Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/319

 1868.] A New Classification of Modern Buildings. 259 A NEW CLASSIFICATION F MODERN BUILDINGS. SLOAN'S Architectural Review and Builder's Journal, No. 1, has perched upon my desk. Why it took this flight, I do not question. I give it welcome. Its perusal filled a pleasant hour. Its pages grew more attractive by reading. They are beautifulty print- ed ; and ornamented with fine drawings, maps, etc. Still, I miss in the introduction and general remarks, something I expected to find there, viz. : An Architectural or Artistic Classification of Buildings at present in use. Allow me to supply it. To define my position, I preface the following little essay with the confes- sion, that I believe, with wise Aristotle, that in all things their form is the main object, or essential part. There are, in regard to general use- fulness, two kinds of buildings, viz. : Home- Houses and Elevators. When I define home-houses to be such as are surrounded with gardens and trees, the reader will easily perceive, that houses not thus ornamented, under whatever name they may pass, are comprised under the appellation of elevators ; for whether men (i. e., ladies and gentlemen, servants and children, animals and bales, grain-sacks, packages, and other things) are occupying them, and moving up and down within, or not, makes no dif- ference. Such treeless and gardenless houses are elevators — nothing else. Man should not resort to shelter under a roof, save when in need. Open air is his life element. How can he enjoy that, without trees and a garden spot ? Consequently, the elevators never can be proper home-houses. They may have fine accommodations for ladies and gen- tlemen to elevate themselves ; they may be palatial business places, but being destitute of gardens and trees for re- spiring the heavenly air, they are, though inhabitable, inhospitable, uninviting, uncomfortable, undesirable, and not in becoming good taste. These disconso- late elevators seem to be afraid of the cool shadow of a fine,, ornamental tree, of the balmy air of a flower-garden, or grass-plat. Blinds and shutters take their place. Poor people who are doomed to live, move, climb and exist in eleva- tors ! Alas ! — no trees, no flowers, no turf — theirs is a dreary lot, indeed ! There is another class of buildings differing from these very much, in regard to their apparent stability or mobility. They may be divided into runaway (high-stoop) houses, and fast-standing houses, (English basement.) Runaway houses ! how odd ! But we will show that we are not indulging in Irishisms. If one, with an eye for tasteful forms, enters a street, perhaps laid out on rising grouud, on both sides beset with high- stoop houses, and the stoops lined with down-sliding railings, it will appear to him as if both rows of houses are run- ning, moving, sliding. Happy, when they are separated by trees, the images of firmness and resistance ; then the bewildered eye will rest on them ; the apparent mobility of these houses vanish from vision. The disenchantment will be more decided, if, perchance, one or a couple of " fast-standing" houses appear in the same street, for at once it will strike the beholder that those are really grounded, fixed, firmly-standing or — anti-runaway houses. The Bostonians, either from want of room, or to please, or perhaps, deceive the eyes, prefer to lay the stoop within the hall. This cannot be done, without causing a wide, ugly, gaping opening in