Towards the close of the last century there arose in England a decided fashion for Greek columns and pediments, which was brought about by the publication in 1762 of the discoveries by Stuart and Revett at Athens, and was still further stimulated by the bringing to England of the Elgin marbles in 1801, so that every building of any importance, whether church or school or country residence, had its portico with Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian columns. Thus began the Greek revival; then followed the more slender columns, with arches and vaults, of the Roman; and to these were very shortly added the cupola or the dome and the balustrade of the Renaissance.

In London, the Bank of England by Sir John Soane, the British Museum by Robert Smirke (a pupil of Soane’s), the University by Wilkins, were all built early in this century, as were the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the High School at Edinboro, magnificent colonnades adorning the front of each. St. Pancras Church, in London, has a spire of superimposed copies of the Temple of the Winds at Athens—each smaller than the one beneath it,—and there are side porches which reproduce the caryatid portico of the Pandroseum. But the most successful building in England which was designed upon Greek lines is St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, which has a central hall lit from above; at either end is a court-room, and beyond, at one end, is an Odeon, or Music Hall.

The taste for classical design gradually declined in England, and a new cult was assiduously propagated through the writings of Pugin, Brandon, Rickman, and Parker, whose text was that classicism represented paganism, and this, together with the remodeling of Windsor Castle, in 1826, by Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, caused a general interest in the revival of Gothic architecture; for some time, however, much illiterate work was done in the adjustment of old forms to new conditions.

Throughout the last half of this century, the battle of the styles has been maintained by the adherents of the differing schools with varying success, and, although there may be notable examples to the contrary, it has virtually resulted in the adoption of Gothic designs for ecclesiastical buildings, conditions being much the same as formerly for these structures; whereas, for secular buildings, with ever-changing requirements, the classic or the Renaissance, which has shown even greater pliability, has been considered more appropriate.

Among those whose success has been greatest in Gothic work may be mentioned Sir Charles Barry, who was knighted for designing the Parliament Buildings, begun in 1840 and completed twenty years later; George Gilbert Scott, who did the Assize Courts, in Manchester, and New Museum, Oxford; George Edmund Street, whose Law Courts in London are so full of defects in plan yet so excellent in details; Alfred Waterhouse, whose interesting (Norman) Museum of Natural History gave substantial encouragement to the use of terra cotta; T. G. Jackson, the author of much collegiate architecture at Oxford and elsewhere; J. L. Pierson, the designer of eight churches in London; William Burgess, Sir Arthur Blomfield, and James Brooks, all well known for the high character of their work, as is also J. D. Sedding, whose broad sympathies and refined spirit ranked him as one of the most talented men of his day.

The first international exposition was held in London in 1851, and the single building in which it was contained was perhaps the most marvelous exhibit. It was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, and was the first example of the use of iron and glass on a scale of such gigantic proportions.

The so-called “Victorian Gothic” was used to a great extent for secular work as late as 1870, and as it was much stimulated by the writings of Street upon Spain and Northern Italy and by Ruskin’s “Stones of Venice,” there were frequent attempts at polychromy, shown in the use of different colored stone, brick, and terra cotta, and, in the Albert Memorial, by means of mosaic.

R. W. Edis and E. W. Godwin were among the foremost practitioners of the time, but in spite of the cleverness and boldness of design shown in some of their city and suburban buildings, neither they nor others could prolong the life of the fashion, and it presently yielded to the revival of a previous one, and the Renaissance forms of the time of Queen Anne became the vogue, especially for country houses,—nowhere more homelike than in England.

In the suburb of Bedford Park, in Lowther Lodge, as in his designs for the Alliance Assurance Company and the new Scotland Yard, Norman Shaw showed the facility of his clever pencil, and Ernest George Peto gave many evidences of his skill and taste; their work, however, often having a flavor of the Flemish.

The building of the Thames Embankment, the opening of new streets,—such as Holborn Viaduct and Shaftesbury Avenue,—with the widening and straightening of others, have done much for the improvement of modern London.

In France, there were very many important public buildings begun in the first ten years of this century,—during the reign of Napoleon I.,—although some of them were not completely finished until the time of Napoleon III. (1848–1870). Among those in Paris were the Arc de l’Étoile by Chalgrin, the largest triumphal arch ever built, being similar in height and width to the front of Notre Dame Cathedral, omitting the upper portion of the towers; Arc du Caroussel by Percier & Fontaine—both these arches commemorating the victories of Napoleon; the churches of the Madeleine by Vignon, and of Ste. Geneviève, in honor of the great men of France; and the wing connecting the palaces of the Tuileries with the Louvre, parallel to (but furthest from) the river.

The Corps Législatif, which was formerly the Palais Bourbon, was remodeled in 1807 by Poyet, and has for its river front a portico with pediment sustained by twelve columns, a greater number than any other existing building can show.

If there be one style more than any other which needs sunshine and a clear atmosphere to show it to advantage, it is the classic; and a Greek or Roman temple in the atmosphere of fog, rain, and snow, of Edinboro, London, Munich, or even Paris, does not produce at all the same impression as if it were under the blue skies of Italy, Sicily, or Greece; however, the frequent employment of classical motifs since the beginning of the century has contributed, to a degree unprecedented in modern times, towards placing Paris in the very foremost rank among the capitals of the world in the dignity and impressiveness of its public buildings.

The encouragement given to architecture in France by Napoleon I. was revived by Napoleon III. The remodeling of the streets, avenues, and boulevards of Paris, under the direction of Baron Hausmann, while it swept away many landmarks of mediæval Paris, contributed wonderfully to its stately elegance as well as to its hygiene; the work begun upon the Louvre was completed from designs by Visconti & Lefuel, and much entirely new work erected. There was a group of men, some of whom brought about the Neo-Grec movement, whose work was especially interesting, and although not extensively copied, yet exerted a marked influence for many years afterwards. These men were Labrouste, who designed the Library of Ste. Geneviève, about 1830; Duc, who remodeled the Palais de Justice; Duban, who built the library for the School of Fine Arts, about 1845; Viollet le Duc, who restored the Château de Pierrefonds, and wrote treatises and dictionaries upon architecture, furniture, etc., and was instrumental in the organization of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.

Still later than these works are Vaudremer’s Neo-Grec Church of St. Pierre de Montrouge, built in 1860, and Abadie’s Byzantine Church of the Sacred Heart, still unfinished; Baltard’s Church of St. Augustin, of brick and cast-iron, and Central Market, of cast-iron and glass; Garnier’s Opera House, Hitorff’s Northern Railway Station; the Trocadéro, built for the Exposition of 1878; the Machinery Hall and Eiffel Tower, for that of 1889; together with a host of other public buildings, not only in Paris, but in other portions of France, many of which have served as examples to the student of architecture in other lands.

In this connection we should not forget the debt we owe to the French nation. During the reign of Louis XIV. the School of Fine Arts was founded in Paris, where free instruction in painting, sculpture, and architecture is still given to all who pass satisfactorily the entrance examinations; and in this school many of our successful architects have received gratuitous instruction from some of the distinguished men above mentioned. In the Department of Architecture the chief characteristics are the thorough and systematic study of the plan, and the adaptation of building materials to the conditions of the design.

Other European cities besides Paris have profited by the general prosperity of the century. St. Petersburg produces the effect of a city of palaces, the many residences of grand dukes and nobles, the number of public institutions, the riding schools,—much used on account of the severity of the climate,—and even the barracks, in spite of the free use of stucco, each contributing to a certain impression of stateliness; the palace of the Archduke Michael, built by an Italian, Rossi, in 1820, is perhaps the most refined and dignified. Muscovite architecture is most conspicuous in the elaborate and bulbous domes, curious not only in form, but in color, of the churches of St. Petersburg, of Moscow and Warsaw.

King Louis of Bavaria, having lived in Rome when Crown Prince, cultivated so great a fondness for the architecture of Greece and Italy, that when he came to the throne he commissioned his architects to design for his capital city of Munich the Walhalla, Ruhmeshalle, Glyptothek, and Pinakothek, after classical models.

In Dresden, the most interesting buildings designed upon Greek or Italian traditions are the theatre and the picture gallery, by Semper, who will long be ranked as the foremost German architect of his day.

In Berlin there is a theatre,—unique of its kind, with stage in the centre, and an auditorium for winter use at one end and one for summer at the other,—designed by Titz; at Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Strasburg there are theatres and schools in the same style. The present Emperor has added many schools throughout the empire, but they are of late German Renaissance.

The public buildings of Germany and Belgium show few designs of interest in recent years; the Parliament House at Berlin, by Wallot, and the Palais de Justice at Brussels, by Polaert, being colossal in mass and clumsy in detail. Many of the private houses designed in the Italian Renaissance were very elegant and attractive, but within the past decade there has been a woeful deterioration in the character of both surface and line—the grotesque replacing the graceful.

The villages built for their employees by Krupp, the gun manufacturer, and Stumm, the maker of steel, are notable instances of the application of private capital to the improvement of the domestic conditions of the laboring class.

In Austria, Vienna has developed wonderfully since the days of Maria Theresa. The classic Parliament House by Hansen, in 1843, is one of the most delightful of its kind to be found anywhere; Schmitt’s Gothic town-hall is interesting, but cannot be said to be so successful in design; the Votive Church by Ferstel, in 1856 (also Gothic), the Opera House by Siccardsburg and Van der Nüll, with the City Theatre, an elaborate Renaissance structure, by Semper and Hasmauer, are all worthy of note. The University with the two Museum buildings, facing each other upon a small park, and other public buildings and residences along the Ring Strasse, are extremely satisfactory, in spite of the fact that stucco has been so extensively employed.

Only a few years ago the municipality of Buda-Pesth offered immunity from taxation for fifteen years to all prospective builders, under certain conditions as to character and cost of buildings, with the result that the newer portion of the Hungarian capital was quickly occupied by buildings of the most desirable kind; the Parliament House, Opera, Cathedral, Technical School, and several club-houses and private residences, each testify to the spirit with which the citizens responded to this desire to beautify the city.

Since the unification of Italy there has been considerable building in some of the principal cities, but very little of special importance. In Rome, the changes are more perceptible than elsewhere; the excavations of the Forum, the embankment of the Tiber, the widening and straightening of the Corso, and the opening of the Via Nationale and other streets, have destroyed comparatively little of the picturesque that was worth retaining, have brought to light many treasures of art, and, supplemented by the drainage of the Campagna by Prince Torlonia, have certainly made it a healthier city to live in. The monument to Victor Emmanuel, the National Museum, and the Braccia Nuovo of the Vatican Museum, are among the few public structures of interest; the many blocks of apartments and tenements are orderly and inoffensive, though brick and stucco are the materials used in their construction.

Turin is the modern manufacturing city, while Florence preserves its mediæval air, and Venice dreams of the bygone days when the splendor of the Renaissance attracted the wealth, beauty, and talent of all Europe to the city of the Doges.

Bologna and Genoa have each built in the suburbs a magnificent Campo Santo, or cemetery, with chapels, colonnades, and other accessories of architectural value; in Milan and Naples there are lofty glass-covered arcades through the centre of a block and connecting with cross streets, and the semi-circular colonnades of St. Francesco di Paolo, at Naples, surround a piazza which is the great public resort of summer evenings.

During the reign of King George a new Athens has sprung up alongside of and overlapping the old city; although the nation is not wealthy, the individual bequests of certain Greeks have given her the Museum, University, and Academy, each of strict classic design, and a hospital of Byzantine design. Under the sunny skies of Greece those buildings certainly appear to much greater advantage than if in a more northern atmosphere, and their statuary and polychromy show the value of these accessories to such architecture in this climate.

Abdul Aziz, the predecessor of the present Sultan of Turkey, had so great a fondness for building that his extravagance in this respect was one of the causes which led to his downfall. The Dolma Bagtche palace, erected directly upon the shores of the Bosphorus from the designs of Balzan, an Armenian architect, suggests Spanish work of the sixteenth century. In Constantinople and at Therapia,—a summer resort at the northern end of the Bosphorus,—many of the foreign governments have built official residences for their representatives.

As for the architecture of our near neighbors on the north, the buildings of Canada have been sturdy and substantial rather than comely; but the long continuance of cold weather and the lack of means have often hampered the builders. Since the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the prosperity of city and country seems more assured; the older cities growing in importance and extent, and new towns springing up along the line to the West. In Ottawa the Parliament Buildings and the octagonal Library, in Toronto, and, to some extent, in Montreal, the Universities’ buildings, are Victorian Gothic. The later buildings of the University in Montreal, excepting the Girls’ College, are not so interesting; but there are two railroad stations, a hotel, cathedral, with several banks, insurance buildings, and residences that call for more than passing notice. Perhaps the finest building in all Canada is the Château Frontenac, in Quebec,—built by Bruce Price of New York,—on the Dufferin Terrace, overlooking the St. Lawrence River, and commanding a view that is hardly surpassed on the Bosphorus, the Rhine, or the Hudson.

Although the history of architecture in America cannot be written without some reference to contemporary work in Europe,—since so much of our architecture in the first half of the century is adopted from that of our ancestors and adapted to our uses, and in the last half so many of our architects have studied there and so many of our citizens have traveled there,—the problems and their conditions in the Old World are very different from those of the New. Europe was already mature when steam and electricity were introduced; precedent was always to be considered, and modern requirements were often forced to conform to existing circumstances. There has, therefore, been comparatively less change there during the century than during the past thirty years with us. With our republican institutions, many of the monarchical formulas soon became obsolete, though the general trend of our architecture has been in the direction of classic models. As the country has grown larger and more wealthy, the problems given to architects have become more complex; less reliance could be placed upon precedent and a premium was placed upon originality, which, in spite of innumerable vagaries, has brought American architecture, at the end of the century, to be the most notable of the day.

At the end of the eighteenth century, this republic consisted of hardly more than a number of communities extending at intervals along the Atlantic seaboard, with an occasional settlement beyond the Alleghany Mountains and across the Ohio River. Their resources were extremely limited, their wants very few, and their intercommunication irregular; but their methods of living were simple and frugal, and their courage and endurance phenomenal.

Among the settlers of New England were many mechanics and manufacturers, and these soon began to replace the primitive log cabins with frame dwellings; those of the Southern States were chiefly planters, who imported much of their labor, and often the bricks as well as the glass, hardware, tiles, and other materials for their houses. Many of those who colonized the Middle States had come from countries in Europe where these materials were made, and brought their secrets with them, while others were farmers and stock growers, whose snug little cottages and enormous barns may be seen to this day in New York and Pennsylvania.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century we possessed a national style of architecture, which, although it had come to us from Italy, through France and England, was yet distinctly American. It was, however, almost exclusively confined to residences, and there were very few public buildings of any description, except certain churches,—said to have been designed by followers of Sir Christopher Wren, some of whom were doubtless ship carpenters who had studied the works of Sir William Chambers.

The Colonial style, as we now term it, was sufficiently elastic in its adaptability to conform to the requirements of the merchant, manufacturer, or mariner living at Salem, Boston, or Newport, as well as to those of the planter living at Charleston or Savannah. There were certain differences, more or less pronounced, peculiar to each section and to each city, but all houses were alike in this respect,—there was no gas or water, and the open fireplace was depended upon for heat.

In New England the dwelling-houses were placed near the ground; the chimneys built in an interior cross wall, the kitchen, with its accessories, as near to the dining-room as possible; the ceilings were low, with cornices sometimes of plaster, sometimes of wood. The roof,—which was often hipped and often of the gambrel shape, but rarely a gable of even slope,—was always covered with shingles, which covering was occasionally used also on the exterior walls.

In the South, some of the characteristics were the high basement, broad piazzas, frequently at the level of the second as well as the first story, and placed on the south and west sides; the chimney on outside walls; the kitchen in a separate building, detached from the dwelling; a broad hall through the centre, giving access to large rooms with high ceilings; the roof quite as frequently hipped as gabled, and often—in either case—a huge fanlight set in a low gable on the front for ventilation of the attic; dormers were seldom used, as the attic was not inhabited; the gambrel roof was uncommon; slate, and occasionally tile or shingle, was used for roof covering.

Our first public buildings of any importance, and which show the influence of contemporary work in England, were the White House, designed by Hoban in 1792; the Capitol, begun by Dr. Thornton in 1793 and completed by B. H. Latrobe in 1830; the wings, containing the present Senate and House of Representatives, were added later; the dome, designed by Thomas U. Walter, was begun in 1858, but not completed until 1873.

Our early Presidents took much interest in architecture, Washington directing and criticising the planning of the Capitol and building his own home at Mount Vernon, and Jefferson designing the dome and colonnades of the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville, and his own home at Monticello.

Massachusetts was the first State to erect its capitol,—the State House in Boston, by Bulfinch, dating from 1795.

The City Hall of New York was our first work of unmistakable French character, and shows the influence of the time of Louis XVI. It was designed by Mangin, a Frenchman, begun in 1803, and completed in 1812.

After the war of 1812, many state and national buildings were erected; from that time colonnades and domes seem indispensable to the proper dignity of the capitol or court house. The use of both brick and stone became more general, and, for private houses, the form of the gambrel roof gradually disappeared in favor of the hip and gable. Subsequent to 1830, the accepted type of the larger or more pretentious house was the Italian villa, with a square tower accentuating the front entrance, often one story higher than the main building; all roofs of low pitch, covered with tin; the exterior walls faced with stucco. About this time bay windows and sliding doors for principal rooms of first story, and better facilities for the use of heat, light, and water were introduced and the symmetrical disposition of parts often neglected.

The very steep pointed Gothic roof denoted the modest cottage, and the perforated wooden tracery of windows and porches, or the barge-boards of gables, became the simple beginning of that riotous growth of jig-sawed fretwork afterwards so prominent upon those houses constructed with Mansard or French roofs of rectilinear, concave, or convex form. The works and writings of Downing had much influence at this time, and it was shown not only in these Italian villas or Gothic cottages, but also in landscape gardening about suburban residences.

The political disturbances in various countries of Europe in 1848 brought very many immigrants to our shores, and the discovery of gold in California, in 1849, was the beginning of that steady flow of settlers which has since then peopled so many of our Western States and Territories.

Then followed our own Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, and subsequent to that the period of reconstruction, during which time there was some building, but very little architecture, throughout the country.

In 1869 the Pacific Railroad was completed, and this not only gave a new impetus to Western mining and farming, but created a new market for Eastern manufactures.

So great was this manufacturing and commercial activity that vast fortunes were made, and there were many opportunities calling for the services of architects; but as they had hitherto been rarely employed, except in a few of the larger cities, upon churches or public buildings, a great proportion of them were untrained amateurs or self-taught carpenters and masons. However, the first school of architecture had just been organized at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Boston, and to William E. Ware,—who was its professor of architecture from 1866, and who organized a similar school at Columbia College, New York, in 1880,—the profession and the public owe more than to any other one man for well-directed efforts towards the development of such, qualifications as may eventually give a national character to our architecture. These schools came none too soon, and within the past twenty-five years many others have been founded and many traveling scholarships endowed; collections of books, photographs, and casts have been provided in various cities; architectural periodicals published, and architectural societies and sketch clubs formed, each of which has contributed to the higher education of the profession and to the greater appreciation by the public.

Prior to this time, each section and each city had certain peculiarities of architecture, as of speech, which were unmistakable. The white New England meeting-house, the red school-house, the country house with its kitchen, wash-room, and wood-shed trailing in the rear, or the swell-front city house, were as characteristic as the endless blocks of brown stone, high stoop houses of New York, or the monotonous rows of red brick dwellings with white marble trimmings of Philadelphia, or the broad verandas and halls of the Southern home.

Cast-iron was the recognized material for the front of business buildings, the designs being chiefly in the Corinthian or composite orders, and the arch or lintel used indiscriminately; and when the dry goods store of A. T. Stewart & Co. was built, in 1872, to occupy the whole block from Broadway to Fourth Avenue, and from Ninth to Tenth Streets, it was the largest and most important of its kind. Before this class of commercial architecture disappeared, a front was designed by R. M. Hunt, about 1878, for a store on Broadway, near Broome Street, where the plastic forms of the tile and stucco of Saracenic architecture were used as being more logical for this material than an imitation of Roman forms in stone.

There were not many summer resorts, and a few weeks at Saratoga, Newport, or the Virginia Springs was the limit of the annual vacation; the orthodox hotel was a rectangular frame building, with veranda on one or more sides, covered by a flat roof supported by square piers having the height of several stories; the length, width, and height of the building were governed by no other proportion than that of the number of guests.

In the South and West there were virtually no hotels, and the belated traveler applied for food and shelter for himself and his horse to the nearest friendly farm.

These were the prevailing conditions when the nouveau riche appeared upon the scene; to him as citizen prosperity meant a better home, to the congregation a larger church, to the community a new city hall or court house, to the State a more expensive capitol.

While these buildings were being everywhere erected, in accordance with the time honored fashions of construction and with elaborate finish, the disastrous conflagrations of 1871 in Chicago, and of 1872 in Boston, called general attention to the necessity for more permanent building; and the precautions now taken against similar occurrences were the beginning of efforts toward methods of fireproof construction. Granite, marble, and limestone were discarded in favor of sandstone, brick, and terra cotta; iron beams carrying brick or concrete (subsequently hollow terra cotta) arches were introduced, and metal laths were substituted for the wooden strips to a certain degree; but as these fires were mainly in the business districts, such reforms have been confined almost exclusively to commercial architecture.

In 1873 the financial panic gave a check to many building operations, but it was of comparatively short duration, for in 1876 all the other nations of the earth were invited to unite with us at Philadelphia in celebrating the centennial anniversary of our independence.

This was our first international Exposition, and it was not remarkable that in our eagerness to learn, and in the enthusiasm of prosperity, we sought inspiration from all those peoples who had brought their goods for our inspection. At once we began to build Queen Anne cottages or to remodel existing houses with many bays and towers, rooms set at all angles, floors at different levels, walls of many materials, and roofs of varying slopes, as well as to apply many tints and shades of color within and without.

The summer hotel and summer cottage began to appear at the seashore, in the mountains, and along the shores of the great lakes, and the winter resorts of the Carolinas, Florida, and California to attract the seekers for health and pleasure.

The interior decoration of our houses was the chief lesson of 1876, and having once seen the European and Oriental hangings, draperies, rugs, and bric-à-brac, we set about furnishing our rooms with them.

Hitherto American architecture had been most influenced by English precedent, and the Victorian Gothic had able advocates, especially in Boston, where the Art Museum by Sturgis & Brigham, as well as many stores, residences, and churches by Cummings & Sears, Peabody & Stearns, and others, showed much vigor and originality. William A. Potter, as supervising architect for the Government, adopted this style, in 1875, for his buildings at Fall River, Mass., Nashville, Tenn., and Covington, Ky., and R. M. Upjohn designed for Hartford, Conn., the only Gothic State Capitol in this country.

R. M. Upjohn and Henry M. Congdon of New York had already done much Gothic ecclesiastical work and, with the possible exception of Grace Church in 1840, and St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in 1886 by Renwick, there is no example of this style which shows such appreciation of proportion or of form, in mass and in detail, as Trinity Church (1843) by the first-named architect.

It was perhaps rather fortunate that just as the Queen Anne fashion, with its multiplicity of detail, was brought to us from England, H. H. Richardson, of Boston, called our attention to the bigness and (almost brutal) simplicity of the Romanesque from Southern France. From the date of the building of Trinity Church, in Boston (1876), may be reckoned the parting of the ways. Heretofore everything we had done of any importance had an English stamp upon it; henceforth the work that was done showed the result of training of the Parisian atelier or of the well-filled sketch books of Continental travel.

Not only in this church, but in his libraries at Woburn, North Easton, Quincy, Milford, Burlington, and New Orleans, did Richardson show his grasp of the subject. Trinity is unmistakably a Christian temple, and its bigness most conducive to the sense of awe and reverence. His libraries leave no doubt as to their having been built for the storing and reading of books; his stone buildings, whether the Court House and jail in Pittsburg, the Chamber of Commerce in Cincinnati, or private houses in Buffalo or Chicago, show their purpose and emphasize their material; his brick buildings, whether a college building at Cambridge, railway station at New London, or residence at Washington, tell their story in brick; and his country houses about the suburbs of Boston, to be what they are, could not have been other than of wood.

His influence upon the architecture of the day was therefore not surprising, but there was a subtleness in the character of his designs that his imitators could never acquire and even his immediate successors could not long retain after his personality was lost to them; and from the lack partly, perhaps, of true sympathy, partly from the modification of conditions, his art may be said to have died with him.

As R. M. Hunt had the last word on the cast-iron front, so he had the first on the modern sky-scraper, a peculiarly American production; the walls of the Tribune Building, however, carry both their own weight, and that of the floors, being built before the days of the methods of steel skeleton construction. Hunt was trained in Paris, as was Richardson, and had assisted in the design of the Pavillon de Flore under Lefnel, and he showed his appreciation of the Neo-Grec movement in his design for the Lenox Library. It is somewhat unusual for an artist to do his best work in his latest years, but surely no better work of its kind has been done in modern times than the residences which he designed for three members of the Vanderbilt family at Newport, in New York city, and at Biltmore, N. C. The design which he left for the Fifth Avenue front of the Metropolitan Museum, now being carried out by his son, is a magnificent Corinthian order, whereas much of his other work is late French Gothic.

That he was called upon to design the base for Bartholdi’s Liberty in New York Harbor, and the Administration Building at the International Exposition of 1893, and that a portrait bust has been erected to his memory, all testify to the appreciation in which he was held by the profession.

To McKim, Mead & White, of New York, we are greatly indebted for their influence upon secular architecture, and their Casino at Newport, built in 1880, was probably more far-reaching in its effect upon country houses than any other building at that time. Among the other work from their office may be mentioned the Boston Public Library, the Madison Square Garden (reproducing in its tower the Giralda of Seville), the Library and other buildings for Columbia College, the Metropolitan and University Clubs, the Agricultural Building (of staff) in Chicago in 1893, now being reproduced in marble for the Brooklyn Institute, the Tiffany, the Villard, and other city houses, and a host of country houses at Newport, Lenox, and elsewhere.

There is another architect whose talents should be acknowledged; for about 1880, when the shingle house had just begun to take shape, there was none more clever at that sort of thing than W. R. Emerson, of Boston, and his resources seemed endless in harmonizing form and color with conditions of seashore or mountain, as shown in his houses at Bar Harbor, Milton, Newport, and many other summer resorts.

Philadelphia, which had hitherto always been extremely conservative in architecture, soon began to erect some of the most singular and fantastic structures that could well be imagined; but fortunately the refined simplicity and fertile originality of such men as Wilson Eyre, Frank Miles Day & Bro., and Cope & Stewardson have prevailed, and in both city and suburban work they and certain others have done and are doing much to counterbalance the character of the eccentricities of their predecessors, as shown in buildings for the University of Pennsylvania and the Academy of Arts and Sciences.

But the restless activity of Eastern loom and machine shop, and of Western farm and mine, seemed to meet and concentrate in Chicago—the entrepôt for the raw material of the West and the finished product of the East. The unprecedented increase in value of land, the low price of iron and steel, with the introduction of high-speed elevators, combined to develop a new type of sky-scraper; and as the nature of the soil was entirely unlike that of other cities, the foundations of these buildings presented problems which were solved by Chicago architects in various ways hitherto untried. The Rookery by Burnham & Root, Pullman Building by S. S. Beman, and the Auditorium (opera house, hotel, and office building in one) by Adler & Sullivan, at the time of their completion were most notable examples of architectural engineering, and were soon followed by many others more or less similar, designed by W. L. B. Jenny, Holabird & Roche, Henry Ives Cobb, and others. The buildings for the Chicago University, the Athletic Club, and Newbury Library, by the last-named architect, show a high degree of ability; the peculiarly rich arabesque ornamentation designed by Louis H. Sullivan, and the direct and rational handling of the buildings upon which it was used, are certainly indicative of the spirit of enthusiasm and conscientiousness of a well-trained mind. It is by such characteristics that John W. Root was able to accomplish so much for the advancement of architecture in the West.

What Krupp and Stumm had done for the employees in their works in Germany, Pullman determined to do for his men and their families here; and a town, with dwellings, schools, churches, water-works, etc., for many thousand inhabitants was designed and built by S. S. Beman, which has been reported by experts to be the best of its kind.

In Chicago, in 1893, was held our second international Exposition; and that the exhibits should be suitably housed, some of the most prominent architects of the country were called together, buildings were assigned to each of them, and Frederick Law Olmsted was appointed to lay out the grounds, waterways, and bridges.

Except for the difference in material, never did Rome in the days of Augustan magnificence show buildings similar to those grouped about the Court of Honor. A Greek would surely have been proud to walk through the Peristyle, or to have visited the Art Galleries, and a Roman to have sauntered about the Terminal Station or the triumphal arches of the Manufactures Building. Right nobly was the Spanish aid to Columbus acknowledged in the design of Machinery Hall; but to France, whose generosity had trained so many of our architects, sculptors, and painters to do such things, was the greatest triumph in the unanimity with which they had all worked and the success which crowned their labors.

The building occupied by the Federal Government was one of the few unworthy of its location or of the occasion. While the architecture of the people had been advancing steadily for fifty years, that provided by the Treasury Department in Washington had been quite as steadily retrograding. The Custom House, Boston; Sub-Treasury, New York; the Mint, in Philadelphia; the Treasury, Post Office, and Interior Department buildings, in Washington, have stood almost alone since the middle of the century. The few Gothic buildings referred to previously were honest and intelligent attempts to improve the quality of design for the government, but the politicians decided that artistic ability was not a prerequisite for the office of Supervising Architect.

Since 1895, there has been some infusion of new life into the designing-room, and such work as the designs by William Martin Aiken, for the Buffalo and San Francisco Post Offices and Court Houses, the Denver and the Philadelphia Mints, and the New London Post Office, were about being materialized, when once again the politicians, who cared not a whit for one design more than another, interfered to oblige the government contractor. But the good seed had been planted, and the work of the present incumbent, James Knox Taylor, is likely to show a marked advance over that of many previous years.

The general scheme of the Congressional Library was conceived by Smithmeyer & Pelz, the details carried out subsequently by General Casey and his able assistants and successors, and the building opened to the public in 1896. The experiment of the collaboration of sculptor and painter with the architect had resulted so favorably in Chicago, that the artists invited to decorate this building gladly responded; and although the remuneration was inconsiderable, their loyalty to the country, as to Art, resulted in such mural decoration as had not been seen since W. M. Hunt decorated the Senate Chamber in Albany, or La Farge did the figures in Trinity Church, Boston, and St. Thomas Church, New York. Blashfield’s dome, typifying all the nations of the earth; Vedder’s Minerva, in mosaic; H. O. Walker’s large lunettes, illustrating English poems, and Simmons’ small lunettes, filled with exquisite little figures, are but a few of the many interesting works in color. Two of the main entrance doors of bronze were modeled by Olin L. Warner, but he did not live to complete them. The marble stairway is by Martini, and the statues which adorn the main reading-room are by Adams, Bartlett, Partridge, Ward, and others.

The plan of the building is that of a central octagon containing the general reading-room, connected by wings containing the book-stacks with a surrounding hollow square containing rooms for special collections. There are ample reading-rooms for representatives, senators, and the public, and a tunnel by which books are sent to the Capitol. This is the last building of considerable importance constructed by the government, and it was built on time and within the appropriation of $6,000,000; it may be said to be dignified and suitable to its purpose, and to be representative of the people at the close of the century.

It now seems probable that New York will build the handsome library designed by Carrère & Hastings; the Egyptian lines of the reservoir occupying the site—emphasized by the varying hues of the ivy for so many seasons—will give place to those of an example of modern French Renaissance.

Among the changes incidental to the growth of this city is the recent disappearance of the old Tombs prison, which was another building of Egyptian architecture, good of its kind, and quite dignified and impressive.

There are certain other buildings designed in the style of a country almost as tropical as Egypt, and as light and airy as that is sombre and gloomy, but which seem quite as appropriate for their different purposes: they are the Casino Theatre and the Synagogue at Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street,—each an excellent example of Saracenic architecture,—the former of brick and terra cotta, and the latter of vari-colored sandstones. Another synagogue, by Brunner & Tryon, further up the avenue and facing Central Park, has a decided Byzantine flavor,—the large arch accentuating the entrance, carrying a small arcade, and being surmounted by the traceried dome.

The largest and most expensively elaborate hotel in America is the Waldorf-Astoria; and although certain features of the exterior may not be justified by interior arrangements, it has certainly been planned with a view to great comfort and luxury.

While New York has the largest and most expensive private residences,—the chief of these is that of Cornelius Vanderbilt,—Philadelphia has the greatest number of small houses owned by their occupants; and of late years, there are a greater number of attractive homes in St. Louis than anywhere else in this country. Very many of them have been designed by Eames & Young, or by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge; and with much open space about them, they have an air of elegance and hospitality that is lacking to the homes in most other cities.

New York, from its position as the commercial and financial centre of the country, in spite of its situation on a long, narrow island, may be accepted as the typical city. What is done here architecturally is done (only to a different degree) elsewhere, and its growth horizontally in the northern portion of the city has kept pace with its perpendicular growth in the more congested business portion. This general expansion has altogether changed the character of many streets, the residences becoming apartment houses, and the shops becoming office buildings from ten to twenty stories,—or even more,—the masses becoming larger and the detail proportionately less prominent.

The sky-line has entirely changed; the spire of Trinity is lost in such surroundings as the Bowling Green, Empire, Washington Life, and American Surety buildings, and in the vicinity where the Tribune tower was once conspicuous, now the St. Paul Building rises twenty-five stories, and the Ives Syndicate Building even higher; further and further up Broadway, and to the right and left of it, these monster buildings continue to rise. But among them all there is not one which shows a more masterly handling of the problem than the Surety, where the architect, Bruce Price, has emphasized the entrance with a colonnade and six figures of much dignity and grace, and has concentrated the ornament about the upper part of the building, crowning it with a fine cornice, which is more effective from the simplicity of the four walls beneath. This building holds its own among such others as the Washington Life and St. James buildings, New York, or the Ames Building, Boston, Harrison Building, Philadelphia, Schiller Theatre, Chicago, Wainwright Building, St. Louis, or Examiner Building, San Francisco.

It is impossible, in so brief a survey of the field, to enumerate more than a very small fraction of the buildings illustrating the progress of the architecture of the century; and aside from the residences, apartments, and hotels where we live winter or summer, and commercial buildings in which our working hours may be occupied, there are very many examples of churches, schools, colleges, libraries, and museums, donated, equipped, and endowed for our instruction, theatres and music halls for our entertainment, railroad stations for transportation, storage warehouses for the safety of valuables, and armories for the use of our militia.

Besides these, there are engineering works of considerable importance, such as the Eads Bridge, at St. Louis, or the Roebling Bridge, between New York and Brooklyn, and the works of the sculptor St. Gaudens, the Washington Arch by Stanford White, the Farragut and Lincoln statues in New York and in Chicago, which should surely be mentioned, since monumental works are the poetry, whereas the secular and commercial works are but the prose of architecture.

As we review our productions, we should certainly feel encouraged to believe that if we continue to meet and solve each problem in the same direct, honest way that we have been doing for the last quarter of the century, there need be no misgivings as to the future of architecture in these United States.