[Illustration: STAIRWAY IN THE NEW YORK CITY HALL.]
We are fortunate indeed as a nation to have had in our earlier days an
architecture that could boast of such pleasing monuments as the New
York City Hall. Our ancestors in both the North and South were strongly
influenced from the point of view of art by that English Renaissance
which reached its culmination in the hands of Sir Christopher
Wren. Many a New England church and many a Southern home boasts
an architectural beauty of rare charm and in rare accord with the
natural setting of this new land. Nor were we less fortunate in public
works. The old and new statehouses in Boston, Independence Hall in
Philadelphia, and the Capitol in Washington are but a few of the early
buildings in America that, like the New York City Hall, are worthy to
rank among the best in beauty of design. The latter was the work of
John McComb, Jr., and was built between 1803 and 1812 in a style based
largely upon the Italian Renaissance. Though not of very great size,
its proportions are remarkably fine, and its architecture beautiful.
For good taste and for excellence of workmanship it is as worthy of the
city of millions today as of the city of thousands for which it was
first built.
[Illustration: OLD COLONIAL CHAMBER
_The office of the Borough President of Manhattan in New York City
Hall._]
That the source of beauty in architecture is indefinable, this brief
account of six of the world's finest buildings has clearly shown.
No two are alike; yet all are beautiful. And this quality lies not
merely in size and proportions, in design and decoration, but in the
appeal that each one makes to the mind as well as to the eye. Thus
the Taj Mahal fairly speaks of human remembrance, the Alhambra is the
embodiment of oriental luxury, Amiens affords a majestic picture of
religious power, and Salisbury of quiet Christian worship, Chambord
conjures up visions of gay kings and courtiers, while New York in its
City Hall possesses a worthy monument of civic interest and pride. Many
another building could be added to such a list as ours, and in the case
of each it would be found that added to its visible and tangible beauty
was an invisible character that marked it above its fellows. It is from
this broad standpoint that all architecture should be judged.
[Footnote: SUPPLEMENTARY READING:--"History of Architecture," Hamlin;
"Indian and Eastern Architecture," Fergusson; "Medieval Architecture,"
Porter; "Handbook of English Cathedrals," Van Rensselaer; "Renaissance
Architecture in France," Blomfield.]