Fig. 94.—Chelsea Town Hall. (J.M. Brydon.)

A change of front from copying a great style like the medieval to copying what is at best a bastard one, if a style at all, might not seem to promise very much for the emancipation of modern architecture; yet there turned out to be one element of progress in it, resting on the fact that the comparatively simple detail of the 18th-century buildings formed a kind of vernacular of building workmanship, which could be comprehended and carried out by good artisans as a recognized tradition. Now to reduce architecture to good sound building and good workmanship seemed to promise at any rate a better basis to work upon than the mere imitation of classic or medieval detail; it might conceivably furnish a new starting-point. This was the element of life in the Queen Anne revival, and it had, as we shall see, an influence beyond the circle of the special revivers of the style. But almost concurrently with, or following hard upon, the “Queen Anne” movement arose the idea of a modern architecture, founded on a free and unfettered treatment of the materials of our earlier Renaissance architecture, as illustrated in buildings of the Stuart period. This “Free classic.” new ideal was styled “free classic,” and it gave the prevailing tone to English architecture for the last fifteen years of the century, though it had its commencement in certain characteristic buildings a good many years earlier than that. In 1873, for instance, there arose a comparatively small front in Leadenhall Street, under the name of “New Zealand Chambers” (fig. 95), designed by Norman Shaw, which excited more attention, and had more influence on contemporary architecture than many a building of far greater size and importance. This represented the playful and picturesque possibilities of “free classic.” Its more restrained and refined achievements were early exemplified in G.F. Bodley’s design for the front of the London School Board offices on the Thames Embankment,[6] a comparatively small building which also exercised a considerable influence. There were no details here, however, but what could be found in Stuart (or, as it is more often called, Jacobean) architecture, but the building, and the prominence of its architect’s name, helped to draw attention to the possibilities of the style, and it has been discovered that free classic is susceptible of a great deal of original treatment based on Renaissance elements. As an example we may cite a street front built some twenty years later by another academician-architect, viz. the offices of the Chartered Accountants in the City, by J. Belcher. More dignified and more monumental than New Zealand Chambers, more original than the School Board offices, this front contains some details and a general treatment which may be said to be absolutely new; it affords another example of a piece of street architecture which attracted a great deal of attention, and has had an effect quite disproportionate to its size and importance as a building; and it gives a general measure of the progress of the “free classic” idea. During the last decade of the century “free classic” was almost the recognized style in English architecture, and has been illustrated in many town halls and other large and important buildings, among which the Imperial Institute is a prominent example (fig. 96).

Fig. 95.—New Zealand Chambers. (R. Norman Shaw, R.A.)

Concurrently with this tendency towards a free classic style there has arisen another movement which has had a considerable influence on English architecture, viz. an increased perception of the importance of decorative arts—sculpture, The allied arts. painting, mosaic, etc.—in alliance with architecture, and of the architect and the decorative artist working together and in harmony. This is no more than what has long been understood and acted on in France, but it has been a new light to modern English architecture, in which, until a comparatively recent period, decorative painting was hardly thought of, and decorative sculpture, where it was introduced, was too often, or indeed generally, the mere work of some trading firm of masons But of late years sculpture has taken a far more prominent place in connexion with architecture; it has become a habit with the best architects to rely largely on the introduction of appropriate and symbolic sculpture to add to the interest of their buildings, and to associate with them eminent sculptors, who, instead of regarding their work only in the light of isolated statues or groups for the exhibition room and the art gallery, are willing to give their best efforts to produce high-class sculpture for the decoration of an architectural design which forms the framework to it.

Fig. 96.—Staircase, Imperial Institute. (Collcutt.)

Notice should be taken, however, of another movement in English architecture during the closing years of the 19th century. Reference has already been made to one idea which prompted the culture of the “Queen Anne” type of The craftmanship ideal. architecture: that it presented a simple vernacular of construction and detail, in which solid workmanship a more prominent element than elaboration of what is known as architectural style. To a small group of clever and enthusiastic architects of the younger generation it appeared that this idea of reducing architecture to the common-sense of construction might be carried still further; that as all the revivals of styles since the Renaissance had failed to give permanent satisfaction and had tended to reduce architecture to a learned imitation of the work of former epochs, the real chance for giving life to architecture as a modern art was to throw aside all the conventionally accepted insignia of architectural style—columns, pilasters, cornices, buttresses, etc.—and to begin over again with mere workmanship—wall-building and carpentry—and trust that in process of time a new decorative detail would be evolved, indebted to no precedent. The building artisans, in fact, were collectively to take the place of the architect and the form of the building to be evolved by a natural process of growth. This was a favourite idea also with William Morris, who insisted that medieval art—the only art which he recognized as of any value (Greek, Roman and Renaissance being alike contemptible in his eyes)—was essentially an art of the people, and that in fact it was the modern architects who stood in the way of our having a genuine architecture of the 19th century. Considering how much of merely formal, conventional and soulless architecture has been produced in our time under the guidance of the professional architect, it is impossible to deny that there is an element of truth in this reasoning; at all events, that there have been a good many modern architects who have done more harm than good to architecture. But when we come to follow out this reasoning to its logical results, it is obvious that there are serious flaws in it. Morris’s idea that medieval architecture alone was worthy the name, we may, of course, dismiss at once; it was the prejudice of a man of genius whose sympathies, both in matters social and artistic, were narrow. Nor can we regard the medieval cathedrals as artisan’s architecture. The name of “architect” may have been unknown, but that the personage was present in some guise, the very individuality and variety of our English cathedrals attest. Peterborough front was no mere mason’s conception. And when we come to consider modern conditions of building, it is perfectly obvious that with the complicated practical requirements of modern building, in regard to planning, heating, ventilation, etc., the planning of the whole in a complete set of drawings, before the building is begun, is an absolute necessity. We are no longer in medieval times; modern conditions require the modern architect. The real cause of failure, as far as modern architecture is a failure, lies partly in the fact that it is practised too much as a profession or business, too little as an art; partly in the deadening effect of public indifference to art in Britain. If the public really desired great and impressive works of architecture they would have them; but neither the British public nor its mouthpiece the government, care anything about it. Their highest ambition is to get convenient and economical buildings. And as to the theory of the new school, that we should throw overboard all precedent in architectural detail, that is intellectually impossible. We are not made so that we can invent everything de novo, or escape the effect on our minds of what has preceded us; the attempt can only lead to baldness or eccentricity. Every great style of architecture of the past has, in fact, been evolved from the detail of preceding styles; and some of the ablest and most earnest architects of the present day are, indeed, urging the desirability of clinging to traditional forms in regard to detail, as a means of maintaining the continuity of the art. This does not by any means imply the absence of original architecture; there is scope for endless origination in the plan and the general design of a building. The Houses of Parliament is a prominent example. The detail is a reproduction of Tudor detail, but the plan and the general conception are absolutely original, and resemble those of no other pre-existing building in the world.

It is necessary to take account of all these movements of opinion and principle in English architecture to appreciate properly its position and prospects at the time with which we are here dealing. Turning now from England United States. to the United States, which, as already observed, is the only other important country in which there has been a general new movement in architecture, we find, singular to say, that the course of development has in America been almost the reverse of what has taken place in England. The rapidity of architectural development in America, it may be observed, since about 1875, has been something astonishing; there is no parallel to it anywhere else. Before then the currently accepted architecture of the American Republic was little more than a bad repetition of the English Gothic and Classic types of revived architecture. At the present day no nation, except perhaps France, takes so keen an interest in architecture and produces so many noteworthy buildings; and it may be observed that in the United States the public and the official authorities seem really to have some enthusiasm on the subject, and to desire fine buildings. But the stirring of the dry bones began in America where it ended in England. The first symptoms of an original spirit operating in American architecture showed themselves in domestic architecture, in town and country houses, the latter especially; and the form which the movement took was a desire to escape conventional architectural detail and to return to the simplest form of mere building; rock-faced masonry, sometimes of materials picked up on the site; chimneys which were plain shafts of masonry or brickwork; woodwork simply hewn and squared, but the whole arranged with a view to picturesque effect (figs. 97 and 98). This form of American house became an incident in the course of modern architecture; it even had a recognizable influence on English architects. About the same time an impetus of a more special nature was given to American architecture by a man of genius, H.H. Richardson, who, falling back on Romanesque and Byzantine types of architecture as a somewhat unworked field, evolved from them a type of architectural treatment so distinctly his own (though its origines were of course quite traceable) that he came very near the credit of having personally invented a style; at all events he invented a manner, which was so largely admired and imitated that for some ten or fifteen years American architecture showed a distinct tendency to become “Richardsonesque” (see also Plate XVI., fig. 137). As with all architectural fashions, however, people got tired of this, and the influence of another very able American architect, Richard M. Hunt, coupled perhaps with the proverbial philo-Gallic tendencies of the modern American, led to the American architects, during the last decade of the 19th century, throwing themselves almost entirely into the arms, as it were, of France; seeking their education as far as possible in Paris, and adopting the theory and practice of the École des Beaux-Arts so completely that it is often impossible to distinguish their designs, and even their methods of drawing, from those of French architects brought up in the strictest regime of the “École.” By this French movement the Americans have, on the one hand, shared the advantages and the influence of what is undoubtedly the most complete school of architectural training in the world; but, on the other hand, they have foregone the opportunity which might have been afforded them of developing a school or style of their own, influenced by the circumstances of their own requirements, climate and materials. Figs. 133 and 134, Plate XV., show examples of recent American architecture of the European classic type. Thus, in the two countries which in this period have shown the most activity and restlessness in their architectural aspirations, and given the most original thought to the subject, England has constantly tended towards throwing off the yoke of precedent and escaping from the limits of a scholastic style; while America, commencing her era of architectural emancipation with an attempt at first principles and simple but picturesque building, has ended by a pretty general adoption of the highly-developed scholastic system of another country. The contrast is certainly a curious one. Only one original contribution to the art has been made by America in recent days—one arising directly out of practical conditions, viz. the “high buildings” in cities; a form of architecture which may be said to have originated in the fact that New York is built on a peninsula, and extension of the city is only possible vertically and not horizontally. The tower-like buildings (see Plate XV., fig. 131, and [Steel Construction], Plate II., figs. 3 and 4), served internally by lifts, to which this condition of things has given rise, form a really new contribution to architecture, and have been handled by some of the American architects in a very effective manner; though, unfortunately, the rage for rapid building in the cities of the United States has led to the adoption of the false architectural system of running up such structures in the form of a steel framing, cased with a mere skin of masonry or terra-cotta, for appearance’ sake, which in reality depends for its stability on the steel framing. It must be admitted, however, to be a new contribution to architecture, and renders New York, as seen from the harbour, a “towered city” in a sense not realized by the poet.

Fig. 97.—American Type of Country-House Architecture.
Fig. 98.—American Seaside Villa. (Bruce Price.)
Fig. 99.—Crane Public Library, Quincy, Mass. (H.H. Richardson.)