The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Aug. 1869

The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is placed in the public domain.

Vol. II.—Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by Samuel Sloan, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
We are not at all abashed then, to own to the wooden spire painted to imitate stone , which crowns the steeple of old Grace Church, New York. And the less annoyance should it give our most sensitive feelings, when we reflect that the dome of the great St. Paul’s, London, is no less a delusion and a cheat, it being of wood, coated with lead and painted on the outside, having a false dome on the inside, considerably smaller than the external diameter would naturally lead the confiding observer to expect. The body of St. Paul’s is of stone. Why, according to the requirements of the Builder , is not the dome, like that of the Pantheon at Rome, likewise of stone?
Do we suppose, for an instant, that Sir Christopher Wren was guilty of a deliberate cheat in so constructing it? Certainly not. He used the material which he considered best suited to his purpose and his means. And so we should, in charity, suppose did the Architect of Grace Church, New York.
The Builder , like too many of our English cousins, who do us the honor of a visit, falls into error in supposing that wood is generally used for ornamentation of exteriors. In none of our larger cities is this the case. And when that critical and usually correct authority says, “Even the Fifth avenue itself is a sham as to much of its seeming stone-work,” it displays a melancholy absence of its uniform discernment, judgment, and sense.
The only other constructive material to be found on the fronts of the Fifth Avenue, New York, besides marble, brown stone, or pressed (Philadelphia) brick, is in the gutter, which is either of zinc or galvanized iron, and forms the upper portion of the cornice.
Porches and Hall-door frontisces, of every style, are of marble or stone, and never of wood. Pediments and all trimmings around windows are invariably of stone. In fact we are not a little surprised at the apparent want of information on this subject by so well posted an observer as the Builder is acknowledged to be. Some twenty years ago the taunt might lie most truthfully applied to our efforts at architectural construction, but to-day the “trick” of painted and sanded wood would be hissed down by our citizens who claim to live in residences the majority of which are greatly superior to residences of the same class in London, as far at least as material is concerned. No, no—criticism to be useful must be just; and to be just must be founded strictly on truth unbiassed by prejudice.