Now architecture requires the least amount of material that is compatible with the greatest amount of strength. The forms of different materials must be varied to suit their texture, according as it is fibrous or crystalline, tough or brittle. Iron, of course, requires a peculiar treatment. At the risk of being charged with pedantry, we say that there have never been but two iron buildings, of any pretension, in this country—the Niagara Suspension Bridge and the Crystal Palace at New York. The first still speaks for itself; and of the latter, no one who saw it can forget what an exquisite structure it was, so light and airy and elegant, and yet so strong. It was but a bird cage, though, compared with its enormous prototype at Sydenham. That is unquestionably one of the wonders of the world; its internal coup d'œil is without a parallel. Fancy a broad level vista, a third of a mile long, flanked on either side by graceful groves of ironwork, and covered with a continuous crystal arch, a hundred feet above your head; line it with a profusion of tropical foliage and clambering vines, that grow as luxuriantly as in their native woods, and interspersed with statuary and vases gleaming everywhere through the rich masses of verdure, while here and there fountains of rare and exquisite design, rising from broad marble basins, relieve without lessening the immense length—and you may have some faint idea of this peerless structure. 'No material is used in it,' says Fergusson, 'which is not the best for its purpose, no constructive expedient employed which was not absolutely necessary, and it depends wholly for its effect on the arrangement of its parts and the display of its construction.' It is in iron what Gothic is in stone.
Details, if fairly studied, would do much to nationalize our architecture. Why should we, in designing a capital or cornice, still cling to the classic acanthus or honeysuckle ornament, or even the English ivy, when we have such a fund of our own? The maize and the sugarcane, the potato blossom and the cotton boll afford so many mines of treasure, that it is surprising that they have not already been worked. In the architecture of the Central Park, however, a decided impetus has been given in this direction. The details of the grand terrace at the end of the Mall are as elaborate as those of a European cathedral, but they are all American—all our own.
Another excellent feature of our city houses is that little strip of garden in front, just within the sidewalk. For this, too, we think we have some claim of originality. At least it is not European, for in Berlin, Vienna, etc., some of the most palatial quarters are without so much as a sidewalk—the paving stones reaching from wall to wall. Such barrenness of arrangement cannot be relieved by any architecture, nor was there ever a building so good that it could not be improved by a setting of foliage. The power of mutual relief between art and nature is wonderful. To this is owing much of the effect of the celebrated 'Place Napoleon,' the court of the New Louvre at Paris. The contrast between the richly wrought façades of Caen stone and the foliage in the centre, is most grateful to the eye. Even the grand quadrangle of the Tuileries seems dismal after it, grand as are its ogre-roofed 'pavilions' and triumphal arch, for it lacks the refreshing verdure. The eye wearies of the everlasting buff color.
Not to overstep the subject, we will say just one word about the street plans of our cities. It is really shameful that these are not more studied. No one seems to think of adapting them to the surface of the ground, but everything must needs be graded flat, and rectangular blocks laid out thereon. Our Western cities, particularly, appear to crystallize in cubes—their monotony is painful. An occasional introduction of the curved street, so common in Britain, would be a delightful relief. The London 'Quadrant' is a superb example—the way in which the houses come into view, one by one, as you follow the curve, is not to be surpassed. But the chief secret of success in plotting a town is to seize upon the natural irregularities of the ground, and make them part and parcel of the design. The beauty of Edinburgh—the 'Scottish Athens,' as Dugald Stewart called it—is entirely owing to this. The new town is a 'wilderness of granite, magnificently dull,' and the old has barely enough of the picturesque to save it from being hideous. But there is a broad, natural ravine, dividing the two, which has been retained in its original shape, and being tastefully arranged with shrubbery and terraced walks, forms a fine park. Near one end of this the Castle Hill rises abruptly against the old town, while at the other end the view is closed by Calton Hill, with its classic monuments, and Arthur's Seat rising grandly beyond. Two or three bridges afford a level communication between the old town and the new, and Prince's street, the thoroughfare of the latter, forms a fine terrace along the northern edge of the ravine, passing midway the Scott monument, a superb spire of Gothic. This latter is perhaps the only commendable feature per se in the city—for the details of Edinburgh are notably poor, its pictorial effect arising solely from the very happy manner in which they are grouped, amphitheatre-like, around the 'Gardens.'
Did such a vale lie in the track of one of our cities, we would consider it an unlucky blemish, to be filled up at once to the general level. It would be named in the contract as such-and-such 'sunken lots,' and as the Castle Rock was digged down and dumped in, tax-payers would rejoice over the saved cartage. Having thus killed off Nature, we would put up squares of houses upon the dead level, while the local papers would comment upon the 'improvement of property.'
If we only had a Napoleon here, some think, his master mind might arrest this Vandalism, infuse some system into our rag-bag cities, and make each a Paris. But have we not Public Opinion, stronger than any despot? Let a little of this current, guided by taste, be turned into the channels of art, and the results will soon be forthcoming. We seem to be hampered, as yet, with a kind of feudal system of architecture; this will presently be done away with, for the American character is eclectic, and naturally selects and combines the best in art, as in politics and commerce. To combine English good sense without its heaviness, French vivacity without its hollowness, and the exuberance of German fancy without its inertia—to combine and reflect all these should be the mission of our architecture.
Neither is it too much to say that a genuine love for art may have its bearing on that part of us which is immortal. Not that any of these things will exist after this life, but as children are drilled by their teachers in many studies which have no practical bearing on their after life, so may we consider ourselves as only at boarding school with Nature while in this present temporary state; and if she has set us some lessons which do not appertain directly to our more exalted future, we should remember that this is her method of discipline. But she has done more; she has made the very tasks delightful. Are not such studies more beneficial and satisfactory than the idleness and play which fill up so much of our lives?
No student can succeed, however, who tamely copies his neighbor's work. Let us hope, then, that our art will soon drop its clumsy costume, and take to itself something natural and national; that it will become, as it should, the type of our Western civilization—a civilization that spreads itself, not by sword or sceptre or crozier, but by life and liberty and light.