98 Mi'. H. Heaihcote StaiJiam on Architecture. [Jan. 31, 



of the building, which thus becomes merely an architectural mask or 

 screen, having no meaning whatever. 



The influence of the material used and the atmosphere under 

 which it is to be seen, will also be manifest in any architecture 

 designed in logical accordance with practical conditions. If we com- 

 pare Greek and Gothic details, such as mouldings and carved ornaments 

 for instance, we find in the former (Figs. 8, 9) delicate contours and 

 minute refinements of modelling, which could only be satisfactorily 

 executed in a hard and enduring material like marble, and only satis- 

 factorily seen under a bright sky and in a clear air : in Gothic detail, 

 on the other hand, we find deep hollows and powerful rounded 

 mouldings, and broad, bold, and deeply-cut foliage ornament (Figs. 

 21, 22), of much coarser type than the Greek, but precisely suited 

 for execution in a comparatively coarse granulated material, to be 

 seen under a sky frequently obscured with cloud and mist, the re- 

 sult of a damp atmosphere. It is in respect to these conditions that 

 attempts to reproduce Greek architecture in this country have been 

 and always must be failures, even apart from all considerations as 

 to the value of a reproduced architecture. We cannot have Greek 

 architecture here unless we can have the Greek climate and the 

 Pentelic marble. 



The almost entire deficiency of proper logical relation between 

 practical facts and their aesthetic expression is the characteristic of 

 modern architecture, which thus has lost its meaning as an art, and 

 its strongest hold over our interest. The art has been reduced by 

 the architects to a series of reproductions of the forms of past 

 historical styles, and by the engineers (who are now doing over again 

 exactly what the Eomans in their day did) to the arbitrary application 

 of features supposed to be architectural, in order to cover and mask 

 construction with what they call ornament. This is carried to such 

 an extent that often constructions are absolutely vulgarized and made 

 absurd by this false architectural clothing, which if left in their 

 practical simplicity would be comparatively pleasing, perhaps even 

 positively so ; for structures which, like engineering works, are 

 designed to maintain their stability amid the action of the forces 

 of nature, must almost necessarily, if simply treated, assume forms 

 which are to a certain extent in harmony with nature. But the 

 arbitrary bedizening of such structures with borrowed architectural (?) 

 features which have no relation to their structure or purpose, neces- 

 sarily produces a result which is at variance alike with nature and 

 with art. It is only by the more rigorous exercise of thought in 

 regard to the purpose and meaning of architecture that we can hope 

 to extricate ourselves from these vain repetitions of features of archi- 

 tecture of the past into which we have drifted (and of which the last 

 fashion, called the " Queen Anne style," is the very worst and most 

 unmeaning that has ever been started), and to produce architecture 

 which shall have a meaning and purpose and expression directly 

 related to the conditions of life in this country and in the present day ; 



