The Mentor

"A Wise and Faithful Guide and Friend"

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS of the WORLD

By CLARENCE WARD

Professor of Architecture, Rutgers College

Beauty in architecture is as difficult to define as beauty in nature. No single factor renders a building beautiful. Size and proportion, style and decoration, age and setting, all enter into account. And moreover there is the power a building possesses to appeal to the ideals of the beholder, to his mind as well as to his sight and touch. Even when judged from this broad viewpoint, the number of beautiful buildings in the world is legion. It would be impossible to point to anyone as the finest, or even to select a dozen without leaving a dozen more that were equally beautiful. Every age, and every nation, has left to us some crowning achievements of the builder's art. The following are therefore merely selections from this storehouse, illustrating to some degree the wealth of architectural treasures that is our heritage.

Few if any buildings in the world have been the subject of such praise as that bestowed upon the Taj Mahal ("Gem of Buildings"). Travelers, painters, authors, and poets have all sought to express in word or color the indefinable charm of this gem of Indian art. Built at Agra, in India, by the great mogul of Delhi, Shah Jahan, as a tomb for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj is a veritable translation into stone of human remembrance and affection. It was begun in 1632, and was completed in twenty-two years. The material of which it is built is pure white marble, and inlaid in its walls are jaspers, agates, and other stones in marvelous designs. But it is perhaps the dome that gives the greatest beauty to this tomb. Of typical Eastern shape, it rises a mass of white against the deep blue of the Indian sky, or shines like silver in the radiance of the Indian moon.

THE WORLD'S MOST BEAUTIFUL TOMB

It cannot be denied that the Taj Mahal (tahzh mah-hahl´) owes much of its beauty to its setting. Not merely has it the contrast of the brilliant sky above, but also the deep green of the gardens at its feet, and more than this the four tall, graceful minarets standing like sentinels at the corners of the marble terrace on which the tomb is placed. The interior is scarcely less impressive than this outside view. Its subdued light serves only to show more clearly the beauty of the garlands of red and blue and green inlaid along its walls as never-withering memorials of the queen who sleeps beneath the lofty dome.

It is perhaps beside her tomb that the traveler sees a vision of the proud and mighty Jahan, cruel in many ways, but steadfast in his love, building this glorious resting place for his fair consort, whom he called by the familiar name of Taj. One may see even farther still and picture to himself this once proud ruler, bereft of all his power and even of his throne, looking out from his chamber window toward this same Taj Mahal. Perhaps its wondrous dome gleamed in the moonlight on that last night before he came to rest beneath its shades as it gleams today to the enraptured gaze of thousands who take the pilgrimage to Agra to see this wonder of the Eastern world.

THE PALACE OF THE MOORISH KINGS

It is not such a step as it may seem from the Taj Mahal to the Alhambra (al-ham'-bra). Both are oriental. Both are the products of Mohammedan art, and mark in a way its Eastern and its Western expressions. As early as the eighth century of our era the Moors of northern Africa crossed to Spain and made the Iberian peninsula a Moorish califate or kingdom. Its capital and last stronghold was Granada. And here on a lofty hill, overlooking the city, King or Calif Al Hamar began the mighty fortress of the Alhambra in the early years of the thirteenth century.

As is the case with almost every Mohammedan building, its exterior is extremely plain. But once the door is passed one seems to have stepped from Europe to the Orient. Courtyards and porticos, halls and passages, open before the visitor in a truly oriental maze of color and decoration. The first important court is known as that of the Myrtles. In its center is a marble basin a hundred and thirty feet long, bordered with trees of myrtle and orange, and flanked at both ends by two-storied pavilions with slender marble shafts and graceful Moorish arches. From one of these pavilions opens the Hall of the Ambassadors, the throne room of the califs, and the largest chamber in the palace.

THE ALHAMBRA'S BEAUTY

But it is not its size that makes this room imposing. Here, as elsewhere in the palace, it is the decoration. Rising for three or four feet from the floor is a band of colored Moorish tiles. All the wall above is of stucco, molded in lacelike patterns and painted in blues and reds and brilliant golden yellows. The designs are largely geometrical or floral, frequently interspersed with Arabic inscriptions. Some of these when translated read, "God is our refuge," "Praise be to God," familiar phrases in Mohammedan faith, or "There is no conqueror but God." Add to this decoration of the walls imposing stalactite domes, and ceilings often of cedarwood inlaid with mother of pearl, and imagine the floors and windows again adorned with oriental rugs and hangings, and the beauty of the Alhambra will be easily understood.

But neither the Court of the Myrtles nor the Hall of the Ambassadors is the crowning glory of the palace. This honor belongs to the Court of the Lions. One hundred and sixteen by sixty-six feet in size, this court compares with any apartment in the world for pure, exquisite beauty of design. An open portico, its ceiling borne on a hundred and twenty-four slender and beautiful marble columns and delicately ornamented arches, incloses the central space, in the middle of which rises a magnificent fountain, its basin cut from a single giant block of alabaster, and supported on the backs of twelve lions of white marble, emblems of courage and strength.

It is small wonder that the last of the Moorish kings, Boabdil (bo-ahb-deel´), looked back with many tears at this glorious palace as he surrendered it in 1492 to his Christian conqueror Ferdinand. Sadly indeed he and his followers must have crossed again to the dreary deserts of Africa, since they left behind them the whole fair land of Spain, which they had adorned not merely with the Alhambra, but with the Alcázar at Seville, the mosque at Cordova, and other monuments of their civil and religious greatness.

THE GREAT CATHEDRALS

At the very period when the Mohammedan conquerors of Spain were building their palace of the Alhambra, the Christians of northern France were erecting those vast cathedrals which stand today as the crowning achievements of the builder's art. Paris, Chartres (shahrtr), Bourges (boorzh), Rheims (reemz), Rouen (roo-ong´), Le Mans (lee-mong´), Beauvais (bo-vay´) and Amiens (ah-mee-ong´) are but a few of the long list of French Gothic cathedrals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. From such a list it is most difficult to choose. Each one has its distinctive claim to recognition, and its distinctive features which are not surpassed in any of the others. This fact, indeed, has caused it to be said that the ideal cathedral should have the façade of Rheims, the spires of Chartres, the nave of Amiens, and the choir of Beauvais. But even such an ideal cathedral would not be perfect without the addition of features from each of the other churches in our list.

Since, however, it is necessary to choose, let us choose Amiens; for perhaps this church is most widely acknowledged as the finest example of the Gothic style. Its façade is a masterpiece of decoration. Three deeply recessed portals in the lower story are covered with a wealth of sculptured figures in the round and in relief. Bible lessons and the events of human life and history, carved here in stone, taught the terrors of sin and hell and the joys of a godly life as preached in the church beyond these lofty doors. Nor is the decoration confined to sculpture; for the whole façade, and in fact the entire church, is a tracery of stone.