Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/580

 470 The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [Jan., our street-fronts, it is because they are not disposed to credit the will for the deed. Our English friends are rather dis- posed to be hypercritical in this matter ; and deserve to be taken to task, at times, for undeserved severity. It is not our intention to defend palpable faults on the part of our designers ; but we must exclaim against the too con- stant fault-finding of a people, whose own architecture is so open to objec- tions, which we never utter. For in- stance, even the London Builder, usually disposed to be lenient to our errors of judgment, spoke in one of its leaders of " the American trick}' use of wood as a means of embellishment." Now, no people in the world have more to answer for in the " tricky" sense than the English builders. The most pala- tial terraces of the fashionable West End of London are but mockeries. The Hon. Horace Greeley, in a visit some years since to the mammoth metropolis, was so struck with the grand appear- ance of one of these terraces, (Carlton, we believe,) that he wrote home a glow- ing description of its splendid effect, the whole being_executed in stone, giving it an appearance of solidity which added to its grandeur ! Poor Mr. Greeley was decidedly "tricked." The truth is, the whole thing was but a sham ! a comjM- sition of plaster on lath! And of such are the most of those grand compila- tions of London street architecture. Now, if we Americans in the igno- rance of our comparative youth, are guilty of reprehensible trickery in wooden embellishments, it is because our buildings are types of our country, whose staple national material is wood. Stucco, cement, or plaster of any kind, is not in itself, a material at all, but a mere composition of materials. So that the expression "tricky" is most deci- dedly more applicable to our elder cousin than to us. But, let all that pass. We are not disposed to deal in unkindnesses. Our present object is to review our position in Street Architecture. In every city of the Union this sub- ject is one of very great and growing interest to-day. Notwithstanding the unprecedented rise in materials and labor of every description, the desire of all our citizens is to emulate each other, in the laudable effort to make our busi- ness and dwelling fronts, not alone at- tractive, but tastefulby elegant ; and thus render our cities remarkable for their street architecture. That we cannot expect any .thing like a coincidence of taste, we are aware ; for, in such a great diversity of ideas, it is impossible to form any thing ap- proaching a unity of effect. Yet, if architects will but act together, for the general good, always provided, more- over, as the lawj-ers have it, that the proprietors, their patrons, will permit them, there can be little difficulty in arriving at a general tasteful conclusion. L T n fortunately, there exists in every community an obstinate ambition to excel a neighbor. One man builds his house of a certain proportionate height, with openings to match. His neighbor builds his higher, and also increases the height of the openings, so as to dwarf the next door concern as much as pos- sible, without the slightest regard to proportion. Sometimes an overweening ambition will in this way lead a man up two stories higher than good sense would permit him to go ; and the conse- quence is that our street architecture is thus ruined for those buildings. In all our cities we meet this inequality of height, style, proportion, and taste ; and the eye is constantly offended with the horrid apparition of blank brick side- walls, rising high above the neighboring roofs, and holding, in their grim and apparently slender grasp, the florid front of most pretentious stone or iron. When we take into consideration the narrow frontage of business houses, on the best commercial streets of all our cities, it becomes a matter of necessity,