Architecture
ar'ki-tec-tur, the art of building. Passing by the tepee, the lodge, and the wigwam of the Indian, the tent and the snowhouse of the Eskimo, the tree dwelling of equatorial Africa, the lake dwelling of the Peruvian and ancient Swiss, the hut of the Hottentot, the bamboo house of the Orient, the cabin of the peasant, and the log house of the settler, we may say that the study of architecture begins with the more permanent and pretentious, the more highly ornamental buildings of various countries and peoples. We may include buildings made of a wide variety of material, as adobe, bricks, stone, wood, concrete, stucco, plaster, glass, and metal; but the builder or, at least, the designer, the architect, must have more than the rude skill of the savage. Whatever the material used, an architectural building cannot be put up by mere hand and eye. It requires to be planned beforehand, and to be erected under the supervision of a mind skilled in measurements and drafting, and with an artistic sense of proportion and fitness. Each portion of a building, whether a wall, pillar, doorway, window, or cornice, must be of the right proportions to delight the eye and produce a feeling of pleasure. As the painter relies on color, the sculptor on form, and the musician on harmony, so the genuine architect relies on the perfection of proportion to please the mind and must go about his work in no haphazard way.
Beginning with the far East, it may be said that the prevalence of earthquakes and the probability that buildings of size and height would be shaken down, have prevented the Chinese and Japanese from developing the architectural skill that might be expected from so ingenious a people. The royal palace of Tokio is but a one-story wooden building. The great majority of the buildings of farther Asia are made of light bamboo. They are erected easily, are burned frequently, and are replaced readily. In China, Burma, and India, we find the sacred pagoda, a pyramidal tower from three to thirteen stories high, always an odd number. It is connected frequently with a temple, and is erected on some spot sacred to Buddha, or as an evidence of the builder's piety. Height and stability are secured by the pyramidal shape.
Next to the great pagodas in interest are the rock-cut caves of India. Not less than a thousand temples and as many monasteries are found in India, cut in natural cliffs of rocks. Sometimes the chambers within are of vast extent. The roof is supported on massive pillars of undisturbed stone. Not infrequently a square of the roof is removed to admit light and air into an interior court. The caves of Ellora extend three or four miles into the solid rock. The more important portion is described as a temple of great extent, with halls, aisles, courts, passages, pillars, and colonnades, with carvings, figures, and friezes complete, not built, but cut out of the solid rock. The temple stands in the open of a large excavated quadrangle or pit, which is surrounded by pillars with chambers within, all on a scale of no little magnificence. This immense temple with all its ornaments and surroundings was cut out of the living rock about 1000 A. D. The entrances to these rock caves were ornamented by elaborate pillars and porticos cut in the face of the cliff.
The princes of India built tombs and temples of masonry of great magnificence. We need only mention the Taj Mahal, the celebrated mausoleum built by the emperor in a beautiful garden a mile east of Agra. It stands on a rectangular platform with a minaret 133 feet high at each corner. It is an octagonal building with sides measuring 130 feet each. The walls are 70 feet high, and are surmounted by a dome 120 feet high, rising to a total height of 190 feet. The entire building is of dazzling white marble with interior finish of surpassing beauty in lapis lazuli and other stones worked into a mosaic. Twenty thousand workmen are said to have toiled over twenty years in the erection of this burial place. It cost from ten to fifty million dollars. The artistic ability of Indian architects is just becoming known. A work consisting of several hundred sheets in portfolios, illustrating the lace-like details into which the artisans of India fashioned the marble of their temples, and the exquisite coloration employed in interior decoration, has been issued by one of the wealthy native princes. It has proved a revelation to the architectural world.
We are indebted to explorers and excavators for our knowledge of the buildings in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. They were constructed not infrequently of adobe or sundried brick, with pavements and wainscoting of vitrified and beautifully colored tiling, or else slabs of carved alabaster. For some account of the palaces, hanging gardens and walls and temples of this region, the reader is referred to the articles on Babylon and Nineveh. The historians of art claim that Greece learned much from the architects of this region. Remains of great extent are found in Persia, especially at Susa and Persepolis. The temples, treasures houses, and palaces of these ancient capitals are quite different from those of Greece, but appear to have been suggested by the same models, possibly those of Babylonia.
The Jews have made no notable contributions to the art. The temple of Solomon from which Christ drove out the money changers, was a rectangular building 110 feet long by 36 feet wide, and 55 feet in height. Its walls were of stone. It was roofed and floored with cedar, and was surrounded on three sides by priests' chambers. Across the front a wide porch extended. A vast amount of gold was used in gilding doorways, floors, and walls. The details of the building are not understood thoroughly, but it is conceded that Solomon's temple is interesting chiefly from the side of sacred history.
The principal buildings of the ancient Egyptians were the pyramids, and the tombs and temples of upper Egypt. The reverence in which the Egyptians held the bodies of their ancestors led to the use of a large part of the national wealth in constructing chambers for the storing of mummies. The Great Pyramids, one of the wonders of antiquity, were constructed to serve for both tombs and monuments. Many structures on a smaller scale have escaped total destruction. Even more interesting are the rock-cut royal tombs of this region, some of which extend several hundred feet into the solid rock with many a chamber and sculptured passage. One of the largest at Thebes contains passages, in all, a sixth of a mile in length. Rock-cut temples are numerous. The doorway of one in Nubia, cut in the face of a rock, is flanked by two sculptured figures or statues sixty-six feet high. Temples cut out of the living rock appear to have suggested temples built of masonry,-small ones at first, then larger edifices, as the mason learned to handle his material. The temple at Edfoo on the Nile, above Thebes, is named as the most striking example of the Egyptian building art. In form it is a large parallelogram with a doorway 50 feet high, flanked on either side by massive towers 110 feet high. The entire front is 250 feet wide, adorned with colossal figures, some of them 40 feet in height. An open court within is surrounded by imposing colonnades, whose columns are 32 feet high. Passing toward the rear, through successive chambers, mystery and awe deepening at every step, the door of the sixth passage, when in a state of preservation, admitted the high priest to the sacred inner chamber, the holy of holies. The entire temple suggests not only the temple at Jerusalem, but is evidently of a type studied by the architects that planned the temples of Greece. Still larger, but built on the same plan, is the temple of Karnak, twice as large as St. Peter's at Rome, and covering five times as much ground as St. Paul's at London. Connected with these temples are long avenues guarded by rows of sphinxes and gigantic sitting statues. One of Memnon is 53 feet high with a face alone 7 feet long. Square obelisks cut from a single stone stood in pairs at the entrances. Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park, New York, was such a stone from the temple of the sun. In point of magnitude and cost of erection, the public buildings of Egypt exceed all others of antiquity.
The architecture of Greece is without a rival. No doubt Greek architects learned from other countries, possibly Babylonia, certainly from Egypt. Not a single Grecian temple is standing intact, but enough may be seen to warrant the assertion that in simplicity and harmony, and in the beauty of form and proportion, the work of the Greeks has never been surpassed. Compared with the exquisite workmanship of the Greeks, the finest and most impressive specimens of the building art found in the countries previously mentioned, seem crude and lacking in refinement,-the products of creative minds, but of minds lacking in delicacy and good taste. If we except certain ancient ruins of uncertain significance, it may be said that the Greeks were not acquainted with the use of the arch. Spaces were bridged by single slabs of stone. Supporting columns were necessarily near together. Domes and vaulted ceilings were wanting. The prevailing lines, the lines followed by the eye, were horizontal. The earlier temples of Greece, as may be inferred from drawings on ancient vases and references in literature, may have been constructed of wood; but the famous temples, of which at least thirty merit mention as of high rank, were built of marble. The exteriors, especially the cornices and friezes, as we now learn, were richly colored with Tyrian dyes; colored tiling was no doubt employed, and gold was used freely in gilding the statues of the gods within; but the real quality of the Grecian temple consists in a certain purity of form and the sense of proportion that not only delights the eye of the observer, but satisfies his intellect.
In general, the Grecian temple, like that of Egypt, was rectangular, and stood on a platform of stone approached by steps. A covered portico, entirely of marble and supported on marble columns, ran across the front, or in many cases entirely around the building. The temples were built in three styles, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian, similar in floor plan and structure, but differing in ornamental details. The Doric temple was the plainest of the three.
The columns, a prominent feature in all the temples, are a distinguishing feature by which the style of architecture may be known at once. Some think the round Egyptian column and the Grecian, as well, are the outgrowth of the pillars of rock left in the early rock-cut or cave temples to support the roof. A square pillar with its corners cut off becomes an octagonal pillar, and is well on its way to become a round column. However that may be, the columns of Doric architecture certainly resemble huge, powerful, shapely, unadorned pine logs, standing on end. They are slightly larger at the lower end, the butt end of the log. Creases or flutings run up and down, suggestive of thick, shaggy bark, and as a further argument in favor of this view, it may be urged that historically the marble column replaces the log prop used, it is believed, in the construction of the earlier temples of Greece. As stated, the Doric column is perfectly plain. A log cut square at each end could not be more so. The capital that forms the tip of the column is a plain stone and the first course of slabs, called the architrave, that rests on the capitals and carries the frieze and the rest of the cornice and roof work, is composed of plain stones without ornament. The frieze or band resting on the architrave is divided into panels, two for each column, by projecting faces, or blocks of stone, called triglyphs from the fact that each is scored by two channels into three vertical fillets. These panels and the gable ends are adorned with sculpture. The Parthenon is admittedly the finest specimen of the Doric order.
The Ionic column may be distinguished by a corded, distinct base, a fluted shaft, and a capital with four corners, each terminating in a spiral projection or volute, bearing a fanciful resemblance to the curling tresses of some goddess. Frieze and gable may be severely plain or they may be adorned with legendary scenes.
The Corinthian order may be identified most readily by the capital. It is carved to resemble upright graceful leaves of which the fillets or ridges of the column are the stalks. In all the orders, the exact diameter, height, and taper of the columns, and their exact distance apart; the thickness of architrave, frieze, and cornice; the suitability of each to all, and the harmonizing of all with the size and dimensions of the whole building, must have been a profound study. The longer modern architects measure and study the relics of Greek art, the greater becomes their respect and admiration for the knowledge and skill of the Greek architect.
The Romans never approached the Greeks in point of beautiful buildings, but excelled them greatly in the magnitude and stability of their public works such as bridges, baths, aqueducts, roads, and famous amphitheaters. By using the principle of the arch, rivers were spanned, trestles for aqueducts were built, lofty domes were reared, and spacious, uninterrupted interiors were rendered possible. The Roman borrowed his ideas of decoration from the Greek; but columns were needed only at the ends of arches; level roofs gave way to vaulted ceilings, and, with the use of short material rectangular ground plans, were varied at will. The great amphitheaters were oval. The Pantheon was round. The arch, the dome, the circle, the oval, and the ellipse were added to the world's stock of available architectural knowledge. Some account of the Pantheon, the Colosseum, and the Forum may be found under separate topics.
The architecture of the Middle Ages took the form of churches and tombs. The early Christians developed a form of church from the Roman basilica, frequently with a central circular dome, spanning a square ground plan. The great Cathedral of St. Mark's at Venice is a combination of Roman and eastern architecture known as Byzantine. The spread of the Moslem power was accompanied by a multiplication of mosques, palaces, and tombs. The most wonderful of all Moorish architecture is the Alhambra, of which some account is given under that name.
Out of the round Roman arch grew the pointed arch, somewhat indefinitely known as Gothic. The famous cathedrals of western Europe are chiefly Gothic. The cathedrals of Notre Dame, Rheims, Rouen, Chartres, Amiens, Strasburg, Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, Milan, Salisbury, Canterbury, York, and Winchester, as well as Melrose Abbey and Westminster Abbey, are of this class. Their long aisles, flanked by columns and surmounted by vaulted ceilings with pointed arches, all executed, be it remembered, in stone, are wondrously suggestive of avenues and vistas of fine old trees with branches interarching overhead. The lines of the Greek temple carried the eye from side to side in pleased delight. The pointed arches, towers, and spires of the Gothic cathedral conduct the eye upward and give the observer a feeling of awe, of littleness in the presence of limitless height above.
About the beginning of the sixteenth century a movement set in to return to the level and more economical lines of the Grecian styles. This was called the Renaissance, or rebirth, as it were, of classical art. A large number of the fine old town halls and castles of Germany, including the extensive ruins of Heidelberg, are of this indefinite style which shades off into the business blocks of our modern cities.
In America the pueblo dwellings of the Zuni Indians, the temples of the Aztecs, the extensive ruins found in Central America, and the palaces of Peru, all find place in an extended history. They are remarkable and apparently independent developments of the building art; though some see a Chinese influence which they suppose to have been brought across the Pacific by castaway mariners from China, or to have come by way of Bering Strait.
All sorts of architectural ideas have been inherited from Europe. Many of our back streets and country lanes look like bits of the Old World dropped down in America. In Albany old houses present their gables to the street as they do in Holland. In New Orleans the second stories project over the narrow streets as they do in France. In Pennsylvania one may find villages apparently transported bodily from Germany. Still there are certain American types. The log house has an individual identity. The colonial house, most frequently seen in Virginia and the South, may be recognized by a lofty front portico with pillars. The English country house is reproduced in the White House at Washington. The John Hancock house of Boston, the brownstone front of New York, and the box-like frame house with its L or lean-to are other types.
Of late a new word, the "skyscraper," has come into use. As one approaches any large city, especially New York or Chicago, and the tops of the new office buildings thrust their jagged outlines above the horizon, the term seems appropriate. The Flatiron Building (so called from the shape of the plot on which it stands) pushes up its tower-shaped mass to the height of twenty stories. A skyscraper near the New York Postoffice rises twenty-nine stories. The top floor is 400 feet above the sidewalk. Thirty thousand persons enter this building daily. Buildings of this character have steel frames filled in with brick or tile. Utility and comfort rule in modern architecture.
See Taj Mahal; Parthenon; Arch; Cathedral; Castle; Bridge; St. Paul'S; St. Peter'S; Westminster Abbey; Thebes; Pyramids, etc.