Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/320

 260 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [October, the front wall, offensive to the metro- politan taste of the New Yorker, who places the tall, promontorial stoop in front of the main entrance, which is highly ornamented ; and, too often, so heavily, that one hesitates to enter, for fear of being knocked down bj^the over- hanging masonry. Most Boston houses belong to the elevator kind. In this crowded, venerable city they did not have the least spare room for a tree, the true land-mark of a home. Can this be the cause that the Bostonians are swarm- ing from their cold, bleak, dreary eleva- tors, like bees from their uninhabitable hives, over the land and the whole world, to raise — the wind? Allow a few questions, and we have done : 1. Is it good taste, or not rather very badly monotonous, in a house — elevator or home-building — to make the doors and windows, in all the stories, of the same form, i. e., either all square, or all arched ? 2. Is not the arch, par preference, a sign of strength or force ? 3. Ought not the arch rather, for this V;ery reason, be reserved for the foun- dation story, first story, and perhaps, the second story, and a different lighter form be given to the windows in the higher stories ? 4. Ought not the third story, invaria- bly, to be apparently divided by a pro- jecting line, to please the eye with the feeling of strength and security ? 5. Would it not be in good taste to line the two lower stories with brown stone, and finish the upper part with brick ? or, to use granite below, and marble above? 6. Is the roof of Mons. Mansart not rather like the old, bygone ladies' coif- fure of his time, i. e., that of Louis XIV. ? 7. Is not the Italian taste, generally adopted in our roof building, infinitely purer and nobler, on the principle that the less we see of hats, caps, covers and roofs, the better ? 8. Is the received mediae val church- building fashion indeed a good one ? I have seen the principal churches in France, Germany and England, but would, if I had time, incur again, with alacrity, the fatigue of a voyage over the stormy, melancholy ocean, to see and admire once more the most beauti- ful Basilica in Munich, built by King Ludwig ! 9. Ought we not to manage the streets — the beginning and end of our houses — in a better manner than up to this time ? Cobble stones, everywhere at hand, are well enough at first ; but when the horrible mosaic formed by them is, by hard usage, irreparably de- stroyed, they should be replaced by oblong square granite blocks — as the best street mosaic material — long since, and now used in Europe in such streets, bridges, etc. They should be kept well swept, to need no sprinkling, and always instantly repaired during the night, when injured or mined during the daj-- time. 10. Should we not prepare avenues, or boulevards, for horseflesh, and parks for promenaders ; or, at any rate, sepa- rate the roads for vehicles and riders in parks as regularly from the promenades as we do it in all our streets^ Horses run away, and become, at times, un- manageable in parks, too 1 Form. [There is certainly a constant and high gratification dependent upon the opportunity and habit of beholding handsome trees and shrubbery, to say nothing of the concentrated beauty of flowers; but, we are afraid, that this gratification, from its very nature, must always be rural or suburban. Our correspondent, however, evidently refers to localities of the latter kind, or, at all events, intermediate between suburban and urban. Regarded as to front pave- ments, Philadelphia ought to be well anchored, in the view of our essayist, because, taking her en masse, trees are found everywhere, often remaining long amidst the encroachments of trade. But, somehow, their use is very incidental, every man deferring the pleasure of sitting under " his own vine," until he shall have a country-place of his own. — Eds.]