394 



STYLE IX ARCHITECTURE. 



confess, to my artistic sensibilities, but the fact has now been 

 brought within our artistic consciousness that stone, timber, 

 and even plaster, is beautiful in itself, if treated in accordance 

 within its own nature and limitations and left to look like 

 itself. This knowledge should considerably widen the scope 

 of our arts. 



The lessons we can thus learn from the Greeks are the possi- 

 bilities in the natural development of the primitive building 

 needs and the value of simple effects and bold massing, repe- 

 tition and grouping, and the advantage that can be taken of' 

 natural surroundings. 



Ale X A X i > r i a x 1 - 1-: r i o d . 



The Alexandrian period in the dynasties established by 

 Alexander's generals in Asia and Africa, though generally 

 overlooked by historians of Architecture, takes us a step 

 further. Greek art, though it lost much of its purity and 

 strength, emancipated itself and developed new ideals after the 

 conquest of Asia and Egypt. For the first time in history, in 

 the comparative peace of Alexander, the chief buildings of 

 cities were planned in studied relation to each other, with the 

 view to effect as an organised whole. 



Professor Bloemfield's description of Pergamos, on the coast 

 of Asia Minor, built one hundred years after Alexander, is 

 worth repeating : — 



"Pergamos was built on a lofty and isolated hill running from north to 

 south and curving round a hollow on the west side facing the sea. The 

 highest point of the hill, some thousand feet above the plain, was occupied 

 by the Acropolis. The northern extremity was the site of the royal gardens 

 arid the palace of the Attalid Kings. Next came the Temple of Athene 

 Polias, immediately above the theatre which was formed in the natural 

 hollow of the hill facing westwards towards the ^Egean Sea. At the further 

 extremity of the ridge was the altar of Zeus Soter. At the foot of the theatre 

 ran a long terrace terminating at its north end in a temple built into the 

 rock, and in its south end in a long portico, below this terrace the ground 

 fell sheer away to the plain. The general result as seen from the plain was 

 this : the royal palace and garden, the Temple of Athene and the immense 

 altar of Zeus formed one continuous composition on the segment of a curve, 

 lining the ridge and encircling the theatre in the hollow on the breast of the 

 hill below, and then to form a line of arrest, to check, as it were, the sense 

 of slipping down the hill, the architects set this great terrace along the face 

 of the hollow. It was a great effort of civic architecture, memorable because 

 it was something new to the world and because it led up to the monumental 

 planning of Caesarian Rome." 



We have no lack of such sites round our coasts, but as yet 

 no city of }*ergamos. 



Rome. 



I'he architecture of Repul^lican Rome consisted mainly of 

 poor copies of Greek buildings. A fighting nation had little 

 time for art, and so it called in Greek artists to do it for them. 

 But in the history of Architecture it is a truism that the means 

 have always come to fit the needs, and there was a great need 

 for the conquerors of the civilised world to express themselves 

 in endtu'ing architecture. 



The fates favoured the architects of Rome. It happened 

 that a volcanic ash, called by the Italians "pozzolana," 



