A-B-C of architecture

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

Introduction 1

I. The Greek Classic 16

CHAPTER I Type: Post and Lintel

Material: Early , Terra-cotta; later , Marble.

Forebears: Assyrian and Egyptian.

Habitat: Present Greece , Black Sea , Grecian Sea, and

some portions of Asia Minor.

Descendants: Later Greek, Byzantine in the East, Roman in the West.

IN considering the Greek Classic we cannot enter into a long discussion of the earlier discoveries and the various changes or transitions which took place, and which are historical links between the period of the Persian power in the world and the domination of the Greeks.

That the shores of the dEgean Sea were covered with Grecian settlements, and that the islands were peopled with Greeks who followed the ideals of their own peculiar fancy and inheritance, is a well-known historical fact. We cannot, however, consider in detail any of these progressive expressions; we 16 wish only to have the reader comprehend that there has been little survival of written or spoken idealism; on the other hand, a great deal of the architectural and decorative expression of this fascinating period in civilization still remains for our consideration. We must remember that, preceding the period when Homer was supposed to have written the folk-lore stories of Ancient Greece, one could go back into history for a thousand years or more, during which time the civilization and culture of this race created monuments and works of art which still amaze the modern world. We have, therefore, a period of Greek art which covered a period greater than our own Christian era, and which overlapped that of Assyria and indeed some of the later Egyptian.

There was the domination of the mainland over the islands, and the control of one island over the minor island; there were changes in methods and overlapping transitions from one form to another. And there was also a climax, a decadence, and a renaissance such as we ourselves have had in our own Christian epoch. The native religion of the Greeks was entirely unlike the bloody and morbid fantasies of the earlier races in Asia Minor and Egypt, and the architecture 17 and decorative details of the temples reflected this new freedom in idealism. The gods and goddesses reigned over the land and the sea, over plant life, over love and motherhood, and over the business of the trader and of the warrior; as a consequence, temples were erected which voiced the pleasant human relation existing between these kindly deities and their beauty-loving worshipers.

The discovery of marble gave the Greeks a medium which far surpassed any material hitherto used in building. The stone could be found in large blocks for the column, and it was so delicate in its texture that the gentleness of the earlier Assyrian modeling in clay could be surpassed; moreover, it was so dense in its mass* that the greatest load necessary could be imposed upon it. The earlier method of terra-cotta, with its highly colored surface, carried through the Greek transition and into the marble period; for it is well known that the Greeks colored their marble architecture with pigments of reds and yellows and blues. They had a supreme knowledge of the sweetness and purity of line, and they corrected linear defects by the transmission of light, or through the optical delusion created by parallel lines in the steps and other horizontal details of the temples, 18 also in the upright lines of the columns, and in the relation which one column held to another. These subtleties of the Greek architects are still being discovered and analyzed by archaeologists and architects, and they reflect the cleverness and keenness of this highly gifted people who seemed to have been blessed by the Almighty with wonderful temperament, self-control, and freedom from mental bondage, together with an ideal building material and a climate and sky which could not be surpassed for purity.

The post, or column, and the lintel, or entablature, are the fundamentals of the Greek Classic style, for while in the earlier days domes and arches were used, the Greeks rejected these in their fully developed architecture.

There is a very interesting likeness between the developed and glorified Greek Parthenon and the ordinary, primal method of construction. In order to explain this theory we will accept a commission to design and erect a barn or shed, with the understanding that the reader will assist us in the laying out of the scheme.

We wish to build a rough building about thirty feet wide by fifty feet long, and with a height of about fifteen feet. As we have standing timber of sufficient size and growth to supply our needs, we will use the trunks of the trees for our framework, and we will begin by staking out the corners. Then we will cut timber for a sill or base course, A. After hewing this timber so that it has two flat sides, we bed it and level it with stones, or with posts or piers, until we have the outline of the building laid out. The timbers must be halved and pinned together at the corners, so that the entire frame or outline is secure and rigid. Our next step will be to cut timber for the posts, B; this should be approximately sixteen inches in diameter at the base. The diameter at the top will be smaller; let us put it at fourteen inches. We 20 then cut the cross-tie, C, or the timber which afterward becomes the architrave under the Classic rule; this is needed for the support of the roof frame, and corresponds to the first sill timber, but is to be secured to the top of the posts. We then divide the longer side of the rectangle into six parts, as we wish a spacing or inter-columnation of ten feet between the posts; for this we require six columns on each side and two additional columns for each end between the corner posts. Now that we are ready to proceed with the setting of the post or column on the sill or base timber, we place a block of wood under the top timber or tie, C, the future architrave, and another block under the column resting on the sill or base piece, A.

This we do to prevent the load of the roof from splitting the post. When this frame is finished we have all of the fundamentals of the walls of the Greek temple, with the column or post and its crude base, the bottom block, and the capital, or the top block. The architrave, or tie, C, binds them together at the top, and the undeveloped pedestal or small piece of wall under the base or sill piece fills in the irregularities of the ground so that the base may be level, with the sill, A, binding the plan together. As the width 21 or span of the building is rather great (thirty feet) for a cross-timber, we devise a method of equalizing the load of the roof by using the direct support of the outer posts and adding two additional posts in the interior of the building ; we then place a thirty-threefoot timber, D, crosswise, supported on each extremity by the outer post and by the two posts in the interior of the building, with the ends projecting over the face of the architrave, or tie, C. Imposed upon the ends of this cross-timber we parallel the tie or architrave, C, with a smaller timber continuing through all four sides of our building; and at one-third of the length of the timber, D, crossing from side to side, we place an upright, the length of which is determined by the slope of the roof; on the top of this upright we secure a small timber, or purlin, E, running parallel to the tie, C, at the side and at right angles to the cross-timbers of the roof truss. We have the truss, or main support of the roof in this cross-timber, the upright, the purlin, and the timber following the slope of the roof. This is strong enough to support itself and any additional load, transmitting this load to the post and the earth. On this truss we build with smaller timber or rafters, resting first on the timber 22 above the tie, or architrave, C, and projecting beyond the outer face of the posts to protect the side walls from the rain, thus forming a cornice over the face of the row of posts and the future wall, and afterward resting on the purlin, E, or the timber parallel to the plate, and meeting at the center of the building, or at the ridge-pole.

Here you have the Greek temple in its beginning and in its crudest form. Consider how you will peel the bark from the posts, and hew the sides of the posts into some semblance of form ; or, perchance, decorate them with perpendicular lines in paint, or cuts with a knife, in order to accent the idea of perpendicular support. How you will enjoy 23 yourself in trimming the block at the top of the post and adding to its interest and its appearance of crowning the post by carving cross-lines or horns ; again you must take the clumsiness out of the block at the bottom of the post by cutting its edge, or by making moldings of it. Undoubtedly you will be tempted to ornament the ends of the cross-timbers that project over each post, and the ends of the minor timbers or rafters above this timber which project and form the cornice, and to play with the board which you must use to cover the smaller holes between these rafters. Again, you will use the larger holes just over the tie between the ends of the truss to dry your hunting trophies, since you will naturally allow these holes to remain open for the passage of smoke. You will line the walls with boards or slabs, and you will most naturally do this on the inside of the posts, so that the roughness of the posts will not irritate your fair skin. When you have finished your building, you may enter into the presence of the gods, for now you have a Greek temple in its structural and natural beginnings. Such refinements as you or your children may give to this structure in later life will only add to the similitude, but you will still continue to use the 24 sill, the post, and the plate, or tie, because they have conformed to the laws of nature, and because they will carry the weight of your roof to the ground.

These posts or columns, as they were used by the Greeks, have their own family name and their own personal characteristics; indeed, the details of the entire structure conform to some particular style or type or order. Of these orders the Greeks composed three distinct and different types. The Doric, called by the name of the Dorian Clan, A ; the Ionic, B, from the Ionian Clan; and the Corinthian, C, which is supposed to have originated in the city of Corinth.

The Doric has no base. It is more sturdy than the other two in its form, and the capital has no decoration. The Ionic has both base (the block at the bottom of the post) and ornamented capital (the block at the top); moreover, there is a scroll at the corner or side of the square top, above the decorated portion, before it plays into the round of the column; the Corinthian has both base and capital rather more ornamented than the Ionic, and the capital is of greater height. Here you have natural plants or acanthusleaves, in two rows, and at the upper corners of the capstone or abacus (the square por^ 26

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Etfypt/dn

VARIATION IN CAPITALS tion of the block over the ornament), there are small scrolls which grow from behind these leaves. The entablature/ with the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice, each possess their own peculiar and “order” characteristics. The ends of your rough truss become “triglyphs,” being cut with three grooves, and the spaces are ornamented with carvings of shields and skulls, just as you originally placed your armor and your trophies in the open holes in order that the smoke and the heat of the interior should dry them.

Greece reached its architectural zenith under Pericles about 460 to 425 b.c., when the Parthenon was built on that marvelous acropolis in Athens; and this marked the high note of architectural expression in the ancient world.

When Greece succumbed to the insatiable Roman she bestowed upon her conquerors a culture and supreme expression which in turn captured and enslaved the Roman Empire, and her artists and artisans were employed by the Latins to the improvement

1 The entablature is the entire portion of the building wall above the column cap; from the cap or block, there is first the architrave, then the plain portion with the holes, the frieze, and finally the overhanging portion, the cornice.

and the betterment of the Roman mode. We have no more Greek Classic, but its influence recurs again and again in the history of style, and we shall find in later days that the spirit of the Greek Classic is vital in its influences over the methods of expression in architecture.

CHAPTER II Type: Post and Lintel

Material: Travertine, lava-stone, brick, and marble.

Forebears : Etrurian.

Habitat: Wherever the Roman Empire and Republic

extended itself.

Descendants: Basilican, Romanesque, some Byzantine influences.

THE Roman Classic originally flourished throughout the continent of Europe, in the British Isles, in the north of Africa, in the Spanish peninsula, and in Asia ; in short, wherever the Roman Empire held its sway. In the south of France there are existing to-day many examples of this style in the form of aqueducts, viaducts, temples, and coliseums. Many of the earlier works were torn down for their building material, and many were destroyed through the sheer vandalism of fighting tribes.

The Roman Classic belongs to the post- 30 and-lintel type — that is, columns supporting stone beams or lintels of heavy masonry. The dome was employed for circular buildings, and barrel roofs with intersecting vaults were used in the Basilicas, or ancient law-courts, and in the baths ; arches were used in the triumphal monuments.

Rome, being a world power in politics and trade, was universal and democratic in its use of material and forms. Nevertheless, we may consider the early Roman as a post-and-lintel type, since the architecture was more strongly influenced by the Greek Classic than by those other architectural forms which were adapted and developed for special purposes.

The two orders of architecture which are .distinctly Roman and which form part of the five orders of Classic architecture are the Tuscan, so called from Tuscany, a district in Italy, E, page 25, and the Composite, a composition of Ionian and Corinthian, D, page 25. The Tuscan is a heavier and less cleverly designed type than the Doric of the Greek Classic, but it is an outgrowth of the earlier Etrurian examples ; it is nearly * similar to the Doric in its parts; the Composite is a combination of the Ionic scrolls, or volutes, and the Corinthian acanthusleaves. The three Greek types or orders of 31 architecture were copied and modified by the Romans, until the Greek cleverness was lost and the Roman types became independent, though retaining a general family resemblance.

Grandeur and bigness, and a lavish use of marbles, metals, and color, together with ideas and ornaments looted from the more civilized conquered countries, are characteristics of the Roman architecture. The walls, built by slaves, were of rubble or of long Roman bricks. The wall surfaces were covered with the volcanic Travertine stone, or with marbles from Greece and Africa.

The Romans put their greatest efforts into their temples and triumphal arches, and these stand for all that is best in Roman architecture. The forms and parts of the Roman temple were similar to those used by the Greeks. Therefore we find the parts of the order duplicated in the Roman temple. There is the base, or pedestal, the shaft, or column, with its distinctive base and capital, the horizontal entablature and its component parts, the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice, each part or molding of each subdivision being decorated, molded, or carved with its own special curves and distinctive ornaments, in much the same fashion as the early Greek type.

Each of these parts had its individual name as well as its family name, and it was so designed that its proper value was obtained not only as an isolated member, but with a consideration for a proper balance of all the parts. Natural plant life was used as the model in the ornaments and decoration, and while the ornament was somewhat conventionalized, it retained the flow and much of the modeling of the real plant. Shields and trophies of war were incorporated in the panels and used in conventional forms for decoration and ornaments. The glory of Rome and the fabled divinity of its emperors was blazoned in the grandeur and importance of the masses. The roofs were not steep, and the ends of the roofs, over the short side of the building, were called pediments, and decorated with statuary, or with inscriptions glorifying the gods, as in the Greek temples.

The Romans were a dominant race, successful in their wars, and conquerors of most of the civilized world. The spirit of sureness which grew with success in war shows itself in the pride and dignity of the monuments they erected; and even in their utilitarian structures, such as the high, round-arched, arcaded aqueducts which dominated the 33 landscape with their mass, and with the bigness of their huge arcades of stones.

The coliseums were high and oval in plan, arcaded and terraced, with receding banks of seats and with arched windows and openings. The outer walls, under the entablature, were built of columns with arches between the columns or with pilasters, a flat counterpart of the column, applied to the face of the masonry walls. The horizontal lines dominated the design as the use of the columns and cornices demanded they should. When more than one order was used, as in buildings of more than one story in height, the Doric or Tuscan, which gave the effect of greatest strength, was invariably employed to support the Ionic, which in its turn supported the delicate and highly ornamented Corinthian. The surface of the stones and the wall joints were treated to conform to the scale of the order used in each successive story. Thus the heavier treatment of wall decoration, corresponding to the Tuscan order, was used in the lower stories, and became more delicate, until in the upper stories it harmonized with the lightness and grace of the Corinthian. The intention was that the lower orders should give always the impression of strength and support.

In the round buildings, where the Romans used the vault or dome, they designed the inner line or surface in the form of a complete hemisphere, the face of which was decorated with caissons or panels; while the exterior of the dome showed the form of a saucer supported with successive steps made up of heavy masonry at the base. This weight of masonry was necessary in order to prevent the arch or dome from spreading at the base from its own weight. The Romans did not inherit the circular line, the characteristic form of an arch or dome, from the Greeks. This form came to them from the East, where domes and arches had been used from the earliest historical periods. The Pantheon at Rome, built at the beginning of the Christian era, is a supreme example of a circular domed building. Its perfection proves to us that the Romans had been long familiar with this method.

As the Roman Empire extended itself, so also did its architecture, and so long as Rome was the dominant world power Roman Classic flourished everywhere.

The Roman Classic is descended from the Etruscan (Etruria, a pre-Roman country on the west coast of Italy) and the Greek architecture. The Etruscan influence was sup- 4 35 planted by the Greek when the artists of the world came to the Imperial City filled with the conventions and architectural formulas of Greece at the height of her artistic glory; and they quickly imposed the new cult upon the mistress of the material world.

The character of Grecian architecture, which reached its highest point at the time of Pericles in the building of the Parthenon, 435 b.c., had a great influence on the growth of the Roman Classic in Italy; but it was colored and modified by artists from other countries, whose aim it was to put their individual stamp on the monuments they created. The entire world was ransacked for means of expression. The domes and arches of the East were used as well as the columns and moldings of the Greeks; indeed, anything in the way of new and striking structural ideas that came to hand.

We cannot assert that the Roman type is a successor to the Greek art; it is rather a continuation of the native art of Italy, and for a time it was contemporaneous with the Greek, though influenced, of course, in its method of expression by external and foreign influences.

The successive styles which followed the Roman Classic had their foundation in the 36

Basilicas, or the ancient law-courts, which were used as places of worship by the Christians.

In the eastern empire, the Byzantine, the successor to the Classic and a later Greek type, had its roots in the older civilization of Asia Minor; it was fostered by the Greek Catholic Church, since it was designed to meet the requirements of the Church ritual. The style took its name from the ancient city of Byzantium, the Constantinople of to-day. In the west, the Romanish, Romance, or Romanesque style, another successor to the Classic and a Latin type, followed architecturally the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church; and since the country was largely volcanic in character, travertine and lava were extensively used as building material.

Roman Classic has no real parallel, though, as stated before, its beginnings were contemporaneous with Greek Classic. As Rome dominated the greater part of the known world with its policies, so it subdued the incipient and poorly defined architectural expression of its conquered races.

Chapter III

Cylinder-shaped , barrel-vaulted roofs , round arches , horizontal lines , roof-loads on thick walls, towers at intersections of nave and transepts, round apses. Volcanic stone, various colors being used for ornaments, pagan columns and caps. Roman Basilica type, and Roman and Greek Classic.

Southern France, Northern Italy, Northern Spain; some examples in England, partly Norman.

Descendant: Round and pointed arch Gothic.

THIS type of architecture is found principally in that part of Europe now known as southern France; but its habitat extended toward the east over the northern portion of Italy, and in some degree down the west coast, and into the northern portion of Spain. There are examples in England which were influenced somewhat by the early round-arch Saxon; in the later days it was merged into the type which be- 38

Type:

Material:

Forebears:

Habitat:

gan to develop in Normandy at about the tenth century, and which may be called Norman or Norman Romanesque.

There are examples also in the northern states on the banks of the Rhine, which may be accounted for by the trade connections by way of the Adriatic shores. The Byzantine type influenced the northern examples in their plan, and in the form of decorative features, without affecting them in the richness of color. This northern type, and that of the south of France, made slow headway at first, since the countries themselves were new and more or less uncivilized.

As the temples of the pagan times have been used to explain the architectural types, so in the Christian period we will follow the same practice. The temples and churches were not often destroyed through the exigencies of warfare, and to a great degree they were the best examples of the new styles.

The Latin cross was used in the Romanesque plan, and the roofs were built of stone constructed in the form of a barrel vault, or cylinder, without cross-vaulting. This vault continued through the entire length of the nave, and was finished at the apse, or the easterly end, with a half-dome, interrupted only by the arch and the supporting wall of 39 the tower or lantern at the crossing of the arms of the cross, or transept. This tower was sometimes square, occasionally octagonal, and frequently merging from one form into the other. The apse of the church is surrounded with smaller temples of semicircular plan, but lower in height than the main apse. There are small square belltowers at the west front, with the various stories marked by horizontal lines and with rows of round-arched windows, growing more numerous and lighter in design as the tower grows in height.

The center aisle, or nave, two or three stories or divisions in height, is not wide, as the load from the massive stone roof would not allow great spans. The walls are thick, and the side aisles are separated from the nave or center aisle by rows of heavy columns, which were mostly loot from the pagan 40 temples of the neighborhood. The roof of the side aisle is low, and its height allows for small windows in the wall above, which open directly into the nave. This division in the height of the wall is called the triforium in the later styles, and is the beginning of the “clere” story of the Gothic types. Properly speaking, the clerestory is the division on the high wall which comes over the roof of the side aisles.

The capitals are crude examples of the earlier pagan types, with a heavy block or abacus over the ornamented portion of the capital; this was made necessary by the heaviness of the round arches which sprang from these capitals, and the construction as a whole replaces the Classic form of entablature. These columns with the arches over supported the heavy stone wall of the nave below the clerestory, and also carried the load of the round-arched stone roof.

As a round arch, with a load, however slight, added to its own weight, has a natural tendency to spread at the bottom, it was necessary to build these side or supporting walls of great thickness to prevent their collapse. It was this unstable tendency of the arch to which the Greeks objected. Out of the building necessity which this tendency 41 of the round arch created you will find growing the natural and structural change toward the concentrated piers of the Gothic and its pointed stone vault and ribs.

The ornaments used in the Romanesque church are crude, but they show a family resemblance to the earlier pagan type, and, in form at least, are similar to those used in the east in the Greek Byzantine styles. The leaf ornaments lack the sharp-pointed termination of the Byzantine. The chief forms of ornamentation are the interlaced designs, basket patterns interwoven with religious symbols, and crude attempts at decorative effect by means of bands of moldings, carved with dog-tooth ornaments, and geometrical patterns of coarse mosaics. The character of these mosaics was affected by the materials at hand, the volcanic stones of the country. Unlike the Byzantine people, the builders of the Romanesque churches had. no marble at their disposal, but the native stones had their own interesting blues, yellows, and reds which gave an effect that was good if not so brilliant as the Byzantine marbles. With the exception of the molding and tooled columns or piers the surface of the exterior wall is rough.

The roofs are not steep, and slope ap- 42 proximately as tradition demanded and the absence of snow allowed. The floors are laid out in slabs of stone with interlaced mosaics, an inheritance from the Roman Basilica and the parallel Byzantine style, but lacking the civilized richness of those types.

The arches are square on the edges, or sometimes beveled with a chamfer, the square edge being cut at an angle; they are also molded on the edge with a coarse, round molding which was sometimes decorated. A heavy projecting molding at the outer line of the arch stones is another characteristic of the style. The arches are divided into groups of which the largest is flush with and built into the wall of which it is a part; the second or inner arch has its face receding slightly from the surface of the first, and is ornamented with the huge bead at the edge or with tooth ornaments. This arch is succeeded by others, and the innermost arch of all, or the one over the door or window opening, is filled in with a stone panel or tympanum, supported on blocks or corbels at the spring of the arch and carried by the side stones or jambs. These panels, and frequently the under or return surface of the arches, are carved with crude illustrations 43 of Christ, of the Virgin, and of saints, prophets, and angels.

The shape and form of the moldings conform somewhat to those of the Classic period, but they are coarse, owing to the coarseness of the material used, and crude because of the natural lack of culture in a new country.

In France the Romanesque period dated from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. In England we have the Norman Romanesque from the building of Westminster Abbey, a.d. 1050 to about a.d. 1200. In Italy the style was a little later in developing and a little earlier in completion, though its use continued up to the fourteenth century. In the northern countries of the Rhine district the style was in use for some time beyond the birth of the Gothic in France.