Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/434

 356 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [Dec, for Greek and Roman fame, whether in the palace of the millionnaire, or the home of the operative. Our streets were panoramic elevations, and continua- tions, of classic porticos, pediments, antce, and all the features which apper- tain to Roman or Grecian composition. The Architecture of To-day is a far advanced step in the great march of improvement ; and shows out very dis- tinctly against the classic back-ground, we have just been speaking of. Its features are those of the reformed school of Europe in a mitigated form. We have not had the full spirit of the renais- sance infused into our architectural con- ceptions as j-et. Probably on account of the National repugnance to the gew- gaw which is too frequently the neces- sary accompaniment of that modern rejuvenation. In New York some efforts were made to direct the public taste in this line; but they failed to establish their claim ; and the Academy of Design, and the church of Dr. Bellows, are the memorials of that transmigration of mediaeval art-life, which remain, to draw the wondering ej'es of the million to their highly-colored incongruities. Our' public buildings have shown a disposition to reform, in a moderate Avoy, from the pedantic classic, hitherto so rigidly observed ; but have been care- ful to retain Falladio, as their monitor and guide. In this there is safety for the public taste ; because he, of all authorities, is the one whose judgment may be relied upon at all times, as an artist with a philosophic eye. Ecclesiastic Architecture, in our day, comes to the front as seniores priores of studied and discriminated taste. We find no repetition of the bar- barous admixture of styles, the pedi- mented Grecian with the minaretted Gothic, or the hundred other cool ab- surdities to which, hitherto, our ecclesi- astical constructions appear to have been inevitably doomed. And from the ultraism of mediaeval taste, the sacred edifices, with one exception, have fortu- nately been kept free. Domestic Architecture, in its wide domain, shows the largest amount of importation of the building fancies of the day in old Europe. We have in our own store-fronts all that "Saracen or Christian ever knew" of architectural art ; and their details are blended up with native judgment, which will play most extravagant pranks at times, to form a variety of styles, which might well, for all practical pur- poses, be congregated into one, and aptly called "Commercial." The Dwelling-house Architecture of to-day is a vast improvement on the trials of the past ; and, in our first-class houses, rapidly approaches the palatial. Our merchant princes seem to vie with each other in the spirit of improvement ; and all that wealth can do is ready to be done. Genius in Design is the one thing wanted ; and it behooves our pro- fessional brethren to meet that want in a manner worthy of their present profit, and their future fame. THE PROJECTIONS OF THE SPHERE Are the Orthographic, the Stereographic, the Gnomonic — all of whose names are derived from their qualities — and Mercator's — so ealled from the celebrated naviga- tor. The Orthographic and the Stereographic are those that afford the usual disc maps of the world, in two hemispheres. The Gnomonic — thus titled from its pro- jection being of the nature of a sun-dial plate — requires six maps for the cubed whole earth ; and is very seldom seen ; there being, however, a fine instance in the General Atlas of the London Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is excellent for Maps of the Stars. Mercator's— developed from the cylinder circum- scribing a sphere — affords a desirable sailing-chart.