Foundation (architecture)

“ Thus we have church building, house building, ship building, and coach building. That one edifice stands, another floats, and another is suspended on iron springs, makes no difference in the nature of the art, if so it may be called, of building or edification. The persons who profess that art, are severally builders, ecclesiastical, naval, or of whatever other name their work may justify; but building does not become architecture merely by the stability of what it erects ”

“ If we are to have a fine architecture, we must begin at the other end from that where our sumptuously illustrated magazines on home-building and architecture begin—not with the building itself, but with the whole complex out of which architect, builder, and patron spring, and into which the finished building, whether it be a cottage or a skyscraper, is set. ”

“ It cannot be defined as the art of building simply, or even of building well. So far as mere excellence of construction is concerned, see Building and its allied articles. The end of building as such is convenience, use, irrespective of appearance; and the employment of materials to this end is regulated by the mechanical principles of the constructive art. The end of architecture as an art, on the other hand, is so to arrange the plan, masses and enrichments of a structure as to impart to it interest, beauty, grandeur, unity, power. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Structure should never be contradicted, and in the best buildings it is pleasantly exhibited and enforced; in this very porch the joints of every stone are visible, and you will find me in the Fifth Lecture insisting on this clearness of its anatomy as a merit; yet so independent is the mechanical structure of the true design, that when I begin my Lectures on Architecture, the first building I shall give you as a standard will be one in which the structure is wholly concealed. ”

“ The effacement of the difference has been marvellously, triumphantly brought about; and, with all the ingenuity of young, fresh, frolicsome architecture aiding and abetting, has been made to flourish, alike in the small structure and the great, as the very law of the structural fact. Thus we have the law fulfilled that every part of every house shall be, as nearly as may be, visible, visitable, penetrable, not only from every other part, but from as many parts of as many other houses as possible, if they only be near enough. ”

“ We have always considered these circumstances as most remarkable proofs of the perfect dependence of architecture on its situation, and of the utter impossibility of judging of the beauty of any building in the abstract: and we would also lay much stress upon them, as showing with what boldness the designer may introduce into his building, undisguised, such parts as local circumstances render desirable; for there will invariably be something in the nature of that which causes their necessity, which will endow them with beauty. ”

“ At the same time, in the case of a fine art of building, mere necessity is not only of account; as art it has also to satisfy the profounder requirements of what is pleasing and beautiful. What mounts upwards from the ground must be conceived with a base, a foot, on which it stands and which serves it for support; and in addition to this columns and the partitions of genuine architecture supply us visibly with the means of support. ”

“ As soon as man had contrived a shelter for himself, before considering improvements that might be made in it, he turned his thoughts toward the divine being of his worship, and the first steps in art were taken in the monuments which he raised to his gods. Then, confounding kings with deities, he reared palaces like unto temples. But civil architecture, properly so called, came into existence only with an already advanced state of civilization, when cities were forming and peoples were organizing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of the fine arts, architecture alone subserves utility. We build for use. But the geometrical proportions which the architect observes, contain the element of beauty and powerfully influence the soul. Into the language of arch and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and façade and pediment, of spire and vault, the architect translates emotion, vague perhaps but deep, mute but unmistakable. When we say that a building is sublime or graceful, frivolous or stern, we mean that sublimity or grace, frivolity or sternness, is inherent in it. ”

“ Harking back, we find that each particular type of house represents a stage in the development of architecture. They cover a period when architects were practically unknown. Many were evolved from the master builder's brain, while others have been developed little by little from [Pg 3] early designs. Monuments of departed days, they stand models to which our present-day architects turn for inspiration. ”

“ But before that everything had been a simple development of the construction and the material of the building, and since that men have thought they perceived that architecture was one thing and building was another, and they have gone on to design buildings without any sort of reference to the materials of which they were composed, or the manner in which they were put together. ”

“ Looking at the matter in the broadest possible way, it may be said that the building impulse throughout the ages has expressed itself in two fundamentally different types of structure: that in which the architecture—and even the ornament—is one with the engineering; and that in which the two elements are separable, not in thought alone, but in fact. For brevity let us name that manner of building in which the architecture is the construction, Inherent architecture, and that manner in which the two are separable Incrusted architecture. ”

“ Nevertheless, as above explained, the external and inorganic world is purified by architecture, it is co-ordinated under symmetrical laws, and made cognate with mind, and as a result the temple of God, the house of his community, stands before us. ”

“ Let us add that if it is according to rule that the architecture of a building should be adapted to its purpose in such a manner that this purpose shall be immediately apparent from the mere aspect of the building, one cannot be too much amazed at a structure which might be indifferently—the palace of a king, a chamber of communes, a town-hall, a college, a riding-school, an academy, a warehouse, a court-house, a museum, a barracks, a sepulchre, a temple, or a theatre. However, it is an Exchange. An edifice ought to be, moreover, suitable to the climate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The distinction that may be raised, however, in answer to the question, whether genuine architecture—as we shall shortly have to consider it as the classic art of building—takes its rise solely in this necessity, or is to be deduced from independent and symbolical works, which conducted us of their own accord to buildings devoted to service, is the point in essential dispute. ”

“ Our public buildings, those intended to serve as monuments and therefore summoning the utmost abilities of the architect, still make use of the arch, vault, and dome, or fall back frankly on modifications of the Greek temple with its rows of columns. So far as the outside appearance of modern buildings goes, all our fine architecture is essentially a burrowing in the past to recombine in slightly new proportions, and for new uses, elements taken from the most diverse countries and ages, but forming part of only two lines of development. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only does it, in itself, stand alone, but in all architecture it stands alone. It is a free building, unattached to any other. The more one 24 studies the Missions from the professional standpoint of the architect the more wonderful they become. They were designed by laymen—using the word as a professed architect would use it. ”

“ And in like manner it does not matter one marble splinter whether we have an old or new architecture, but it matters everything whether we have an architecture truly so called or not; that is, whether an architecture whose laws might be taught at our schools from Cornwall to Northumberland, as we teach English spelling and English grammar, or an architecture which is to be invented fresh every time we build a workhouse or a parish school. ”

“ The artistic structure of architecture is not erected entirely as an object in itself, but rather as an external frame, embellishment and local habitation for something else which it subserves. A building is not complete until it has received the statue of the god or the society of human beings who make their dwelling therein. ”

“ The prospects for our architecture are bound up with a new orientation towards the things that are symbolized in the home, the garden and the temple; for architecture sums up the civilization it enshrines, and the mass of our buildings can never be better or worse than the institutions that have shaped them. ”

“ This is beautifully illustrated in architecture, where a monotonous multiplication of like elements is replaced by figures of differentiated elements. No longer is a uniform facade recognized as beautiful, but a variety of features in a variety of elements must be presented in order that a temple, a mart, an executive building, or a business structure may be considered as a pleasing example of architecture. ”

“ Yet, splendid as is the structure which stands above his remains, the most perfect model of architecture in the New World, it yields in beauty to the moral monument. The benefactor sleeps among the orphan poor whom his bounty is constantly educating. ”

“ They are sharply and unmistakably divided into the parts that every building needs to be a work of architecture, the members that mark the division are carefully and successfully adjusted with reference to their place and their scale, and the treatment of the different parts is so varied as to avoid both monotony and miscellany. ”

“ The buildings stood insulated and independent, not, as now, merging their separate existences into connected ranges, with a front of tiresome identity,--but each possessing features of its own, as if the owner's individual taste had shaped it,--and the whole presenting a picturesque irregularity, the absence of which is hardly compensated by any beauties of our modern architecture. ”

“ We study adaptation both of the several parts to subordinate uses, and of the whole to some general design. But we also keep in view some pattern, style, or order, according to which the whole is arranged, and the mutual relations of the parts are adjusted. The architect must adhere to some order of architecture, and to some style within that order. ”

“ Those ever springing flowers, and ever flowing streams had been dyed by the deep colours of human endurance, valour, and virtue; and the crests of the sable hills that rose against the evening sky received a deeper worship, because their far shadows fell eastward over the iron wall of Joux, and the four-square keep of Granson.
II. It is as the centralization and protectress of this sacred influence, that Architecture is to be regarded by us with the most serious thought. We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. ”

“ Modern architects, in such minor imitations as they are beginning to attempt, endeavor to dispose the parts in the patterns so as to occupy certain symmetrical positions with respect to the parts of the architecture. ”

“ Infinitely more correct and rational would it be to say that architecture is building greatly refined upon,—elevated to the rank of art by being treated æsthetically, that is to say, artistically. In short, architecture is building with something more than a view to mere utility and convenience ”