House & Garden 
TYROLESE ARCHITECTURE. 1 
V. TOWNS. 
T he town is but the village overgrown. 
The once picturesque group of rude cot¬ 
tages has swelled in size and has taken on 
an appearance of busy importance. The 
burgensis , or inhabitant of a walled town casts 
disdain upon the villanus , or him of the open 
town. The streets and houses themselves 
seem to grow conscious of their new state¬ 
liness and regu¬ 
larity. They now 
hear imposing 
names, and regard 
with pitying 
charity the “ old 
part” of the 
town, where the 
remains of the 
former village 
linger in weather¬ 
beaten age — an 
oasis of the past 
amid the new. 
To seek the 
causes of one 
human settle¬ 
ment’s growth 
and another’s 
decline would be 
to question un¬ 
written annals 
and obscure cir- 
cumstance. 
Viewed objec¬ 
tively, it is certain 
that favorable 
climate and situa¬ 
tion have been 
more potent than 
the enterprise of 
inhabitants in 
the transition of 
villages to town 
and cities. To 
these causes must 
be added the 
presence of 
mineral wealth, the beginning of organized 
industry, the attraction of passing traffic,— 
i See House and Garden for December, 1901, January, March 
and May, 1902. 
all of which have played in the history of 
cities. Similarly is it true that no village 
ever rose to the dignity of a city without the 
presence of at least one of these causes. 
Tyrolese towns are no exception to the 
rule. Plausible explanations of tradition and 
the events of political wrangles may vainly 
array themselves against those of soil, situa¬ 
tion and climate. When a village grew 
against the walls of Diirrenstein, previously 
existing Eacilities for building were taken 
advantage of. 
Th e houses 
spread out from 
the old ramparts 
as honeycomb 
grows from a bit 
of moulded wax 
set in place by 
the bee-keeper. 
That settlement 
was doomed to 
stationary ob¬ 
scurity ; but in 
the origin of 
places now grown 
large, other 
natural and 
greater facilities 
have been taken 
advantage of, 
such as the junc¬ 
tion of rivers, the 
broadening of a 
vallev, or the 
shelter of a moun¬ 
tain. The town 
streets lie close to 
the water’s level, 
and the menace 
of freshets from 
melting snows 
was lost sight of 
before the favor¬ 
able protection of 
high ranges from 
whose foothills 
agricultural i n - 
d u s t r y might 
draw a livelihood, while other instincts could 
feed upon the flow of traffic which always 
follows the river roads. However meagre 
the amount of this commerce, Tyrolese 
THE MUNZTHURM AT HALL 
3 2 9 
