Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/345

 1868.] Progress of Architecture in the United States. 285 to be finished in one tint. Now this is very fair indeed ; for, it places all on an equal platform. But it should be en- forced, or it is worse than unjust. It becomes a delusion, a cheat, and a snare. The fact is, our architects, who design for such things, do it more with a view to carry off the prize by display, than otherwise. And it not unfrequently happens, that on testing those designs they are, in their most showy parts, found to be absolutely impracticable. As to approximate estimates, they are a mere humbug, to use a legitimate though vulgar term ; and are trumped up to suit the occasion. Still, those very esti- mates are often the means of carrying off the prize for a certain inferior design. And, while on this subject of designing- public buildings, the thought naturally suggests itself • Why should our Ameri- can architects so -generally fly to the renaissance or any foreign style, devised originally to tickle the vanity of a king who gloried in being, in consequence, styled " The Magnificent ?" Ours is a Government of a People, and not of a Prince. Our public buildings should establish that fact, by the decision of character and unfripperied nobility dis- played on their unquestionable eleva- tions. What should the visitor to our country say, who had seen our Ministers, at foreign courts, dressed in the digni- fied plainness of republican apparel, if he beheld a flimsy copy of some part of the Tuilleries made to represent one of our Government buildings? Would not his ideas of our manly simplicity be somewhat changed by the sight ? And yet, in competitions, as above, such efforts are actually exhibited. Let us hope that the good American sense of 'hose whose office it is to judge in the mater, will reprove all such puerilities ■ y a stern rejection. Individuals, in the adornment of their dwellings, may use the same liberty that they can take in dressing their persons. Their folly or their taste is solely their own. Not so the buildings erected for the Republic — such must not be allowed to misrepresent it. Let architecture assume its true posi- tion among us, as the indication of our institutions, presenting always and everywhere one unmistakable front of rigid truth, under whatsoever guise of style. Let there be no meretricious ornamentation put on to create an effect of which we, as a sensible people, might be ashamed. And let all our architects understand this feeling. It is a subject to be dwelt upon ; and naturally leads to the question : Why is it, that comparatively barbarous nations have, in far less enlightened ages, in- vented a national style for themselves ; and that our people — with all the im- petus of inventive genius of a high order — should condescend to accept, or bor- row one from abroad ? The Moors were a people vastly inferior to our race ; and yet we see the wonderful concep- tions they left behind them.* Spain was overrun by them ; and still, at this da}', we can trace but little affinity be- tween the Moorish and the Spanish styles of architecture. The latter avoided a slavish copy of their enemy's works, and struck out a path for them- selves. The Romans borrowed ideas from Grecian models, but they estab- lished a complete and individual style of their own. Why cannot we do the same? Why depend upon English, French, or Ger- man publications for all our ideas ? It is unbecoming a country advancing so steadily in the front rank of nations as this is ; and will one day be a subject of reproach. That architecture may progress in a manner worthy of us, it is highly neces- sary that a knowledge of its rudiments should be acquired in our public schools. That such a science, coming so inti- mately home to our very firesides, should scientific race of the ages referred to ; and it was but natural that wonderful conceptions should abouud whei-' ever Saracenic influence had spread — Eds.
 * The Arabians were by far the most enlightened and