Do we suppose, for an instant, that Sir Christopher Wren was guilty of a deliberate cheat in so constructing it? Certainly not. He used the material which he considered best suited to his purpose and his means. And so we should, in charity, suppose did the Architect of Grace Church, New York.
The Builder, like too many of our English cousins, who do us the honor of a visit, falls into error in supposing that wood is generally used for ornamentation of exteriors. In none of our larger cities is this the case. And when that critical and usually correct authority says, “Even the Fifth avenue itself is a sham as to much of its seeming stone-work,” it displays a melancholy absence of its uniform discernment, judgment, and sense.
The only other constructive material to be found on the fronts of the Fifth Avenue, New York, besides marble, brown stone, or pressed (Philadelphia) brick, is in the gutter, which is either of zinc or galvanized iron, and forms the upper portion of the cornice.
Porches and Hall-door frontisces, of every style, are of marble or stone, and never of wood. Pediments and all trimmings around windows are invariably of stone. In fact we are not a little surprised at the apparent want of information on this subject by so well posted an observer as the Builder is acknowledged to be. Some twenty years ago the taunt might lie most truthfully applied to our efforts at architectural construction, but to-day the “trick” of painted and sanded wood would be hissed down by our citizens who claim to live in residences the majority of which are greatly superior to residences of the same class in London, as far at least as material is concerned. No, no—criticism to be useful must be just; and to be just must be founded strictly on truth unbiassed by prejudice.
We do not desire in these remarks to throw the slightest doubt on the good intentions of the London Builder in its monitorial check, but our wish is to correct the erroneous information which it has received, and which has led to the mistake under which it evidently labors.
We as utterly despise any falsehood in construction as our honestly outspoken contemporary, and will at every opportunity disclose and denounce its adoption in this country in all cases where there is any pretension to architectural design. For a new country like this, it is at least creditable that, even in a small class of dwellings, the architect is, as a general thing, called on to design and frequently to superintend—every thing is not left to the builder as in London. Yet there is and always will be in this as in all other countries a large class of private buildings outside the pale of legitimate taste; creations ungoverned and ungovernable by rule. But such should never be taken as examples of the existing state of the constructive art of the day; they should rather prove the unfortunate exceptions to the fact of its position. Even these it will be our duty to watch over and try to set right; for we are ardent believers in the influential power of information, and look with assurance to the education of our people generally on this subject of judgment and taste in building as the infallible means of turning to good account the remarkable progress in that constructive art of the American nation, which the observant London Builder notices with the generous well-wishing of a kindly professional brother.
THE MANSARD MADNESS.
Of all the intellectual qualifications which man is gifted with, there is not one as sensitive as that which enables him to discern between what is intrinsically good, and what is bad or indifferent to his eye. Yet are there none of all man’s mental attributes so frequently and so grossly outraged as is this to which we now allude, called Taste.
Custom has much to say in the question of arbitrary rule which taste so imperatively claims. Persistence in any thing will, of necessity, make itself felt and recognized, no matter how odious at first may be the object put before the public eye, and ultimately that object becomes what is commonly called “fashionable.” This apparent unity of the public on one object is variable and will soon change to another, which in its turn will seem to reign by unanimous consent and so on ad infinitum.
In Architecture this fickle goddess, Fashion, seems to reign as imperatively and as coquettishly as in any or all the affairs of this world of humanity. That which was at first esteemed grotesque and ridiculous, becomes in time tolerable and at last admirable. But the apathy which sameness begets cannot long be borne by the novelty worshippers, and accordingly new forms and shapes remodel the idea of the day, until it ceases to bear a vestige of its first appearance and becomes quite another thing.