The sections of the article Architecture dealing with France and Germany in the last two generations may best be supplemented by a study of the articles Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest.

The following is a brief alphabetical list of architectural articles and topics in the Britannica, including topics for the builder and contractor.

CHAPTER XVI
FOR BUILDERS AND CONTRACTORS

The Builder’s Problems

The rapid increase in population, and especially in its density, the congestion in great cities, with the consequent building up of suburbs; and the equally rapid upward tendency in the scale of comfort, are factors of modern civilization which make the work of the builder and contractor increasingly complex. The good builder is probably much commoner than ever before, in spite of the popular impression that building materials are poorer and that construction work is more often “scamped” than they used to be. Increased transportation facilities make the builder much less dependent on local and often inadequate materials. And there has been a change in the theory and practice of government: the old easy-going policy has been abandoned, and new laws, strictly enforced, have resulted in such inspection and control of building operations as would have seemed tyranny to the builder of a generation ago and as make modern buildings, especially in cities, much safer than ever before. Insurance companies have done much to the same end.

There is a general prejudice against the modern builder on the part of the temperamental “praiser of the past.” Occasionally similar complaints are made even against the builders of the past. Kipling sings:

Who shall doubt the secret hid

Under Cheops’ pyramid