ment departments, which used to invite competitive designs for
their new buildings with excellent results, were increasingly
tending to prepare their own designs. This must lead to a
stereotyped style and is not in the best interests of architecture
or architects. Design as far as plan is concerned has un-
doubtedly improved immensely, but as to the style which will
be adopted for future buildings prophecy would be rash. In
1830 Quartermere de Quincy, in the preface to his Biographic dcs
plus celebres Architectes, uses these words: " Comme nous ne
reconnaissons de veritable art d' architecture que celui qui . . .
a du son origine, ses progres, ses principes, ses lois, sa theorie et
sa pratique aux Grecs . . . nous devons prevenir qu'on ne trouvcra
dans notre recueil aucune notion d'aucun ouvrage du genre appele
Gothique.'-' This seems typical of much modern criticism. The
author was surrounded by some of the most beautiful examples
of mediaeval art, but ignored them utterly, and yet 25 years
later the Gothic revival was in full swing. In 1900 Penrose said
that it was impossible to find any one who took the slightest
interest in Greek architecture, yet a few years later Neo-Grec
and a bastard sort of classic was all the rage in England, while in
America many of the finest new buildings are in the purest classic
style. Now a free renaissance is in vogue, but how long it will
last and what will be its developments no one can tell. The hope
is that the complication of modern requirements and the exigen-
cies of modern construction combined with wider knowledge and
closer study of ancient examples may lead to the working-out
of the great main principles which underlie all the old styles,
so as to adapt them to modern necessities without slavish
copying of their forms and features. (J. SL.)
UNITED STATES
The Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (1876) had revealed to a somewhat self-centred and self-satisfied United States the flagrant grossness of its current architecture; the Chicago World's Fair (1893) less than 20 years later disclosed both the possibilities of architecture and the capacity of a new generation of architects. Its influence was widespread so far as the public was concerned, and gave architects themselves new ideals and greater confidence. From 1890 to 1900 the architectural product of the United States was vast in bulk and high in quality. The American Institute of Architects (founded in 1857) broadened its scope and in- fluence, while schools of architecture associated with universities and technical institutes offered wide opportunities for architec- tural education. The results were evident in the first decade of the 2oth century. The Boston Public Library and the Rhode Island State Capitol of McKim, Mead and White were the forerunners and inspiration of many other structures of similar nature and quality, the New York Public Library of Carrere and Hastings and the Minnesota State Capitol of Cass Gilbert being the most notable. In the same category must be ranked many of the club houses of New York, notably the Union and University, as well as sumptuous residences in the larger cities and summer resorts. The Gothic revival, largely determined by Henry Vaughn and Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson, was meanwhile taking to itself practically the whole field of church building and the larger part of college architecture. Beginning with the Episcopal Church, the adoption of Gothic of some English type (usually Perpendicular) extended throughout the Protestant denomina- tions until within 20 years Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Unitarians were also erecting consistent and magnificent Gothic churches. From the work of Cope and Stewardson at Princeton University the same influence spread through the institutions of higher learning, until Tudor or " Collegiate Gothic," as it is called, usurped almost the whole field, though the " McKim Classic " of Columbia and the revived Colonial of Harvard and many of the smaller colleges and schools still maintained themselves as potent forces and in the latter cases a growing force. The rivalry of Classic and Gothic played little part in the two fields of work where American architecture achieved its most vital and original results, the " sky-scraper " and the private house. Steel and reinforced concrete are, as structural elements in buildings, essentially American. Used at
first as substitutes or hidden devices clothed with traditional architectural forms, they subsequently developed and established what may be called a " steel frame style." Many daring ex- ponents led the way, including Cass Gilbert, who in the Wool- worth Building produced a masterpiece. All the great cities (except Boston which prohibits " sky-scrapers ") possess many examples of this brilliant and original work, and in New York in particular there is an extraordinary display of towers.
By 1920, however, there were signs that the vogue of 5o-storey buildings was passing, and probably would take its place in history as a brief but sensational episode that brought out some of the most daring exploits, and gave play to the most exuberant fancy, in the architectural record. At the opposite pole stood the domestic architecture of the zoth century. Between 1850 and 1880 this had fallen to the lowest depths, and the influence of H. H. Richardson, distorted after his death by incompetent imitators, was deplorable. Fortunately there came a sudden return to the Colonial models of the i8th century, together with a new study of the domestic buildings of England of the 1 5th and i6th centuries; and though at first the adaptations were crude and unintelligent, the improvement was rapid, and an extraordi- nary level of excellence was achieved. No one exerted a wider influence in this direction than Charles A. Platt. So vast was the architectural product of the United States during the first 1 5 years of the century, that it would be impossible to catalogue the examples of the highest excellence. Among the more distin- guished public buildings, in addition to those noted, should be included Henry Bacon's masterly Lincoln Memorial in Washing- ton and B. G. Goodhue's revolutionary design for the Nebraska Capitol. In this field, however, politics were apt to enter with disastrous effects, as for example in the Pennsylvania Capitol. In the work of the national Government there was a serious retrogression during 1910-20, and Government architecture was in grave danger of slipping back to the deplorably low level of the 20 years following the Civil War. Where the political element was eliminated, public architecture achieved a high standard, particularly noticeable in art galleries, libraries and museums. Amongst the first were the Buffalo gallery by Green and Wicks, that at Minneapolis by McKim, Mead and White, and that at Boston by Guy Lowell. One of the most admirable of recent libraries was in Indianapolis, the work of Paul Cret and Zant- zinger, Borie and Medary, associate architects, while the Pan- American Building in Washington, by Albert Kelsey and Paul Cret, was an unusual example of vital and personal design. Close- ly allied were many fine club houses such as the Grand Army Hall in Pittsburgh by Henry Hornbostel, and the Masonic Temple of the Scottish Rite in Washington by John Russell Pope, a building of strikingly noble proportions and majesty of design. In all these buildings classical motives were general, but they were handled with suppleness and originality. Such structures as the Indianapolis library and the Scottish Rite Temple in Wash- ington, D.C., evinced a vital and creative art. Many buildings for universities and colleges, and for schools both public and private, showed equal freedom based on penetrating knowledge of prec- edents, though the models were almost exclusively English Tudor or American Colonial. Cope and Stewardson initiated the vogue of the former at Princeton, continuing it at Bryn Mawr, Pa., and at Washington University, St. Louis, and it swept over the whole eastern part of the country. Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson took up the line of development in the vast, fortress-like U.S. Military Academy at West Point and continued it at Prince- ton in the Graduate College, as well as in other educational in- stitutions, north and south. Day and Klauder gave it new force in the Sage dormitories and freshman dining halls at Princeton, in the new buildings at Cornell University, and at Wellesley College, while James Gamble Rogers contributed the most magnificent exposition of the style in the enormous quadrangle nearing completion in 1920 at Yale. Colonial work achieved notable results at Harvard in the shape of new dormitories by Coolidge and Shattuck, but it was more prevalent in the smaller colleges and preparatory schools, as for instance, Williams Col- lege and Phillips Academy, Exeter, where the architects worked
