Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/341

 1868.] Progress of Architecture in the United States. 281 on the part of our American community, for delving up long denounced absurdi- ties in design, and re-vamping them, to create a sensation in the building world. No, our people would not tolerate the architect, who would try to impose upon them some of the unsightly nightmares of architecture that may be seen in London. It is true, that we have had foisted on us some of the lumbering- conceptions of Lombardy ; but they had a short day ; and will never be re- peated. To the railroad companies is due much, of the credit of advancing the in- terests of architecture, by the erection of depots in novel styles, many of them fine specimens of their class. The large hotels followed the lead of the railroads ; and gave us, in different parts of the country, some stupendous, and really magnificent palaces of sojourn. The Government, too, commenced, and carried to completion, several large city post-offices and custom-houses, almost all of which are in the same style and plan, as though unity of sys- tem were the point aimed at. This was an error on the part of the authorities, for here they had an admirable oppor- tunity of disseminating a taste for va- rious styles among a people whose op- portunities of seeing really good exam- ples are at least limited. In the neighboring Dominion, the Government, at every town, presents the traveler with its two only specimens of architecture, namely, the court- house and the jail. Here, at home, the post-office, inevitably the same, meets the eye of the observer everywhere. And thus we cannot help seeing the great distinctive features of the two governments: the one affording every opportunity of enlarging the intelli- gence of its people — the other fully prepared to confine it. The introduction of iron, into archi- tectural construction, was another great impetus to improvement ; and its effects were quickly discernible, in the tearing down of numerous business buildings, and their re-erection, with all the dis- play of ornamentation, which iron is capable of giving in the cast. This great reform was visible in our leading- thoroughfares, at our ferry landings, and everywhere that metal could be made available. Buildings were put up decorated with the five orders of archi- tecture, as seen in the Colosseum at Rome ; and every style — including the most highly enriched tit-bits of taste to be had in the voluptuous Rennaissance — were lavishly displayed for our admi- ration. The French Roof — or, as it is often called, the Mansard — was and is in grea,t request. Public and private dwellings, and even stables, are covered, with this new roof; and no man, who wants a fashionable house, will be without it. But the progress of architecture does not stop at external display. It is to be found in the interiors, also ; and nu- merous and striking are the innovations on the comparative simplicity of the dwellings of yore. And here, let us un- derstand, that in this indisputably "fast" country, " yore" means only a few years back on the track of time. For we have no "old houses," that is, in the Euro- pean acceptation of the term. The peo- ple of that venerable Continent would not wonder at a house dating its foun- dation back to the time when Christo- pher Columbus was a youngster, going to school. Here we look, with inquisi- tive " want-to-know" gaze, at the house in which General Washington held his "Headquarters," some ninety years ago. How few are aware of the fact, that the oldest piece of architecture in this country was imported into New York, from Pompeii, by Mr. Delmonico, to serve as a marble porch, to adorn the entrance to his hotel, on the corner of Beaver street, in that city. Aye, there it is, somewhat more the worse for wear since its admission into our Union, than during the two thousand years of its previous retired existence.