WINDOW DETAIL, HOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA.
Classic Revival. 		DOOR DETAIL, HOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA.
Classic Revival.

STATE HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA, SOUTH FRONT. 1733. HALLWAY, STATE HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA.

Let its failures be what they may, it was in large measure due to the work done during the period of its ascendancy that we owe a certain tradition and precedent in public work that has wrought for good and is still working in our own day.

CHAPTER XI
PUBLIC BUILDINGS OF THE COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL PERIODS

THE architecture of Colonial America, exclusive of the churches, was almost altogether domestic in its scope and yielded but comparatively few examples of impressive public edifices in proportion to the area of the territory embraced. There were, however, enough secular public buildings scattered through the length and breadth of the Colonies to make a striking representation when grouped together and what the aggregate collection of such structures lacked in point of numbers was amply made up in point of individual excellence or historic interest, or both, on the part of the several units. In the space of one chapter it would be manifestly impossible to discuss fully all the secular public buildings of the Colonies but enough of them can be considered to convey a comprehensive idea of the civic architectural setting of Colonial days.

If the houses and churches of the Colonial period in America reflect the social and religious life of our forefathers, no less truly do the public buildings reflect the civic and political side of their existence. To be sure, the public buildings are not without their interest and power to shed light on the social and economic conditions, but it is especially in their civic and political capacity that their appeal to us is strongest. Then, too, we may truly say that they form much of the setting for the dramatic side of our history and, therefore, the picturesque association is potent. With the State House in Philadelphia (Independence Hall, as it has been called in later years), we cannot fail to associate the Declaration of Independence and the framing of our national constitution, eleven years afterward. Neither can we fail to associate with Faneuil Hall or the Old State House in Boston the stirring events that preceded the outbreak of the War for Independence.

Of all the public buildings in the Colonies, the State House in Philadelphia, as the birthplace of our national existence, claims the place of first attention and highest honour in the esteem of all loyal Americans. Architecturally speaking, all the public buildings chosen for consideration in this chapter represent more or less faithfully the local characteristics of the places in which they were built. We naturally expect, therefore, to find in the State House at Philadelphia an example of the Middle Colonies Georgian at its best, nor are we disappointed. From an architectural point of view, the State House was a notable and imposing structure when it was erected in 1733 and, from the same point of view, it would be equally notable and imposing had it been built only yesterday. The scale is so broad and impressive that it dwarfs other buildings of far greater size and loftier structure in the vicinity. In this respect it is comparable to a small person of large presence and much dignity, the scant measure of whose inches is not accounted in the impression created among his fellows. We have all seen such. Though the actual area covered by the State House is inconsiderable—it is only one hundred feet long by forty-four feet in depth, with a tower, on the south side or rear, measuring thirty-two feet by thirty-four—there is such amplitude of proportion in the rooms, in the size of all the central features and in the detail of ornamentation, that the visitor instinctively feels himself in one of the great buildings of the country, altogether irrespective of the brave memories by which its walls are hallowed.