Architect

“ The builder is merely the bricklayer or the carpenter: the builder, in fact, is the machine,—the architect the power that puts the machine together, and sets it going!"—"O, very well, Mr. Architect, that will do! And now, after your very ingenious distinction without a difference, perhaps you can inform the court who was the architect for the Tower of Babel!"—"There was no architect, sir, and hence the confusion!" ”

“ The chief influence in eliminating the architect from the great bulk of our building is the machine itself: in blotting out the elements of personality and individual choice it has blotted out the architect, who inherited these qualities from the carpenter-builder. ”

“ Now, we have defined the province of the architect to be, that of selecting such forms and colours as shall delight the mind, by preparing it for the operations to which it is to be subjected in the building. Now, no forms, in domestic architecture, can thus prepare it more distinctly than those which correspond closely with the first, that is, the fixed and fundamental, part of character, which is always so uniform in its action, as to induce great simplicity in whatever it designs. Nothing, on the contrary, can be more injurous than the slightest influence of the humours upon the edifice ”

“ But your modern architect, who would be annoyed at being called a builder, never puts into his work any of the history of his building, but is quite content to erect adequate walls and roof and useful equipment and decorate the outside, much as a confectioner be-sugars a cake, to please the eye for the moment rather than with any intention of expressing ideas in his art. ”

“ But it no more constitutes the true power of an architect, than the possession of a good ear for metre constitute a poet; and every building whose excellence consists merely in the proportion of masses is to be considered as nothing more than an architectural doggrel, or rhyming exercise. ”

“ One fine day you take your architect for a jaunt along a country-lane, until stopping shyly in front of a five-barred gate, over which is nailed an ominous notice-board, you introduce him to your small property, the site of your new house. ”

“ The architect
Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,
And with him toiled his children, and their lives
Were builded, with his own, into the walls,
As offerings unto God. ”

“ Some critics think that architecture had its start in the making of a bird's nest. Have you ever watched birds at work on their nests? If you have, you must know that they go about the job like artists. In our profession we like to insist, you know, that there's a big difference between architecture and mere building. In its truest sense architecture is building with a fine motive. It's the artistic printing press of all ages, the noblest of the fine arts and the finest of the useful arts. I know, of course," the architect went on, "that there's another tradition not quite so flattering. ”

“ Why should the Greek and Roman ovolo, cavetto, and square, be the only combination that we know of in our common mouldings? How much richer were the architects of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, who drew with “free hands,” and gave us such exquisite effects of light and shade! We are firmly persuaded, that an architect, deeply imbued with the scientific principles of his profession, and endowed, at the same time, with the hand and the eye of a skilful artist, may cause a most happy and useful reformation of our national architecture. ”

“ But imagine it placed on the plain of Marengo, or, like the Superga of Turin, or like La Salute at Venice! The fact is, that the apprehension of the size of natural objects, as well as of architecture, depends more on fortunate excitement of the imagination than on measurements by the eye; and the architect has a peculiar advantage in being able to press close upon the sight, such magnitude as he can command. ”

“ I have limited these to the determined and purposed suggestion of a mode of support other than the true one. The architect is not bound to exhibit structure; nor are we to complain of him for concealing it, any more than we should regret that the outer surfaces of the human frame conceal much of its anatomy; nevertheless, that building will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent eye discovers the great secrets of its structure, as an animal form does, although from a careless observer they may be concealed. ”

“ Then when the roofs and passages about the building are mounted it is seen that the great object of the architect has been simply to obtain one grand effect—that of height and airiness, and that to this everything has been sacrificed, the details throughout being poor, coarse, and slovenly in their mode of execution. ”

“ The buildings are so vast in themselves, and every line so noble, every architectural idea so stupendous, that one is carried back almost with awe to the recollections of the great-souled Farnese who originated the design, and the grand architect who carried it out. ”

“ He should take popular characters and popular subjects; but an architect! Why, not one in a thousand knows or cares any thing about architects. Trash! and now just do look at this—a weekly paper, called The Builder! and another character to be drawn out—an Enthusiast, who is also an architect! Well, upon my word, that is good! We have heard of castles in the air; I suppose we are going to have a builder of them, and that this Enthusiast is to be the architect. ”

“ The architect has produced a great deal of beauty quite out of all the usual rules; not so much perhaps, as if he had employed his taste and talents in a more correct style, but still in sufficient degree to make his work an object deserving the study of future architects, which a handsomer building might not have been. ”

“ Everyone at some point comes in contact with the work of the architect, and from this universal contact architecture derives its significance as an index of the civilization of an age, a race, or a people. ”

“ In my first book, Emperor, I described to you the art, with its points of excellence, the different kinds of training with which the architect ought to be equipped, adding the reasons why he ought to be skilful in them, and I divided up the subject of architecture as a whole among its departments, duly defining the limits of each. ”

“ Considering how much of merely formal, conventional and soulless architecture has been produced in our time under the guidance of the professional architect, it is impossible to deny that there is an element of truth in this reasoning; at all events, that there have been a good many modern architects who have done more harm than good to architecture. ”

“ Architects will then be no longer tempted to startle and amaze by astounding novelties, but will seek to please by harmonies that give the eye repose. And it will be felt that the architect is not a builder up only, but a beautifier, of his materials, of their arrangement, and of their uses. ”

“ That is why the architect should be one of the most important persons in the State, why he should be trained as for a priesthood, and when trained why he should be trusted, why indeed the whole external form of the material side of our civilisation should be moulded by him. He, and he alone, if he is properly endowed and properly trusted, has the means to make our towns beautiful again. ”

“ Nor was the judgment of the Prelate in selecting so good an architect, less remarkable than his greatness of mind in constructing so noble and magnificent an edifice, which is not indeed in a position to be much enjoyed by the public, being in a remote and solitary district, but is nevertheless admirably placed for one who desires to escape for a time from the toils and vexations of cities. ”

“ The architect had not stopped to pother about columns and porticos, proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature—art can go no further. ”

“ The architect will forget in his study of life the formalities of science, and, while his practiced eye will prevent him from erring in technicalities, he will advance, with the ruling feeling, which, in masses of mind, is nationality, to the conception of something truly original, yet perfectly pure. ”

“ Addressing myself then to those humbler, but wiser, or rather, only wise students who are content to avail themselves of some system of building already understood, let us consider together what room for the exercise of the imagination may be left to us under such conditions. And, first, I suppose it will be said, or thought, that the architect's principal field for exercise of his invention must be in the disposition of lines, mouldings, and masses, in agreeable proportions. ”

“ "That narrow window, I expect,
Serves but to let the dusk in—"
I cried "But please to recollect
'Twas fashioned by an architect
Who pinned his faith on Ruskin!" ”

“ That the architect is a man that sits at home and makes drawings, while practical craftsmen carry them out, is to us a familiar idea, but the notion would greatly have astonished the builders of the French Gothic cathedrals or the Florentines of the fourteenth century. In mediaeval practice the architect was the master of the work, carrying the scheme of the whole in his head, but busy all the time with the actual materials and tools, and directing progress rather from the scaffolding than from the drawing office. ”

“ There are, perhaps, few points in Architecture in which such changes have been made as in the Window, which, instead of being a difficulty in the way of the architect, is now valued as a means of increasing the beauty of the building. ”

“ Architecture is established on this aggregate of connected parts. An architect conceiving some dominant character, either serenity, simplicity, strength, or elegance, as formerly in Greece or Rome, or the strange, the varied, the infinite, the fantastic, as in Gothic times, may select and combine connections, proportions, dimensions, forms, and positions—in short, the relationships of materials, that is to say, certain visible magnitudes in such a way as to display the character aimed at. ”

“ An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome. There was something in the old power of architecture, which it had from the recluse more than from the citizen. ”

“ This is no exaggeration: we have not only listened to speculations on the probable degree of the future majesty, but contemplated the actual illustrious existence, of several such buildings, with sufficient beauty in the management of some of their features to show that an architect had superintended them, and sufficient taste in their interior economy to prove that a refined intellect had projected them ”

“ The architect of to-day has an advantage over the master builder of long ago in that he is able to grasp all ideas that were introduced into the old house and can restore it without losing the spirit of the original in either the exterior or interior. ”

“ Instead of ignoring the relation of sanitary conditions and decorative schemes, the architect and client of to-day work out these problems with excellent results. Practical needs are considered just as worthy of the architect as artistic achievements. He is a poor excuse for his profession if he cannot solve the problems of utility and beauty, and work out the ultimate harmony of the house-to-be. ”

“ For this reason, though we shall notice every class of edifice, it does not come within our proposed plan, to enter into any detailed consideration of the inferior buildings of each class, which afford no scope for the play of the imagination by their nature or size; but we shall generally select the most perfect and beautiful examples, as those in which alone the architect has the power of fulfilling the high purposes of his art. ”

“ To us the architect is the individual who not only provides the plan, not only puts into practicable form the ideas of the employer, but also designs most of the details. He not only informs the various artificers that particular work is required in particular places, but he also provides them with drawings showing what the work is to be, and how it is to be fashioned. ”

“ His advice to persons contemplating building, that they should employ an architect and should not be constantly interfering with him, is undoubtedly sound: and one reason advanced for employing an architect, namely, that “the several Master-workmen may receive instructions by way of Draughts, Models, Frames, etc.,” is interesting as showing that architects were now accustomed to provide more minute details than in the time of Elizabeth and James. ”

“ And if these old wooden houses seem to us wanting (as many are wanting) in the appliances and fittings which modern habits have rendered necessary, it was assuredly no fault of the 15th-century architect. They display both in design and construction, most conspicuously, the elements of common sense in meeting the requirements of their own day, which is, as has been well remarked, "the one thing wanting to give life to modern architecture;" and they have a character and individuality about them which renders almost every building unique. ”

“ The scheme of the architect was a practical one, drawn up with reference to the various halls and galleries of the building, and designed to present as grand and perfect a spectacle as possible to those entering and traversing the building. It would have been very desirable that these schemes should have modified and interpenetrated each other. Ideal perfection need not have suffered, had some deference been paid to the actual conditions of locality. ”

“ There are many examples to sustain this contention, as well as the analogous contention that a faithful study and reproduction of antique or of mediæval architecture are highly useful, if not altogether indispensable, to cultivate an architect’s power of design. ”