How to Study Architecture

by Charles H. Caffin

Height—the Principle of the Design.—But, for a time, the architect failed to grasp the newness of his problem. He was confronted with height, but did not start with it as a principle of design. Instead, he tried to accommodate the old principles to the new conditions; experimenting with various methods of embellishment near the ground and at the top, and treating the main, intermediate part as merely a repetition of floors.

Gradually, however, he realised the fact that the new buildings actually presented a new problem which could only be solved by taking the vertical principle as the basis of the design. So he bethought himself of a precedent in the column. It is the vertical member in the Classic design, and comprises three subdivisions: base, shaft and capital. The base might be emulated in the treatment of the lower part of the façade, which generally encloses a bank or some feature of special importance, surmounted by a mezzanine floor. The counterpart of the column’s shaft was the repetition of stories, while the effect of the capital could be reproduced in some emphatic crowning treatment. And those architects who most logically adopted the precedent of the column, recognising that the beauty of a tall building must be evolved from its special characteristic of height and that the beauty would be enhanced by a suggestion of height growing up in its own strength, abandoned the mere repetition of stories for a vertical treatment that would emphasise the suggestion of upward growth.

In some cases they applied to the masonry between the windows continuous bands of vertical ornament, projecting in the nature of shafting or piers, which by their effect of light and shade carry the eye upward, giving to the whole structure a suggestion of soaring. Or, in other cases, they so proportioned the width of the windows to the width of the masonry that the latter, especially at the angles of the building, gave the suggestion of soaring piers. Meanwhile there still continued to be architects who ignored these devices, treating the windows and masonry solely as recurring horizontal features, with the result that their repetition contradicts both the vertical feeling and that of upward growth.

By degrees, however, as the principles of verticality and growth came to be generally accepted, it was recognised that the analogy of a tall building to a Classic column was fallacious, since the building should involve a complete design, while the column is only a constituent member of a structure and one, too, that is designed to support a horizontal member. Possibly the realisation of this was assisted by the difficulty of treating the top of the building. For the most frequent conditions permitted the projection of a cornice only on one side, that of the front side of the building, where it sticks out like a prodigious mantelshelf. That architects should have persisted so long in reproducing this futile expedient seems only to be explained by a habit of seeing a design on the drawing board as an elevation to be viewed from one fixed point, instead of as a structural composition, occupying space and to be seen from a variety of directions. Moreover, it is a fact that, as one walks along a street, it is the side of a building that is chiefly and longest visible, while, by the time one is opposite the front, the narrowness of the street and the height of the building make it difficult to view the façade as a whole.

Gothic Influence.—Accordingly, in time, as the logic of the problem of the tall building came to be more resolutely grasped, it was realised that, if a precedent was to be adopted, it might be found in the Gothic style. This is essentially the style of vertical design and upward growth, and its characteristic profile has a tendency to set back from the ground line instead of projecting over it. Furthermore, if you choose to consider it, it was the style of the Northern nations as contrasted with the horizontal styles of the Mediterranean nations; the style of the races most represented in our population, evolved by them as an expression of their adventurous and daring spirit. Even in relation to inherited racial genius, as well as to fitness of design and practicability of conditions of site, the Gothic is full of suggestion.

Its influence at first appeared in the character of detail of some of the later sky-scrapers; but gradually more fundamentally, as the architect began to give fuller attention to the masses of his composition. Up to the present, the noblest example of this new movement is the Woolworth Building, which is not only the tallest of the tall buildings but a monument of arresting and persuasive dignity. The repetition of ornamental detail may be somewhat dry and mechanical; but from a short distance off this melts into the mass, which vies with mediæval towers and spires in its splendid assertion of organic upward growth.

Such a building supplies an uplift to the spirit, whereas the exteriors of many sky-scrapers, conveying no suggestion of organic growth, being only monstrous piles of masonry, produce instead an oppression of the spirit. Nor is such an impression imaginary; it is a physical result of the sunless, airless canyons into which these cliff-like walls have transformed the narrow streets. Architects, in fact, realise that the problem they present is one not only of construction and design but also of relation to the general city plan. Various proposals have been made to confine them to certain areas; to restrict their height on the street line, while setting back the higher portions, which would rise like towers above the rest of the building; to limit the number of such towers in a given space, and so forth. Some such restrictions are enforced in certain cities; but in New York, where the problem is greatest and most urgent, the consideration of the question has not made much headway against the general indifference to matters of large public concern. Here, as in so many other instances, the welfare of the community, as a collective whole, is not properly adjusted to individualistic interests.

Architect and Engineer.—This and other matters of “city planning”—a subject that is more and more engaging the attention of progressive communities—demands the co-operation of the architect and engineer. Indeed, the co-operation of their functions in all important works, especially those of a public character, is one of the urgent needs of the age. There is scarcely an architectural scheme that does not involve problems of engineering; and many an engineering achievement would have been of greater public utility if beauty of design had been considered. For it is only a narrow view of utility that overlooks the utility of beauty. It is in the power of an engineer to improve or mar the appearance of a locality, and hence to add to or detract from the happiness of the human lives which inhabit it.

Nor is the union of the functions of engineer and architect a new thing. The only difference between the past and the present is, that in Classic, Gothic, and Renaissance periods the functions were united in one person, whereas with the advent of the age of iron, followed by that of steel, they have been specialised in separate individuals. Accordingly, to-day there is one school of Architecture, and another school of Engineering; and the separation has caused each to disregard the points at which their respective arts can and should unite. The desirability, however, of some affiliation is being recognised and certain schools of engineering now include a course in the principles of architectonic design.

Any termination of a book on Architecture is but an abrupt stop in the telling of a story that is perpetually continuous. It will go on as long as man applies his creative ability to the solution of new problems of construction as they arise, and persists in stamping the work of his hands with the evidence of his desire of beauty. This little book, however imperfect, will add its mite to human progress if it has awakened or stimulated in the reader a realisation of the rich and varied humanness of the art of Architecture in its intimate relation to the lives of individuals and the progress and welfare of the community.