The elevation, shown in the accompanying page illustration, shows an
iron front of five stories, having a pedimented centre frontispiece of
three stories in _alto relievo_.
The style, though not in strict accordance with rule, is showy, without
being objectionably so, and goes far to prove the capabilities of iron
as a desirable material in commercial Architecture, where strength,
display, and economy may be very well combined.
Such an elevation as this, now under consideration, could not be
executed in cut stone, so as to produce the same appearance, without
incurring a much greater expense, and in the event of a continuous
block of such fronts, the balance of economy would be wonderfully in
favor of the iron, for the moulds could be duplicated and triplicated
with ease, whilst the same composition executed to a like extent in
stone would not be a cent cheaper in proportion. Every capital and
every truss, and every fillet, should be cut in stone independently of
each other, no matter how many were called for.
It may be very well to say that stone is the proper material,
according to the long-accepted notion of art judgment, and that iron
has to be painted to give it even the semblance of that material,
being, therefore, but a base imitation at best. All very true. But,
nevertheless, iron, even as a painted substitute, possesses advantages
over the original material of which it is a copy, rendering it a
very acceptable medium in the constructive line, and one which will
be sought after by a large class of the community who desire to have
this cheap yet practical material, even though it be not that which
it represents. As a representative it is in most respects the peer of
stone though not it identically.