How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (reading the story of the .TXT) đź“–
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In both of these he achieved what may be described as a scenic impressiveness on a prodigious scale, but without much reference to architectural logic or to internal convenience. The two plans have a general similarity, consisting of a main block with an extensive garden front, connected at the rear by two corridors with the kitchen block and the stable block. These flank a great court, which at Blenheim is closed by a screen wall and gateway in the manner of a French château. The kitchen at Blenheim was some 400 feet distant from the dining room! Windows in both designs were disposed for exterior effect and not for proper lighting of the interior. In numberless particulars internal convenience was sacrificed to palatial planning and display. As Voltaire said, if the rooms had been as wide as the walls were thick the palace would have been passably convenient. Amongst the new features, introduced by Vanbrugh, was the converting of the ground story into a kind of mimic cellar, with inconveniently small staircases to the floor above, the main approach to which was on the outside of the building, by a grand flight of steps leading up to a superb portico.
Notwithstanding the magnificence of scale, these designs have a chill formality that makes their dignity rather dull.
Meanwhile they set a fashion exactly suited to the taste of the time, which in literature also was disposed to substitute dilettantism for culture, and, in its infatuation for what it called “style,” to attach more importance to form than to subject-matter. It was the age of the amateur. Lord Burlington, for example, a patron of art, designed a villa at Chiswick in a free translation of the Villa Capra, Vicenza by Palladio. Also, in conjunction with his protégé, Kent, he erected the Horse Guards and Devonshire House in London and Holkham Hall, Norfolk; the last-named presenting a central block connected by corridors with four outlying pavilions. One of the shibboleths of this time that passed for a principle was that to a style of this grandeur only one form of roof was appropriate—a dome. Interior proprieties were sacrificed to the securing of a dome, and where the exigencies of building necessitated a flat or pointed roof it was hidden behind an attic or balustrade.
Pope’s Satire.—The fatuities, however, of this craze for the monumental did not escape contemporary satire. When Lord Burlington published the designs of Inigo Jones and Palladio’s drawings of the “Antiquities of Rome,” Pope referred to them in one of his epistles—
And pompous buildings once were things of use.
Yet shall, my Lord, your just, your noble rules,
Fill half the land with imitating fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets may take
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state,
Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate:
....... “’tis very fine,
But where d’ye sleep or where d’ye dine?
I find by all you have been telling
That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.”
Chambers.—It was a reaction from this mania for magnificence that encouraged, in the case of more modest houses, the so-called “Queen Anne” style, and later, in large and small alike, the “Georgian.” The change to the latter, moreover, was assisted by the influence of Sir William Chambers, who acquired a real knowledge of architecture through long study in Italy and in 1759 published his “Treatise on Civil Architecture.” His most important work is the river front of Somerset House. He, too, however, was responsible for a craze. In early life he had visited China, where he made sketches of architecture, furniture, and costumes, which formed the basis of his “Designs for Chinese Architecture, Etc.” published in 1757. It led to an infatuation for the socalled “Chinese Style” which survives directly in the Pagoda at Kew Gardens and indirectly in the Chinese motives that Chippendale (d. 1779) introduced with so much taste into his furniture designs.
Adam.—Meanwhile, the Georgian revival was due even more to the genius of the Scotsman Robert Adam (1728-1792). Realising that the existing knowledge of Roman architecture had been derived from public buildings, he visited the only example known then of domestic architecture, the ruins of Diocletian’s Palace at Spalato in Dalmatia. Here in co-operation with the French architect, C. L. Clerisseau, and two experienced draughtsmen, he made the measurements and drawings out of which he projected a restoration of the building in a fine work entitled “The Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian” (1764). To him belongs the credit of inaugurating the modern idea, not yet sufficiently lived up to, of using the monumental style for a number of separate buildings, grouped in one design. His first achievement was on the banks of the Thames just east of Buckingham Street, where the steep descent necessitated a system of vaulted foundations that are said to be a remarkable example of engineering skill. On this Adam erected the dignified design, which, since his brother James co-operated with him, was called after the Greek word adelphoi, brothers, Adelphi Terrace. Other instances of his group designs are parts of Fitzroy Square, the older portion of Finsbury Circus and Portland Place. Among his country houses is Keddleston Hall, Derbyshire. Here he clung to the sprawling plan, in which the offices are widely parted from the main block; but, in the façades, employed large windows, finely grouped, and permitted the sloping roofs to be a strong feature of the design.
HOME OF THE POET LONGFELLOW, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. P. 431
CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA P. 430
WASHINGTON’S HOME AT MOUNT VERNON
Rear View. Example of Southern Colonial. P. 432
ANOTHER SOUTHERN COLONIAL EXAMPLE, MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA P. 432
It was Adam’s idea that the architect should be responsible also for the interior decorations and furniture, thus making each room and its furnishings a unified design. Indeed, that everything outside as well as inside the house, summer-houses, terraces and so-forth, should unite in a single ensemble. In the style of furniture that has been associated with his name he showed a rare taste in blending classical motives with elements of his own fancy; exhibiting a particular skill in the graceful use of curvilinear forms, in which he had a partiality for ovals, and in modelling details that, while very delicate, were neither weak nor petty. As the result of his influence the Georgian interior presented an appropriately dainty setting to the costumes and manners of society, which had abandoned the stiff ostentation of the earlier Georgian period for the graceful elegance of the later mode.
AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURENaturally it was from the Mother-Country that the American Colonies derived the models of their earliest architecture. The date at which increased population and prosperity encouraged buildings of a more permanent character, distinguished by their appearance as well as by their immediate utility, is placed at about 1725. From this time the rigour of life in New England, and particularly in Massachusetts, began to be considerably abated. The theocratic form of government, in which the clergy were the arbiters of moral and social conventions, had given way to the active participation of laymen in public affairs. The manners as well as the costumes of society became elegant and the pleasures of life were no longer frowned upon. The change which thus came over social life is reflected in the contrast presented by Copley’s portraits and those of his predecessor, Smibert.
A corresponding advance in the amenities of life was represented also in New York and Philadelphia; while, as to the Southern States, which had been colonised by Royalists rather than by Puritans, the tradition of elegant life had always been maintained and the change at this period was only in the increased opportunity of realising it.
English Influences, Modified.—The edifices which began to be erected comprise churches and meeting-houses, mansions, and a few public halls; the last being of historical rather than architectural interest. The places of worship represent an adaptation of the Wren-Gibbs type, while the domestic designs are based on Queen Anne and Georgian styles. In a few cases the prototype was fairly reproduced; notable examples being Christ Church, Philadelphia (1727-35); Old South Church, Boston, now used as a museum (1730-82), and S. Paul’s, New York (1766). The last named is one of the few instances of stone building at this period; the usual material being either brick imported from England or, far more usually, wood. This affected the use which was made of the drawings of Gibbs, Adam, and others, from which the Colonial church-builders derived their designs. Brick did not permit of carved enrichment. Mouldings were, in consequence, of extreme simplicity and such embellishments as columns, pediments, and cornices were constructed of wood. The character of the design was still further modified in the New England States, since wood was used also for the main structure.
Colonial Style Developed.—Thus there was developed a skill of design in the use of wood alone and of wood in combination with brick that is distinguishable as a distinct style, to which the term “Colonial” has been applied. It is a style in no sense monumental, even when it includes spires, columns and porticoes. On the contrary, it is characterised by simplicity and reserve but is saved from insignificance by the quiet dignity of the whole and the refinement of the details. The wooden spires of the innumerable meeting-houses distributed over New England, many of which were designed by the almost forgotten worthies, Ascher Benjamin and Ithiel Town, present a type of their own, distinguished by extreme sensitiveness of outline and aspiring grace and airiness. These are veritable creations, growing logically out of the wood construction. And even in the porticoes, although their columns are structurally shams, being mere shells enclosing a post, the feeling of woodwork is so frankly retained, that in association with the wooden walls they seem quite reasonable.
A corresponding unity of effect is achieved in the best examples of wooden domestic buildings, such as the Craigie House, Longfellow’s home in Cambridge; the Sherburn House, Portsmouth, and innumerable other examples throughout New England. They are characterised by the choice proportions and distribution of the windows, by the pilasters running up through two stories, to a well-designed cornice, broken in the centre by a pediment that serves as a porch. The roofs vary. Some are flat; some slope up from front and rear, with a gable at each end. In other cases, the continuous slope is broken by a gambrel into two slopes, forming an obtuse angle, as in the Mansard roof. While again, the roof may be hipped, sloping up, that is to say, from all four sides, the four planes meeting in hips or ridges.
While similar styles of roofs and windows reappear in the Southern Colonial type of house the latter is distinguished by the addition of a verandah. It may take the form of a pedimented portico, composed of colossal columns, carried up to the cornice, or of a colonnade extending along the entire front and frequently consisting of two stories; the floor beams of the upper one being let into the columns—a device that violates structural propriety but may be overlooked in the comfortable dignity of the whole design. The latter in some cases covers an extended, symmetrical plan, as, for example, in Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, where the main block is connected by curving colonnades with the kitchen wing on one side and offices on the other, while the slave-quarters were in detached buildings,
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