America Builds

Source Documents in American Architecture and Planning

Leland M. Roth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429708770
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

Architecture requires a broad definition. It involves more than simply questions of style, esoteric theory, or technical progress; it is the physical record of a culture's relationship to its technology and the land, and, most important, of the system of values concerning men's relationships with one another. Hence this volume, like my Concise Hist

VI
The Search for Order

35 L. Eidlitz, Form and Function in Architecture^* 1881

Richardson’s functional and expressive work, so highly respected by his fellows, seems to have served as a catalyst, for increasingly after 1880 architects began to examine their role in society and to seek a clearer expression of building function and structure. Louis Sullivan was far from alone in this, and there follow a selection of essays by his contemporaries which take up this concern. One individual frequently overlooked in focusing on the “Chicago School” is Leopold Eidlitz (1823–1908), active during the third quarter of the century. However, nearly all of his High Victorian Gothic buildings have now been demolished. Born in Prague, Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia), Eidlitz studied at the Vienna Poly technical School and then emigrated to New York; there he worked for Richard Upjohn, whose Gothic work strongly appealed to his own interests. Eidlitz hoped to reunite engineering and building design as he had seen them fused in European Gothic cathedrals. His most important buildings were in New York City, but the work for which he may be best known today is the upper exterior of the New York State Capitol, 1875–83.^†

Eidlitz’s book, The Nature and Function of Art (1881), attempted this reconciliation between structure and design. As he examined work around him, he eventually came to the conclusion that “American architecture is the art of covering one thing with another thing to imitate a third thing which, if genuine, would not be desirable.” The theme of the book he outlined in the introduction: “If architecture is to be a living and creative art, the study of styles must be directed at the art principles manifested in the relation of their forms to contemporary ideas, and knowledge of construction, to the end that new forms, based upon modern ideas and the present development of construction, may supersede the forms of the past” (p. xxi). There was, as he suggested in the heading to chapter 28, a specific “relation of form to function.” All this appeared in print almost a decade before Adler & Sullivan’s pivotal Wainwright Building in St. Louis.

Chapter II. The Aim of Architecture

Science, common sense, and taste supply the world with knowledge. Let us see how art, and more especially architecture, are thriving with the help of this knowledge. In order to form a correct view of the condition of architecture, it will be well to examine its great aim at the present day, to create a new style.

The present condition of architecture may be inferred from the question constantly asked, “Will the civilized world, England, America, France, or any other civilized country, ever have a new style of architecture?” There is no indication that this question was ever asked by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, or by the nations of Europe during the Middle Ages; nor are the Chinese, Japanese, and Persians interested in it at the present day; it is eminently the concern of the so-called civilized world and of the nineteenth century.

If architecture as an art were complete, or if it ever had been perfect at any one time, that is to say, if all the demands now made upon it could be fully supplied by past experience, or if we could find in any one period of its history an answer to every current aesthetic question, there would be no need of progress in architecture; new styles would arise from time to time as society changed its needs and nature, and as human ingenuity multiplied its material; we should then see springing up around us buildings of a character entirely new in expression, representing the many new ideas and wants of civilized society made possible by modern science, and called forth by political, social, and religious changes, and by a vast increase in the best building material. We should be overwhelmed with new architectural forms and combinations, and have not only a new style of architecture, but a constantly growing and changing style. Indeed the various styles of the present century would be spoken of with confidence and approval. The present activity in building has no parallel in the history of the world. The complexity of modern society demands more various buildings than are furnished by any past period of architecture, or by all past periods put together, and the conditions which govern erections vary constantly from those which preceded them. What state of things ever seemed more forcibly to compel a new style in architecture than that in which we live?

And yet, though monuments are built of new materials, in new places, to answer new and heretofore unknown purposes, they merely repeat, when they do not caricature, past architecture, and we call in vain for a new style. A new style, it is evident, will not come simply because it is called for, or hoped for. Architects think of it and dream of it; attempt it and fail; and finally, in despair, change their designs from one style to another, vaguely hoping to stumble upon one that contains all the elements they need, in the combination in which they need them.

As we know of no such struggles in the past, we come to the conclusion that architecture is dead, and that we can do no more than to dig up its varied forms from the past and apply them to the need of the present. The question then becomes, What forms are we to take, Egyptian, or Greek, or Roman, or medieval: The current answer to this question is, Take them all, familiarize yourself with them all; but when you reproduce them, be careful to keep them separate, and to use only such as were originally used together, lest by mixing forms of different periods you produce discord.

And thus the student reads the history of architecture, and if he is very clever and industrious he dives deep into archaeology. Give him a section of a label molding, or of an abacus, and he will reconstruct the building for you from which it is taken. His mind is a museum of architectural history, and architecture becomes to him a knowledge of forms, connected with dates and places, but not quite clearly with the ideas which have given them existence. He finds that these forms harmonize best in the relation in which they are placed by their authors; and in order to preserve the harmony and unity of works of architectural art as they appear in the past, he copies them in the exact relation in which he finds them. Hence mere division into styles no longer affords a well-arranged index of art. It becomes necessary to divide and subdivide styles, until there are as many types almost as there are individual monuments, and when the problem of designing a new structure is met face to face, and it is found that its requirements do not agree with those of any monument erected at least five hundred years ago, the architect becomes indignant at modern wants, and declares them to be outside the pale of architectural art.

It would be unjust to the profession not to remember some good results of this lamentable condition of things, viz., the archaeological work in the excavations of antique, and the active and successful restoration and completion of medieval monuments.

Nevertheless architecture today is practically nothing more than a collection of assorted forms, the elements of which are but little considered, and the origin of which is hardly known. When architects speak of progress in architecture, they mean possible new forms which must be invented with great labor of the imagination. When old forms are applied, it is done without reference to construction and material. A cornice is supposed to be a sort of architectural decoration, and not a stone covering a wall, hence wooden and zinc cornices, cast-iron capitals, gargoyles in places where no water runs, and buttresses where there is no lateral pressure, arches of lath and plaster where there is no abutment, columns which support nothing; balustrades in places where no one can possibly walk, and battlements upon peaceful libraries and schoolhouses. It is true that a very respectable number of modern architects are never guilty of these gross errors, but how many are there who are willing to forego a tower simply because it is not needed either physically or aesthetically, or a flying buttress, if by an ingenious argument it may be justified?

Architectural forms, like musical compositions, contain but few elements, but these are capable of a great number of combinations. Nor is it necessary that these combinations should be laboriously sought for; they arise naturally out of the conditions of the structure, out of the idea which has given rise to it, and out of the material used in its construction. They are of value only in expressing all these conditions, and of no art value whatever if brought about in any other way.

The modern architect, for reasons which will hereafter be discussed, but rarely refers an architectural composition to the idea which has given rise to it. He often ignores or neglects the construction and the possibilities of the material employed, as technical matters beneath his notice, but imagines that after a structure has been technically designed, so far as it is necessary to answer its practical purposes, either by some engineer or by himself, then the labor of the architect begins by enclosing the structure on the outside and lining it on the inside with a skin of architectural forms gathered from his general fund, in accordance with the dictates of his taste.

Chapter XIX. Form and Construction

Architectural construction teaches the application of well-known mathematical reasoning to questions arising in statical mechanics. It deals primarily with the laws which determine the just proportions of matter under a given relation, and with the use of certain given materials; and, secondly, it investigates possible forms or possible relations of material, as also the application of mechanical laws to all available materials for all possible purposes. In this manner methods of construction are multiplied, and new materials are brought into use. Methods of construction are geometrical demonstrations in matter of mechanical ideas, and are for that reason not works of fine art. Fine art means representation and not demonstration. The author of a demonstration of an idea is, therefore, not an artist—but inasmuch as the work produced by him is to the uninformed mind often a satisfactory representation of an idea, without becoming absolutely a demonstration (which can be the case only when the construction is mathematically understood), the effect upon the subject is very much akin to that of a work of fine art in this, that it produces surprise, or, as it is commonly called, a pleasurable emotion.

Surprise is enhanced in the degree in which the construction excels as a scientific achievement, and also in the degree in which the essence of the argument involved is sufficiently revealed to betray, not the scheme itself, but its fitness for the purpose.

Methods of construction also appeal to the imagination, and compel admiration for boldness of conception, daring, and enterprise. Hence it follows that superior or inferior methods are applied to monumental structures in the degree in which these monuments rank in the scale of ideas represented by them.

It needs no special argument to show that form is the result of construction, and that construction determines the elements of form. Form and construction are indeed so intimately related that they may be advantageously connected in the same chapter, that we may, as it were, step from one to the other, and gain thereby in the understanding of both.

It is rarely the case that one and the same structure represents more than one idea; but inasmuch as fine art deals with acts and emotions (phases of an idea), we can point to but few modern monuments which do not involve the consideration of a number of acts and emotions; and it needs to be considered what elements of form and construction may be used to serve the architect in expressing them. To illustrate: the Greek temple contemplates the idea religion, also a habitation for its services, a receptacle of the god, accessible only to a priest, whose act, whatever it may be, forms no element in the structure, as this act is not observed by anyone. No congregation is admitted inside the temple. So far as the people are concerned this temple is the habitation of a statue without function or motion; and it follows that this purpose may be represented by a single cell which needs expression only on the outside. A Christian church, on the other hand, admits into its interior the whole congregation, and accommodates various groups as they range themselves for prayer, private and congregational, music, confession, baptism, the communion, processions, and sermons. The service and government of the church also demand vestry rooms, a chapter house, corridors, and cloisters; and thus a church structure may be termed a group of cells. In this case, as in many others, cells need not be separated from each other by walls, but may be indicated by colonnades, screens, or archways, for the reason that the separation does not arise from a physical necessity but from an aesthetic necessity which demands a representation of the separate acts which illustrate the idea in the organism of the group; and also for the purpose of distinguishing special acts by giving greater height to the cells devoted to them, and a more refined treatment in modeling and decoration.

It frequently occurs that the architect is called upon to join two or more groups, as is the case, for instance, in parliamentary structures. Such a combination of groups becomes a pile, wherein the groups are separated sufficiently to prevent practical inconvenience, and mainly to give an expression to the whole, which will tell the story of the functions of each group, and hence of the whole pile.

A series of single cells, coordinate in their import and use, may be treated as divisions of one great single cell, as, for instance, the rooms of a hospital, prison cells, warehouse divisions, clerks’ rooms attached to one and the same department, committee rooms, and so on. If in such a hive it becomes necessary to distinguish one or more special cells, it may be done by simply accentuating and grouping their openings as well as by distinguishing them from others in magnitude, special modeling, and decoration. This may be done, say, in a warehouse where the proprietor’s office occupies an appreciable part of the building; or in the case of a physician’s room in a hospital, and so on. But in structures of a monumental character it should be the care of the architect to see that the representation of no separate purpose of the structure be omitted, for all features of it, if justly treated, contribute to its expression.

It is the function of the architect, in the first place, to master the idea to be expressed, to understand the various methods used to illustrate it by acts, and to appreciate the import of the resulting emotions, that they may be able to designate the various human groups which form the basis of his design.

It is often the case that the proprietors of buildings, or managers of building enterprises, commissioners, committees, or other persons do not understand the relation between the idea and the structure, or the meaning of the structure as a work of fine art. In that case the architect must supply the defect and point out these relationships; he must, if need be, awaken a sufficient interest to supplant the prevailing prejudice that a structure is merely intended as a convenient shelter for its occupants.

The next step is to determine the magnitude and form of the single cells and their relative positions, the modeling, as it were, of the group. This process is impossible either as a problem for the imagination, or as a fact to be reduced to drawing, without a thorough knowledge of methods of construction and of the principles which govern these methods. We cannot think of spaces merely; we must think of them as surrounded by matter. This matter is called into use, and its mass is determined by laws of mechanical construction. Now, it is not true that a structure (a monumental structure) is, first of all, a shelter, a place for human convenience, and afterward an object of fine art—that the domain of architecture begins when the engineer and builder have done their work of planning. It will be too late then. Architectural art must, as we have seen, initiate the work and take hold of it at the very beginning.

Why is it, then, that a different view of the functions of construction and architectural art is entertained by a large majority of modern architects? An examination of this may help us to a better understanding of the true relations of construction to architecture as a fine art. Many architects believe that every structure is a single cell, the outer form of which has no special relation to its interior. Architects love to modify this single cell in its outline, especially if it be of a respectable magnitude; but these very modifications amount only to arbitrary projections which are not the result of a relation of parts. In addition to this they view a structure as consisting of three parts— an exterior and an interior (which need artistic consideration), and the construction proper, which is placed between the two, and which needs no artistic treatment. This construction is to be overlaid on both sides with forms which please the fancy of their author. These forms do not involve mechanical ideas, inasmuch as they may be affixed to, or supported by, the real construction. Can this be architecture? No. If construction were the vulgar thing it is said to be, the work of the mere builder or engineer; if this construction were not an integral part or motive in the aesthetic development of a monument, and if it were not possible so to modify this vulgar thing as to make it an artwork, why...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Preface
• I. THE LAND AND FIRST HOMES
• II. TRANSPLANTATIONS IN THE NEW WORLD
• III. BUILDING A NEW NATION
• IV. THE LURE OF THE PAST, THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE
• V. AGE OF ENTERPRISE
• VI. THE SEARCH FOR ORDER
• VII. DICHOTOMY: TRADITION AND AVANT-GARDE
• VIII. PURE FUNCTION, PURE FORM
• EPILOGUE: WHERE ARE WE AT?
• INDEX