CIVIL AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.—I.[1]
The term Civil and Domestic Architecture includes all public and private edifices, that is to say: honorary monuments, such as triumphal arches and tombs; buildings for the instruction of the public, such as museums, libraries and schools; houses for public amusements, as theatres, amphitheatres and circuses; structures for public service, as city-halls, court-houses, prisons, hospitals, thermæ, markets, warehouses, slaughter-houses, railway-stations, light-houses, bridges and aqueducts; finally, private dwellings, as palaces, mansions, city and country residences, châteaux and villas.
Memorial to the Heroes of the Franco Prussian War, Berlin.
The first care of all social organizations, at their inception, must have been to provide shelter against inclement weather. In primitive times society was composed of shepherds, or agriculturists, or hunters, and it is presumable that each of these groups adopted a shelter suited to its nomadic or sedentary tastes. For this reason to shepherds is attributed the invention of the tent, a portable habitation which they could take with them from valley to valley, wherever they led their flocks to pasture; agriculturists fixed to the soil which they tilled, dwelling in the plains and along the river banks, must have found the hut better adapted to their wants, while the hunters, stealing through the forests, ambushed in the mountains, or stationed on the seashore, naturally took safety in caves, or dug holes for themselves in the earth, or hollowed out grottos in the rocks.
An imitation of the tent is found later on in the form of the Chinese and Japanese structures; the principle of the cave appears developed in the subterranean dwellings of the people of India and Nubia; while the hut is the point of departure for all Greek and Roman architecture.
As soon as man had contrived a shelter for himself, before considering improvements that might be made in it, he turned his thoughts toward the divine being of his worship, and the first steps in art were taken in the monuments which he raised to his gods. Then, confounding kings with deities, he reared palaces like unto temples. But civil architecture, properly so called, came into existence only with an already advanced state of civilization, when cities were forming and peoples were organizing. After having satisfied the demands of the moral nature, after having erected temples to their gods and palaces to their kings, the people began to group together and surround themselves with fortifications. Next the material needs of society made themselves felt; aqueducts were constructed to supply water; bridges established communication between the opposite banks of streams; dikes confined the rivers within certain bounds; streets were laid out along which houses were built in orderly fashion, public squares were marked off where the products of industry could be exchanged, where justice was dispensed and where the great affairs of State were treated; then came mental and physical demands, a felt need for the training of body and mind, and out of this want grew theatres, stadia, gymnasia and thermæ. In time we find the history of a single people developing; and with this development a necessity arising for lasting monuments to commemorate its various stages; public services rendered by certain illustrious men called for some enduring memorial; and relatives and friends, with whom one had lived and whom the dread enemy had snatched away could not be left without sepulture. Is there nothing after death? And so honorary monuments, triumphal columns, statues and tombs sprang into being. Again, with the growth of a people, wealth increases, and every new victory assuring an added degree of ease introduces at the same time extravagant tastes; a people after enduring suffering cries out for its portion of pleasure; it was to satisfy this demand that circuses were built, and amphitheatres where the eyes could feast on imposing spectacles; private houses became more comfortable, they were improved in arrangement, they were enlarged and embellished; at length an extraordinary display of sumptuousness began to appear in the dwellings of the great,—that luxury of decadence which marks the close of ancient civilization.
With the advent of Christ came new ideas which caused new departures, not only in religious and monastic architecture, but in civil architecture, as well. Christianity, in proclaiming a new virtue, love, created retreats for the unfortunate, asylums for their reception and hospitals for their care. Monkish orders, in their efforts to prevent the destruction of old manuscripts, spread knowledge around them, and following the example set by them in their monasteries, outside colleges were founded. With the dissemination of knowledge, cities roused out of their long sleep; their independent spirit began to shake off the yoke of their oppressors; they formed themselves into communes and various privileges were granted them. Under certain conditions, and in consideration of the discharge of certain obligations, the commune is seen at length assuming the administration of its own affairs. From this moment an assembling-place is needed where communal interests can be discussed and where questions can be put to vote. The town-hall, with its belfry from which could be proclaimed afar all immunities won, supplied the want. Around this centre markets sprang up, and exchanges where merchants could negotiate and transact business. Finally, the less exclusive modern spirit made itself felt, and, soaring beyond the city bounds, it projected works of a genuinely public nature, not for the benefit of this or that city, but for the entire country. Political centralization, governmental unity, later on, made it possible to run canals through different provinces, to establish barracks for troops over broad stretches of territory, to build court-houses and prisons, to reconstruct hospitals on new plans, and to open more extensive exchanges, markets, warehouses and slaughter-houses. Public instruction also had its imperious demands, and States were forced to sprinkle their lands with school-houses of every grade, from the simplest asylums and primary and secondary schools to special government institutions; libraries and museums were founded to satisfy still other claims of education. Then with the ever-increasing wants of a civilization, eager for progress, in the presence of the important discoveries of science, before the invasions of finance and the extension of governmental machinery, architectural designs are indefinitely multiplied to supply suitable departmental buildings, banking-houses, houses of commerce, quarters for public officers and public boards, railway-stations, inns, custom-houses and toll-houses; to say nothing of private residences and play-houses, bathing establishments, casinos and villas, whose designs change from time to time with the manners and customs of the period or people.
Civil architecture, in the proper sense of the term, originated with the Greeks and was extended in a surprising degree among the Romans. All the other peoples of antiquity devoted themselves to the rearing of religious and sepulchral monuments, and to the construction of palaces for their sovereigns. Their political organization did not lend itself to development in other directions. So long as a people is not considered as an individual there can be no thought of erecting for its comfort or education structures of any considerable importance; so long as it has no existence as a civil body there can be no call for the building of edifices wherein to discuss its own affairs or the affairs of State. Nevertheless, aside from temples and palaces, there are certain works of public utility which are forced upon all civilizations, and among all organized peoples a domestic architecture exists which answers to their needs and which we cannot pass over in silence.
The sacred books of the Hindoos give us the plans on which their cities were built. There were forty different kinds of cities, distinguished one from the other by their extent and form. The streets crossed at right angles. The centre of the city was reserved for sacred uses and was inhabited by the Brahmins; around them dwelt the people, and the angles were occupied by the exchanges, markets, colleges and other public structures. The city was always walled, with a gate on each of the four sides and one at each corner.