University of Northern Iowa

The Evolution of Style in Modern Architecture Author(s): Thomas Hastings Reviewed work(s): Source: The North American Review, Vol. 191, No. 651 (Feb., 1910), pp. 195-205 Published by: University of Northern Iowa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25106582 . Accessed: 17/02/2013 06:34
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THE EVOLUTION STYLEINMODERN OF ARCHITECTURE*

BY THOMAS HASTINGS.

style or language of any time in history is, a universal and always has been, language common to all peoples. In solving problems of modern life, the essential is not so much as it is to be modern and of our own to be national or American, The architectural period. The question of supreme interest is, What influence life in its different phases has upon architectural style. Style in architecture is that method in the art which has varied in dif of expression the civilized simultaneously throughout to the different countries, beyond slight reference world, influenced by climate and differences of national character mostly should not be the de temperament. Surely modern architecture or that of the plorable creation of the would-be style-inventor, periods, without illogical another architect, ! living in one age and choosing a style from ferent almost

realized The important and indisputable fact is not generally times until now each age has built in one, that from prehistoric and only one, style. Since the mound-builders and cave-dwellers, no people, until modern ever attempted to adapt a style times, of a past epoch to the solution of a modern problem ; in such at In each successive style evils. tempts is the root of all modern life there has always been a distinctive spirit of contemporaneous But in our time, contrary from which its root drew nourishment. selection from the there is a confusing to all historic precedents, past of every variety of style. Why should we not be modern the spirit of our have one characteristic style expressing
the American Read before 14th, 1909. ton, December * Academy of Arts and Letters

and own

at Washing

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196 life?

THE NORTH AMERICAN

REVIEW. alike demand that we

and the law of development History build as we live.

One might consider the history and development of costumes to illustrate the principle involved. In our dress to-day we are but sufficiently related to the past; which we realize modern, when we look upon the photographs of our ancestors of only a We would not think of dressing as they did, or ago. generation a Gothic robe or a Eoman toga, but as individual as of wearing we might want to be we would still be inclined, with good taste, to dress according to the dictates of the day. of modern times is the assumption idiosyncrasy of problem demands a particular style of archi this assumption has become so fixed tecture. Through prejudice, that it is common to assume that if building a church or a uni it it Gothic: if a theatre, we must make versity we must make irrational that each kind an Elizabethan another One man wants house, wants his house early Italian. With this state of things, it would seem as though the serious study of character were no longer in architecture, necessary. forsooth, is only a question Expression of selecting the right style ! The two parties with which we must contend are, on the one hand, those who would break with the past, and on the other those who would to their own select from the past according Eenaissance.
fancy. ,

The

Style in its growth has always been governed by the universal If from the early times, when painting, law of development. were so closely combined, we trace and architecture sculpture and consequent their progress through their gradual development we can but be impressed by the way in which one differentiation, This evolution has always style has been evolved from another. pace with the progress of the political, religious and eco kept It has manifested itself un spirit of each successive age. in the architect's designs, under the imperatives of consciously new practical problems and of new requirements and conditions nomic imposed upon him. This continuity in the history of architecture As in nature, the types and species of life have kept is universal. of lands and seas and other with the successive modifications pace conditions imposed upon them, so has areMtectural style physical in its growth and development until now kept pace with the suc cessive modifications of civilization. For the principles of de

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EVOLUTION OF STYLE IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE.

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should be a?s dominant in art as they are in nature. velopment The laws of natural selection and of the survival of the fittest have shaped the history of architectural style just as truly as they have the different successive forms of life. Hence the necessity that we keep and cultivate the historic spirit, and that we respect our historic position and relations, and that we more and more realize in our designs the fresh demands of our time, more im even than the demands

portant What

of our environment. determining change have we had in the spirit and methods of life since the revival of learning and the Bef ormation to justify us in abandoning or in reviving mediaeval the Benaissanee art, or any other style? Byzantine Only the in the history of civilization, such as, for changes the dawn of the Christian era and of the Eeformation, Gothic,

Eomanesque, most radical

example, and the revival

of learning, have brought with them correspond radical changes in architectural style. ingly Were it necessary, we could trace two distinctly parallel lines? one the history of civilization, the other the history of style in case we should find a gradual development, a quick art. In each succession of events, a revival, perhaps almost a revolution, and a consequent reaction, always together, like cause and effect, show In order to build ing that architecture and life must correspond. a living architecture, we must build as we live.

Compare the Eoman orders with the Greek and with previous the life of work. When Eome was at its zenith in civilization, that he should not only of the architect the people demanded theatres and tombs, but baths, palaces, basilicas, build temples, pillars, aqueducts and bridges. triumphal arches, commemorative came to the architect, it was As each of these new problems simply a new demand from the new life of the people ; a new work architect was given such varied the Eoman to be done. When work to do, there was no reason for his casting aside all precedent. While original in conception, he was called upon to meet these of the old forms. These modi exigencies only with modifications The Eoman fications very gradually gave us Eoman architecture. show themselves to be a growth from the Greek orders distinctly in order orders, but the variations were such as were necessary in a wider be used with more freedom the orders might were to be brought in contact These orders range of problems. with wall or arch, or to be superimposed upon one another, as in a that

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198 Eoman

EVOLUTION amphitheatre. and beautiful

OF STYLE IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE.

The Eoman of the arch as a recognition form of construction, and the necessity for the more intricate and elaborate floor plan, were among the causes which developed the style of the Greeks into what is now recog nized as Eoman architecture. rational We ments of the Eomanesque, the thick walls and the small windows placed high above the floor, tell us of an age when every man's house was indeed his castle, his fortress and stronghold. The style was then an expression of that feverish and morbid to mediaeval life. The aspiration peculiar results are great, but they are the outcome of a disordered social cornices like our own, and. such a status could in no wise be satisfied with the simple classic forms of modern times?the archi trave and the column. Compare a workman of to-day building a Gothic church, slav status not ishly following his detail drawings, with a workman of the four teenth century doing such detail work as was directed by the but with as much in architect, interest, freedom and devotion a small capital as the architect had in the entire struc making for his sins, he praises God with perhaps doing penance every chisel stroke; his life interest is in that small capital; for him work is worship; and his life is one continuous psalm of ture; praise. The details of the capital, while beautiful, may be gro but there is honest life in them. To imitate such a capital tesque, a Gothic that life, would be affectation. Now to-day, without church is built by men whose one interest is to increase their wages and diminish their working-hours. The best Gothic work has been done and cannot be repeated. When attempted it will always lack that kind mediaeval We of mediaeval architecture. spirit of devotion which is the life of could multiply and machicolated illustrations without limit. The battle

such illustrations enumerate If one might indefinitely. from another age, it must express age looks at things differently With the revival of learning, with the new things differently. of philosophy and religion, with the great discoveries conceptions inventions, with the altered political systems, with the fall the Eastern Empire, with the birth of modern science and all over Europe, came and with other manifold literature, changes the dawn of the modern world; and with this modern world there was evolved what we should now ^recognize as the modern archi and of

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which pervaded all the arts and which tecture, the Benaissanee in has since engrossed the thought and labor of the first masters art. This Benaissanee in itself, which, with is a distinctive style natural variations of character, has been evolving for almost four hundred So great Benaissanee the in thought and life during the changes which had period that the forms of architecture prevailed for a thousand years were inadequate to the needs of the new civilization, to its demands for greater refinement of thought, in forms of for larger truthfulness to nature, for less mystery in practical and for greater convenience Out living. expression was evolved of these necessities of the times the Benaissanee style the transition?and such vast stores of of or years. were

to make about three generations ?taking around no other style have been accumulated knowledge and experience, under the lead of whatever we now build, Therefore, Europe. the law of historic dwelling, development the true and if we encourage Benaissanee,

the great masters church whether requires

that it be of com principles be a modern Benaissanee. it will involuntarily position Imagine the anachronism of trying to satisfy our comparatively or painting tastes with Gothic architectural realistic sculpture by modern artists ! Never until the present generation have to choose from the past any style, in the architects presumed to do as well as was done in the time to which that style hope times they would not even restore or add to in the style in which it was first conceived. building It is interesting to notice how the architect was even able to com plete a tower or add an arcade or extend a building, following the general lines of the original composition, without following its its own walls style, so that almost every historic building within tells the story of its long life. How much more interesting are these results alike to the historian and the artist ! belonged. a historic In other In every case where the mediaeval style has been attempted in modern times the result has shown a want of life and spirit The result has always simply because it was an anachronism. It is without been dull, lifeless and uninteresting. sympathy with the present or a germ of hope for the future?only the skeleton of what and adapt generations once was. We should study and develop the Benaissanee, conditions and wants, so that future it to our modern can see that it has truly interpreted our life. We

made

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200 can interest

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REVIEW.

those who come after us only as we thus accept our true historic position and develop what has come to us. Without of this we shall be only copyists, or be making poor adaptations was never really ours. what The time must come, and, I believe, in the near future, when architects of necessity will be educated in one style, and that will be the style of their own time. They will be so familiar with and so loyal to it, what will have become a settled conviction, that the entire question of style, which at present seems to be fancy or ignorance, will be kept sub by fashion, servient to the great principles of composition, which are now more or less smothered in the general confusion. Whoever demands of an architect a style not in keeping with determined the normal for retarding spirit of his time is responsible a language if we would talk. progress of the art. We must have If there be no common language for a people there can be no or literary. I be of ideas, either architectural communication lieve that we shall one day rejoice in the dawn of a modern and as always has been the case, we shall be guided Eenaissance, It will be a modern the fundamental principles of the classic. by the Eenaissance modern because it will be characterized by the conditions of architect It will be the work of the Eenaissance life. new problems, adapting his art to an honest and natural solving and conditions. Will he not also be treatment of new materials influenced by the twentieth-century spirit of econ unconsciously industries of his art to all modern omy and by the application and speculations? our true historic position Only when we come to recognize in history, when we allow the of continuity and the principles our style, recognizing first spirit of our life to be the spirit of of all that form and all design are the natural and legitimate outcome of the nature or purpose of the object to be made?only then can we hope to find a real style everywhere asserting itself. Then we shall see that consistency of style which has existed in then shall we find it in all times until the present generation; in the work of the artist of man's ingenuity, every performance or the artisan, from the smallest and most insignificant jewel or book-cover to the noblest monument of human invention or creation, from the most ordinary kitchen utensil to the richest and most costly furniture or decoration that adorns our dwelling.

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We must all work and wait patiently for the day to come when we shall work in unison with our time. must Our Benaissanee literal following of certain peri not be merely archaeological?the I or of Francis ods of the style. To build a French Louis XII Louis house, or to make an Italian Cinquecento No architect, architecture. not modern indisputably of any the characteristics followed times, slavishly XIV design, is until our

period, him,

particular but he used all that he could get from what preceded of his solving such new problems as were the imperatives

like Pierre Lescot, the architect of the Henry It would have been endeavor to do? of the Louvre, impossible for him actually to define the style of his own period. That is for us, his successors, to do. For him the question was II Court how life. He of contemporaneous to meet the new demands studied all that he could find in classic and Benaissanee prece to his problem. He composed, never copying, dents applicable and always with that artistic sense and the sense of the fitness of things, which were capable of realizing what would be harmonious at all times, con in his work. In the same way all architects, tributed fications to a contemporaneous architecture, invariably with modi This must to meet new conditions. be done with a result which comes im freedom of the

position. What did a man

of that harmonious scholarly appreciation So with only from a thorough education. and unity of design an architecture agination of its time. Not How is it with us in this country? tects slavishly follow the character of some

is secured expressive

take they also deliberately other times and other places conditions and new life. Every man's conscience must speak for is right ; but while the moral itself as to whether such plagiarism has very little to do with art, yet intel aspect of this question successful, posi lectually such imitative work, though seemingly and every effort to advance imagination tively stifles originality, in the right direction. The way is now prepared for us to endeavor to indicate what are some of the principal causes of the modern confusion in style. an excessive anxiety to the original With us Americans, is one of the causes of no end of evil. The imagination should be kept

only do many archi selected period, but entire motifs of composition from to patch and apply them to our new

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202

TE?

WORTH AMERICAN

REVIEW.

under control by given principles. We must have ability to dis cern what is good among our own creations and courage to reject what is bad. Originality is a spontaneous effort to do work in the are never twice The conditions simplest and most natural way. each case is new. We must begin our study with the floor alike; plan, and then interpret that floor plan in the elevation, using forms, details improvements and individuality to take temperament that if this is all that we Some say ing new in art; but if we compose in be nothing that is not new. Surely and sometimes motives, with natural variations and on what has gone before. The true artist leaves his care of themselves. are doing there is noth the right way, there can

you would not condemn for not being original because there is a certain similarity between the claw of a bird and the foot of a dog, or between the wing of a bird and the fin of a fish. The ensemble of each creature nature is the natural result of successive stages of life, with variations of the different parts according to the principles of evolution. There are countless in the skeletons structural correspondencies of organic life, but these show the wonderful unity of the uni this unity, nature is flooded verse; and yet, notwithstanding with an infinite variety of forms and species of life. We must logically interpret the practical conditions before us, no matter what they are. No work to be done is ever so arbitrary in its practical demands but that the art is elastic and broad to give these demands thorough satisfaction in more than enough If only the artist will accept such ways. as are reasonable, if only he will welcome practical imperatives one and all, as friendly opportunities for loyal and honest them, he will find that these very con in his architecture, expression than all else besides for his real progress art in composition. of contemporaneous and for the development The architects in the early history of our country were dis and closely related in their work to their con tinctly modern in Europe. They seem not only to have inherited temporaries ditions will adhered to them. I believe but to have religiously traditions, that it is because of this that the genuine and na?ve character of their work, which was of its period, still has a charm for us which cannot be imitated. McComb, Bullfinch, Letrobe, Thornton, and Walters were suf Strickland Andrew Hamilton, L'Enfant, in the right and distinctly modern, working ficiently American do more a score of different

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alas! men of talent, were mis and Benwick, direction. Upjohn led by the confusion of their times?the beginning of this modern the so-called Victorian-Gothic chaos, period. Gifted as Bichardson was, and great as his personality was, his because of its excellent quality, work is always easily distinguished, But I fear the of his followers. the so-called Bomanesque he did was largely undone because of the bad influence of good his work upon his profession?stumpy columns, squat arches and form a disease from which rounded corners, without Bichardson, we are only just recovering. McComb and Bullfinch would prob from to graft the tran for attempting ably have frowned upon Hunt sitional Loire architecture of the fifteenth century upon American soil, and I believe all will agree that the principal good he ac complished was moral character of his art, and the to the great distinction of the man himself, rather than to the general influence and direction of his work. name at this time we mention MeKim's almost with bated he was right or wrong, whether we agree with breath. Whether due

him or not, in wanting to revive the art of Bramante, St. Galo and in the nineteenth century, he had perhaps more of the true sense of beauty than any of his predecessors. His was the art of the man who loved the doing of it without thought of itself felt in every example of his work, credit, and this makes which was always refined, personal and with a distinctly more Peruzzi classic tendency in his most recent work. We have seen that the life of an epoch makes its impress upon its architecture. It is equally true that the architecture of a to form and model its character. If there is beauty people helps in the plans of our cities, and in the buildings which form our its good influence will make itself public squares and highways, felt upon every passer-by. in our buildings is an open Beauty book of involuntary education and refinement, and it uplifts and ennobles human it is a song and a sermon without character; It inculcates in a people a true sense of words. dignity, a sense of reverence and a respect for tradition, and it makes an atmos phere in its environment which breeds the proper kind of con tentment?that kind of contentment which stimulates ambition. above all, it cultivates the sense of beauty itself, which is But, as important a factor in a well-formed character as is the sense of humor and almost as necessary as the sense of honor. It is,

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204

TEE WORTH AMERICAN

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I believe, a law of the universe that the forms of life which are in fittest to survive, and the very universe itself, are beautiful form and color. Natural selection is beautifully ugli expressed, ness and deformity are synonymous, and so, in the economy of life, what would survive must be beautifully expressed. If a story is to live it must be told with art, and a message of truth will carry further and be of more lasting service if There is literary style in every good book, beautifully expressed. however personal or simply written. of design and line Beauty in construction builds well, and with greater economy and en The than construction which is mere durance engineering. side first, then the quantitative side of construction qualitative The practical and the artistic are insepa is beauty in nature because all nature is a practical The truly educated architect will never problem well solved. sacrifice the practical The great economic side of his problem. as well as architectural calamities have been performed by so called practical men with an experience mostly bad and with no should be considered. There rable. education. be designed, then calculated. Know The where you want to go before seeking a way to go there. of the architect and the modern engineer has been separation because of the innovation of railroads brought about principally Construction should first and steel construction. The engineer and architect should work hand in hand at the The architect should not very inception of the structural design. the case, to decorate badly designed be called in, as is generally construction with useless ornament. We should meet these new in construction, with art in the very skeleton of the construction itself, and even so, with this unfortunate and architecture, should be something separation of engineering done to bring them closer together, and they should join forces conditions of life at the very beginning of every important undertaking; otherwise we shall suffer for it even as we have already, and it is only by being forewarned that we can forestall the consequences. When we think of what the past ages have done for us, should we not be more considerate of those that are yet to come? A has constantly flowed through information tide of historic great erected by successive civilizations, the channel of monuments we can almost live in the past through its monuments. and

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EVOLUTION

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The recently discovered buried cities of Assyria give us a vivid lost to history. of Cheops The Pyramid idea of a civilization and the Temples Karnak and Luxor tell us more of that in of of the life genuity which we cannot fathom, and the grandeur and history of the Egyptian people, than the scattered and with or fragments of inscriptions that have chanced ered documents to survive the crumbling influences of time. The Parthenon and refinement of the Greeks the Erechtheum the intellectual bespeak as much as their epic poems or their philosophy. The triumphal of Borne the aqueducts, the Pantheon and the Basilicas arches, of the early Ee tell us more of the great constructive genius public and and the Empire of the Caesars than the fragmentary annals of wars and political intrigues. contradictory The unsurpassed and inspiring beauty of the Gothic cathedrals

which bewilders us, and the cloisters which enchant us, impress on our minds a living picture of the feverish and morbid aspira tion of mediaeval times?a civilization have had which must an intellectual with its mysticism and spiritual grandeur mingled which Ages of the historian have failed ade and here, in and around Washington and in quately our own country in general, even amid the all-absorbing work a new government, our people found time to speak of constructing to us to-day in the silent language of their simple architecture, of the temperament and character of our forefathers. to record, Consider ments the time in which we are now living. Will our monu record the splendid achievements of our con adequately the so-called Dark

life,?the temporaneous spirit of modern justice and liberty,?the of modern invention and progress of modern science,?the genius elevated character of our institutions? Will dis discovery,?the order and confusion in our architecture the intelligence express of this twentieth century ? Would that those in authority might learn a lesson from the past, and awaken in their wisdom to build our national monuments more worthy of the dignity of this great more expressive of this wonderful nation, and contemporaneous

life!
Thomas Hastings.

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