Capital (architecture)

“ The same principle obtains in mills and factories: net profit can be increased by a judicious increase of capital expenditure, which adds to the account for interest, but deducts a larger sum from disbursements for maintenance, repairs, and accidents. Cheap money for good security has, too, had much to do with the new architecture of our cities—architecture which employs granite instead of sandstone, substitutes sandstone and marble for brick, and demands brick of new durability and beauty. ”

“ Agnese at Rome, the load (Fig. 111) does exceed in diameter the thickness of the column, and the capital thus becomes a structural member of great importance, providing, in its expanded upper surface, a secure bed for the load.
FIG 110.In France after the eleventh century the tendency to diminish the thickness of the column in proportion to that of its load became constant, and the development of the capital into a more and more spreading form necessarily followed. The degree of expansion given to the capital varied considerably according to circumstances. ”

“ We have so much, suppose, to be spent in decoration; let us go to the Flaxman of his time, whoever he may be; and bid him carve for us a single statue, frieze, or capital, or as many as we can afford, compelling upon him the one condition, that they shall be the best he can do; place them where they will be of most value, and be content. Our other capitals may be mere blocks, and our other niches empty. No matter: better our work unfinished than all bad. It may be that we do not desire ornament of so high an order: choose, then, a less developed style, as also, if you will, rougher material ”

“ In architecture, all the skill of the technologist and all the taste of the artist have become subservient to the desire of the financier for a quick turnover of capital, and the ground landlord for the maximum exploitation of the land. The sole chances for good workmanship occur when, by a happy accident of personality or situation, the patron asks of the architect and engineer only the best that they can give. ”

“ Between several examples, all decidedly referable to one and the same Order, very great special differences occur, and there might easily be a very great many more. Although the capital itself is indispensable, it is so only æsthetically, and not out of positive necessity. The necessity is only artistic: decoration of the kind there must be, but the express mode of it is one of those matters which should be left to design, to which it properly belongs. ”

“ Fig. 98.—Capitals from Crypt under Trinity Chapel, Canterbury.
Another great characteristic of English architecture is the moulded (unfoliated) capital. This is almost wanting in French architecture; and I strongly contend that the invention of this capital, which we may almost claim for our own country, is one of extreme value, and supplies what would be otherwise a great hiatus in the style. Among its earlier instances is that I have already mentioned in the crypt at Canterbury (Fig. 98) . ”

“ The height and breadth of the capital itself must then conform to the size of the holes. The boards at the top and bottom of the capital, which are called "peritreti," should be in thickness equal to one hole, and in breadth to one and three quarters, except at their extremities, where they equal one hole and a half. ”

“ The national capital will ere-long contain a population of half a million, while the many new and costly edifices now erecting in the immediate environs are of a spacious and elegant character, adapted, of course, to the climate, but yet combining many European and American elements of advanced domestic architecture. ”

“ It exerts diagonal as well as mere vertical pressure, and so demands a firmer base. This led the architects of the early arched styles, while adopting the Corinthian capital, and perhaps{141} re-using those of older buildings, to add to it a strong flat stone as an impost upon which they could safely give the springers of their arches a basis larger in diameter than the sustaining column. This form,—that is to say, the Corinthian capital with an added impost,—became traditional, and we find the imitations of it down to the end of the twelfth century. ”

“ The form of the compound capital, as shown in the perspective view, is also admirable, the lesser heights of the smaller members being well proportioned to their lesser diameters, and these again harmonising well with the central mass. ”

“ It is not merely business buildings that are affected by the inherent instability of enterprises to which profit and rent have become Ideal Ends: the same thing is happening to the great mass of houses and apartments which are designed for sale. Scarcely any element in our architecture and city planning is free from the encroachment, direct or indirect, of business enterprise. ”

“ Magnificent buildings, fitted up at great expense, afford a proof of the wealth and perhaps the liberality of the founder; but there can be no doubt that, with the capital employed, a greater number of invalids might be maintained, and in a manner much more beneficial to the public ”

“ And when at last there comes a scintillating opportunity where an architect is no longer obliged to turn out a rent-trap, a manufacturing plant, or something else that will pay a given percentage upon the investment, as happens in the case of a large country house, the marks of our national trade are very apt to obtrude themselves in a hundred amusing ways. ”

“ Millions upon millions have thus been spent, within the last twenty years, on ornamental arrangements of zigzag bricks, black and blue tiles, cast-iron foliage, and the like; of which millions, as I said, not a penny can ever return into the shareholders' pockets, nor contribute to public speed or safety on the line. It is all sunk forever in ornamental architecture, and (trust me for this!) all that architecture is bad. ”

“ The dark interior rooms, the vile and unsanitary holes, the lodgings without water or air or fire-escapes, are being slowly but surely broken up and extirpated, and a half-dozen private societies, combining philanthropy with business, are building decent houses for working people, which return from 3 per cent to 5 per cent on the capital invested. ”

“ This is always assuming that the speculative buildings shall be utilized at a normal return on the capital invested, which is begging the whole question. It is the business of building operators to know what class of people can be attracted to the new areas, and their success or failure in moving population to occupy the new houses, and in attracting various classes of people, determines the scale of values. ”

“ In the vicinity of large cities, and more particularly the city of New York, there are reasons which have a money value to them, why more attention should be given to suburban architecture, and why capitalists, as well as individuals, should undertake the construction of moderate-priced buildings, that shall command attention from the harmonious combination of fine [37] architectural effects. ”

“ But we must not reason back from the capital to the cornice, and suppose that an extension of the principles of the capital to the whole length of the wall, will serve for the roof cornice; for all our conclusions respecting the capital were based on the supposition of its being adapted to carry considerable weight condensed on its abacus: but the roof cornice is, in most cases, required rather to project boldly than to carry weight; and arrangements are therefore to be adopted for it which will secure the projection of large surfaces without being calculated to resist extraordinary pressure. ”

“ The administrator of wealth has made a good use of part of his surplus if he replaces that building with a permanent structure of brick, stone, or granite, up the sides of which the honeysuckle and columbine may climb, and from whose tower the sweet-tolling bell may sound. The millionaire should not figure how cheaply this structure can be built, but how perfect it can be made. If he has the money, it should be made a gem, for the educating influence of a pure and noble specimen of architecture, built, as the pyramids were built, to stand for ages, is not to be measured by dollars. ”

“ The mechanics of specialization sprawled over acres and square miles of factory floor space. Nowhere were the results of the great revolution more in evidence than in the vast difference between the workshop attached to the house of the early industrialist and the forest of chimneys and stacks, and the acres and square miles of floorspace in present-day industrial establishments, with their personnel numbered in thousands and the capital invested in plant and equipment running into the millions or billions of dollars. ”

“ The small economy is the more injurious, because a noble regardlessness of expense is of the essence of the architecture, and an integral part of its effectiveness. The most monumental feature of the projected building has never been supplied—a huge arch in the centre of each of the shorter fronts, giving access to the central court, and marking the division between the property of the city and of the county. ”

“ A right understanding of the relative duties of master and man, or of employer and the employed, yields to no subject in importance; peculiar incidents, induced by a rapidly increasing population, the tendency of commercial wealth to accumulate in masses, and its employment under the familiar term “capital,” through the agency of individuals, in the construction of great works, constitutes, however, an era in the Building trade to which former periods bear no very strict analogy. ”

“ The reason why he owns a skyscraper is that science has proved that certain materials, used in a given way, can save space and increase rental incomes. A building thirty stories high needs no more ground space than one five stories high. Getting along with the old-style architecture costs the five-story man the income of twenty-five floors. Save ten steps a day for each of twelve thousand employees and you will have saved fifty miles of wasted motion and misspent energy.
Those are the principles on which the production of my plant was built up. ”

“ As time passes we may hope to witness the disappearance of the hideous sheds and huts that survive to remind us of the War, now so long ended.
Apart from national and municipal architecture, the design of which must be assumed to be in competent hands, there is a great deal of building carried out by large corporate bodies who have it in their power to insist [79] on good design, and above all on design which accords with local surroundings. Among these are railway companies, banks, “multiple” shops, and brewery companies. ”

“ Beginning by making their factories, buildings, and sheds decent and convenient like their homes, they would infallibly go on to make them not merely negatively good, inoffensive merely, but even beautiful, so that the glorious art of architecture, now for some time slain by commercial greed, would be born again and flourish.
So, you see, I claim that work in a duly ordered community should be made attractive by the consciousness of usefulness, by its being carried on with intelligent interest, by variety, and by its being exercised amidst pleasurable surroundings. ”

“ The building-rent is the interest or profit of the capital expended in building the house. In order to put the trade of a builder upon a level with other trades, it is necessary that this rent should be sufficient, first, to pay him the same interest which he would have got for his capital, if he had lent it upon good security; and, secondly, to keep the house in constant repair, or, what comes to the same thing, to replace, within a certain term of years, the capital which had been employed in building it. ”

“ Again, are you likely to get so good an architectural design where you cannot be fairly sure that the use for which the building is raised is likely to be permanent? And do our modern [Pg 198] trade conditions and present enormous demand for thoughtless superfluities tend to make that prospect more probable? If not, then instability of trade, or trade directed to the satisfaction of frivolous and ephemeral demands is bad for architecture, and hinders any worthy development in it of national characteristics. ”

“ Then with the ever-increasing wants of a civilization, eager for progress, in the presence of the important discoveries of science, before the invasions of finance and the extension of governmental machinery, architectural designs are indefinitely multiplied to supply suitable departmental buildings, banking-houses, houses of commerce, quarters for public officers and public boards, railway-stations, inns, custom-houses and toll-houses ”

“ Seeing that the Company does not wish to earn anything on the building works but only on the land, it will desire as many architects as possible to build by private contract. This system will increase the value of landed property, and it will introduce luxury, which serves many purposes. Luxury encourages arts and industries, paving the way to a future subdivision of large properties. ”

“ A good spirit, however, prevailed, and a desire to build up the Kingdom of God, and work for the interests of the people, outweighed all selfish considerations; hence, consent was granted by all the stockholders to establish home industries and draw dividends in the kinds produced.
We erected a tannery building, two stories, 45x80, with modern improvements and conveniences, at a cost of $10,000 (ten thousand) . Most of the materials, mason and carpenter work were furnished as capital, stock by such persons as were able and desired an interest in our institution. ”