UTILITY IN ARCHITECTURE. 209 



designed, and at the same time be of sufficient beauty to call forth, 

 the commendation of future ages. In other words, utility in 

 architecture is not synonymous with ugliness, nor does it follow 

 that, because a structure is essentially useful, it is any the less 

 beautiful. This fact is of great importance, because many modern 

 builders have the singular idea that beauty of form and utility 

 of structure are mutually antagonistic. The Gothic builders, 

 for instance, employed the grandest forms and the most ambi- 

 tious designs for their cathedrals; but, when they set about 

 building a dwelling or a warehouse, kept their designs well within 

 the limits for which they were intended. They used the same 

 shapes, the same details, the same ideas, it is true ; but the applica- 

 tion of them is different in a dwelling from that in a church. 

 Modern architects, on the contrary, do not hesitate to apply forms 

 and methods that are peculiarly ecclesiastical, and which have no 

 significance in any other connection, to domestic work ; and it is 

 no unusual thing to-day to see a castle turret decorating the cor- 

 ner of a thoroughfare, or a church doorway leading into a financial 

 institution. A confusion naturally ensues as to the use of the 

 structure, and the average spectator is frequently at a loss to 

 know for what purpose a particular building is intended. In 

 mediaeval times such a condition would have been impossible, 

 because then the idea that intention was the chief thing to be ex- 

 pressed in a structure was so firmly imbedded that any other 

 process would never have been thought of. 



It goes without saying that, if an adherence to this principle 

 produced satisfactory results in past times, the same methods 

 would bring about equally good ones at the present day. And 

 yet the thought is so far forgotten as to be seldom practiced. Not 

 all the architecture of the present time is bad, but so much of it 

 is, that no opportunity should be neglected of hastening a reform. 

 Our political thought is directed toward reform ; we have ballot 

 reform, civil-service reform, tariff reform, and very shortly the 

 art world must have architectural reform, or it will be impossible 

 to live in our houses. In place of use, we are given ornament ; in 

 place of intention, we have design. On every side buildings are 

 criticised for their appearance, and are generally found unsatisfac- 

 tory — a state of affairs that can be directly traced to their lack of 

 ideas. Music is flat and insipid just so far as ideas are absent 

 from it, and the same may be said of architecture. There are un- 

 rivaled opportunities for good work and plenty of it in this coun- 

 try, and yet there is a constant cry of dissatisfaction with the 

 products of our architectural labor. Government architecture is 

 as bad as that produced under private auspices. In ancient Rome 

 it was the government's work that was the best done and has 

 survived the longest. In the nineteenth century it is the private 



