PROBLEMS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE 643 



tect to devote a large part of his time, before the first spadeful of earth 

 can be turned in the excavations, to perfecting details which, in other 

 ages, were largely given to artisans to work out, each an expert in 

 his line, or were at most left to be elaborated during the slow progress 

 of the work. The whole time allotted to the study of the problem 

 is cut down to the narrow limits between the preliminary sketch 

 and the signing of the contract; and since the greater part of this is 

 spent in the elaboration of details, the fraction left for the legitimate 

 artistic Avork of the architect the work of study and experiment- 

 ation and revision of the plan, the masses, voids, and solids of his 

 design is reduced to a pitiable insufficiency. How rarely, in modern 

 work, does the designer of an important edifice have adequate time 

 allowed him for a truly satisfactory study and discussion of his 

 problem! And the further bane of the contract system lies in this, 

 that, the contract once signed, further correction and amendment of 

 the design are impossible. No amount of " happy thoughts, " resulting 

 from the experience acquired as the work progresses, can avail to 

 improve its artistic quality. The ghost of "extras" stalks abroad, 

 haunts the chambers of the architect's consciousness, and, indeed, is 

 too often materialized without help from spiritualistic mediums. This 

 spectre effectually blocks the way for those happy afterthoughts 

 which are really the ripest artistic fruit of the architect's brain. 



Artistic artisanship has been stifled between the two irresistible 

 forces of modern industrialism and modern education. The machine 

 and the factory have taken over the work of the hand-craftsman; 

 and modern democratic education has opened to the young man born 

 in the ranks of the trades a hundred gates of employment where in 

 olden times there was but one. The execution of architectural and 

 decorative detail has become a matter wholly apart from its design; a 

 matter of accurate reproduction of office-drawings rather than of the 

 artistic interpretation of suggestive sketches by the architect. Thus 

 the design of every detail has been thrown back upon the architect, 

 an added task and responsibility which in the older days he did not 

 have to be burdened with. 



But no statement of the actual conditions of modern architecture 

 would be complete which omitted to mention the commercialism 

 of our age. We must admit, I think, that the really controlling inter- 

 ests of our time are the commercial. These make, on the whole, for 

 peace and for the brotherhood of man: but they can never replace, 

 though they have largely usurped, the controlling influence of religion 

 upon art. Office-buildings and railway-stations are more characteristic 

 expressions of our modem culture than cathedrals. To this ascend- 

 ency of commercial interests must be ascribed the growth of public 

 and private luxury. This may or may not be of advantage artistically ; 

 that depends upon the way in which this luxury chooses to express 



