CHAPTER VI

RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND AND AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE

=Transition.=--The direct effect of the Italian Renaissance did not reach English architecture until the seventeenth century, when Inigo Jones introduced the Palladian style. The so-called “Anglo-Classical” style which then ensued had been preceded by a period of transition from the Gothic, which is usually divided into “Elizabethan” and “Jacobean.” These represent not so much styles as mannerisms. Just as, according to Shakespeare, the Englishman derived the fashion of his clothes from various foreign sources, so, at this time, he decked out what was left of the Gothic style with details borrowed from Italian, French, Netherland, and German models.

The debased form of Gothic, known as Perpendicular, involving the use of the low, four-centered arch, emphasising vertical and horizontal lines, and covering surfaces with mechanically repeated geometrical patterns, lingered on into the sixteenth century. But conditions in England were changing. The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), waged by the nobles on one another, had completed the break up of the Feudal System. Castles were destroyed and the powerful families exterminated or represented mainly by minors. Statesmanship passed into the hands of an intellectual middle class whose power was advanced by the growing prosperity of trade and commerce.

=Italian Influence.=--This was augmented, as the century advanced, by the foreign craftsmen who sought refuge in England from the religious persecutions in the Netherlands and the Huguenot war in France. They introduced not only superior skill of workmanship, but the French, Dutch, and Flemish modes. Meanwhile Henry VIII, in surrounding himself with a new kind of political advisers, had also welcomed foreign artists to his court. Among them were Holbein, a versatile designer in various mediums as well as a great portrait painter; Torrigiano, who executed =Henry VII’s Tomb= in =Westminster Abbey= (1512); Giovanni da Majano, who modelled the busts of the emperors in the terra-cotta medallions over the entrance-gates of Hampton Court; Benedetto da Rovezzano, designer of the Tomb of Cardinal Wolsey, which has perished, and a certain John of Padua, who is supposed to have been the architect of =Longleat House= in =Wiltshire=.

Henry’s partiality for Italian artists may well have been inspired by the example of Francis I, whom he met in 1520 on the celebrated “Field of the Cloth of Gold.” At any rate there are many examples of sculpture, dating from the first half of the sixteenth century, represented in tombs, choir-screens, and organ-screens, which were purely Italian in their decorative design and of marked refinement. Terra-cotta enrichments, of similarly pure Italian craftsmanship, are to be seen in certain specimens of domestic architecture, such as =Sutton Place=, near =Guildford=, Surrey, and the entrance tower of =Layer Marney, Essex=, both of which were completed in 1525.

The suppression of the monasteries, 1536-1540, resulted in a revival of architecture, for in many cases the buildings were bestowed upon laymen who converted them into mansions, while a large part of the Church funds was devoted by Henry VIII and Edward VI to the erection and endowment of Grammar Schools.

ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN PERIODS

Under Elizabeth England reached a hitherto unexampled prosperity and the period is one of country-house building, in which especial attention began to be paid to the allied art of landscape gardening. Among the most famous are: =Burghley House= and =Kirby Hall=, =Northamptonshire=; =Knoll= and =Penshurst=, in =Kent=; =Charlecote=, =Warwickshire=; =Longleat House= and =Longford Castle=, =Wiltshire=; =Wollaton=, =Nottinghamshire=, and =Haddon Hall=, =Derbyshire=.

Some of the mansions built during the reign of James I, the so-called “Jacobean Period,” are =Holland House, Kensington=; =Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire=; =Old Charlecote House, Kent=; =Audley End, Essex=; =Hatfield, Hertfordshire=; =Ham House, Surrey=; =Bramshill, Hampshire=; =Bickling Hall, Norfolk=; and =Aston Hall, Birmingham=, which was completed in the following reign.

The houses mentioned in both these lists are constructed of stone or brick; but timber construction was still employed, especially in Cheshire, Lancashire, and Shropshire. To these periods also belong the following Colleges. In Cambridge: =The Gate of Honour, Caius=; =Emmanuel=; the courts of =Sidney Sussex= and =St. John’s=; the quadrangle, =Clare=, and =Nevill Court=, =Trinity=. In Oxford, =Jesus=, =Wadham=, =Pembroke=, =Merton Library=, and the =Gateway of the Schools=, now the =Bodleian Library=.

It is of little advantage to try to distinguish between the Elizabethan and the Jacobean period. Both represent a progression from the Gothic in the direction chiefly of superior conditions of comfortable living; but they retain many of the Gothic characteristics, while the modifications, more or less Renaissance, are in the manner of embellishments, and applied not according to any structural principles but as opportunities of imitation were available.

=Books of Design.=--There were books on the use of Classic Orders. The first to reach England was the work of the Italian Serlio, who had become domiciled in France. In 1567, John Shute, a painter and architect, who had been sent to Italy by the Duke of Northumberland, brought out his “Chief Groundes of Architecture,” the first work of its kind published in England. In 1577 appeared the pattern book of Vredeman de Vries of Antwerp, representing Italian details, debased by Flemish and German ingenuity, which was responsible especially for the prevalence of _strap-ornament_, that is to say, geometric designs of flat bands, studded with knobs, as if they were metal or leather work, attached to the wall by rivets.

The decorative inspiration, therefore, was purer at the beginning than in its subsequent development. For example, the decorative use of the orders is better in some of the earlier buildings than the later ones. In fact, what chiefly distinguishes the Jacobean from the Elizabethan is an increasing grossness of detail, apparent in the furniture and fittings, as well as in the embellishment of the exteriors.

=Architect’s Function.=--These conditions were fostered by the circumstances under which the building was conducted. There were architects whose names survive, the earliest being John Thorpe, the designer of Kirby, Burghley, Longford Castle, and Holland House. But the custom of the time seems to have limited the architect’s function to the supplying of a plan and design; probably more in the nature of a sketch than of actual detailed drawings, after which the building was handed over to the sole control of a master-mason, who worked out his details from the pattern book. Naturally, such a divorce of construction and design was little likely to result in the consistent development of an architectural style.

=Plans.=--The square plan was retained from Gothic times in the case of colleges and in some mansions. But usually, to secure more air and light the fourth side was dispensed with, the gate-house, which had been its central feature, becoming a separate building. And the tendency was to prolong one side and shorten the wings, so as to produce the E plan, or to lengthen the wings by projecting them on each side of the main façade, thus forming a letter H. Or the wings are replaced by outlying pavilions joined to the main building by corridors. Sometimes the plans are irregular, representing the additions made to an original Gothic house.

=Roofs.=--Many Gothic features were preserved. Oriel and bay windows were frequent, and the windows retain their mullions and transoms, and increase in size, being often carried up through several stories. Square or octagonal towers abound, occasionally battlemented but generally finishing in a parapet or cresting, the roof being concealed or rising in a low cone or pyramid. Similarly, the main roofs vary; high, flat, and low ones even occurring in the same design. They are covered with lead or tiles, and surrounded by balustrades, formed of battlements, successive arches, or pierced ornament. Gables are edged with scroll-work, while dormer-gables, as in the Netherlands and Germany, are stepped or carried up with variously curved outlines. The chimneys, single or grouped in stacks, continue to be a prominent feature, their decoration, occasionally, as at Kirby and Hatfield, involving a use of orders.

=Use of Orders.=--The orders when applied to the façade, are treated with little regard to purity of style and are often disfigured with strap ornament. When used in interior decoration, the pilasters frequently diminish in width toward the base, or swell out in bulbous curves; there being little or no limit to the extravagance of form that columns and pilasters alike assume in chimneypieces and furniture. Indeed, during the Jacobean period the grotesqueness of ornament notably increased, accompanied by a corresponding coarseness in the modelling. Moreover, this characteristic invaded the gardens, where trees and hedges were trimmed or “pleached” into the shape of birds, or beasts, or fantastic designs.

However, although the mansions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods will not stand scrutiny on the score of architectural propriety, they have besides their picturesqueness a quality that is aptly characterised in Cowper’s phrase, “the stately homes of England.” They possess dignity and, above all, are homelike. They bear the stamp, not of the professional architect, but of the variegated family life that they have fostered for successive generations.

=Interiors.=--And this is equally true of the interiors. Comfort is not sacrificed to stateliness. The chief apartments may attain grand proportions, but they do not give the impression of being reserved for merely ceremonial purposes; they are centres of domestic life. The Gothic feature of the Great Hall was preserved; and, in the early examples, while the family and the retainers still took their meals together, a dais occupied one end, the opposite end being separated from the buttery or larder, and the kitchen by a richly decorated wooden screen, above which was the minstrel gallery. The conspicuous feature of the hall was the fireplace, with a chimneypiece on which the most elaborate decoration was lavished, the rest of the walls being panelled in wood to a height of eight or ten feet, leaving a space above for trophies of the chase or family portraits. This type of hall is still retained in all the dining halls of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges.

Adjoining the hall was a _solar_ for the intimate life of the family. Gradually, as the taste for privacy increased, a separate room was used for dining and other living-rooms were added until the hall came to be more and more an entrance hall, and the main living apartments were disposed as in Italian and French custom, on the second floor. This caused the staircase to be treated as a prominent feature, which, as it were, prolonged the spaciousness of the hall. Occasionally of marble or stone, it was usually constructed of oak with massive newel-posts and balustrade, richly decorated.

In the earlier examples, and even in some later ones, as Inigo Jones’s design of =Chevening House=, the apartments are arranged on the “thoroughfare” system, opening into one another en suite. But the inconvenience of this in the entertaining of guests led to the adoption of a corridor along one side. By degrees this was widened and developed into what is the most distinctive feature of these old English houses--the Long Gallery. Lit with tall windows, often with deep bays that form attractive alcoves, it served as a pleasant sitting-room and equally as a place for exercise in wet weather, while its inner wall provided space for pictures. In fact, this room seems to have been the origin of the term “_picture gallery_.”

Special care was bestowed upon the ceilings. Occasionally the beams were exposed, but the usual practice by this time was to sheathe them with lath and plaster, the surface of which was decorated with stucco relief in geometrical designs. At times the flat of the ceiling was connected with the walls by a concave member, called a _cove_. Often, when the wainscot was not carried up to the level of this, the upper part or dado also was decorated with stucco relief.

It is characteristic of the use of the pattern books that the motives of decoration employed in the exterior and interior embellishment are used also in the furniture of the period, which on the whole is distinguished by its massiveness, exuberance of ornament, and the mechanical method of the workmanship. For much of the ornament is either cut out of the flat wood with a jig-saw or carved upon forms that have been turned upon a lathe.

ANGLO-ITALIAN PERIOD

With the accession of Charles I commenced an era of more refined and cultivated taste. The King, as a young man, escorted by the pleasure-loving Duke of Buckingham, had visited the Court of Spain in search of a wife, and had seen the wonderful array of Titians and Rubens’s in the Royal Gallery. Later he had married Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henri IV, who, under the inspiration of his wife, Marie de’ Medici, was introducing the classical style into French architecture.

=Inigo Jones.=--Charles himself had planned to erect a palace at Whitehall that should surpass the Louvre in grandeur and found in Inigo Jones (1573-1652) an architect fully qualified for the ambitious enterprise. He had made a prolonged study of the Renaissance style in Italy, spending much of the time in Vicenza, where he had become an ardent admirer of Palladio’s work.

=Whitehall Palace.=--His plan of =Whitehall Palace= provided for an immense rectangle, 1152 by 720 feet, surrounded by façades, three stories high. The interior court was to be divided into three parts by two wings of two stories, which were to be united to the main side-façades by transverse wings, so that the plan would have embraced a large court and six smaller courts, one being circular in plan. However, a scheme of such magnificence was entirely beyond the King’s means and the only part erected was a small portion of one of the interior wings--the =Banqueting House=, which now abuts on the street that retains the name, Whitehall.

The façade that it presents to the latter is in the Paladian style and of extreme purity. Constructed throughout of fine, rusticated masonry, it consists, above the basement, of two stories, decorated, respectively, with the Ionic and the Corinthian orders, while a well-proportioned cornice, surmounted by a balustrade, defines the sky-line. An admirable feature, apparently originated by Inigo Jones, for it is not found in Italy, is the slight prominence given to the central three window bays by substituting columns for pilasters and breaking the entablature and cornice round them. The interior contains a handsome vaulted hall, divided into three aisles.

Another design by Jones, which recalls Palladio’s Vicenza gates is the =Water Gate=, now in the =Embankment= =Gardens=, which formerly was the water entrance from the river to old York House, which has been destroyed. He also built =S. Paul, Covent Garden= (1638), a severe but imposing design that suffers from its proximity to the market, the arcades of which are also his. His design for the river façade for =Greenwich Hospital=, in which the two lower stories are included in one colossal Corinthian order, was executed by his pupil, John Webb. Among the examples of Jones’s domestic buildings are =Raynham Hall, Norfolk=; =Wilton House, Wiltshire=; =Chevening House, Kent=; =Stoke Park, Northamptonshire=, and =Coleshill, Berkshire=.

But the erection of country houses and indeed all architectural activity were seriously interrupted by the Civil War and the consequent unsettled conditions.

=Wren.=--More fortunate in opportunity was Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), upon whom it devolved to repair some of the damage wrought by the Great Fire of London, in 1666. He was never in Italy and his foreign experience was limited to six months in Paris, where Bernini’s design for the Louvre, fortunately never executed, was being commenced. Consequently he did not possess the technical equipment of Inigo Jones and was not always successful in the decorative sheathing which he applied to the construction. It was on the constructive side that his genius lay and in this he was assisted by his previous career as a mathematician and professor of astronomy at Gresham College and the University of Oxford.

Wren’s earliest architectural works, executed before he went to Paris, were the =Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge= and the =Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford=. His scientific knowledge was demonstrated in the ceiling of the latter, which has a span of 68 feet. After the fire of London he planned to lay out the devastated part of the city on new and broader lines; but the reconstruction was defeated, as city replanning is liable to be in our own day, by the opposition of property owners. Meanwhile a plan he had previously made for the enlargement of S. Paul’s was now superseded by the necessity of erecting an entirely new building.

=S. Paul’s.=--The plan of S. Paul’s is a cross with short arms; both the choir and nave, comprising three bays, flanked, like the transepts, with aisles. The choir terminates in a small apse; the transepts in semi-circular porticoes and the west end in a vestibule with lateral chapels.

The internal piers are embellished with Corinthian pilasters, supporting an entablature and attic, the latter containing clerestory windows, which, however, though giving light to the interior, are not visible from outside. The ceilings, throughout, are composed of repetitions of flat, saucer-like domes.

But the dominant feature of the interior is the octagon at the crossing, which comprises the width not only of the nave and choir but also of the aisles. It permits four great arches, opening into the nave, choir, and transepts, and four smaller and lower arches, connecting with the ambulatory, which is formed by the aisles. This arrangement is somewhat similar to the octagon of Ely Cathedral and may be compared with the plan of the dome of the Invalides.

Surmounting the eight pendentives of St. Paul’s is a circular gallery, known as the “Whispering Gallery,” above which rises a circular peristyle. The latter’s entablature supports the interior dome, which mounts to a height of 281 feet from the floor.

In recent years the barrenness of the interior has been considerably relieved by glass mosaic decorations, designed by Sir William Richmond.

=The Façades= comprise two stories; the lower embellished with the Corinthian order, the upper with the Composite; the line of division being at the height of the aisles. Thus, on the north and south sides of the building, the upper part of the façade is only a screen, carried up for the purpose of composing with the mass of the dome. The flying buttresses of the latter are concealed behind it, while light penetrates through it to the clerestory windows. Admirable features of the lower story of the side façades are the semi-circular porticoes, of beautiful design, which project from the ends of the transepts. Excellently proportioned, if somewhat bald, is the west façade, which is a double storied portico of coupled columns, supporting a pediment. This is flanked by two towers, which rise above the sky-line in diminishing stories, terminating in bell-shaped cupolas. Not only are they fine compositions in themselves, but they are also designed in fine relation to the dominating feature of the dome.

=The Dome.=--The latter, in mass and outline and in the relation achieved between its several parts, can lay claim to being the most majestic dome of the Renaissance. Among the elements that enter into its impressiveness is the emphasis given to the lowest course of masonry, which well suggests the union of the nave, choir, and transepts and forms a substantial stylobate to the peristyle. The latter, again, is exceptionally fine in proportion. In appearance, relatively higher than that of S. Peter’s and related with more freedom to the mass above, it is formed of coupled columns attached to radiating buttress walls; every fourth space between the columns being filled with solid masonry, which is relieved in the way of light and shadow by a decorated niche. The effect is at once strong, stately, and of airy lightness. Very fine also, in its peculiar accent of effectiveness is the proportion of the upper drum to the superincumbent mass of the dome, whose curve is lifted to a culminating springiness by the height and freedom and sensitive proportions of the lantern.

No less remarkable is the scientific knowledge expended in the construction of this externally superb masterpiece. It is composed, like the domes of the Invalides and the Panthéon in Paris, of three shells, although the arrangement is different. For the intermediate shell consists of a cone of brickwork, 18 inches thick. It springs from behind the upper drum, and on it bears the stone lantern, ball, and cross; the last being 365 feet above the ground level. It also helps to bear the weight of the timber supports of the outer shell, which is constructed entirely of wood, sheathed with lead. The inner dome, resting on the peristyle, is of brickwork, and of the same thickness as the cone.

=Wren’s Churches.=--Between the years 1670 and 1711 were erected some fifty-three London churches, in which Wren displayed remarkable versatility in adapting Renaissance design, not only to the different conditions which the crowded site involved but also to the requirements of Protestant worship, which laid so much stress on preaching and needed chiefly an auditorium. A famous example is that of =S. Stephen’s Walbrook=, in which sixteen columns support a coffered ceiling, interrupted by a pendentive dome. This is the predominating feature, for its diameter is 43 feet in a total width of 60 feet.

Wren’s churches, however, are better and more characteristically known by the variety of steeples, which may be considered an invention of his own. From a square tower, which is treated as the main feature of the front façade, they pass into circular or octagonal stories, diminishing in diameter, clothed with Renaissance details, and terminating in a slender spire. Their beauty consists in the variety and proportions given to the several parts, achieving an ensemble of peculiar elegance. Occasionally they suggest a certain mechanicalness of repetition; hence the example which is considered the best is that of =S. Mary-le-Bow=. For here the repetition of the orders is interrupted by a story composed of inverted consoles, the effect of which is to vary not only the character of the embellishment, but also, by introducing the contrast of a curve, the regularity of successive steps. Wren’s inexhaustible activity is represented also, among many other examples, by the =Monument= at =London Bridge=; =The Fountain Court= and =Garden Façade= of =Hampton Court=; =Chelsea Hospital=; =Marlborough House, Pall Mall=; and =Temple Bar=. The last, forming the entrance gate to the City of London proper, has been removed from its old site at the foot of Fleet Street, and set up in Theobald’s Park, Northamptonshire.

He lies buried beneath the choir of his masterpiece, a tablet bidding you, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.”

=Hawksmoor, Gibbs.=--The most notable of =Wren’s= pupils were Nicholas Hawksmoor (1666-1763) and James Gibbs (1683-1754). The latter published a book of his own designs, which, as we shall see, exercised a considerable influence on the beginnings of architecture in the American Colonies.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY STYLES

ANGLO-CLASSICAL. QUEEN ANNE. GEORGIAN

This period comprises the reigns of Anne (1702-14) and of the three Georges (1714-1820). In the case of large mansions it represents a continuation of the “Anglo-Palladian” style, with an increased importance given to the use of columns, especially in porticoes. Hence it is sometimes called the “Anglo-Classical,” or more specifically, the “Portico Style.”

In less pretentious houses the tendency was to avoid columns and ornamental details and to rely upon the sterling character of plain brick work. The so-called _Flemish bond_ was introduced, a method of binding a wall into solidity by laying the bricks in courses of alternate _stretchers_ and _headers_--bricks, that is to say, laid, respectively lengthwise with and at right angles to the outer surface of the walls. It differed from the _English bond_, in which stretchers and headers were laid in alternate courses. A single projecting string course might mark the division of the stories, while several, projecting one over the other, would form a cornice under the eaves of the tiled roof. Or this arrangement might be replaced by a wooden cornice. Windows, owing to the tax upon them, were reduced in number and often increased in size, especially in the direction of height. Correspondingly, doors were heightened until they had an effect of narrowness. In all these particulars, as also in the introduction of pediment-shaped gables and wooden cornices under the eaves of the tiled roofs, there was a disposition to follow the seventeenth century type of Dutch and Flemish domestic architecture. This so-called “Queen Anne” style--though it is more a manner than a style--involved a certain primness of effect, quite in keeping with the somewhat pedantic attitude of the time, but is characterised by simple refinement and suggestion of comfortable domesticity.

By the time of George III--1760 and onward--certain modifications were introduced into the Anglo-Classical style, which are sometimes characterised by the distinction, “Georgian.”

=Anglo-Classical.=--The Anglo-Classical is frankly a style of ostentation and magnificent pretension. So far as one man could be responsible for what was in effect an expression of the temper of an age that was amassing great wealth in the Indian and Chinese trade, the man was Sir John Vanbrugh. But it is significant that he first became famous as a writer of witty and spicy comedies. Then he “turned his attention to” architecture and wrote to his friend Tonson, the publisher, for a “Palladio.” With the aid of this he qualified himself as an architectural designer and having already gained the favour of society by his talents as a wit was readily accepted as an architect, enjoying particularly the patronage of Queen Anne, who sent him abroad on a special mission. His first important mansion was =Castle Howard= (1714), followed a year later by =Blenheim Palace=.

In both of these he achieved what may be described as a scenic impressiveness on a prodigious scale, but without much reference to architectural logic or to internal convenience. The two plans have a general similarity, consisting of a main block with an extensive garden front, connected at the rear by two corridors with the kitchen block and the stable block. These flank a great court, which at Blenheim is closed by a screen wall and gateway in the manner of a French château. The kitchen at Blenheim was some 400 feet distant from the dining room! Windows in both designs were disposed for exterior effect and not for proper lighting of the interior. In numberless particulars internal convenience was sacrificed to palatial planning and display. As Voltaire said, if the rooms had been as wide as the walls were thick the palace would have been passably convenient. Amongst the new features, introduced by Vanbrugh, was the converting of the ground story into a kind of mimic cellar, with inconveniently small staircases to the floor above, the main approach to which was on the outside of the building, by a grand flight of steps leading up to a superb portico.

Notwithstanding the magnificence of scale, these designs have a chill formality that makes their dignity rather dull.

Meanwhile they set a fashion exactly suited to the taste of the time, which in literature also was disposed to substitute dilettantism for culture, and, in its infatuation for what it called “style,” to attach more importance to form than to subject-matter. It was the age of the amateur. Lord Burlington, for example, a patron of art, designed a villa at Chiswick in a free translation of the Villa Capra, Vicenza by Palladio. Also, in conjunction with his protégé, Kent, he erected the =Horse Guards= and =Devonshire House= in London and =Holkham Hall, Norfolk=; the last-named presenting a central block connected by corridors with four outlying pavilions. One of the shibboleths of this time that passed for a principle was that to a style of this grandeur only one form of roof was appropriate--a dome. Interior proprieties were sacrificed to the securing of a dome, and where the exigencies of building necessitated a flat or pointed roof it was hidden behind an attic or balustrade.

=Pope’s Satire.=--The fatuities, however, of this craze for the monumental did not escape contemporary satire. When Lord Burlington published the designs of Inigo Jones and Palladio’s drawings of the “Antiquities of Rome,” Pope referred to them in one of his epistles--

“You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use. Yet shall, my Lord, your just, your noble rules, Fill half the land with imitating fools; Who random drawings from your sheets may take And of one beauty many blunders make; Load some vain church with old theatric state, Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate: ....... “’tis very fine, But where d’ye sleep or where d’ye dine? I find by all you have been telling That ’tis a house, but not a dwelling.”

=Chambers.=--It was a reaction from this mania for magnificence that encouraged, in the case of more modest houses, the so-called “Queen Anne” style, and later, in large and small alike, the “Georgian.” The change to the latter, moreover, was assisted by the influence of Sir William Chambers, who acquired a real knowledge of architecture through long study in Italy and in 1759 published his “Treatise on Civil Architecture.” His most important work is the river front of =Somerset House=. He, too, however, was responsible for a craze. In early life he had visited China, where he made sketches of architecture, furniture, and costumes, which formed the basis of his “Designs for Chinese Architecture, Etc.” published in 1757. It led to an infatuation for the socalled “Chinese Style” which survives directly in the Pagoda at Kew Gardens and indirectly in the Chinese motives that Chippendale (d. 1779) introduced with so much taste into his furniture designs.

=Adam.=--Meanwhile, the Georgian revival was due even more to the genius of the Scotsman Robert Adam (1728-1792). Realising that the existing knowledge of Roman architecture had been derived from public buildings, he visited the only example known then of domestic architecture, the ruins of Diocletian’s Palace at Spalato in Dalmatia. Here in co-operation with the French architect, C. L. Clerisseau, and two experienced draughtsmen, he made the measurements and drawings out of which he projected a restoration of the building in a fine work entitled “The Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian” (1764). To him belongs the credit of inaugurating the modern idea, not yet sufficiently lived up to, of using the monumental style for a number of separate buildings, grouped in one design. His first achievement was on the banks of the Thames just east of Buckingham Street, where the steep descent necessitated a system of vaulted foundations that are said to be a remarkable example of engineering skill. On this Adam erected the dignified design, which, since his brother James co-operated with him, was called after the Greek word _adelphoi_, brothers, =Adelphi Terrace=. Other instances of his group designs are parts of =Fitzroy Square=, the older portion of =Finsbury Circus= and =Portland Place=. Among his country houses is =Keddleston Hall, Derbyshire=. Here he clung to the sprawling plan, in which the offices are widely parted from the main block; but, in the façades, employed large windows, finely grouped, and permitted the sloping roofs to be a strong feature of the design.

It was Adam’s idea that the architect should be responsible also for the interior decorations and furniture, thus making each room and its furnishings a unified design. Indeed, that everything outside as well as inside the house, summer-houses, terraces and so-forth, should unite in a single ensemble. In the style of furniture that has been associated with his name he showed a rare taste in blending classical motives with elements of his own fancy; exhibiting a particular skill in the graceful use of curvilinear forms, in which he had a partiality for ovals, and in modelling details that, while very delicate, were neither weak nor petty. As the result of his influence the Georgian interior presented an appropriately dainty setting to the costumes and manners of society, which had abandoned the stiff ostentation of the earlier Georgian period for the graceful elegance of the later mode.

AMERICAN COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE

Naturally it was from the Mother-Country that the American Colonies derived the models of their earliest architecture. The date at which increased population and prosperity encouraged buildings of a more permanent character, distinguished by their appearance as well as by their immediate utility, is placed at about 1725. From this time the rigour of life in New England, and particularly in Massachusetts, began to be considerably abated. The theocratic form of government, in which the clergy were the arbiters of moral and social conventions, had given way to the active participation of laymen in public affairs. The manners as well as the costumes of society became elegant and the pleasures of life were no longer frowned upon. The change which thus came over social life is reflected in the contrast presented by Copley’s portraits and those of his predecessor, Smibert.

A corresponding advance in the amenities of life was represented also in New York and Philadelphia; while, as to the Southern States, which had been colonised by Royalists rather than by Puritans, the tradition of elegant life had always been maintained and the change at this period was only in the increased opportunity of realising it.

=English Influences, Modified.=--The edifices which began to be erected comprise churches and meeting-houses, mansions, and a few public halls; the last being of historical rather than architectural interest. The places of worship represent an adaptation of the Wren-Gibbs type, while the domestic designs are based on Queen Anne and Georgian styles. In a few cases the prototype was fairly reproduced; notable examples being =Christ Church, Philadelphia= (1727-35); =Old South Church, Boston=, now used as a museum (1730-82), and =S. Paul’s, New York= (1766). The last named is one of the few instances of stone building at this period; the usual material being either brick imported from England or, far more usually, wood. This affected the use which was made of the drawings of Gibbs, Adam, and others, from which the Colonial church-builders derived their designs. Brick did not permit of carved enrichment. Mouldings were, in consequence, of extreme simplicity and such embellishments as columns, pediments, and cornices were constructed of wood. The character of the design was still further modified in the New England States, since wood was used also for the main structure.

=Colonial Style Developed.=--Thus there was developed a skill of design in the use of wood alone and of wood in combination with brick that is distinguishable as a distinct style, to which the term “Colonial” has been applied. It is a style in no sense monumental, even when it includes spires, columns and porticoes. On the contrary, it is characterised by simplicity and reserve but is saved from insignificance by the quiet dignity of the whole and the refinement of the details. The wooden spires of the innumerable meeting-houses distributed over New England, many of which were designed by the almost forgotten worthies, Ascher Benjamin and Ithiel Town, present a type of their own, distinguished by extreme sensitiveness of outline and aspiring grace and airiness. These are veritable creations, growing logically out of the wood construction. And even in the porticoes, although their columns are structurally shams, being mere shells enclosing a post, the feeling of woodwork is so frankly retained, that in association with the wooden walls they seem quite reasonable.

A corresponding unity of effect is achieved in the best examples of wooden domestic buildings, such as the =Craigie House=, Longfellow’s home in =Cambridge=; the =Sherburn House, Portsmouth=, and innumerable other examples throughout New England. They are characterised by the choice proportions and distribution of the windows, by the pilasters running up through two stories, to a well-designed cornice, broken in the centre by a pediment that serves as a porch. The roofs vary. Some are flat; some slope up from front and rear, with a gable at each end. In other cases, the continuous slope is broken by a _gambrel_ into two slopes, forming an obtuse angle, as in the Mansard roof. While again, the roof may be _hipped_, sloping up, that is to say, from all four sides, the four planes meeting in hips or ridges.

While similar styles of roofs and windows reappear in the Southern Colonial type of house the latter is distinguished by the addition of a verandah. It may take the form of a pedimented portico, composed of colossal columns, carried up to the cornice, or of a colonnade extending along the entire front and frequently consisting of two stories; the floor beams of the upper one being let into the columns--a device that violates structural propriety but may be overlooked in the comfortable dignity of the whole design. The latter in some cases covers an extended, symmetrical plan, as, for example, in Washington’s home, =Mount Vernon=, where the main block is connected by curving colonnades with the kitchen wing on one side and offices on the other, while the slave-quarters were in detached buildings, separated by formal gardens from the mansion. The comparative smallness of the latter emphasises the suggestion of the patriarchal character of the best of the old Southern life before the Civil War, while the quiet dignity of the exterior is repeated in the spirit of refined and gentle breeding that pervades the interior.

Both in Southern and Northern Colonial houses the wainscots, door-and window-trims, the mantelpieces, cornices, and balustraded staircases exhibit a choiceness of design, derived from the models of Adam and Sheraton.