House & Garden 
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THE FACADE OF TOURS 
THE FA 9 ADE OF NOTRE-DAME 
many centuries and survived so many styles, 
exhibits an alternation of forms resembling 
phallic emblems. Masculine and feminine 
are well suggested in the triglyphs and 
metopes of a Doric frieze, in the torches 
and festoons of the style of the First Empire, 
in the banded torus and other familiar 
ornamented mouldings. 
There is evidence to indicate that during 
the development of Gothic architecture in 
France this sex distinction became a recog¬ 
nized principle, moulding and modifying 
the design of a cathedral in much the same 
way that sex modifies bodily structure. 
The north, or right-hand tower (“ the man’s 
side”) was called the sacred male pillar, 
Jachin; and the south, or left-hand tower 
(“the woman’s side”) the sacred female 
pillar, Boaz,—from the two pillars flanking 
the gate to Solomon’s Temple. In only a 
few of the French cathedrals is this dis¬ 
tinction clearly and consistently maintained, 
l ours forms perhaps the most remarkable 
example ; for in its flamboyant facade, over 
and above the difference in the breadth and 
sturdiness of the two towers, there is an un¬ 
mistakable distinction between them in the 
character of the ornamentation, that of the 
north tower being in comparison with the 
south, more salient, harsh and angular. In 
the cathedral of Notre-Dame the north or 
masculine tower is also perceptibly broader 
than the south, or feminine. 1’he only other 
important difference between them appears 
to be the angular label-moulding above the 
north entrance. Whatever may have been 
its original significance or function it serves 
to define the tower sexually as effectively as 
does the beard on a man’s face. 
By recognizing this law of polarity in its 
application to architecture as something more 
significant than mere opposition and contrast; 
by a constant effort to discriminate between 
In and To in their myriad manifestations ; and 
by attempting to express their qualities in 
new forms of beauty, from the disposition 
of a faqade to the shaping of a moulding, the 
architectural designer will charge his work 
with that esoteric significance, that excess of 
beauty, which constitutes architecture a fine, 
a pure, a representative art. 
Claude Bragdon. 
95 
