The term Civil and Domestic Architecture includes all public and private
edifices, that is to say: honorary monuments, such as triumphal arches
and tombs; buildings for the instruction of the public, such as museums,
libraries and schools; houses for public amusements, as theatres,
amphitheatres and circuses; structures for public service, as
city-halls, court-houses, prisons, hospitals, thermæ, markets,
warehouses, slaughter-houses, railway-stations, light-houses, bridges
and aqueducts; finally, private dwellings, as palaces, mansions, city
and country residences, châteaux and villas.
[Illustration: Memorial to the Heroes of the Franco Prussian War,
Berlin.]
The first care of all social organizations, at their inception, must
have been to provide shelter against inclement weather. In primitive
times society was composed of shepherds, or agriculturists, or hunters,
and it is presumable that each of these groups adopted a shelter suited
to its nomadic or sedentary tastes. For this reason to shepherds is
attributed the invention of the tent, a portable habitation which they
could take with them from valley to valley, wherever they led their
flocks to pasture; agriculturists fixed to the soil which they tilled,
dwelling in the plains and along the river banks, must have found the
hut better adapted to their wants, while the hunters, stealing through
the forests, ambushed in the mountains, or stationed on the seashore,
naturally took safety in caves, or dug holes for themselves in the
earth, or hollowed out grottos in the rocks.
An imitation of the tent is found later on in the form of the Chinese
and Japanese structures; the principle of the cave appears developed in
the subterranean dwellings of the people of India and Nubia; while the
hut is the point of departure for all Greek and Roman architecture.
As soon as man had contrived a shelter for himself, before considering
improvements that might be made in it, he turned his thoughts toward the
divine being of his worship, and the first steps in art were taken in
the monuments which he raised to his gods. Then, confounding kings with
deities, he reared palaces like unto temples. But civil architecture,
properly so called, came into existence only with an already advanced
state of civilization, when cities were forming and peoples were
organizing. After having satisfied the demands of the moral nature,
after having erected temples to their gods and palaces to their kings,
the people began to group together and surround themselves with
fortifications. Next the material needs of society made themselves felt;
aqueducts were constructed to supply water; bridges established
communication between the opposite banks of streams; dikes confined the
rivers within certain bounds; streets were laid out along which houses
were built in orderly fashion, public squares were marked off where the
products of industry could be exchanged, where justice was dispensed and
where the great affairs of State were treated; then came mental and
physical demands, a felt need for the training of body and mind, and out
of this want grew theatres, stadia, gymnasia and thermæ. In time we find
the history of a single people developing; and with this development a
necessity arising for lasting monuments to commemorate its various
stages; public services rendered by certain illustrious men called for
some enduring memorial; and relatives and friends, with whom one had
lived and whom the dread enemy had snatched away could not be left
without sepulture. Is there nothing after death? And so honorary
monuments, triumphal columns, statues and tombs sprang into being.
Again, with the growth of a people, wealth increases, and every new
victory assuring an added degree of ease introduces at the same time
extravagant tastes; a people after enduring suffering cries out for its
portion of pleasure; it was to satisfy this demand that circuses were
built, and amphitheatres where the eyes could feast on imposing
spectacles; private houses became more comfortable, they were improved
in arrangement, they were enlarged and embellished; at length an
extraordinary display of sumptuousness began to appear in the dwellings
of the great,--that luxury of decadence which marks the close of ancient
civilization.
With the advent of Christ came new ideas which caused new departures,
not only in religious and monastic architecture, but in civil
architecture, as well. Christianity, in proclaiming a new virtue, love,
created retreats for the unfortunate, asylums for their reception and
hospitals for their care. Monkish orders, in their efforts to prevent
the destruction of old manuscripts, spread knowledge around them, and
following the example set by them in their monasteries, outside colleges
were founded. With the dissemination of knowledge, cities roused out of
their long sleep; their independent spirit began to shake off the yoke
of their oppressors; they formed themselves into communes and various
privileges were granted them. Under certain conditions, and in
consideration of the discharge of certain obligations, the commune is
seen at length assuming the administration of its own affairs. From this
moment an assembling-place is needed where communal interests can be
discussed and where questions can be put to vote. The town-hall, with
its belfry from which could be proclaimed afar all immunities won,
supplied the want. Around this centre markets sprang up, and exchanges
where merchants could negotiate and transact business. Finally, the less
exclusive modern spirit made itself felt, and, soaring beyond the city
bounds, it projected works of a genuinely public nature, not for the
benefit of this or that city, but for the entire country. Political
centralization, governmental unity, later on, made it possible to run
canals through different provinces, to establish barracks for troops
over broad stretches of territory, to build court-houses and prisons, to
reconstruct hospitals on new plans, and to open more extensive
exchanges, markets, warehouses and slaughter-houses. Public instruction
also had its imperious demands, and States were forced to sprinkle their
lands with school-houses of every grade, from the simplest asylums and
primary and secondary schools to special government institutions;
libraries and museums were founded to satisfy still other claims of
education. Then with the ever-increasing wants of a civilization, eager
for progress, in the presence of the important discoveries of science,
before the invasions of finance and the extension of governmental
machinery, architectural designs are indefinitely multiplied to supply
suitable departmental buildings, banking-houses, houses of commerce,
quarters for public officers and public boards, railway-stations, inns,
custom-houses and toll-houses; to say nothing of private residences and
play-houses, bathing establishments, casinos and villas, whose designs
change from time to time with the manners and customs of the period or
people.
Civil architecture, in the proper sense of the term, originated with the
Greeks and was extended in a surprising degree among the Romans. All the
other peoples of antiquity devoted themselves to the rearing of
religious and sepulchral monuments, and to the construction of palaces
for their sovereigns. Their political organization did not lend itself
to development in other directions. So long as a people is not
considered as an individual there can be no thought of erecting for its
comfort or education structures of any considerable importance; so long
as it has no existence as a civil body there can be no call for the
building of edifices wherein to discuss its own affairs or the affairs
of State. Nevertheless, aside from temples and palaces, there are
certain works of public utility which are forced upon all civilizations,
and among all organized peoples a domestic architecture exists which
answers to their needs and which we cannot pass over in silence.
The sacred books of the Hindoos give us the plans on which their cities
were built. There were forty different kinds of cities, distinguished
one from the other by their extent and form. The streets crossed at
right angles. The centre of the city was reserved for sacred uses and
was inhabited by the Brahmins; around them dwelt the people, and the
angles were occupied by the exchanges, markets, colleges and other
public structures. The city was always walled, with a gate on each of
the four sides and one at each corner.
Private dwellings varied in height according to the rank of the owners.
Those of the inferior classes could have only one story above the
ground-floor, and in most cases they were limited to the ground-floor
itself. The door was never placed in the centre of the façade. Its
position, as well as its height and breadth, was fixed by rule; the same
was true of the windows. The streets were supplied with running water,
and adorned with avenues of trees; they were bordered by rich shops and
houses set close together, with no intervening spaces. The palaces,
which were composed of separate buildings, approached by porches, were
usually erected around small courts, and these courts were almost always
planted with trees. The roofs were flat, and the narrow, rude staircases
were made in the thickness of the walls. The Hindoos also constructed
huge reservoirs, and reared columns and square triumphal arches in honor
of their heroic victors; they are also known to have built bridges, the
piles of which, formed of enormous blocks, were connected by stones of a
single piece.
Passing into China we encounter a civilization whose antiquity rivals
that of India. However, there are no very ancient remains there. But
there is documentary evidence that the Chinese, several centuries before
the Christian era, built from the same designs that they use to-day.
Architecture being the expression of the needs, instincts, character and
traditions of a people, and the Chinese having in no way modified their
manner of living or their traditions, we can easily understand why their
architecture has undergone no modifications.
The Great Wall, running along the north of China proper, with a length
of fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred miles, is the only Chinese work
that can boast of its antiquity. It is attributed to the emperor Tsin
Hoang Ti [Che Hoang-te], who reigned in the third century before our
era, and who is said to have employed in its construction five or six
million men. The foundations are of hewn stone, the rest is of brick
faced with smoothly-joined stones. The wall is battlemented, flanked
with towers, and is provided at certain intervals with fortified gates.
It is broad enough for six horsemen to ride abreast on it.
Among the great works of the Chinese, mention is also made of the bridge
of Loyau at Sueno chou Fou; it is built over the point of an arm of the
sea and comprises two hundred and fifty piles made of material of
enormous bulk. The roadway is formed with single blocks of granite, and
is guarded on each side by a balustrade.
There are other bridges raised on vaulted arches. Others, still, are
decorated with triumphal arches, such as that of the Province of
Kiang-Nan; and again there are others built of wood, like the bridge of
King-Chou-Fou, with the flooring supported by iron chains fastened to
rocks.
The cities are generally laid out on a square plan with the angles
directed as far as possible toward the four cardinal points, and the
predominance of a single architectural type imparts a certain monotony
to the streets. The enclosing walls are flanked with towers and their
gates are surmounted by lofty structures which include an arsenal and a
guard-room. Besides the temples and commemorative monuments erected on
the same plan as the temples, at the entrance to certain streets and
before certain edifices monuments in the form of gates are to be seen.
These structures, called _pai léou_, are nothing else than triumphal
arches raised to the memory of emperors, generals, mandarins and all
those who have rendered important services to the country. The bases of
these arches are of stone, the rest is made of wood; they have a single
bay, or one principal bay with two smaller ones, and the top is in the
form of a Chinese roof.
The palaces present a succession of spacious courts surrounded by
buildings and are entered through gates in the form of triumphal arches.
Each separate portion of the structure is destined to a special use. The
women and children are usually relegated to the rear court.
The houses have one or two stories; their dimensions are regulated by
law, according to the rank and condition of the owner, and, as in all
Oriental dwellings, there are but few openings on the street.
While the Hindoos built with enduring materials, the Chinese generally
used brick and wood. The explanation of this fact is to be sought not so
much in their fear of the earthquakes with which they are constantly
threatened as in their narrow-mindedness and lack of ambition; they saw
no reason why an edifice should outlast the generation for which it was
constructed.
Judging from the ruins of Persepolis, the Medes and Persians must have
attained to a high degree of civilization in the time of Cyrus, but we
have no authentic records concerning their civil architecture. Their art
is derived from the Babylonians and Assyrians, from whom they must have
largely borrowed their customs.
The Assyrian palaces consisted of three wholly distinct groups of
buildings, three divisions which we find exactly reproduced to-day in
the seigneurial and princely dwellings of Persia, India and Turkey.
First, there was the seraglio, or the palace properly so-called, which
comprised the reception-halls and the men's apartments, and which is
known now throughout the East under the name of _selamlik_; then came
the harem containing the private rooms where the master saw his wives
and children with their guards of eunuchs and their throngs of
attendants; and lastly, there was the _khan_, a cluster of dependent
structures including servants' quarters and out-buildings. In princely
palaces each of these divisions included several courts, and the whole
was disposed around a principal court, the court of honor. The entire
assemblage of edifices was nothing more than one vast ground-floor. "The
design followed in the arrangement of these composite dwellings," it has
been said, is almost naive in its simplicity: the plan is merely divided
into as many right parallelograms as there are services to be provided
for, and these rectangles are so disposed as to touch along one side or
at one of the angles, but they never interfere with or command one
another; they are contiguous or adjacent but always independent. Thus
each of the three divisions (seraglio, harem and khan) presents a
rectangular figure, and each borders one side of the principal court,
which is neutral ground,--the common centre around which all are
grouped. The same principle of arrangement is applied to the
subdivisions of the great quarters; the latter are composed of smaller
rectangles distributed about an uncovered space, on which each apartment
opens, with no direct communication between adjoining rooms through
partition-walls. In this way all the sections of an edifice were
clustered together and at the same time isolated; and each of these
sections had its special use and its pre-assigned occupants.[2]
Drains were contrived under the palaces, and certain square rooms were
covered with dome-shaped vaults.
The houses, built of brick, were of two different types; some were
covered with hemispherical or parabolical calottes, others had flat
roofs with a tower in the fashion of a belvedere. They were generally
quite low, except in large cities like Babylon, where they were
sometimes three or four stories high.
The towns were regularly laid out; the streets ran at right-angles to
each other; quays were built along the streams, and bridges established
communication between their banks. The large cities were protected by a
fortified wall. The gates were arched and flanked each by two towers
which were separated by only the width of the entrance. Some of the
gates were ornamented, others were plain, but each one was in itself an
edifice of quite complicated structure.
The city gate played then, as it still does all through the East, an
important rôle in the life of the urban populations. It was an agora for
the Greeks, a forum for the Romans. The people gathered there to chat,
and learn the news, and there the old men acted as arbitrators in case
of quarrels. In the same way it was at the palace-gates, which were
always constructed on the model of the city-gates, that the court
attendants assembled, and that petitioners stood in waiting.
The Phoenician cities also were surrounded by fortified walls, and
dwellings were burrowed into the very body of the ramparts. In order not
to extend the limits of the city too much, the houses in the central
portions were built very high. In the chief quarters of Carthage some of
them had as many as six stories; they were covered with flat roofs, and,
as is the case of all warm countries, the streets were narrow. The
residences of the rich merchants were of a marked character and were
easily distinguished; they were all provided with cisterns; they had
inner courts adorned with porches, and with open galleries along the
upper stories. The streets, squares and courts were paved with broad
flags, probably for the purpose of saving every drop of water that fell.
There were also public cisterns, and ports for shipping. As their
country abounded in stone that could be easily cut, the Phoenicians used
no artificial building material: they are not known to have built of
brick before the Roman period.
In Judea, while enormous, rough blocks were used in huge structures, the
houses were made of unburned brick, with ceilings of palm or sycamore
beams covered with a layer of hard earth. In order that the variations
in temperature should not be felt in the interior, the outer walls and
the roof had to be quite thick. All the dwellings were covered with flat
roofs surrounded by a parapet, and here people passed the night in
certain seasons. Most houses had only a ground-floor; but the residences
of the wealthy sometimes boasted of an upper story, and certain windows,
doubtless those lighting the women's apartments, were provided with
lattices similar to the _moucharabiehs_ of the Arab houses of the
present day.
The villages were generally built on the hill-tops, and the more
important of them were surrounded with fortifications. Jerusalem was the
seat of royalty. It was there that David reared his palace, to which
Solomon added numerous edifices that occupied thirteen years in
construction. Other great works were undertaken by the Hebrews, with the
view of carrying to a distance the precious water of the springs; and
they were compelled to supplement their scant supply of water by digging
wells and making cisterns.
In Egypt, the attention of archæologists was so long riveted on the
temples and tombs that it is only recently that a study has been made of
private dwellings. To-day, however, something is known of these.
The streets of Egyptian cities were usually laid out regularly, but they
were so narrow that, except in the principal ones, two chariots could
scarcely pass. This narrowness of the streets, which is frequently
observed in the ancient Arab cities, and which has been so long
maintained in all hot countries, had the advantage of securing shade at
all times on one side of the street. The buildings along the street were
ordinarily separated from each other by alleys; they were rarely more
than two stories high, except in such large cities as Thebes, where they
sometimes reached four and even five stories. The houses were so
arranged as to meet the demands of the climate. A court often preceded
the apartments which were disposed along both sides of a long corridor.
In other cases the rooms occupied three sides of the court; or oftener
still the court was surrounded on all sides by the different structures.
The ground-floor was reserved for the stables; it was used also for
storing the corn, and it contained the kitchen and the cellar. The
family occupied the upper stories. Above the whole was a terrace where
they could enjoy the cool air and even pass the night, when the heat was
excessive. Sometimes the terrace was protected by a light roof supported
by slender wooden columns. There were but few windows, so as to keep the
sun out as far as possible, and such as there were were placed nearly at
the top of the rooms.
The houses were built of unburned brick, made from a heavy clay, mixed
with a little sand and chopped straw; this was shaped into oblong slabs
which were dried in the sun. Bricks of ordinary size measured 8-2/3 in.
x 4-1/3 in. x 5-1/2 in., the large ones were 15 in. x 7 in. x 5-1/2 in.
There were special marks to indicate where they were manufactured; some
came from the royal works, some from private shops. The foundations of
the buildings were not deep; the walls were whitewashed, or painted in
bright colors; the floors were of brick or flagging, or simply of
hardened earth; the roof was flat, with a framework of palm branches
covered with a coating of earth sufficiently thick to prevent the
infiltration of the rain. The dwellings of the wealthy lords were
usually erected in the centre of a garden, or of a cultivated court, and
occupied a considerable space. The entrance was announced by a colonaded
porch or a pylon, and the interior was like a small city,--the dwelling
in the background, with the granaries, stables, servants' quarters and
out-buildings disposed here and there about the enclosure.
In the more important palaces, the dwelling of the master stood in the
centre of a rectangular court, the sides of which, on the right and
left, were occupied by the storehouses.
Like all other peoples of antiquity, the Egyptians were obliged to
protect their towns from the incursions of enemies. The greater part of
their cities, and even the principal villages, were therefore walled.
Man will never cease to fortify his cities until these fortifications
have been proved unavailing before the power of new engines of
destruction.
In this rapid review of the civil architecture of the ancient peoples of
Asia and Egypt, we have discovered no traces of structures whose
destination indicated any care for the development of the lower classes
of society, no remains which implied their participation in any
municipal life whatever, no edifice erected for the purpose of national
education. Such institutions had no place under a theocractic government
which absorbed into itself the entire nation. When it had made provision
for the defence of its cities, erected temples to its gods, reared
palaces for the earthly abode of its monarchs and tombs for their future
life, when it had satisfied the simple material needs of the people,
what more could be asked?
[To be continued.]