2 o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment to the requirements of the time. It would not call for com- 

 ment were it not that modern builders so persistently refuse to 

 recognize it as a fundamental principle in building. Nowadays, 

 when an architect designs a building, he is satisfied he has done 

 all he is required to do if it looks well. If the builder of a house 

 wants a stairway or a window in a particular place because he 

 thinks it will be more convenient, and thereby interferes with the 

 symmetry of the drawing that is submitted for his inspection, he 

 is argued out of it because, forsooth, it will destroy this carefully 

 prepared symmetry or spoil some technical gimcrack that the 

 architect regards as his chief device ; and if by chance the owner 

 carries the day, the architect retires in chagrin, and despairs of 

 his art ever making good progress. 



No greater harm is done to the true advancement of architect- 

 ure than this insistence that exterior effect is the sole end to be de- 

 sired. More than any other cause it has operated to depress the art, 

 and helped to make people question the utility of intrusting their 

 interests to the architects. It has spread abroad the impression 

 that these gentlemen, who might be very useful, are unnecessary 

 luxuries, and that a much more comfortable dwelling can be built 

 by indicating one's own desires and following one's own sugges- 

 tions and views as to convenience, than by paying large sums for 

 "pretty" facades that very likely conceal more discomfort and 

 dissatisfaction than the most vivid imagination can conceive of in 

 a twelvemonth. As a natural result there is a popular skepticism 

 as to the value of professional services that not only hinders the 

 development of a modern architecture, but does serious injury to 

 the profession as well. Yet architects have only themselves to 

 thank for this condition of things, and they can never hope to win 

 the confidence of the public until they have laid aside their so- 

 called art, and begun to design structures with the sole end of 

 making them answer the requirements for which they are in- 

 tended. 



The most remarkable movement in modern architecture has 

 been the Gothic revival, in the midst of which we are living. It 

 has resulted in the wholesale approval of all that is mediaeval, and 

 all that bears the impress of Gothic art. It is important, not only 

 as showing an interest in the really good work of previous times, 

 but as indicating an appreciation for an art that is based on com- 

 mon sense and the adaptation of ends to means. Gothic architect- 

 ure is nothing if not sensible. It originated in a time in the 

 world's history when building was at its lowest ebb. The found- 

 ers of Gothic art were possessed of limited means ; they were 

 without wealth, and their general knowledge was of the scantiest. 

 The magnificent structures to which the Romans had been accus- 

 tomed were impossible to them. Every stone counted, every item 



