876 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



are only existent when considered in relation to the era of 

 their construction, and it is only what they teach us of beauty 

 in the abstract that we are entitled to use in modern design ; 

 and therefore if we require a building to serve the purpose 

 of a public library, it is not architecture to reproduce in 

 facsimile a Grecian temple, while the reproduction of a feudal 

 castle has no justification when utilised as a modern suburban 

 residence. Let us remember to only admire buildings because 

 they are beautiful, and not because they are stained with the 

 crimes of the good old days. And so if the public in their 

 demands and criticisms, and the architects in their designs, 

 hold tenaciously to freedom of thought and action, and make 

 such thought and action expressive of nothing but logical 

 truth and honest self-sufficiency, we can look forward with 

 hopeful expectancy to a period of architectural magnificence 

 somewhat in accordance with the promising prosperity of our 

 colonial communities. 



A great step in the right direction has been exemplified in 

 some modern examples of American work, and Australian 

 architects must necessarily feel what vast possibilities still 

 remain for newer and better development in their work when 

 they look at what has been accomplished by a few earnest 

 designers who have followed the right path in the various 

 centres of American population. As an exemplification I 

 feel justified, in conclusion, in paying some slight tribute to 

 the memory of the powerful genius of the late H. H. 

 Richardson, who has given to America an architecture purely 

 its own, and who has thus, by the most powerful of methods 

 — the force of good example — shown to modern society the 

 possibility of infinite development, which could in the future 

 produce an architecture suitable to all the complex require- 

 ments of modern times, while at the same time elevating all 

 by its majesty, beauty, and truth. 



Let us hope that architecture, to fulfil its destiny, will in 

 the near future be the favourite study of our greatest artists, 

 whose labours will be richly rewarded, and whose responsibiHties 

 will be successfully discharged to a highly appreciative 

 eommunity. 



