IRON STORE FRONTS, No. 5.
By W. J. Fryer, Jr., New York.
The elevation, shown in the [accompanying page illustration], shows an iron front of five stories, having a pedimented centre frontispiece of three stories in alto relievo.
The style, though not in strict accordance with rule, is showy, without being objectionably so, and goes far to prove the capabilities of iron as a desirable material in commercial Architecture, where strength, display, and economy may be very well combined.
Such an elevation as this, now under consideration, could not be executed in cut stone, so as to produce the same appearance, without incurring a much greater expense, and in the event of a continuous block of such fronts, the balance of economy would be wonderfully in favor of the iron, for the moulds could be duplicated and triplicated with ease, whilst the same composition executed to a like extent in stone would not be a cent cheaper in proportion. Every capital and every truss, and every fillet, should be cut in stone independently of each other, no matter how many were called for.
It may be very well to say that stone is the proper material, according to the long-accepted notion of art judgment, and that iron has to be painted to give it even the semblance of that material, being, therefore, but a base imitation at best. All very true. But, nevertheless, iron, even as a painted substitute, possesses advantages over the original material of which it is a copy, rendering it a very acceptable medium in the constructive line, and one which will be sought after by a large class of the community who desire to have this cheap yet practical material, even though it be not that which it represents. As a representative it is in most respects the peer of stone though not it identically.