342 The Evolution of Architecture. 



The elevation expresses, in a general artistic and constructive way, 

 the disposition within. The plan is the characteristic note, the mo- 

 tive of the creation, and that arises from the surrounding conditions 

 and circumstances of the daily life. Our American house-plans and 

 office-building plans are essentially American and are indigenous. To 

 cover them with a face consisting of some Romanesque or Gothic de- 

 tail and call them, accordingly, Romanesque or Gothic, is therefore a 

 misapplication of terms. I wish to affirm that there is an American 

 architecture, at least in infancy, and it is a well-developed infant, too. 



MB,. CHADWICK, in reply, said : There is an evolution of degenera- 

 tion as well as of advance, and the doctrine explicitly recognizes both 

 of these processes. A Gothic cathedral, for instance, is not a finer 

 piece of architecture than the Parthenon, though it is of later origin, 

 yet both are products of evolution. Over and above the evolution or 

 decay of special or local types there has been a broad evolutionary line 

 of architectural development from Egypt to Greece, Rome, Byzantium, 

 and the later Western European forms. The great churches all root 

 back into the basilica, though widely separated in locality and time. 

 Architecture, in its various forms, undoubtedly expresses the domi- 

 nant life of the people. Where that dominant life was religious we 

 find it expressed in churches and cathedrals. The dominant life in 

 America is the business life ; hence we find that architecture in this 

 country takes its most characteristic form in our business buildings 

 and private houses. Architecture, in its earlier stages, however, never 

 was a popular art. The great monuments of Egypt were built under 

 the lash. In Rome the noted buildings were erected by the rulers, 

 not by the populace. The Gothic cathedrals, on the contrary, were 

 built by the Communes. 



