Page:Architectural Record 1920-08 Vol 48 Iss 2.djvu/42

 what it really is. There is no inherent need of any architecture at all; nor was any need ever pretended. The whole composition is an architectural fantasie—architecture at play—contrived solely to enliven what would otherwise have been a dull and depressing open space between three blank walls. Now, it is of the essence of fun and play to be absurd, illogical, to set at naught the force of gravitation, to defy the sober conventions of mechanical logic, to play tricks, to stand on one’s head or walk on one’s hands. The architect of the cortile clearly perceived the nature of the situation, and he grasped the potential gaiety in it. Why should he not give voids the form properly belonging to solids? Why should he not drop out the heads of the panel frames and pile atop the dropping central block a couple of ridiculous scroll-lets butting their heads together?

He was called upon to create architecture for amusement, for effect, for delight, without any feeling back of it of structural responsibility. And this he did without fear, without stiffness, and also without any vulgarity or coarse horseplay. It was plainly a case in which, as was the wont with Renaissance tradition, imagination came first; and it was right that it should. But while yielding himself to the impulse of imagination, he did not forget architectural good manners, for he was punctiliously careful of his symmetrical arrangement. Nor did he forget the necessities of visual satisfaction, for he deliberately multiplied and emphasized his horizontals to keep down the apparent height of what would otherwise have seemed a well. In following Renaissance instinct and aiming at effect, he considered carefully both the purpose of his work and the point from which it would be viewed and then let himself loose.

An immediately practicable and concrete suggestion afforded by the cortile is this. The prospect from any high building in any of our cities is blemished by numerous blank, ugly open spaces between enclosing walls, spaces into which human eyes must look many times a day. The architectural enlivenment of such wastes in a manner comparable to the treatment in the cortile of the Palazzo Peretti would, to put it mildly, be a work of civilization. So far as the specific architecture of the cortile is concerned, it supplies us with not a few details of exquisite delicacy, and its general blithe-someness somehow tempts one to say, “Better be decadent and interesting than impeccably correct and Jogical, and stupid.”