A FEW WORDS ON OUR PROGRESS IN BUILDING. 



lu the mean time, we are in the midst of what may be called the experimental stage 

 of architectural taste. With the passion for novelty, and the feeling of independence 

 that belong to this country, our people seem determined to try everythi?ig. A pro- 

 prietor on the lower part of the Hudson, is building a stone castle, with all the towers 

 clustered together, after the fashion of the old robber strong-holds on the Rhine. 

 We trust he has no intention of levying toll on the railroad that runs six trains a day 

 under his frowning battlements, or exacting booty from the river craft of all sizes 

 forever floating by. A noted New-Yorker has erected a villa near Bridgeport, which 

 looks like the minareted and domed residence of a Persian Skah — though its orientalism 

 is rather put out of countenance by the prim and puritanical dwellings of the plain 

 citizens within rifle shot of it. A citizen of fortune dies, and leaves a large sum 

 to erect a " large plain building" for a school to educate orphan boys — which the build- 

 ing committee consider to mean a superb marble temple, like that of Jupiter Olympius; 

 a foreigner liberally bequeaths his fortune to the foundation of an institution " for 

 the diffusion of knowledge among men'' — and the regents erect a college in the 

 style of a Norman monastery — with a relish of the dark ages in it, the better to 

 contrast with its avowed purpose of diffusing light. On all sides, in our large towns, 

 we have churches built after Gothic models, and though highly fitting and beautiful as 

 churches, i. e., edifices for purely devotional purposes — are quite useless as places to 

 hear sermons in, because the preacher's voice is inaudible in at least one-half of the 

 church. And everywhere in the older parts of the country, private fortunes are 

 rapidly crystalizing into mansions, villas, country-houses and cottages, in all 

 known styles supposed to be in any way suitable to the purposes of civilized habita- 

 tions. 



Without in the least desiring to apologise for the frequent violations of taste wit- 

 nessed in all this fermentation of the popular feeling in architecture, we do not hesitate 

 to say that we rejoice in it. It is a fermentation that shows clearly there is no apathy in 

 the public mind, and we feel as much confidence as the vintner who walks through the 

 wine cellar in full activity, that the froth of foreign affectations will work off, and the im- 

 purities of vulgar taste settle down, leaving us the pure spirit of a better national 

 taste at last. Rome was not built in a day, and whoever would see a national ar- 

 chitecture, must be patient till it has time to rise out of the old materials, under the 

 influences of a new climate, our novel institutions and modified habits. 



In domestic architecture, the difficulties that lie in the way of achieving a pure and 

 correct taste, are, perhaps, greater than in civil or ecclesiastical edifices. There are so 

 many private /a/zczes, and personal vanities, which seek to manifest themselves in the 

 house of the ambitious private citizen, and which are defended under the shield of that 

 miserable falsehood, "there is no disputing about tastes.''^ (If the proverb read 

 whims, it would be gospel truth.) Hence we see numberless persons who set about 

 building their own house without the aid of an architect, who would not think 

 of being their own lawj^er, though one profession demands as much study and 

 pacity as the other ; and it is not to this we object, for we hold that a man may 



