1. That Gothic or Romanesque construction is nobler than Greek construction.
  2. That ornamentation is the principal part of architecture.
  3. That ornamentation should be visible.
  4. That ornamentation should be natural.
  5. That ornamentation should be thoughtful.
  6. And that therefore Gothic ornamentation is nobler than Greek ornamentation, and Gothic architecture the only architecture which should now be built.

58. Proposition 1st.—Gothic or Romanesque construction is nobler than Greek construction.[20] That is to say, building an arch, vault, or dome, is a nobler and more ingenious work than laying a flat stone or beam over the space to be covered. It is, for instance, a nobler and more ingenious thing to build an arched bridge over a stream, than to lay two pine-trunks across from bank to bank; and, in like manner, it is a nobler and more ingenious thing to build an arch over a window, door, or room, than to lay a single flat stone over the same space.

No architects have ever attempted seriously to controvert this proposition. Sometimes, however, they say that "of two ways of doing a thing, the best and most perfect is not always to be adopted, for there may be particular reasons for employing an inferior one." This I am perfectly ready to grant, only let them show their reasons in each particular case. Sometimes also they say, that there is a charm in the simple construction which is lost in the scientific one. This I am also perfectly ready to grant. There is a charm in Stonehenge which there is not in Amiens Cathedral, and a charm in an Alpine pine bridge which there is not in the Ponte della Trinità at Florence, and, in general, a charm in savageness which there is not in science. But do not let it be said, therefore, that savageness is science.

59. Proposition 2d.—Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture. That is to say, the highest nobility of a building does not consist in its being well built, but in its being nobly sculptured or painted.

This is always, and at the first hearing of it, very naturally, considered one of my most heretical propositions. It is also one of the most important I have to maintain; and it must be permitted me to explain it at some length. The first thing to be required of a building—not, observe, the highest thing, but the first thing—is that it shall answer its purposes completely, permanently, and at the smallest expense. If it is a house, it should be just of the size convenient for its owner, containing exactly the kind and number of rooms that he wants, with exactly the number of windows he wants, put in the places that he wants. If it is a church, it should be just large enough for its congregation, and of such shape and disposition as shall make them comfortable in it and let them hear well in it. If it be a public office, it should be so disposed as is most convenient for the clerks in their daily avocations; and so on; all this being utterly irrespective of external appearance or æsthetic considerations of any kind, and all being done solidly, securely, and at the smallest necessary cost.

The sacrifice of any of these first requirements to external appearance is a futility and absurdity. Rooms must not be darkened to make the ranges of windows symmetrical. Useless wings must not be added on one side, to balance useful wings on the other, but the house built with one wing, if the owner has no need of two; and so on.

60. But observe, in doing all this, there is no High, or as it is commonly called, Fine Art, required at all. There may be much science, together with the lower form of art, or "handicraft," but there is as yet no Fine Art. House-building, on these terms, is no higher thing than ship-building. It indeed will generally be found that the edifice designed with this masculine reference to utility, will have a charm about it, otherwise unattainable, just as a ship, constructed with simple reference to its service against powers of wind and wave, turns out one of the loveliest things that human hands produce. Still, we do not, and properly do not, hold ship-building to be a fine art, nor preserve in our memories the names of immortal ship-builders; neither, so long as the mere utility and constructive merit of the building are regarded, is architecture to be held a fine art, or are the names of architects to be remembered immortally. For any one may at any time be taught to build the ship, or (thus far) the house, and there is nothing deserving of immortality in doing what any one may be taught to do.

But when the house, or church, or other building is thus far designed, and the forms of its dead walls and dead roofs are up to this point determined, comes the divine part of the work—namely, to turn these dead walls into living ones. Only Deity, that is to say, those who are taught by Deity, can do that.

And that is to be done by painting and sculpture, that is to say, by ornamentation. Ornamentation is therefore the principal part of architecture, considered as a subject of fine art.

61. Now observe. It will at once follow from this principle, that a great architect must be a great sculptor or painter.