Architecture, properly understood, is civilization itself. W. R. Lethaby What is civilization? It is the humanization of man in society. Matthew Arnold...

This is an attempt to evaluate architecture in America in terms of our civilization. I have not sought to criticize particular buildings or tendencies: I have tried, rather, by approaching our modern ...

For a hundred years or so after its settlement, there lived and flourished in America a type of community which was rapidly disappearing in Europe. This community was embodied in villages and towns wh...

For a hundred years or so after its settlement, there lived and flourished in America a type of community which was rapidly disappearing in Europe. This community was embodied in villages and towns wh...

Since we are accustomed to look upon the village as a quaint primitive relic of a bygone age, we do not readily see that its form was dictated by social and economic conditions. Where the village had ...

We have learned in recent years to appreciate the felicities of eighteenth-century colonial architecture, and even the earlier seventeenth-century style is now coming into its own, in the sense that i...

In essentials, however, both the life and the architecture of the first provincial period are sound. While agriculture is the mainstay of life, and the medieval tradition flourishes, the New England v...

The forces that undermined the medieval civilization of Europe sapped the vitality from the little centers it had deposited in America. What happened in the course of three or four centuries in Europe...

The forces that undermined the medieval civilization of Europe sapped the vitality from the little centers it had deposited in America. What happened in the course of three or four centuries in Europe...

The Renaissance was an orientation of the European mind towards the forms of Roman and Greek civilization, and towards the meaning of classical culture. On the latter side its impulse was plainly a li...

The first effect of the Renaissance forms in America was not to destroy the vernacular but to perfect it; for it provided the carpenter-builder, whose distance from Europe kept him from profiting by t...

If the architecture of the early eighteenth century in America is a little prim and angular, if it never rises far above a sturdy provincialism, it is not without its own kind of interest; and Faneuil...

The transformation of European society and its material shell that took place during the period we call the Renaissance is associated with the breakup of the town economy and its replacement by a merc...

The transformation of European society and its material shell that took place during the period we call the Renaissance is associated with the breakup of the town economy and its replacement by a merc...

In New England, not unnaturally, the influence of the merchant prevailed in architecture for a longer time, perhaps, than it did elsewhere. Samuel McIntire, a carver of figureheads for ships and moldi...

The dominant designs of the early republican period proceeded directly or indirectly from such books as Stuart’s Antiquities of Athens, and from such well-known examples of temple architecture in sout...

One further effect of the classic mode has still to be noted: the introduction of formal city design, by the French engineer, Major L’Enfant, in the laying out of Washington. Stirred by the memory of ...

From the standpoint of architecture, the early part of the nineteenth century was a period of disintegration. The gap between sheer utility and art, which the Renaissance had emphasized, was widened w...

From the standpoint of architecture, the early part of the nineteenth century was a period of disintegration. The gap between sheer utility and art, which the Renaissance had emphasized, was widened w...

Modern industrialism began to take root in America after the War of Independence, and its effect was twofold: it started up new villages which centered about the waterfall or the iron mine and had sca...

The first contribution to the pioneer’s comfort was Franklin’s ingenious stove (1745). After that came a number of material appliances. Central heating gave the American house a Roman standard of comf...

With business booming and vanishing, with people coming and going, with land continually changing hands, what encouragement was there for the stable achievements of architecture? In vain does the arch...

Between 1860 and 1890, some of the forces that were latent in industrialism were realized in American architecture. Where the first pioneers had fared timidly, hampered by insufficient resources, the ...

Between 1860 and 1890, some of the forces that were latent in industrialism were realized in American architecture. Where the first pioneers had fared timidly, hampered by insufficient resources, the ...

With the little eddies of eclecticism, with the rage for the Mansard roof, or the introduction of German Gothic, and, a little later, the taste for Queen Anne domesticity, there is scarcely any need t...

During the first period of pioneering, mechanical improvements had affected the milieu of architecture, but not architecture itself, if one overlooks such ingenuities as the circular and octagon house...

If the romantic movement in America proved that the architect could capture only a small part of the field, and go no further than the interests of privilege allowed, the building of the Brooklyn Brid...

The decade between 1890 and 1900 saw the rise of a new period in American architecture. This period had, it is true, been dimly foreshadowed by the grandiose L’Enfant, but if the superficial forms res...

The decade between 1890 and 1900 saw the rise of a new period in American architecture. This period had, it is true, been dimly foreshadowed by the grandiose L’Enfant, but if the superficial forms res...

Hardly had the process of concentration and consolidation begun before the proper form manifested itself. The occasion for its appearance was the World’s Columbian Exposition, opened in 1893. In creat...

With the transition from republican to imperial Rome, numerous monuments were erected to the Divine Caesar. Within a much shorter time than marked the growth of the imperial tradition in America, a si...

Since 1910 the momentum of the Imperial Age seems to have slackened a little: at any rate, in architecture it has lost much of the original energy which had been given to it by the success of the Chic...

Since 1910 the momentum of the Imperial Age seems to have slackened a little: at any rate, in architecture it has lost much of the original energy which had been given to it by the success of the Chic...

Before we discuss the influence of machinery upon building, let us consider the building itself as an architectural whole. Up to the nineteenth century, a house might be a shelter and a work of art. O...

To return to architecture. A further effect of the machine process on the internal economy of the modern building is that it lends itself to rapid production and quick turnover. This has been very wel...

The chief justification for our achievements in mechanical architecture has been brought forth by those who believe it has provided the basis for a new style. Unfortunately, the enthusiasts who have p...

The provinces in which mechanical architecture has been genuinely successful are those in which there have been no conventional precedents, and in which the structure has achieved a sense of absolute ...

In the course of this survey we have seen how architecture and civilization develop hand in hand: the characteristic buildings of each period are the memorials to their dearest institutions. The essen...

In the course of this survey we have seen how architecture and civilization develop hand in hand: the characteristic buildings of each period are the memorials to their dearest institutions. The essen...

In order to get our bearings, we shall pull apart, one by one, the principal elements in our heritage of civilization in the United States, and examine them separately. This is a dangerous convenience...

The capital sign of the early settlements beyond the seashore was the clearing; and since the great majority of newcomers lived by agriculture, the forest itself appeared merely as an obstacle to be r...

Let us now turn to industry. The medieval order was disrupted in America before it could fully take root. As a result we have no craft-tradition that is properly native, with the exception of the ship...

On the human side, the prime distinction overlooked by the mechanists is that machine work is principally toil: handicraft, on the other hand, is a form of living. The operations of the mechanical art...

So far we have considered the regional and industrial bearing of architecture: it now remains to examine briefly its relation to the community itself. In the building of our cities and villages the ma...

The aristocracies of the world have never doubted the supremacy of the home and garden and temple over all the baser mechanisms of existence, and the folk-civilizations out of which aristocracies have...

The best introductions to the historic setting of our architecture and civilization are the local guidebooks and histories. See, for example, Stokes’s excellent and exhaustive Iconography of Manhattan...

The best introductions to the historic setting of our architecture and civilization are the local guidebooks and histories. See, for example, Stokes’s excellent and exhaustive Iconography of Manhattan...

Ever since colonial architecture was reappreciated after the Civil War, a large amount of material has appeared on the early architecture of the colonies. Before 1900 the greater part of this was uncr...

Where formal description leaves off, the biographies of our principal architects enter. The following books traverse in order the entire period from the Revolution to the present generation. Samuel Mc...

Portfolios of work by contemporary architects are so numerous that to single out any would be invidious. The files of the Architectural Record, the American Architect, House and Garden, and Arts and D...

As an introduction to architecture in general the formal textbooks are occasionally useful. Let me commend particularly, however, Viollet-le-Duc’s The Habitations of Man in All Ages. The archaeology a...

For the civic and sociological background of this study, consult Professor Patrick Geddes’s Cities in Evolution, London: 1915, likewise his Principles of Sociology in Relation to Economics. The latter...