FIG. 225.—COUNTRY HOUSE, MASSACHUSETTS.
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. It is in this field that the most characteristic and original phases of American architecture are to be met with, particularly in rural and suburban residences. In these the peculiar requirements of our varying climates and of American domestic life have been studied and in large measure met with great frankness and artistic appreciation. The broad staircase-hall, serving often as a sort of family sitting-room, the piazza, and a picturesque massing of steep roofs, have been the controlling factors in the evolution of two or three general types which appear in infinite variations. The material most used is wood, but this has had less influence in the determination of form than might have been expected. The artlessness of the planning, which is arranged to afford the maximum of convenience rather than to conform to any traditional type, has been the element of greatest artistic success. It has resulted in exteriors which are the natural outgrowth of the interior arrangements, frankly expressed, without affectation of style (Fig. 225). The resulting picturesqueness has, however, in many cases been treated as an end instead of an incidental result, and the affectation of picturesqueness has in such designs become as detrimental as any affectation of style. In the internal treatment of American houses there has also been a notable artistic advance, harmony of color and domestic comfort and luxury being sought after rather than monumental effects. A number of large city and country houses designed on a palatial scale have, however, given opportunity for a more elaborate architecture; notably the Vanderbilt, Villard, and Huntington residences at New York, the great country-seat of Biltmore, near Asheville (N.C.), in the Francis I. style (by R. M. Hunt), and many others.
OTHER BUILDINGS. American architects have generally been less successful in public, administrative, and ecclesiastical architecture than in commercial and domestic work. The preference for small parish churches, treated as audience-rooms rather than as places of worship, has interfered with the development of noble types of church-buildings. Yet there are signs of improvement; and the new Cathedral of St. John the Divine at New York, in a modified Romanesque style, promises to be a worthy and monumental building. In semi-public architecture, such as hotels, theatres, clubs, and libraries, there are many notable examples of successful design. The Ponce de Leon Hotel at St. Augustine, a sumptuous and imposing pile in a free version of the Spanish Plateresco; the Auditorium Theatre at Chicago, the Madison Square Garden and the Casino at New York, may be cited as excellent in general conception and well carried out in detail, externally and internally. The Century and Metropolitan Clubs at New York, the Boston Public Library, the Carnegie Library at Pittsburgh, the Congressional Library at Washington, and the recently completed Minnesota State Capitol at St. Paul, exemplify in varying degrees of excellence the increasing capacity of American architects for monumental design. This was further shown in the buildings of the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893. These, in spite of many faults of detail, constituted an aggregate of architectural splendor such as had never before been seen or been possible on this side the Atlantic. They further brought architecture into closer union with the allied arts and formed an object lesson in the value of appropriate landscape gardening as a setting to monumental structures.
It should be said, in conclusion, that with the advances of recent years in artistic design in the United States there has been at least as great improvement in scientific construction. The sham and flimsiness of the Civil War period are passing away, and solid and durable building is becoming more general throughout the country, but especially in the Northeast and in some of the great Western cities, notably in Chicago. In this onward movement the Federal buildings—post-offices, custom-houses, and other governmental edifices—have not, till lately, taken high rank. Although solidly and carefully constructed, those built during the period 1875–1895 were generally inferior to the best work produced by private enterprise, or by State and municipal governments. This was in large part due to enactments devolving upon the supervising architect at Washington the planning of all Federal buildings, as well as a burden of supervisory and clerical duties incompatible with the highest artistic results. Since 1898, however, a more enlightened policy has prevailed, and a number of notable designs for Federal buildings have been secured by carefully-conducted competitions.
[27.] See [Appendix, D] and [E].