Reader's Guide — 11th Edition

Ancillary  ·  Articles
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Chapter XVFor Architects

Contents

  1. Early Oriental Architecture
  2. Greece and Rome
  3. Modern Architecture

Although architecture is more and more coming to be recognized as one of the fine arts, it is at the same time so largely practical and utilitarian that its theory and methods may to a great extent be gathered from systematic reading. In the article Fine Arts in the Britannica, by Sir Sidney Colvin, it is well said that “The original or rudimentary type of the architect, considered not as a mere builder but as an artist, is the savage, who, when his tribe had taken to live in tents or huts instead of caves, first arranged the skins and timbers of his tent or hut in one way because it pleased his eye, rather than in some other way which was as good for shelter.” Whether the architect wishes to learn how the eye may be pleased, to study critically the history of architecture, or, like the less imaginative savage who failed of being the first inspired architect, to consider comfort and shelter rather than beauty and charm, he will find much to help him in the Britannica. If his interest is chiefly practical, he should consult the chapter For Builders in this Guide.

The architect should read first—and he will constantly be referring to it afterwards—the article Architecture (Vol. 2, p. 369), equivalent in length to 235 pages of this Guide and illustrated by 140 figures, about one-third of which are photogravures. The article is historical in the main and a brief outline of it is as follows:—

  • Egyptian
  • Assyrian
  • Persian
  • Greek
  • Parthian
  • Sassanian
  • Etruscan
  • Roman
  • Byzantine
  • Early Christian
  • Coptic Church in Egypt
  • Romanesque and Gothic in
    • Italy
    • France
    • Spain
    • England
    • Germany
    • Belgium and Holland
  • Renaissance: Introduction
    • Italy
    • France
    • Spain
    • England
    • Germany
    • Belgium and Holland
  • Mahommedan
  • Modern
    • Classical Revival in British Architecture
    • Classical Revival in Germany
    • French Classicism
    • Barry’s “Commonsense” Style
    • Gothic Revival in England
  • Gothic Revival in France
  • Queen Anne Style
  • “Free Classic” Style
  • Arts allied to Architecture
  • Craftsmanship Ideal
  • Architecture in United States (Figures 97, 98, 99, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138)
  • English Churches
  • English Public Buildings
  • English Domestic and Street Architecture
  • Recent French Architecture
  • Germany
  • Other Countries

The part of the article dealing with Modern Architecture is by H. H. Statham author of a well-known book on the subject. Earlier sections are by R. Phené Spiers, late master of the Royal Academy’s Architectural School, with sections on the Romanesque and Gothic in France by W. R. Lethaby, principal of the Central (London County) School of Arts and Crafts.

Before continuing his more systematic historical readings the student may well read the article House (Vol. 13, p. 810), illustrated with 12 figures (3 plates), including four particularly fine examples of “half timbered buildings,” and one English house, the Jew’s House at Lincoln, dating from the 12th century. An interesting article on Mural Decoration (Vol. 19, p. 16) is by a remarkably distinguished trio: William Morris, poet, craftsman and painter, John Henry Middleton, late Slade professor of fine art, Cambridge, and Walter Crane, the well-known illustrator and decorator. This is illustrated with 16 figures in black and white and with a reproduction in colours of a wall-painting from a Roman villa of the early Empire. The article deals with: reliefs in marble and stone; marble veneer; glazed bricks or tiles; hard stucco; sgraffito; stamped leather; painted cloth; printed hangings and wall-papers; and painting.

If the student of architecture would know about the buildings of prehistoric times, in which there was little architecture in the sense of a fine art, he should read the articles Archaeology, (Vol. 2, p. 344), Lake Dwellings (Vol. 16, p. 91), Stonehenge (Vol. 25, p. 961) and Stone Monuments, Primitive (Vol. 25, p. 962),—the last two of particular interest to the building engineer because it is so puzzling a problem how these great blocks could have been brought such distances and set in place without modern appliances.

Early Oriental ArchitectureEngineering problems will be the most interesting in a large part of the student’s reading about Egyptian architecture. Supplementing the 4,000 or 5,000 words on this subject under Architecture, accompanied by seven illustrations, there is much information in the articles Egypt (Vol. 9, p. 21); Abydos (Vol. 1, p. 81) and Karnak (Vol. 15, p. 680); and in the articles Pyramid (Vol. 22, p. 683), (by W. M. Flinders Petrie) and Sphinx (Vol. 25, p. 662) by Francis Llewellyn Griffith, another well-known Egyptologist. In the former article the author points out that the outside and inside work on all the pyramids was excellent and that the casings were not a mere veneer but were “of massive blocks, usually greater in thickness than in height, and in some cases (as at South Dahshur) reminding the observer of horizontal leaves with sloping edges.” The massive character of the roofing of the sepulchral chambers is indicated by Prof. Petrie’s estimate that “in Pepi’s pyramid it is of three layers of stone beams, each deeper than their breadth, resting one on another, the thirty stones weighing more than 30 tons each.” But neither Stonehenge nor the pyramid was really an engineering problem. Here, and as in all his studies of early architecture, artist or engineer will find religion and worship the aim and the reason of the building even more, if that is possible, than in the great European cathedrals of comparatively recent times.

In the article Babylonia and Assyria there is a brief section (Vol. 3, p. 108) on Art, supplementing the treatment under Architecture. It is interesting to note that even in Assyria architecture was trammelled, reactionary, governed by Babylonian styles and using brick and clay because Babylon did, although there was stone in Assyria, and none in Babylonia; and keeping the heavy brick platform foundation which the Babylonian architects had adopted because of the marshy character of their country, although there was no need of such construction in Assyria. Here too the function of architecture was largely as an aid to religion: as shown in the article Nippur (Vol. 19, p. 707), with its description of the “ziggurat” or artificial mountain in the shrine, built probably 40 or 45 centuries B. C. One temple was 272 ft. square, with seven storeys, each smaller than the one below and thus surrounded by a terrace, each dedicated to a planet, each coloured a separate tint, the first probably 45 ft. high, and the total height 160 ft.

In Assyria great palaces of the 9th, 8th and 7th centuries B. C. have been found, and these are probably the earliest large buildings of any architectural importance not religious in their purpose; but this distinction must not be carried too far, for the king was sacrosanct, half priest and half god, and his palace was a shrine.

Greece and RomeAlthough the main treatment of Greek and Roman architecture is in the article Architecture, the student should read the articles Greek Art (Vol. 12, p. 470; equivalent to 70 pages in this Guide; written by Percy Gardner, author of Grammar of Greek Art) and Roman Art (Vol. 23, p. 474; equivalent to 40 pages of this Guide; written by H. Stuart Jones, director of the British School at Rome). The article on Greek Art contains 82 illustrations, many of them halftones. It makes clear the dependence of the other fine arts in Greece on architecture—and on religion—in showing that the greatest sculptures were adjuncts to temples, and (p. 471–472) in a discussion of the architecture of Greek temples calls attention to four basal principles of Greek architecture:

(1) Each member of the building has one function and only one, and this function controls even the decoration of that member. Pillars support architraves; their perpendicular flutings emphasize this. Moulding at a column’s base suggests the support of a great weight.

(2) Simple and natural relations prevailed between various members of a construction.

(3) Rigidity of simple lines is avoided; scarcely any outline is actually straight. Columns are not equidistant.

(4) Elaborate decoration is reserved for those parts of the temple which have, or seem to have, no strain laid upon them.

The article Temple (Vol. 26, p. 603) gives plans and general information about Greek and Roman sacred architecture, as well as Hebrew, Egyptian and Assyrian temples; and the reader should study the article Parthenon (Vol. 20, p. 869) and the diagram in that article, and the article Pergamum (Vol. 21, p. 142) and the two plates which accompany it.

The article Roman Art (Vol. 23, p. 474) is probably the first brief and authoritative treatment of a topic long overshadowed in popular interest by the earlier art of Greece and the later art of Italy. It begins with a history of recent research. Architecture, pre-eminently the most Roman of the arts as combining utility with beauty, is outlined (pp. 476–477 especially) and the main point in regard to Roman architecture is brought out as follows: “the specific achievement of the Roman architect was the artistic application of a new set of principles—those which are expressed in the arch, the vault and the dome,” as contrasted with the rectilinear buildings of the Greeks. The arch, particularly the triumphal arch, is specifically a Roman product and is specifically Roman besides in being an expression of reverence for governmental authority,—which, it should, however, be remembered, cannot be separated from religion. Among the most important of Roman sculptures and particularly reliefs are those of the arches, described in the articles Arch (Vol. 2, p. 342) and Triumphal Arch (Vol. 27, p. 297), the latter with eight figures. The part of the article Aqueduct which deals with Roman aqueducts (Vol. 2, pp. 241–243, with 2 plates, 6 illustrations) will interest the architect as well as the contractor or engineer. And he should read the article on the Roman architect and writer on architecture, Vitruvius (Vol. 28, p. 150), whose book so strongly affected the Renaissance.

Before taking up modern architecture as distinguished from ancient, the student will do well to examine the architecture of some more remote peoples—for instance,

  • Aztec (Vol. 5, p. 441 and p. 677)
  • Abyssinian (Vol. 12, p. 232)
  • Hittite (Vol. 13, p. 537)
  • Indian (Vol. 14, p. 428, with 4 plates)
  • Japanese (Vol. 15, pp. 181–182)
  • Chinese (Vol. 6, p. 214)
  • Byzantine (Vol. 4, p. 906, with 2 plates), and the article Constantinople (Vol. 7, p. 3)

Modern ArchitectureThe last topic will serve as a transition to the modern architecture of Europe, especially because the influence of the Byzantine was so strong in the early church.

The study of the Italian Romanesque and Gothic in an elaborate section of Architecture (Vol. 2, p. 391) may well be supplemented by reading the articles on the Italian cities in which this art is preserved. The following list is roughly chronological, the cities named first being those in which there are the oldest churches.

Ravenna, Pisa and Venice, for Byzantine Romanesque.
Milan for Lombard Romanesque
Pavia
Brescia
Bergamo
Piacenza
Parma
Modena
Bari for Southern Romanesque
Molfetta
Palermo for Sicilian Romanesque
Messina
Monreale
Cefalu
Würzburg, for Romanesque in Germany
Genoa for Italian Gothic
Assisi
Orvieto
Verona
Perugia
Siena

In the same way, for Gothic in other countries, the student should read:

Aix-la-Chapelle for French Gothic
Le Puy
Angoulême
Arles
Nimes
St. Denis
Noyon
Senlis
Sens
Reims
Le Mans
Oviedo for Spanish Gothic
Leon
Avila
Segovia
Lerida
Toledo
Burgos
Seville
Salamanca
_
Durham for English Gothic
Lincoln
Salisbury
Gloucester, etc.
Aix for German Gothic
Mainz
Worms
Spires
Cologne
Tournai, Louvain, etc., for Belgian,

and in general, the articles Cathedral, Nave, Aisle, Choir, Apse, Chevet, Lady-Chapel, Vault, Flying Buttress, Pinnacle, Clerestory and Triforium. The article Cathedral has plans of Canterbury, Salisbury, Durham, Ely, Chartres, Sens and Angoulême and a perspective of Amiens cathedral.

In the same way the student of the Renaissance architecture may supplement the section in the article Architecture (p. 408, etc.) by reference to the articles on the cities in which the great Renaissance buildings stand. But now “the career of the individual has to be taken into consideration,” so true is it that the Renaissance in architecture as in scholarship was intensely individualistic. The article Architecture points this out and in this section is largely biographical in its treatment. The reader should study the following separate articles also

For Italian Renaissance

The French Renaissance

For this period, less individual than in Italy, the reader will find it best to study the geographical articles. Let him read

Spanish Renaissance

English Renaissance

German Renaissance

Renaissance in Belgium and Holland

On Mahommedan Architecture the student should read not only the section (Vol. 2, pp. 422–427) in the article Architecture, with eight illustrations, but the separate articles

On the more recent period, the 19th century, roughly, the student should supplement the last part of the article Architecture by reading the following articles

For the Classical Revival in the British Isles

English Gothic Revival

France (Figs. 122–129 in article Architecture)

  • L. P. Baltard
  • J. L. C. Garnier

The Last 50 Years

George Frederick Bodley England
R. Norman Shaw
William Morris
Harvey L. Elmes
Charles R. Cockerell
Liverpool (and Fig. 86 in Architecture)
H. H. Richardson United States (and see Plates XV and XVI, and Figs. 97, 98, 99 in article Architecture)
Richard M. Hunt
Charles F. McKim
Stanford White
William R. Mead
Russell Sturgis
Steel Construction

Classical Revival in Germany

French Classicism

English “Commonsense”

The sections of the article Architecture dealing with France and Germany in the last two generations may best be supplemented by a study of the articles Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest.

The following is a brief alphabetical list of architectural articles and topics in the Britannica, including topics for the builder and contractor.