642 MODERN ARCHITECTURE 



of the three-aisled, cruciform, vaulted church quite dominated the 

 evolution of architectural form. All the methods of Gothic con- 

 struction were established by empirical processes, through the 

 cumulative experience of repeated experiments upon an identical 

 problem; and the same is largely true of its decorative design. Such 

 long-continued concentration of effort upon a single problem is out 

 of the question in modern times. We have too many kinds of build- 

 ings to erect, for religious, educational, administrative, com- 

 mercial, social, penal, charitable, and decorative purposes; churches, 

 colleges, and schools, railway-stations, armories, laboratories, exhibi- 

 tion buildings, warehouses, museums, theatres, hospitals, hotels, 

 capitols, city halls, theatres, office-buildings, and houses large and 

 small. Moreover, a more serious difficulty by far, the require- 

 ments of any given class of buildings never remain long the same. 

 Experience can be cumulative only in small degree; the experience 

 of a few years back may profit us, but that of twenty-five years ago is 

 utterly out of date. No sooner does a type develop into something 

 like final shape than new requirements or new methods of construc- 

 tion suddenly appear, and the whole problem must be studied anew. 

 No style can therefore develop to-day into the unity and finality of 

 some of the historic styles. There is never any opportunity to perfect 

 the details of a single type. 



To these difficulties must be further added the complexity of 

 design required by our modern civilization. Even an ordinary city 

 dwelling is a maze of intricate provisions for convenience and com- 

 fort beside which the most elaborate palace of earlier days was, in 

 the matter of practical details, a problem of lucid simplicity. The 

 designing, specifying, and superintending of a modern structure, with 

 all its engineering complexities of installation, wiring-ducts, flues, and 

 fixtures, absorb a large part of the scanty time allowed by our 

 systems of building by contract for the elaboration of the complete 

 design. Under these conditions the architect must design or control 

 a range of work which covers all manner of trades, industries, and 

 sciences. It is impossible that one person should master them all, or 

 any considerable portion of them, in a truly satisfactory way. 



Thus while the modern architect has been supplied with resources 

 of extraordinary richness and variety, he has also been assigned a 

 task of at least equally increased complexity. But this does not ade- 

 quately express the situation. For there are in modern architectural 

 practice two factors unknown to the great ages of the art in the past, 

 which render it still more difficult to work out a characteristic and 

 dignified expression of the spirit and ideals of the age. These are, in 

 brief, the contract system, and the decline of artistic artisanship. The 

 contract system, which has grown up with modern methods of busi- 

 ness and has entered into the fabric of modern life, compels the archi- 



