window-trims, the mantelpieces, cornices, and balustraded staircases
exhibit a choiceness of design, derived from the models of Adam and
Sheraton.
BOOK VII
POST-RENAISSANCE PERIOD
CHAPTER I
CLASSICAL AND GOTHIC REVIVALS
In the latter half of the eighteenth century commenced a Classical
Revival, which in the various countries that it affected lasted far on
into the nineteenth. In some directions it represented a reaction from
the debased Renaissance styles of the baroque and rococo; in all it was
largely promoted by a more accurate study of antiquities and by the
discovery of the distinction between Greek and Roman art. Its effect
upon architecture was but one phase of its influence, which penetrated
more or less the thought of the world and found expression in
literature. This revival belongs rather to a history of architecture
than to a study of fundamentals, such as this book has attempted.
Accordingly we must be satisfied here with a brief sketch of the
subjects. To continue the thread of the previous chapter let us start
with the appearance of the classical revival in Great Britain.
CLASSICAL REVIVAL IN GREAT BRITAIN
=English Exploration.=--The “Revival of Learning” had been followed in
England by a continuous fondness for Greek and Roman literature. Milton,
as late as 1654, was writing his political tracts in Latin; and,
although such use of the language was abandoned, a familiarity with
Latin and at least some acquaintance with Greek continued through the
rest of this century and the following one to be the ordinary mark of an
educated gentleman. In 1647 Dryden popularised the Æneid of Virgil by
translating it, and in 1720 Pope produced his translation of Homer’s
Iliad. For the promotion of arts and letters the Dilettanti Society was
founded in 1734; and some twenty years later financed the archæological
exploration of Stuart and Revett in Greece. Their work, “Antiquities of
Athens,” was published in 1762. One of the results of the interest it
created was the acquisition through Lord Elgin of the bulk of the
sculpture of the Parthenon and a caryatid and column from the
Erechtheion which were purchased by the Government (1801-1803). These in
turn prompted the researches of the architect, H. W. Inwood, who
published in 1831 his study of the “Erechtheion.”
=Winckelmann’s Critical Studies.=--Meanwhile in Germany Winckelmann had
given to the world in 1763, practically at the same time as the
appearance of the work of Stuart and Revett, his famous “History of
Art.” The product of thirteen years of study of the antique sculptures
in Rome, by one who was a profound classical scholar as well as a man of
remarkable independence and extraordinary critical faculty, this work,
for the first time, made exact distinction between Greek and Roman
examples, established a basis of sound criticism, and analysed the
characteristic quality of Greek art. This Winckelmann found to consist
in a relation between the whole and the parts, so completely harmonious
and so balanced and controlled by refined feeling that, if one quality
can be selected as typical of Greek work, it is _repose_.
The influence of Winckelmann’s work and that of Stuart and Revett was
reciprocal in the two countries. But that the functions of Greek
sculpture and Greek architecture were also reciprocal escaped
observation. Even
[Illustration: LA MADELEINE, PARIS
P. 443]
[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LIVERPOOL
P. 438]
[Illustration: PANTHEON, PARIS
BY J. J. SOUFFLOT. P. 442]
[Illustration: ARC DE L’ETOILE, PARIS
P. 443]
[Illustration: OPERA HOUSE, PARIS
BY CHARLES GARNIER. P. 444]
[Illustration:
© Detroit Photographing Co
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON
BY CHARLES BULFINCH. P. 448]
[Illustration: CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON
ORIGINAL CENTRAL PORTION BY WILLIAM THORNTON, ADVISED BY B. H. LATROBE
AND CHARLES BULFINCH. WINGS AND DOME ADDED 1851 TO 1865. P. 446]
[Illustration: CITY HALL, NEW YORK
BY MANGIN. LOUIS XVI STYLE. P. 448]
[Illustration:
Courtesy Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
ST. THOMAS, NEW YORK
BY CRAM, GOODHUE AND FERGUSON. P. 453]
[Illustration: HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
BY SIR CHARLES BARRY AND AUGUSTUS W. N. PUGIN. VICTORIA TOWER, LEFT;
CLOCK TOWER, RIGHT. IN THE DISTANCE, LEFT, WESTMINSTER ABBEY. P. 450]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
P. 451]
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
Following the trend of modern civilisation, architecture to-day, in so
far as it is not continuing to imitate the past, is becoming, on the one
hand, more cosmopolitan and, on the other, more individualistic. The
free-trade in ideas, encouraged by travel and through the interchange of
architectural magazines, is obliterating the distinctions of
nationality. Moreover, the immense variety and the newness of problems
that now confront the architect are tending toward a personal solution
of them. They demand invention on his part and stimulate him to
individual expression.
=The Student’s Attitude.=--Hitherto in this book we have studied the
historic styles of architecture, in their origins and revivals; but, if
it has served its purpose of awakening interest in the art, we shall for
the future think less of styles and acquire the habit of studying a
building very much as we study an individual. We do not estimate an
individual, in the first analysis, at any rate, by comparing him with
some worthy of history, but by his fitness to the present--the front he
presents to society at large and his value in the specific part that he
plays in the common life. Has he, for example, dignity and some other
charm of character? Are his motives sincere? Does he possess the
qualities that make his work not only well-intentioned but practically
efficient, and so forth?
Similarly, we shall estimate a building not as a thing
[Illustration:
Courtesy The Encyclopædia Britannica Company
SCOTLAND YARD, BY RICHARD NORMAN SHAW]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of Architect, Wm Harmon Beers
WOODBURN HALL
RESIDENCE OF MRS. COOPER HEWITT, NEW WINDSOR, N. Y. P. 468]
[Illustration:
© Detroit Publishing Co.
TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON
BY HENRY H. RICHARDSON. P. 462]
[Illustration:
© J. G. Bragdon, Pittsburgh, Pa.
COUNTY BUILDINGS, PITTSBURGH
BY HENRY H. RICHARDSON. P. 462]
[Illustration:
© Frank H Child Courtesy of Architect
THE BREAKERS, NEWPORT, R. I.
RESIDENCE OF CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, BY RICHARD MORRIS HUNT. P. 462]
[Illustration:
© The American Architect. Courtesy Architects, Carrere & Hastings
DETAIL OF RESIDENCE OF MR. THOMAS HASTINGS
WESTBURY, LONG ISLAND. P. 468]
[Illustration: SCHILLER THEATRE BUILDING, CHICAGO
BY LOUIS H. SULLIVAN. A DESIGN THAT ASSERTS THE HEIGHT AND UPWARD GROWTH
OF THE STRUCTURE. ONLY CENTRAL PART CARRIED TO FULL HEIGHT, SO AN
ALL-AROUND CORNICE WAS POSSIBLE. P. 474]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of Thompson-Starrett Co
WOOLWORTH BUILDING
BY CASS GILBERT. FIFTY-ONE STORIES. PP. 471, 476]
[Illustration:
Courtesy of Thompson-Starrett Co.
STEEL CAGE CONSTRUCTION
SCENE IN LOWER NEW YORK; SPIRE OF TRINITY CHURCH IN THE FOREGROUND. P.
470]
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.
In the early days of the sky-scraper, which coincided with the period of
more or less imitative reproduction of old models, the architect found
himself confronted with an entirely new problem in design. His classical
studies had familiarised him with buildings comparatively low and
characteristically horizontal in design. His experience of Italian
Renaissance had involved buildings, still inconsiderable in height
though they included several stories, and had led him to be pre-occupied
with details of design, especially with the effectiveness of a cornice.
On the other hand, the characteristic of the new problem was vertical
instead of horizontal, and on a scale that gave predominance to mass
over detail; while the specific detail of the crowning cornice could
only be fully adopted in the case of structures that did not abut on
adjoining property.
=Height--the Principle of the Design.=--But, for a time, the architect
failed to grasp the newness of his problem. He was confronted with
height, but did not start with it as a principle of design. Instead, he
tried to accommodate the old principles to the new conditions;
experimenting with various methods of embellishment near the ground and
at the top, and treating the main, intermediate part as merely a
repetition of floors.
Gradually, however, he realised the fact that the new buildings actually
presented a new problem which could only be solved by taking the
vertical principle as the basis of the design. So he bethought himself
of a precedent in the column. It is the vertical member in the Classic
design, and comprises three subdivisions: base, shaft and capital. The
base might be emulated in the treatment of the lower part of the façade,
which generally encloses a bank or some feature of special importance,
surmounted by a mezzanine floor. The counterpart of the column’s shaft
was the repetition of stories, while the effect of the capital could be
reproduced in some emphatic crowning treatment. And those architects who
most logically adopted the precedent of the column, recognising that the
beauty of a tall building must be evolved from its special
characteristic of height and that the beauty would be enhanced by a
suggestion of height growing up in its own strength, abandoned the mere
repetition of stories for a vertical treatment that would emphasise the
suggestion of upward growth.
In some cases they applied to the masonry between the windows continuous
bands of vertical ornament, projecting in the nature of shafting or
piers, which by their effect of light and shade carry the eye upward,
giving to the whole structure a suggestion of soaring. Or, in other
cases, they so proportioned the width of the windows to the width of the
masonry that the latter, especially at the angles of the building, gave
the suggestion of soaring piers. Meanwhile there still continued to be
architects who ignored these devices, treating the windows and masonry
solely as recurring horizontal features, with the result that their
repetition contradicts both the vertical feeling and that of upward
growth.
By degrees, however, as the principles of verticality and growth came to
be generally accepted, it was recognised that the analogy of a tall
building to a Classic column was fallacious, since the building should
involve a complete design, while the column is only a constituent member
of a structure and one, too, that is designed to support a horizontal
member. Possibly the realisation of this was assisted by the difficulty
of treating the top of the building. For the most frequent conditions
permitted the projection of a cornice only on one side, that of the
front side of the building, where it sticks out like a prodigious
mantelshelf. That architects should have persisted so long in
reproducing this futile expedient seems only to be explained by a habit
of seeing a design on the drawing board as an elevation to be viewed
from one fixed point, instead of as a structural composition, occupying
space and to be seen from a variety of directions. Moreover, it is a
fact that, as one walks along a street, it is the side of a building
that is chiefly and longest visible, while, by the time one is opposite
the front, the narrowness of the street and the height of the building
make it difficult to view the façade as a whole.
=Gothic Influence.=--Accordingly, in time, as the logic of the problem of
the tall building came to be more resolutely grasped, it was realised
that, if a precedent was to be adopted, it might be found in the Gothic
style. This is essentially the style of vertical design and upward
growth, and its characteristic profile has a tendency to set back from
the ground line instead of projecting over it. Furthermore, if you
choose to consider it, it was the style of the Northern nations as
contrasted with the horizontal styles of the Mediterranean nations; the
style of the races most represented in our population, evolved by them
as an expression of their adventurous and daring spirit. Even in
relation to inherited racial genius, as well as to fitness of design and
practicability of conditions of site, the Gothic is full of suggestion.
Its influence at first appeared in the character of detail of some of
the later sky-scrapers; but gradually more fundamentally, as the
architect began to give fuller attention to the masses of his
composition. Up to the present, the noblest example of this new movement
is the =Woolworth Building=, which is not only the tallest of the tall
buildings but a monument of arresting and persuasive dignity. The
repetition of ornamental detail may be somewhat dry and mechanical; but
from a short distance off this melts into the mass, which vies with
mediæval towers and spires in its splendid assertion of organic upward
growth.
Such a building supplies an uplift to the spirit, whereas the exteriors
of many sky-scrapers, conveying no suggestion of organic growth, being
only monstrous piles of masonry, produce instead an oppression of the
spirit. Nor is such an impression imaginary; it is a physical result of
the sunless, airless canyons into which these cliff-like walls have
transformed the narrow streets. Architects, in fact, realise that the
problem they present is one not only of construction and design but also
of relation to the general city plan. Various proposals have been made
to confine them to certain areas; to restrict their height on the street
line, while setting back the higher portions, which would rise like
towers above the rest of the building; to limit the number of such
towers in a given space, and so forth. Some such restrictions are
enforced in certain cities; but in New York, where the problem is
greatest and most urgent, the consideration of the question has not made
much headway against the general indifference to matters of large public
concern. Here, as in so many other instances, the welfare of the
community, as a collective whole, is not properly adjusted to
individualistic interests.
=Architect and Engineer.=--This and other matters of “city planning”--a
subject that is more and more engaging the attention of progressive
communities--demands the co-operation of the architect and engineer.
Indeed, the co-operation of their functions in all important works,
especially those of a public character, is one of the urgent needs of
the age. There is scarcely an architectural scheme that does not involve
problems of engineering; and many an engineering achievement would have
been of greater public utility if beauty of design had been considered.
For it is only a narrow view of utility that overlooks the utility of
beauty. It is in the power of an engineer to improve or mar the
appearance of a locality, and hence to add to or detract from the
happiness of the human lives which inhabit it.
Nor is the union of the functions of engineer and architect a new thing.
The only difference between the past and the present is, that in
Classic, Gothic, and Renaissance periods the functions were united in
one person, whereas with the advent of the age of iron, followed by
that of steel, they have been specialised in separate individuals.
Accordingly, to-day there is one school of Architecture, and another
school of Engineering; and the separation has caused each to disregard
the points at which their respective arts can and should unite. The
desirability, however, of some affiliation is being recognised and
certain schools of engineering now include a course in the principles of
architectonic design.
* * * * *
Any termination of a book on Architecture is but an abrupt stop in the
telling of a story that is perpetually continuous. It will go on as long
as man applies his creative ability to the solution of new problems of
construction as they arise, and persists in stamping the work of his
hands with the evidence of his desire of beauty. This little book,
however imperfect, will add its mite to human progress if it has
awakened or stimulated in the reader a realisation of the rich and
varied humanness of the art of Architecture in its intimate relation to
the lives of individuals and the progress and welfare of the community.
GLOSSARY
=Abacus=: the block that forms the uppermost member of the capital of
a column. Usually a square block; but in Roman Ionic and
Corinthian, the sides are concave, while in Gothic the block may
also be circular, octagonal or clustered.
=Abutment=: a member of solid masonry to sustain a lateral strain or
thrust; e.g., that of an arch.
=Acanthus=: a plant of the warmer regions of Europe, distinguished by
large, handsome leaves, with indented and sharply pointed edges.
Conventionalised as a decorative motive in Classic architecture:
specially in the Corinthian capital.
=Acropolis=: a hill within a city, converted into a citadel; often
containing, as at Athens, the temples of the tutelary or guardian
divinities.
=Acroteria=: plinths or blocks, placed on the apex and ends of a
=Pediment= (which see), for the support of a carved ornament.
=Æsthetic=: of or pertaining to beauty. That quality in anything,
especially a work of art, that stimulates the senses, emotions or
imagination to an appreciation and love of the beautiful.
=Aisles= (lit. “wings”): the lateral divisions of a church or
cathedral, parallel to the nave and separated from it by columns.
=Alcove=: a covered recess, opening from a room or corridor.
=Ambo=: plural Ambones: raised pulpits from which the Epistles and
Gospels, respectively, were read.
=Ambulatory=: a space, usually covered, for walking in.
=Amphi-prostyle=: used to designate a temple-plan that has a rear as
well as a front portico. Compare =Prostyle=.
=Anta=: plural Antæ (lit. opposite): specially in Classic
architecture, the pilaster attached to the side of a temple,
opposite a column. Generally, any pilaster opposite a column. For
=In Antis= see =Portico=.
=Antefixæ=: ornamental blocks placed along the lower edge of the roof
of a temple, to cover the joints of the tiles.
=Anthemion=: a decorative device, also called =Honeysuckle= or =Palmette=
ornament, composed of flower forms or fronds, radiating from a
single point. Used especially on the cyma recta moulding, round the
necks of columns and on stele-heads and antefixæ.
=Annula= or =Annulet=: a small fillet or flat band, encircling a Doric
column below the =Echinus= (which see).
=Apse=: originally, the semi-circular projection at one end of a
basilica hall; later, the semi-circular or polygonal termination of
a choir in a Continental Gothic cathedral, as contrasted with the
square-ended choir of English Gothic.
=Apsidal=: having the form of an Apse.
=Apteral= (Gk. “without wings”): applied to a temple that has no
colonnade on the sides.
=Arabesque=: a fanciful, painted, modelled, or carved ornamentation,
composed of plant forms, often combined with human, animal, and
grotesque forms. Used by the Romans and revived by the Renaissance
decorators. Also used by the Arabs--hence the name--for a flatly
modelled and coloured ornament of intricate design, without human
or, generally, animal forms.
=Arcade=: a system or range of arches, supported on columns, e.g.,
the range of arches and columns on each side of the nave of a
cathedral or church. When used as an embellishment of exterior or
interior walls, it is distinguished as Open or Blind Arcade,
according as it is detached from or attached to the plane of the
wall.
=Arch=: generally, a structure supported at the sides or ends and
composed of pieces, no one of which spans the whole interval.
Specifically, a structure, involving one or more curves, supported
at the sides, spanning an opening and capable of supporting weight.
Distinguished according to the nature of the curve as, segmental,
semi-circular, ogee, pointed, horseshoe, four-centred, trefoil,
cinquefoil, and multifoil. Arches, involving straight lines as well
as curved, are known as “shouldered.”
=Architect= (pr. ar-ki-tect): lit. the master-builder.
=Architectonic=: possessing an architectural, or organically
constructive, character. See =Organic=.
=Architecture=: the science and art of designing and constructing
buildings, with a view to Utility and Beauty. See =Beauty=.
=Architrave= (lit. “principal beam”): the lowest member of an
=Entablature= (which see); hence applied to any beam that rests on
columns and carries a superstructure; also to the moulded frame
which bounds the sides as well as the head of a door or window
opening.
=Archivolt=: the mouldings around the face of an arch.
=Arris=: the sharp edge at which meet two flutings of a Doric Column.
=Ashlar=: applied to masonry of which the stones are squared and
dressed with hammer or chisel.
=Astragal=: a convex moulding with a profile semi-circular, like that
of the Torus, only smaller in width. Often decorated with Bead and
Spool ornament.
=Astylar=: used of a façade, not treated with columns.
=Asymmetries=: deviations from geometrical symmetry and precision;
such as substituting a slight curve for horizontal and vertical
straight lines; varying slightly the spaces between columns,
setting columns on a curving instead of a straight line, and so
forth. Refinements which Hellenic, Byzantine, and Gothic architects
introduced to give flexibility and rhythm to their structures. See
=Refinements=.
=Atlantes=: See =Caryatid=.
=Atrium=: in Roman houses an entrance court open to the sky, but
surrounded by a covered ambulatory. In Early Christian
architecture, a similar entrance court in front of churches.
=Attic=: the upper story of a building, above the cornice.
=Axis=: an imaginary line, about which an architect arranges the
symmetry of his design. The main axis usually runs through the
longest direction of the building and may be intersected at right
angles by a second axis. See =Crossing=.
=Baldachino=: or Baldachin: a canopy supported on uprights; used
especially to surmount an altar.
=Baluster=: a small ornamental pillar supporting a rail or coping;
the whole structure being called a =Balustrade=.
=Balustrade=: See =Baluster=.
=Baroque=: fantastic, grotesque, applied to some of the heavily
decorated architecture of the eighteenth century.
=Barrel-vault=: also called Semi-circular or Wagon-headed vault: a
continuous arched roof over an oblong space, resting on the side
walls.
=Barrow=: an artificial mound of earth, forming a prehistoric
sepulchral monument.
=Bar Tracery=: See =Tracery=.
=Base=: the lower member of any structure; compare =Plinth=.
=Basilica=: originally a building erected for business or legal
procedure; specifically the large hall of such a building; later,
in Christian times, a church that more or less retains the plan of
such a hall.
=Batter=: the upward, inward slope of a wall, affording greater
resistance to =Thrust= (which see).
=Battlement=: the termination of a =Parapet= (which see) in a series of
indentations, called embrasures, while the intervening solid parts
are called merlons.
=Bay=: each of the principal compartments into which the vaulting of
a roof is divided; also used of the space between any two columns
of an =Arcade= (which see) of a Gothic church.
=Bay-window=: a window of angular plan, that projects from the wall
and reaches to the ground. Distinguished from an Oriel window that
is supported on a bracket or =Corbel= (which see) and from a
Bow-window which is curved in plan.
=Bead=: a small convex moulding; often decorated with =Bead and Spool=
ornament.
=Bead and Spool=: an ornamental device of small halved spheres,
alternating with halved spools; used on small convex mouldings.
=Beauty=: as applied to Architecture, those qualities in a building
that stimulate and gratify the æsthetic sense. They result from the
architect having created an Organic structure according to the
principles of =Fitness=, =Unity=, =Proportion=, =Harmony=, and =Rhythm= (see
these terms).
=Bel Étage=: French term for the principal story of a building.
Compare Italian, =Piano Nobile=.
=Belfry=: specifically, the part of a tower in which the bells are
hung; hence, sometimes, the whole tower.
=Bema=: a raised platform, reserved for the clergy in Early Christian
churches.
=Blind Arcades=: See =Arcade=.
=Bond=: the method of laying bricks or stones to bind the masonry. In
=English Bond=, the courses are composed alternately of =Headers= and
=Stretchers= (which see); =in Flemish Bond= the Headers and Stretchers
are laid alternately in each =Course= (which see).
=Boss=: ornamental projection at the intersection of the ribs of
vaults and ceilings.
=Bow-window=: See =Bay-window=.
=Branch Tracery=: See =Tracery=.
=Broken Entablature=: one that projects over each column or pilaster
instead of maintaining a single straight plane.
=Broken Pediment=: where the triangular or curved form is broken into
in the centre; an ornamental device adopted in the Renaissance.
=Buttress=: a mass of masonry, projecting from the face of the wall
to resist the thrust of an arch or vault. When the mass is
separated from the wall and connected with it by an arch, the arch
and mass form a =Flying Buttress=.
=Byzantine=: the style evolved in Byzantium (Constantinople) in the
fifth century, <small>A.D.</small>
=Cairn=: an artificial heap of stones, sometimes piled about a
corpse-chamber, which served as a prehistoric sepulchre and
monument.
=Campanile= (cam-pah-neé-la): Italian term for bell-tower.
=Canopy=: specifically, the carved ornamentation that surmounts a
niche, altar or tomb.
=Capella Major=: the space in a Spanish cathedral, enclosed with
screens or =Rejas= (which see) and containing the High Altar.
=Capital=: the upper member of a column, pier, pillar or pilaster.
=Carillon=: a set of stationary bells, played upon by a mechanical
contrivance, regulated from a keyboard.
=Caryatid=: plural Caryatides: sculptured female figures, used
instead of columns or pilasters to support an entablature or
cornice. Said to be so called after the women of Caria, who aided
the Persians and were made slaves. Male figures, so used, are
called =Atlantes=.
=Caulicoli=: the eight stalks of the acanthus ornament, supporting
the volutes of a Corinthian capital.
=Cavetto=: a simple concave moulding.
=Cavetto Cornice=: the hollow member that crowns a wall or door in
Egyptian architecture.
=Cella=: the portion of a temple enclosed by walls.
=Cerce=: a mechanical supporting device used in the construction of
vault ribs and light arches. Shaped like a bow, in sections that
work telescopically, so that it can be adjusted to the width of the
span.
=Chamfer=: the edge produced by chamfering; that is to say cutting a
square edge or corner to a flattened or grooved surface.
=Chancel= (Lat. cancellus, a screen): See =Choir=.
=Chapter-house=: originally the assembly place of the Chapter or
fraternity of abbot and monks of a monastery, for the transaction
of business. Now attached to English cathedrals for the
transactions of the Chapter of bishop and canons.
=Chevêt= (pr. shev-ay): term applied to the east end of a Romanesque
or Gothic church, when it takes the form of a circular or polygonal
apse, surrounded by an aisle which opens into chapels.
=Chevron=: a decorative device, like a V, repeated either vertically
or horizontally; forming in the latter case a zig-zag.
=Chryselephantine= (Gk. “gold-ivory”): applied to a sculptured figure
of wood, when the nude parts are covered with gold and the
draperies with ivory.
=Choir= or =Chancel=: the portion of the church or cathedral east of
the nave, screened off for the use of the choir. See =Coro=.
=Cimborio=: See =Lantern=.
=Cinquecento=: Italian term for the period called in English the
sixteenth century.
=Cinque-foil=: See =Foil=.
=Clerestory= or =Clearstory= (Fr. clair = light): the highest story of
a nave immediately above the =Triforium= (which see), containing
windows overlooking the roof of the aisles.
=Cloison=: a partition; specifically, the metal bands dividing the
pattern in _cloisonné_ enamel.
=Cloisters= (lit. enclosed space): the covered ambulatory around the
open court of a monastery; still retained as an adjunct of many
English and Spanish cathedrals.
=Close=: the precinct of an English cathedral; survival of the
“Garth” or grassy enclosure of a monastery.
=Coffer=: one of the sunken panels of geometrical design, used in the
ornamentation of a ceiling, vault or dome.
=Colonnade=: a system or range of columns, surmounted by an
entablature. When it entirely surrounds a temple or court it is
called a Peristyle. When it is attached to the front of a building
it is known as a =Portico= (which see).
=Column=: a vertical member, consisting of a =Shaft=, surmounted by a
=Capital= and resting, usually, on a =Base=. Its function is to
support, in Classic architecture, an entablature, and in Gothic, an
arch.
=Composite=: a Roman Order in which the capital is composed of the
upper part of an Ionian Capital and the lower part of a Corinthian.
=Concave=: curving, like the segment of a circle, inward, forming a
hollow to the eye of the spectator.
=Concentric=: having a common centre.
=Console=: a supporting block, projecting from a wall, generally
decorated; specifically the supports of the cornice over a door or
window. See =Modillion=.
=Conventionalisation=: the representing of something in a formal way,
generally prescribed by custom. For example, it was neither
ignorance nor lack of skill, but a custom, prescribed by the
priesthood, that caused Egyptian artists to represent the human
figure with head and legs in profile and trunk full front. In
decorative design, based on natural objects, the best usage avoids
naturalistic representation, and translates the form into a
convention, which, however, reproduces and even emphasises the
salient features of structure and of growth or movement. Thus, the
Greek acanthus ornament actually suggests more energy of growth and
more expressiveness of form than the natural plant.
=Convex=: curving, like a segment of a circle, outward or toward the
spectator.
=Corbel=: a block of stone, often elaborately carved, which projects
from a wall to sustain a weight, especially that of roof-beams, or
vaulting shafts. See =Console=.
=Corinthian=: latest order of Hellenic architecture, commenced by the
Hellenic architects and fully developed by the Romans.
=Cornice=: specifically, in Classic architecture, the crowning or
uppermost member of an entablature; generally, the crowning feature
of any wall construction, or doors and windows.
=Coro=: the space screened off for the use of the choir in a Spanish
cathedral, situated in the nave, west of the Crossing.
=Corridor=: a wide gallery or passage within a building, usually with
rooms opening into it.
=Cortile=: Italian term for interior court, open to the sky and
surrounded by arcades.
=Course=: a continuous horizontal layer of stones or bricks. See
=Bond=.
=Cove=: specifically, the concave surface that may occur between the
top of an interior wall and the flat of the ceiling.
=Crenellated=: fortified with battlements.
=Cromlech=: a prehistoric memorial, composed of stones of huge size,
disposed in one or more circles; e.g., Stonehenge.
=Cross=: adopted by the Church in the fourth century as the symbol of
Christianity. The separation of the Eastern or Greek Church from
the Western or Latin Church, was reflected in the shape of the
Cross; the Greek having all its four members equal, while the lower
member of the Latin is lengthened.
=Crossing=: the space about the intersection of the two =Axes= (which
see) of a church or cathedral, on which the nave, transepts, and
chancel abut. Often surmounted by a dome or tower.
=Cruciform=: used of the plan of a church that is based on the form
of a cross. Where a Greek cross is followed the nave, choir, and
transepts are of about equal length; while if the Roman is the
model, the nave is lengthened. See =Cross=.
=Crypt=: vaulted chambers beneath a building, especially beneath the
chancel of a church, in which case often used for burial.
=Cupola=: See =Dome=.
=Cusps= (lit. points): one of the points forming the feathering or
foliation of Gothic =Tracery=. Frequently ornamented with a carved
termination.
=Custodia=: See =Tabernacle=.
=Cyclopean=: of colossal size; derived from Cyclops, a giant of Greek
myth.
=Cyma= (pr. Si-mah) (lit. “wave”): the rising and falling curve; a
moulding, perfected by the Hellenic sculptors, whose profile
combines a convex and a concave curve. When the curve begins in
convex and flows into concave, it is known as =Cyma Recta= (Hogarth’s
“Line of Beauty”). When the concave precedes the convex, the
profile is called =Cyma Reversa=. The latter is also called =Ogee=.
=Cymatium=: the crowning member of a Classic cornice, so called
because its profile is a =Cyma Recta= (which see).
=Dado=: the surface of an interior wall, between the base moulding
and an upper moulding, placed some distance from the ceiling.
=Decastyle=: See =Portico=.
=Decorated=: used to distinguish the second period of English Gothic
(fourteenth century), owing to increased richness of window
traceries and other ornamentation. Compare =Rayonnant=.
=Dentil=: one of a series of square, so-called tooth-like, blocks
that ornament the cornice in the Ionic and Corinthian Orders.
=Diagonal=: specifically applied to the arches or ribs of a vaulting
that are diagonal to the main axis. Compare =Longitudinal=,
=Transverse=.
=Dipteral= (lit. “double-winged”): designating a temple that has a
double range of columns on each side of the cella. Compare
=Pseudo-dipteral=.
=Dolmen=: a prehistoric megalithic monument, composed of single
stones set on end or on edge and crowned with a single slab;
forming a sepulchral chamber, often embedded in a mound. See
=Mastaba=.
=Dome=: a spherical roof, over a circular, square or polygonal space
rising like an inverted cup. Hence, when the structure is small,
called a =Cupola=.
=Doric=: the earliest and simplest =Order= (which see) of architecture
developed on the mainland of Hellas.
=Dormer= (lit. “sleeping”): a window in a roof, usually of a bedroom,
often projecting with a gable end.
=Drum=: specifically a cylindrical wall, supporting a dome; used also
of a section of the shaft of a column.
=Early English=: first period of English Gothic, evolved during the
thirteenth century.
=Eaves=: the edge of a roof projecting beyond the wall.
=Eclecticism=: the practice of combining various elements of style,
derived from various sources.
=Echinus=: the cushion-shaped member of the Doric capital, just
beneath the =Abacus= (which see). It has an ovolo or egg-shaped
profile. Also used of the =Egg and Dart= moulding (which see).
=Egg and Dart=: an ornamental device, composed of an alternate
repetition of an egg-shaped form, halved vertically, and a spear
head. Used especially on mouldings that have an ovolo or egg-shaped
profile.
=Embrasure=: the sloping or bevelling of an opening in a wall, so as
to enlarge its interior profile. See also =Battlements=.
=Enamel=: a material composed of pigment and glass, fused and applied
in melted state to surfaces of metal, porcelain or pottery, for
decorative purposes. See =Mosaics=.
=Encaustic=: a process of painting in which the pigments are
dissolved in melted bees-wax and applied hot.
=Engaged Column=: a column that does not stand clear of the wall at
the back of it.
=Entablature=: the horizontal member of a classic or columnar order.
It rests upon the =Abacus= of the column and consists of a lower,
middle, and upper member--the =Architrave=, =Frieze=, and =Cornice=.
=Entasis= (Gk. “Stretching”): a curved deviation from the straight
line; specifically, the swell in the profile of the shaft of a
Classic column.
=Epinaos=: See =Naos=.
=Exhedra=: a curved recess, usually containing a seat; hence a curved
seat of marble or stone.
=Façade=: the outside view or elevation of a building that faces the
spectator.
=Fan Vaulting=: See =Rib=.
=Fascia=: one of the flat, vertical faces into which the Architrave
of an Ionic or Corinthian Entablature is divided.
=Fenestration= (lat. _fenestra_, window): the distribution of windows
and openings in an architectural composition.
=Fillet=: a small flat band, used especially to separate one moulding
from another.
=Finial=: the finishing part or top, frequently decorated, of a
spire, pinnacle or bench-end. See =Pinnacle=.
=Fitness=: a principle of beauty; that the design of a work of art
shall conform to the necessary requirements of its purpose,
material and method of making.
=Flamboyant= (“flaming”): used to distinguish the third period of
French Gothic (fifteenth century), from the encreased elaboration
of the window traceries.
=Fleche=: specifically, a wooden spire surmounting a roof.
=Fluting=: the vertical grooving, used to enrich the shaft of a
column or pilaster.
=Flying Buttress=: See =Buttress=.
=Foil=: a leaf-like division in carved ornamentation; especially in
the tracery of a Gothic window or the panelling of walls and
bench-ends. According to the number of foils included, the design
is distinguished as trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, etc.
=Formeret=: See =Rib=.
=Fresco= (lit. fresh or damp): see =Secco= and =Tempera=; terms used in
=Mural Painting= (which see). After the wall had thoroughly dried
out, a portion, such as the artist could cover in one day was
spread with a thin layer of fine, quick-drying plaster. While the
latter was still fresh or damp, the artist, having prepared his
drawing or “cartoon,” laid it in place and went over the lines with
a blunt instrument, which left the design grooved in the plaster.
Then he applied the tempera colours, finishing as he proceeded, for
the colour sank into the plaster and rapidly dried with it, so that
subsequent touchings up or alterations could only be applied by
painting in Secco. As long as the surface of the wall remains
intact, the colours are imperishable and retain their vivacity and
transparence. They have, too, the appearance of being part of the
actual fabric of the wall, as the bloom of colour upon fruit. Thus
=Fresco= is the fittest and most beautiful process of mural painted
decoration.
=Frieze=: specifically, the middle division of an Entablature,
between the Architrave and the Cornice (which see). Also the
continuous band of painted or sculptured decoration that crowns an
exterior or interior wall.
=Gable=: the upper part of the wall of a building, above the eaves;
triangular in shape, conforming to the slope of the roof. Compare
the Classic =Pediment=. If the edge of the gable rises in tiers it is
distinguished as =Stepped=.
=Gaine= (lit. a sheath): a sculptured decoration of a half-figure,
terminating below in a sheath-like pedestal.
=Galilee=: a porch or chapel, sometimes attached to an English Gothic
cathedral, usually at the west end. For the use perhaps of
penitents. Compare =Narthex=.
=Gambrel=: applied to a roof, the slope of which is bent into an
obtuse angle.
=Gesso-work=: a decorative design in =Relief= (which see) executed in
fine, hard plaster.
=Gothic= (lit. of, or pertaining to the Goths): a term applied to
Mediæval architecture by the Italians of the Renaissance to mark
their contempt for what was non-Classic. The term without reproach
has been continued to designate the architectural style between the
Romanesque and Renaissance, during the thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. The French have tried to substitute the term,
=Ogival=. See =Ogee=.
=Grille=: a wrought metal screen of openwork design.
=Grisaille=: a style of painting in greyish tones, in imitation of
bas-relief.
=Groin=: the angle or edge at which the surfaces of a cross or
groined vault meet. See =Vault=.
=Groined Vault=: See =Vault=.
=Guilloche= (=pr.= =Gil-losh=): an ornament composed of the repeated
intertwining of two or more bands; frequently used to decorate a
=Torus= (which see).
=Gutta= (lit. “drop”): one of the small truncated cones, attached to
the underside of a =Regula= (which see) and the =Mutules= (which see)
of a Doric =Entablature=.
=Half-Timbered=: when the construction has a timbered frame, the
interstices of which are filled in with masonry or concrete.
=Hammer-beam roof=: late form of timber roof construction, without
continuous =Tie Beams= (which see).
=Harmony=: a principle of Beauty, that governs the variety in unity
of a work of art, relating all the parts in an accord of feeling.
=Header=: in masonry, a brick or stone, laid across the thickness of
the wall. See =Bond=, =Stretcher=.
=Heart-leaf and Dart=: an ornament composed of a heart-or leaf-shaped
form and a dart or tongue. Used specifically on Cyma Reversa
mouldings.
=Hexastyle=: See =Portico=.
=Hip-roof=: a roof that rises from all the wall-plates and,
accordingly, has no gable.
=Honeysuckle=: ornament. See =Anthemion=.
=Hypæthral=: completely or partially open to the sky.
=Hypostyle=: having the roof beams supported on columns.
=Impluvium=: the cistern sunk in the =Atrium= (which see) of a Roman
house to receive the rain water.
=Impost=: the member above the capital of a column, on which the arch
rests, usually composed of mouldings.
=In Antis=: See =Portico=.
=Ionic=: the order of architecture, developed by the Hellenes of Asia
Minor and adjoining islands, and borrowed and modified by the
mainland Hellenes.
=Insula=: Roman term for a residential building, housing many
families.
=Intercolumniation=: specifically in Classic architecture, the space
between any two columns, or between a column and the wall of the
=Cella=.
=Interlace=: in decoration, an ornament composed of interwoven bands
or lines.
=Jambs=: the side members of the openings of doors and windows.
=Kaaba=: the cube-like shrine in the Mosque of Mecca.
=Keystone=: the central stone of an arch.
=King-Post=: in timber roof-construction; a central post, resting on
one of the =Tie-beams= (which see) to support the ridge. See
=Queen-Post=.
=Lady-Chapel=: a chapel in an English cathedral, dedicated to the
Virgin Mary, usually situated at the back of the altar.
=Lancet=: applied to an arch or window that has a sharply pointed,
lance-shaped opening.
=Lantern=: a superstructure that rises above the roof level, open
below and admitting light through its sides. Called in Spanish a
=Cimborio=.
=Lierne-rib=: See =Rib=.
=Lintel=: the horizontal beam, supported on two uprights or posts,
covering an opening and supporting weight, e.g., the top member of
the frame of a doorway or window.
=Loggia=: a covered gallery, open to the air on one or more sides.
=Longitudinal=: parallel to the direction of the main axis.
Specifically applied to the arches and ribs of the vaulting of a
nave or aisle in the direction East or West. Compare =Diagonal= and
=Transverse=.
=Louver=: a lantern-like cupola on the roof of a mediæval building,
originally the flue for smoke from the fire in the centre of the
hall.
=Lunette=: a space somewhat resembling a half-moon, with the curve
uppermost. Especially the wall-space, enclosed by the ends of a
barrel-vault; or by the wall-arch of a groined or rib vault.
=Lych-Gate= (lit. “corpse-gate”): covered gateway at entrance to a
churchyard, where the coffin rests during the first portion of the
burial service.
=Machicolation=: the opening between a wall and a parapet, when the
latter is built out on =Corbels= (which see). Through it missiles or
burning liquids could be showered upon assailants.
=Mansard= or =Mansart=: applied to roofs which have a hip or
angle--instead of a continuous slope--on all four sides. Named
after the French architect who popularised, though he did not
invent, it.
=Mastaba=: an Egyptian tomb, so-called from its construction
resembling the ordinary Egyptian bench, which is composed of a
horizontal board, supported upon boards that slope inward toward
the seat.
=Mausoleum= (mō-so-lée-um): tomb of more than ordinary size and
architectural pretensions. So called from the tomb erected at
Halicarnassus in 325 <small>B.C.</small>, in memory of Mausolus, King of Caria, by
his widow, Artemisia.
=Megalith= (lit. huge stone): =Megalithic=, composed of such. See
=Cyclopean=.
=Megaron=: Homeric word for palace or large hall.
=Member= (lit. limb): any component part of a structural design that
has a specific function to perform.
=Menhir=: a prehistoric monument, consisting of a single rough or
rudely shaped stone, usually of large size (megalithic); perhaps
originally connected with fetish worship, to ward off evil spirits;
then as a memorial of a dead chieftain or a victory. The prototype
of the =Obelisk=.
=Merlons=: See =Battlements=.
=Metope=: the space between any two of the =Triglyphs= (which see) of a
Doric =Frieze=. Originally left open, later filled and often with
sculptured relief.
=Mezzanine=: a low story situated between two higher ones.
=Mihrab=: a niche in the wall of a mosque that marks the “Kibleh,” or
direction toward the =Kaaba= (which see) at Mecca.
=Minaret=: the tall slender tower, attached to a Mosque, from a
balcony of which the muezzin summons the people to prayer.
=Modillions=: the decorated blocks ranged under the Cornice of a
Corinthian or Composite =Entablature=.
=Monolith= (lit. single stone): usually of large size. =Monolithic=,
composed of such.
=Mosaic= (lit. belonging to the muses, the goddesses of the arts):
decorative designs composed of particles, usually cube-shaped, of
marble, stone, glass or enamel, used to enrich the surfaces of
vaults, walls and floors. See =Opus=.
=Motive=: in decoration, the form on which the ornament is based;
e.g., the acanthus motive.
=Mullion=: one of the vertical stone bars dividing a Gothic window
into two or more “lights.” Also one of the bars of a =Rose-Window=
(which see). The horizontal bars are called =Transoms=.
=Mural=: of or pertaining to a wall; e.g., a mural decoration. See
=Secco=, =Fresco=.
=Mutule=: one of a series of rectangular blocks under the =Cornice= of
a Doric =Entablature=, studded on the underside with =Guttæ= (which
see).
=Naos=: the principal chamber of an Hellenic temple, containing the
statue of the deity. Entered from the front through an unwalled
vestibule, called the Pronaos and from the rear by a corresponding
vestibule, called Epinaos or Opisthodomos.
=Narthex=: the arcaded porch of a Christian basilica, where
penitents, barred from full communion, worshipped. See =Galilee=.
=Nave= (from =Naos=, which see): central division of a church or
cathedral; usually west of the choir.
=Necking=: the hollowed surface between the =Astragal= (which see) of
the shaft and the commencement of the capital; specifically of a
Roman Doric column.
=Necropolis=: city of the dead: an assemblage of graves or tombs.
=Newel Post=: the shaft around which a spiral staircase is
constructed; also the principal post supporting the handrail of a
staircase.
=Norman=: the style in England, preceding Early English:
corresponding to Romanesque on the Continent.
=Nymphæum= (consecrated to the nymphs): a building containing
ornamental water, plants and statuary.
=Octastyle=: See =Portico=.
=Ogee= (pr. O-jée): another term for the =Cyma Reversa=. See =Cyma=.
=Ogival=: term applied to the Pointed Arch, because it is composed of
two contrasted curves. Owing to this arch being characteristic of
the Gothic style, the French have proposed to call the latter
=Ogival=.
=Open Arcades=: See =Arcades=.
=Opisthodomos= (Gk. “room behind”): same as =Epinaos=. See =Naos=.
=Opus reticulatum= (lit. “net work”): a veneering composed of equal
square slabs, arranged so that their joints are diagonal and form a
net-like mesh.
=Opus Sectile= (lit. “Cut-work”): a mosaic ornament, composed of
glass or marble, cut into various shapes to form a pattern. The
richest variety of it is known as =Opus Alexandrinum=.
=Opus Spicatum=: pavement composed of bricks laid in “herring-bone”
fashion.
=Opus tesselatum=: a mosaic ornament composed of tesseræ or square
blocks of glass or marble.
=Order=: specifically, in Classic architecture, the combination of
=Column= and =Entablature=.
=Organic=: primarily used of the structures of animals and plants;
secondarily, of any organised, whole, composed of parts that
perform definite functions; always in this book with an implication
that the relation between the whole and its parts partakes of the
nature of a living, as opposed to a mechanical, structure.
=Oriel-window=: See =Bay-window=.
=Orientation=: the construction of a temple or church on a main axis,
regulated to the position of the sun or a star on some particular
day or night; or to the points of the compass, usually an east and
west axis.
=Ovolo= (lit. “egg-like”): a Classic convex moulding--a quarter-round
in Roman architecture; in Hellenic, the curve of conic section
known as hyperbolic.
=Palmette=: See =Anthemion=.
=Papier-maché=: a tough plastic substance, formed of paper-pulp,
mixed with glue, or of layers of paper, glued together; and
modelled into ornamental forms.
=Parapet=: specifically, the portion of the wall of a building above
the eaves of the roof. Generally, a retaining wall, or enclosing
wall, e.g., the walls of a bridge, above the roadway.
=Patio=: the open, inner court of a Spanish or Spanish-American
house.
=Pavilion=: specifically, a section of a building that projects from
the plane of the main façade and has a distinct roof treatment.
=Pediment=: specifically, the triangular member surmounting the
=Portico= of a Classic temple. It rests on the Entablature and
terminates on each side in a raking Cornice, paralleling the slope
of the roof. In Renaissance and later times, a triangular surface,
framed by a horizontal and two sloping cornices, e.g., the
embellishment surmounting windows and doors. The triangular space
within the horizontal and raking cornices is called a =Tympanum= and
is frequently decorated with sculptured figures or ornament.
=Tympanum= is also used for the surface between a lintel and the
_curved_ cornice over it.
=Pendentive=: one of the four triangular, concave members that
convert a square space into a circle for the support of a dome.
Their apexes rest on the four piers at the angles of the square,
and, as the triangles arch inward, their bases unite in a circle.
=Peripteral= (lit. “winged-around”): designating a temple, when the
cella is surrounded by a single range of columns. Compare
=Pseudo-peripteral=.
=Peristyle=: a system or range of Columns, specifically surrounding a
temple or court. See =Colonnade=.
=Piano nobile=: Italian term for the principal story of a building.
Compare French =Bel Étage=.
=Pier=: a vertical supporting member, other than a column or pillar.
=Pilaster=: a square column, projecting about one-sixth of its width
from the wall, and of the same proportions as the Order with which
it is used.
=Pinnacle=: a small turret-like termination; especially at the top of
buttresses to increase their weight and capacity of lateral
resistance.
=Plate Tracery=: See =Tracery=.
=Plinth=: specifically, a block, usually square, which forms the
lowest member of the base of a column. Generally, the block on
which a column, pedestal or statue rests.
=Podium=: a wall supporting a row of columns; specifically, in Roman
architecture, the temple platform that does not project beyond the
line of the columns as does a =Stylobate= (which see).
=Polygonal=: a figure composed of more than four angles, of equal
size.
=Porte-cochère= (pr. port´-co-share´): a covered entrance, under
which a carriage can be driven.
=Portico=: an open space or ambulatory covered by a roof, supported
on columns, forming a porch. In Classic temples the front of the
portico consists of =Columns=, =Entablature=, and =Pediment=, covered by
the extension of the roof of the =Cella=. According as the =Portico=
has four, six, eight or ten columns in front the temple is
distinguished as Tetrastyle, Hexastyle, Octostyle or Decastyle.
When the Portico is enclosed on the left and right by an extension
of the sides of the Cella it is distinguished as “=In Antis=.”
=Post=: an upright supporting member, as of a door. An element in the
principle of construction known as Post and Beam.
=Post= and =Beam=: generic term for the constructive principle of a
horizontal member, supported upon vertical ones.
=Posticum= (Latin for =Epinaos=): See =Naos=.
=Pot Metal=: glass fused in a crucible.
=Pozzolana=: a clean, sandy earth, of volcanic origin, used by the
Romans in combination with lime to form concrete.
=Profile=: specifically, the outer edge of the section of a moulding.
=Projection=: a general term for any member that extends beyond the
main planes of a structure, especially used of mouldings.
=Pronaos=: See =Naos=.
=Proportion=: a principle of Beauty, that regulates the quantity and
quality of the parts of a work of art according to their functional
importance in the organic unity of the whole.
=Propylæa=: the entrance gate or vestibule to a group of buildings.
=Proscenium= (lit. “before the scene” [skene]): in the Classic
theatre a structure, occupying the open end of the horse-shoe plan,
to screen from view the “skene” or actor’s dressing-place. It
formed the background to the Drama.
=Prostyle= (lit. “having columns in front”): used to describe a
temple plan that has a =Portico= at only one of its ends. Compare
=Amphi-prostyle=.
=Prototype=: the primitive, rude, original form, out of which finer
and more efficient types have been developed.
=Pseudo-dipteral= (lit. “false-double-winged”): when the temple
appears to have a double row of columns on the sides, but the inner
range is omitted and the space between the columns and wall of the
=Cella= is thereby double the usual =Intercolumniation= (which see).
=Pseudo-peripteral= (lit. “false-winged-around”); when the columns on
the sides of a temple, instead of standing free, are =Engaged= (which
see) in the wall of the =Cella=.
=Pteroma= (pr. ter-ō´-ma): pl. pteromata: term applied to the side
walls of a Cella; hence, sometimes to the space between the latter
and the columns of the Peristyle.
=Pylon=: a doorway, flanked by two Truncated Pyramids with oblong
bases. See =Pyramid=.
=Pyramid=: a structure of =masonry=, generally with a square base, with
triangular sides meeting at an apex. When the sides mount in steps
it is distinguished as a =Stepped Pyramid=. When the sides end
abruptly, before reaching the apex, it is called a =Truncated
Pyramid=.
=Quadriga=: a four horse chariot.
=Quatrefoil=: See =Foil=.
=Quatrocento=: Italian term for the period called in English the
fifteenth century.
=Queen-Post=: in timbered roof construction, one of the two posts
resting on one of the =Tie-beams=, at equal distance from the centre,
to reinforce the rafters. See =King-Post=.
=Quoin=: specifically, one of the large, square stones at the =angle=
(coign) of a building.
=Ramp=: an inclined approach to a terrace or platform, usually
parallel to the sustaining wall of the latter.
=Rayonnant=: (“radiating”): used to distinguish the second period of
French Gothic (Fourteenth Century); from the characteristic
radiating or “wheel” tracery of the rose-windows. Compare
“=Decorated=.”
=Refinements=: a term applied to the instances in Hellenic,
Byzantine, and Gothic architecture of deviations from geometrical
symmetry, to secure a more flowing, rhythmic beauty. See
=Asymmetries=.
=Regula=: one of a series of short, flat fillets placed under the
=Tenia= (which see) of a Doric =Architrave=, above each of the
=Triglyphs= (which see); usually having six =Guttæ= (which see) on the
under side.
=Reja= (pr. rā-hah): Spanish term for an elaborate grille or screen
of hammered and chiselled iron, characteristic of which were
_repoussé_ figures set into or attached to the vertical bars.
=Relief=: a design of ornament or figures _raised_ upon a surface
that forms the background; distinguished, according to the extent
of projection, as =High= or =Low=; in both cases distinguished from
modelling or carving “in the round” where the design, is detached
from the background; and from =Intaglio=, where the design is sunk
below the surface.
=Renaissance=: the period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in
which the Classic culture and the Classic forms were revived in
Europe.
=Reredos= (pr. rir´-dos): a screen behind an altar, usually of
marble, decorated with sculptured ornament and figures. Called
=Retablo= in Spain, where examples reach prodigious size and great
elaboration.
=Retablo=: Spanish for =Reredos= (which see).
=Retrochoir=: the space, other than that of the Lady Chapel behind
the altar.
=Rhythm=: primarily used to describe the harmonious recurrence of
certain sound-relations in musical and poetic compositions; a
movement of sound characterised by recurrence of stress and accent.
It is based on time, but eludes the measured repetition of the bar
and metre. Hence a relation of lines and masses, characterised by
harmonious recurrence of stress or accent. Not a repetition of
measured intervals and identical parts, but of general
similarities, involving variety, uniting in closest relationship
the parts of an organic design to one another and to the whole.
Rhythm is the subtlest element of artistic harmony and yet is
nearest to the free growth and articulations of nature.
=Rib=: a projecting band or moulding on a ceiling. Specifically, the
projecting members of Gothic vaulting. These were first
constructed--probably with the support of a =Cerce= (which see) as
light arches, which then formed the support of the intervening
masonry surfaces. The Ribs which parallel the axis of the nave are
called =Longitudinal=, those which cross it from column to column at
right angles are called =Transverse=, while those crossing the axis
diagonally are called =Diagonal=. Sometimes, especially in English
Gothic, to strengthen the vault, extra ribs, known as =Tiercerons=,
were inserted between the main ribs. They spring from the =Impost=
(which see) and abut on an extra ridge, projecting along the axial
line, known as the =Ridge-Rib=. The vaulting, thus formed by the
tiercerons radiating from the Impost is called =Fan Vaulting=.
Sometimes, for additional strength and to increase the
decorativeness, short intermediate ribs were introduced, which are
known as =Liernes=, their distinction being that they do _not_
connect with the Impost. When the geometrical pattern, made by the
Liernes, resembles a star the vaulting is distinguished as =Stellar
Vaulting=. Sometimes a vertical rib, known as a =Formeret=, was
applied to the wall to separate one vault compartment from another.
=Rib Vault=: See =Vault=.
=Ridge=: the highest point or line of a roof.
=Ridge Rib=: See =Rib=.
=Rococo=: style of decoration, distinguished by rock-work, shells,
scrolls, etc., which originated in France during the period of the
Regency and Louis XV.
=Rood-loft=: a gallery over the entrance to the chancel, in which
stood a cross or rood. Used for reading portions of the service and
also in the performance of miracle plays.
=Rose-window= or =Wheel-window=: a circular window, whose =Mullions=
(which see) converge toward the centre.
=Rostral Column=: a column decorated with imitations of the prows
(rostra) of vessels; used by the Romans to commemorate a naval
victory.
=Rubble=: Rubblework: masonry composed of irregularly shaped or
broken stone, whether mixed or not with cement; also the fragments
of stone, mixed with cement, used to fill in the thickness of a
wall, between the two faces of dressed stone.
=Rustication=: treatment of masonry with deeply recessed joints,
grooved or beveled; the surface of the stone is sometimes made
rough.
=Scotia=: a concave moulding, frequently used in the base of Classic
columns.
=Screen=: a partition of wood, metal, marble, or stone, separating
the choir from the nave. Latin _cancellus_; hence by corruption the
English term, Chancel.
=Secco= (lit. “dry”): as contrasted with =Fresco= (which see), “fresh
or wet.” Terms used in connection with =Tempera= painting (which see)
according as the surface of plaster be dry or freshly spread at the
time the colour is applied.
=Section=: a drawing showing a building or part of a building, as it
would appear if it were cut through vertically, and the part
between the plane of section and the spectator’s eye were removed.
=Serdab=: the cell within an Egyptian tomb, in which images of the
deceased were placed.
=Sexpartite=: applied to vaults, divided into six compartments. In
Romanesque churches, owing to the short intercolumniation, the bays
were oblong. Hence for convenience of construction two were treated
together as a square. Sometimes from the intermediate columns a
transverse shafting was constructed, which together with the
diagonals divided the square into six divisions.
=Shaft=: the main member of a Column between the Capital and (where
there is one) the Base.
=Soffit=: the under side of an entablature, lintel, cornice, or arch.
=Solar=: a private upper chamber for the use of the family, in a
Mediæval Castle.
=Spandril= or =Spandrel=: the triangular space on each side of an arch
that is enclosed in a rectangle.
=Sphinx=: a winged monster, combining human and animal forms.
=Spire=: the pointed termination to a tower. See =Steeple=.
=Squinch=: a small arch, set diagonally across the angle of a square
space to transform the latter into an octagon.
=Stalls=: the fixed seats in a chancel for the clergy and choir.
=Stanza=: Italian for Chamber.
=Steeple=: the combination of tower and Spire. See =Spire=.
=Stele=: =Stela=: an upright tablet of stone or marble, often
sculptured and engraved; serving as a tombstone, or boundary mark
or milestone, etc.
=Stellar Vaulting=: See =Rib=.
=Stepped=: See =Gable=; =Pyramid=.
=Stilted=: applied to an arch when its curve begins some distance
above the impost and is connected to the latter by vertical
sections of moulding.