number of examples distributed over the country may be traced to two causes.

The first is revealed in a little book, “The Gothic Quest,” written by Ralph Adams Cram. It breathes the passion of a Pugin; it is inspired with such religious faith and devotion as the builders of the old cathedrals and churches must have possessed. Hence its author’s conviction that the architectural forms, evolved as an expression of that faith and in accordance with the needs of the worship it inspired, are the only fit embodiments for the continuance of that faith and worship. To Mr. Cram, in fact, the Gothic does not represent merely a style to be professionally employed; but a living concrete expression of the soul. Furthermore, the thorough mastery of Gothic forms has been directed, not as in the beginning of the Gothic Revival, to a reproduction of old models, but to an application of the old principles of Gothic design to the changed conditions of modern times. There is, accordingly, in the designs of these architects no evidence of the “dead hand.” They belong to and serve the present, while preserving a link of tradition with the past. By few, indeed, if any, has the Gothic been revived with so much material and spiritual vitality.

CHAPTER II

THE MODERN SITUATION

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.