Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/66

50 DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. Pakt n. lost. The cause of this is hard to exj^lain, when we see so much beauty of design in the buildings to which they are generally accom- paniments. There are several dwelling-houses in Cologne and elsewhere which show how early German town-residences assumed the tall gabled fronts which they retained to a very late period through all the changes which took place in the details M'ith which they were carried out. In the illustration (Woodcut No. 501) there is little ornament, but the forms of the windows and the general dis- position of the parts are pleasing, and the general effect produced certainly satisfactory. The size of the lower windoAVS is remarkable for the age, and the de- tails are pure, and are executed with a degree of lightness which we are far from consid- ering as a general char- acteristic of so early a style. The windows at the back of the house illus- trated in Woodcut No. 501, are so large, that were it not for the un- mistakable character of those in front, and of some of its details, we might be inclined to suspect that it belonged to a much more modern As shown in the Woodcut No. 502, the details are as light and elegant as anything domestic in architecture of the pointed style. There are several minor peculiarities which perhaps it might be more regular to mention here, but which it will be more convenient to allude to when speaking of the pointed style. One, however, cannot thus be passed over — and that is the form which windows in churches and cloisters were beginning to assume just before the period when the transition to the pointed style took place. Up to that period the Germans showed no tendency to adopt 501. DweUiiig-house, Cologne. (From Boisseree.) age