American renaissance; a review of domestic architecture. Joy Wheeler Dow
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Joy Wheeler Dow
American renaissance; a review of domestic architecture
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664588814
Table of Contents
CHAPTER II ART AND COMMERCIALISM
CHAPTER III THE ANCIENT RÉGIME AND—ANDREW JACKSON
CHAPTER IV HUMBLE BEGINNINGS OF A NATIONAL SCHOOL
CHAPTER VI EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY WORK
CHAPTER VII THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD
CHAPTER VIII REIGN OF TERROR—ITS NEGATIVE VALUE
CHAPTER IX FASHION IN ARCHITECTURE
PREFACE
This review of American Renaissance originally appeared as a series of papers in the “Architects and Builders’ Magazine,” and the interest shown in them as they were brought out and the later inquiry for these numbers of the Magazine have led the publisher to suggest the propriety of putting them in more permanent shape.
With this in view the author has carefully collated the articles, added some new illustrations, and in some cases the plates have been enlarged where the subjects seemed worthy of fuller representation than was possible in the limited space allowed in the Magazine.
The book is intended to be an impartial outline history of American domestic architecture from Colonial times to the present day, and the salutary influence upon it of whatever has been good in past building epochs.
How well the subject has been presented, it remains for the readers of the following pages to judge.
The Author.
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER I
ETHICS
The magnificence of this subject, even of a single branch—the domestic phase—is disproportionate to a review in one volume, in the scope of which, I fear, I cannot achieve much more than a respectable introduction. But even an introduction, like the overture to an opera, is better begun at the beginning.
Civilized man, and especially one of Anglo-Saxon descent, is a home-loving creature. To him the dwelling-place stands for his most important institution. The arts, sciences and traditions he pursues, mainly as they are to minister unto it, and its fruition is the goal of life. About this dwelling-place, then, there must be a very great deal to be said, indissolubly associated as it is with everything in life worth having—one’s childhood, parents, children, wife, sweetheart, and next to these one’s own personal comfort—one’s hours of leisure and recreation. Therefore, just so much as domestic architecture departs in an impersonal, artificial way from whatever relates to or reflects these associations, just so much does it err—does it fail. It will be obvious, upon a moment’s consideration, that any cold-blooded practice or discussion of academic formulæ, alone, looking to the development of American domestic architecture, is hopelessly inefficient.
The home one builds must mean something besides artistic and engineering skill. It must presuppose, by subtle architectonic expression, both in itself and in its surroundings, that its owner possessed, once upon a time, two good parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on; had, likely, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, all eminently respectable and endeared to him; that bienséance and family order have flourished in his line from time immemorial—there were no black sheep to make him ashamed—and that he has inherited heirlooms, plate, portraits, miniatures,
PLATE I.
IN AN OLD-TIME RENAISSANCE GARDEN.
THE GOVERNOR SMITH HOUSE, WISCASSET, ME.
pictures, rare volumes, diaries, letters and state archives to link him up properly in historical succession and progression. We are covetous of our niche in history. We want to belong somewhere and to something, not to be entirely cut off by ourselves as stray atoms in boundless space either geographical or chronological. The human mind is a dependent thing and so is happiness. We may not, indeed, have inherited the house we live in; the chances are we have not. We may not remember that either of our parents or any of our grandparents before us, ever gloried in the quiet possession of as ideal a homestead as is illustrated in Plate I to convey the atmosphere intended; but for the sake of goodness—for the sake of making the world appear a more decent place to live in—let us pretend that they did, and that it is now ours. Let us pretend that God has been so good to us, and that we have proved worthy of His trust. With this amount of psychological preparation, I believe it is possible for every cultivated American man or woman to approach the subject of American Renaissance architecture—domestic architecture—in the true spirit of understanding.
By American Renaissance I allude to no “American eclectic style.” That term “eclectic style,” which so frequently crops out in treatises upon architecture, were you to follow it up, would be found