Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/224

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188
ARCHITECTURE


along English Georgian lines in the one case, New England Colonial in the other. With the recovery of the delicate pro- portions and grave simplicity of the early American style, quite distinct in character from contemporary work in England, this style became almost fixed as the standard type for the eastern states, in public and private schools, a result in great measure due to the influence of E. M. Wheelwright. In the Middle West the Tudor motive, popularized by W. B. Ittner in many public schools, held the field; in the south and on the Pacific coast the early style of the Franciscan missions, sometimes touched by Italian influence, was admirably adapted to modern and local conditions by such architects as the Allisons of Los Angeles; while in Texas, Rice Institute was being worked out by Cram & Ferguson in a curious style with no particular prototype but epitomizing a dozen Mediterranean impulses, the principal effects being attained by combination of coloured marbles and iridescent tiles.

Church building during the period 1910-20 was exceedingly active. Cathedrals, both Roman Catholic and Episcopal, some rivalling in size those of France and England, Were building in many places. Amongst the former were the great Byzantine cathedral of St. Louis, Barnett, Haynes and Barnett architects, and that in St. Paul by Paul Masqueray. The Episcopal cathe- dral, still under way in 1921 in Washington, an immense struc- ture in Decorated Gothic, was designed from the plans which were made by the late George F. Bodley of London, and Henry Vaughn. B. G. Goodhue's Baltimore cathedral promised to be an original and vivid adaptation of English Gothic, while the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York must, when com- pleted, take rank as the third in size of the cathedrals of the world. Begun in 1891 by Heins and La Farge in a modified Romanesque, it was continued by. other architects in an adapta- tion of the French Gothic of the i3th century, though diverging widely from the standard type. The latter architects also built the bishop's palace, deanery and synod house for the same see, as well as the cathedral in Detroit. The parish churches, both Roman Catholic and Episcopal, were many and generally of high order; it is doubtful if anywhere a loftier standard had been attained. Roman Catholic architecture in the United States, until after 1900, was of a debased quality, even worse perhaps than that of the Protestant denominations. By 1920 such work as that of Maginnis and Walsh in St. Catherine's, Somerville, Mass.; the convent of Notre Dame in Boston, and that of the Carmelites in California; and John T. Comes' churches of St. Agnes, Cleveland, St. Mary's, McKeesport, Pa., and St. Moni- ca's, Rochester, N.Y.; also St. Agnes', Pittsburgh, Pa., restored the balance, a result due almost wholly to these architects. An example of Catholic architecture at its best was B. G. Goodhue's Dominican Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in New York. As for the Episcopal church, St. Thomas's and the Church of the Intercession in New York, both designed by Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, were indicative of the advance made in the 10 years ending with 1920 toward developing a style which should at the same time preserve the best traditions of Christian art and be mobile in its adaptability to modern times and conditions. Apart from the Christian Scientists, who built widely during the same period and usually in a form of Classic closely allied with that of the standard type of Carnegie library, the Protestant trend has been largely towards Gothic of one sort or another. More and more the new work approached the standards, methods and forms of Catholic art, as for example in Allen and Collens's Con- gregational church in Newton and the Fourth Presbyterian church in Chicago by Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson and Howard Shaw. Occasionally remarkable re-creations of Colonial work were achieved, chiefly for Congregationalists and Unitarians. The Baptists, Methodists and Lutherans showed only sporad- ically an inclination towards higher standards, and in the south and south-west decidedly infer-ior structures were still produced. The Swedenborgians always stood for high architectural ideals and were well served during his lifetime by Prof. Langford Warren. They built at Bryn Athyn, Pa., a " cathedral " which was closely modelled on the lines of the richest type of a large English

parish church of the early isth century. Here for the first time in America the architects (Cram and Ferguson) undertook to put into practice the old " guild " methods of building of the Middle Ages.

With its vast area, its widely varying climatic conditions, its many racial strains, and its groups of independent traditions, the United States has produced as varied an assortment of domestic architecture as might have been expected. Some of the notable palaces of New York and the fine villas set in beautiful gardens and parks in attractive country areas rival the most splendid examples of the Italian, French or English Renaissance, not only in their architecture but in their priceless collections of art of every kind. It is in the more modest dwellings of those not in the multi-millionaire class that recent architecture has scored its greatest triumph. American architects have always been adepts at planning, and American inventors ingenious in devising, new conveniences and luxuries of domestic life. Now that the stand- ard of style has been established and steadily maintained, it may be claimed that the American dwelling equals if it does not sur- pass all its competitors. The most notable schools of this period were those of Philadelphia, the Middle West, New England and the Pacific coast. The first was initiated by Wilson Ayre, Frank Miles Day and Cope and Stewardson, of whom only the first was alive and working in 1920. But they were followed by a large group of younger men, and the results were striking in originality, consistency and taste. With the local Colonial style as a basis, something was added from the best modern English revival of Tudor architecture, something from the subtle Georgian of Mr. Platt, something from the Italianesque of Mr. McKim, though the dominant note still remained essentially Pennsylvania!!. Colour, detail, texture all played their part in a romantic yet honest expression of domesticity, and so universal was its accept- ance that even the speculative builder employed the best ex- ponents of this style to develop whole communities along con- sistent lines. It would be impossible to name all the men who created this significant expression of the best in modern American domestic architecture, but Robert McGoodwin, together with Mellor, Meigs and Howe, Willing and Sims, Edward Gilchrist, and Duhring, Okie and Ziegler, may be mentioned. In the Middle West, there were two tendencies, one with a mathematical basis, the other almost purely poetic. The first seems to have been started by Louis Sullivan, with his strange and vivid motifs in geometrical decoration. Frank Lloyd Wright continued and developed this along extraordinary lines with an exaggeration of horizontal elements that seem to have grown out of decorative forms rather than from material requirements. Claude Bragdon and Pond & Pond also contributed to this movement. The other tendency in the Middle West was best represented by Howard Shaw, and was marked by pure beauty, both in form and detail, measurably Italian yet adapted to local conditions. The New England school was primarily Colonial, for it was in New England that the greatest quantity of this early type of work had been preserved. Its recovery and reconstruction were initiated by Arthur Little, but as in the case of Philadelphia, many younger architects, such as Bigelow and Wadsworth, continued the process. Generically allied with New England was New York, which had many masters of domestic design, if no clearly defined school. Perhaps the most brilliant work, because the most direct, delicate and intrinsically beautiful, was that of Delano and Aldrich, John Russell Pope, and Trowbridge and Ackerman. The school, or schools, of the Pacific coast were at the same time the most baffling and the most stimulating, for strange influences crept in from across the Pacific, mingling with the Spanish traditions of the southern border and yielding alluring results. During the 10 years ending with 1920 the coasts and mountain valleys of southern California blossomed into Persian, Italian and Spanish gardens set with architecture that is so pictorial as to be almost sensational in its appeal, yet with few exceptions it is natural and even naive. The foundations were laid by Willis Polk, Myron Hunt, Elmer Gray and John Galen Howard, but to them have been added many of a younger generation, especially the Allisons, Robert David Farquhar and Bernard R. Maybeck.