How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

The dome which forms a stately climax to the dignity of the whole design was erected in iron by Thomas Ustic Walter. It rises to a height of 268½ feet and is crowned by a statue of Liberty, nearly 20 feet high, the work of Thomas Crawford.

The organic fitness of the Capitol to the functions of Government has been supplemented in recent years by additional buildings, connected by subways: on the east, by the Congressional Library, primarily for the use of the Legislature, but virtually a national library; and on the northeast and southeast, by office-buildings, respectively, for the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Bulfinch.—Mention has been already made of Charles Bulfinch (1763-1844). The son of a wealthy physician in Boston, he graduated from Harvard and spent some five years travelling and studying in Europe, after which he settled in Boston and practised as an architect. He built the old Federal Street Theatre (1793), the first playhouse erected in New England, and in 1798 completed the work with which his name is most associated, the State House on Beacon Hill. It has been overgrown with additions but the original part, surmounted by a small, well-proportioned dome, still testifies to its designer’s refinement of taste and constructive sincerity.

An exception to the use at this time of the Classical style is the New York City Hall, built 1803-12 by the Frenchman, Mangin. The design is Renaissance, influenced by the manner of the Louis XVI period, and is particularly choice in the refinement of its proportions and details.

Meanwhile, the Sub-Treasury and the Old Custom House in New York were built in the Classical style; as also were the Custom House in Boston, the Mint in Philadelphia, Girard College for Orphans in the same city; Thomas Jefferson’s design for his new foundation, the University of Virginia, and most of the National and State Buildings that were erected before the Civil War.

GOTHIC REVIVAL

The Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century was chiefly confined to England where it grew out of a revival of spiritual energy in the Church itself. This spiritual Renaissance had begun in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, as a protest against the rationalistic temper of the age, its tendency to disregard the claims of faith and dogmatic authority in favour of what appealed to reason.

Religious Revivals.—The Evangelical revival which ensued was an earnest attempt to awaken the Church from the supine indifference into which it had sunk, to kindle in the clergy a higher sense of their responsibilities and generally to promote a spiritual regeneration. The movement was reinforced both within the Church and on the part of the State by the excesses of the French Revolution, which seemed to menace all forms of authority. The revival grew apace during the early years of the nineteenth century and in time was supplemented by another which is known as the Oxford Movement.

For it originated in the University of Oxford with a group of men, including Keble, Newman, and Pusey, who felt that the Church was in danger of becoming merely a humanitarian institution. Accordingly they held that the Church of England was a branch of the Catholic Church and that its priesthood was in direct succession from Apostolic times; and in accordance with this urged a return to the ritual and the rubrical observances, enjoined in the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. This movement, known also as the Tractarian movement, from the tracts issued by its advocates, or Puseyite, from the name of its chief exponent, was assailed by the parties in the Church, distinguished as Broad and Low in opposition to the new party which came to be known as High.

The point of the controversy, as it concerns our study, is that the religious revival on the one hand led to a general restoration of the cathedrals and churches which had fallen into a condition of shameful neglect and, on the other, laid stress upon mediæval church architecture as the form which had been inspired by the fervour of the Catholic faith and was alone suited to a Catholic ritual. Hence arose the study and the revived use of Gothic architecture.