ARCHITECTURE, the art of so building as to apply both beauty and utility. The end of architecture is to arrange the plan, masses and enrichments of a structure in such a way as to impart to it interest, beauty, grandeur, unity and power without sacrificing convenience. Architecture thus necessitates the posses sion by the designer of creative imagination as well as technical skill, and in all works of architecture properly so called these elements must exist, and be harmoniously combined.
The pages immediately following are devoted to an editorial survey of architecture since it began. Any general survey that treats architecture only chronologically, however, burdens the reader with facts, interesting, but to-day of relatively small im portance, for the new forms produced by steel have revolu tionized the art. Modern architecture is therefore treated first; an historical survey of the influences on and the peaks of archi tectural evolution is appended. Elsewhere in this work the various manifestations of the art, as explained in this main article, and many architectural subjects and terms are discussed under their own headings (see ARCHITECTURAL ARTICLES).
The problem that architecture sets itself to solve is how best to enclose space for human occupancy. For the earliest at tempts at a solution see ARCHAEOLOGY, for architecture is re corded only in those buildings whose materials have endured. All building of a permanent character has been governed by four basic structural principles—the post and lintel, the wooden truss, the masonry arch and the modern steel skeleton—each of which, in evolving, gave the art new impetus. The post and lintel, the wooden truss and the masonry arch, however, all developed in periods mainly devoted to religion, agriculture, barter in the mar ket-place and war. Industrialism created a new set of social and economic relationships. It made commerce the chief human ac tivity. It introduced large-scale merchandising, calling for large and individual places in which to transact business. New types of enclosed spaces rose to meet the changed conditions. Steel ap peared at the beginning of this new period; speed became possible; building acquired an entirely new element.
The transition of steel from merely strengthening stone to carrying the masonry load at each floor was the most momen tous step in the history of architecture since the days of Rome. In a single bound architecture was freed from the shackles of stone-weight and made flexible beyond belief. Suddenly archi tecture gained a new dimension, the possibility of almost unlim ited verticality. The extent to which steel has liberated architec ture from the burdens of past building methods may be observed in its current use in every type of structure. It is now the accepted method of construction. It saves space and makes for economy and speed in building. Walls can be made thinner without sacri ficing strength. Construction goes forward on many floors at once, much more rapidly and yet at less expense.
The historic architectural styles came from distinct nations isolated by difficult and limited means of transit and communica tion. Each was evolved by a segregated people, each had individ ual qualities, each in itself represented truly the society that bore it. But during the last ioo years architecture progressed so rap idly that the designer, impelled by an unprecedented demand for buildings, and with knowledge at his elbow of everything the world had yet produced, turned for embellishment to the historic styles, copying and adapting rather than creating. Consequently, many buildings to-day express neither contemporary nor any other culture. Architects have begun to realize the falseness of thus slavishly adhering to stylistic forms, and the new industrial and commercial architecture of Germany and America, for example, has issued directly from this fresh desire for logical design.
Building Activity.—In the United States of America the sustained demand for quantities of building is enormous ; old buildings give way to new, new buildings seem almost to rise over night ; and Europe, whose tendency has been to retain and use what exists, shows a marked trend in the same direction, as in the development of Kingsway and Regent street in London and in the Continental cutting of boule vards in Paris and in Rome.
Anything that so enormously in creases both the size and number of buildings must be accounted a potent factor in all kinds of architectural developments.
A prime cause of building ac tivity is the concentration of pop ulation in and near the larger cities. Since about 1885 machin ery had radically changed human relationships. Men and women released from the farms by trac tion ploughs and harvesters have flocked to the cities to produce manufactured articles. The pro duction and use of more and more articles, both necessities and luxuries, require more build ings in which to make them, more buildings from which to sell them, more buildings in which to transact the business arising from their manufacture and sale, and more homes to house the work ers. With this concentration of population have come the corpo ration, the trust and the super-trust. Great buildings, great at least in bulk and cost, are required to house vast numbers of workers. Formerly, only religious or governmental agencies could build large structures; to-day private enterprise, through control of capital in large amounts, builds on a greater scale and more expensively than either. This evident and rapid change influences every walk of life and each new building.
The New Architecture.—Artistically, architecture is the re sult of a search and struggle for beauty under restrictions im posed by the structural requirements of the plan problem and the aesthetic possibilities of the materials available. Strictly speaking, it is concerned only with those buildings that embody elements of beauty, or that at least vary from strict utilitarian necessities for the sake of better appearance. In the past, building was a slow, leisurely proceeding, expensive in terms of human energy, but now changes in style, which are nothing more or less than period changes in the life of the people, occur more rapidly. Un doubtedly the outstanding feature of the new period is a growing interest in, and enthusiasm for, the architectural improvement and embellishment of all types of buildings. Whether it be homes, workshops or playhouses, improvement in appearance is de manded. The need for more buildings, the will to have them beautiful, and steel with speed in building appeared almost simul taneously as the invigorating influences that started the new archi tecture off and determined its course.
The architect to-day is a sculptor in building masses. His forms are limited by the practical requirements of the plan problem, i.e., the interrelation of the spaces to be enclosed and the legal restrictions on building, by the materials out of which his build ing must be made, the machines that shape these materials and the labour available for putting them into place. This has always been essentially true, but the recent and tremendous improve ments in construction methods, the new materials and new ma chines used for building, and the modern type of workmen em ployed have given the oldest art a thoroughly new aspect. Steel and speed have completely altered human relationships and, therefore, changed architecture more than any factors that pre ceded them. The present-day architect has to consider not only how best to enclose space for human occupancy, but many tendencies of contemporary life as well.
The art of architecture is in constant flux, for it is an ever changing medium of expression, incapable of being static. It results from human needs and conceptions of beauty determined by the way in which the ideas of a period happen to be associated. The new art, so-called, which is evolving in both Europe and America, in fact in every nation claiming cultural advancement, can in no sense be considered strange, exotic. It does what archi tecture has always done : it expresses faithfully its time. When it appears strange, it is likely that the architect, under the pressure of getting out work, has not had time to study the true feeling of his art as properly as he has its physical requirements. Form erly, his knowledge of building construction, and the capacity of workmen to execute his ideas, limited the architect. So they do now ; but with this difference : the machine is everywhere sup planting handicraft, and the modern architect has to design for it.
Machines Mastered.—At first, the ease and rapidity with which machines accurately repeat processes and designs resulted in many ugly forms being turned out. This caused the ginger bread decoration that blighted the 19th century. New ma terials as they appeared were disguised. Metal was used for objects previously made of wood, and, by means of a photo graphic process, very carefully surfaced with an enamel texture that simulated the grain of wood so perfectly that only an expert could distinguish it as false. Similarly, rubber was transformed into imitation marble floors and walls. Here again the designer, pressed by the necessity of producing, demanded that the new materials imitate the old in order to design with the old forms as the basis of his design problem. Submission to machine power passed, however; mastery replaced it. For the first time in history the economic problem became not how to produce enough to live, but how to market everything produced. To sell their goods manu facturers had to make them more attractive. The basis of the new art is not to use materials as substitutes, but rather to refine their characteristic qualities. By so taking advantage of them, and by learning the capacities of machines employed to shape them, the designer evolves new surfaces in colour and texture, and new combinations in form and line, with the machine as the most important factor in the process. The machines themselves have provided the wealth that carries on such work.
Wealth and Art.—There is little demand for art among a people crushed and poor, or during the rise of a nation. The essentials of life and the provision needed for its immediate future always come first. It is only after these essentials are assured and a demand has arisen for comfort and refinement that art becomes alive. But the quality of art produced by a people can not be measured by its wealth. On the contrary, history contains many examples of peoples who have acquired great wealth and whose art has become flamboyant and debased. Art in its highest form is produced by peoples of culture who possess high ideals; artists can only be developed by a demand for art.
Meanwhile, there has developed in modern art a new and revolu tionary factor. To the new art which is evolving, this factor—the machine—is becoming a most valuable slave. Supported by machines, the possibilities for modern art are boundless, for it can be enjoyed and partaken of, not only by a limited group, but by all mankind. Significantly, the machine has first manifested itself in architecture, the parent art. Each building is regarded as a machine planned, designed, constructed for a special pur pose, a machine to be scrapped when need for its peculiar type of service ends. Post-war architecture, and art generally, tends to express itself in mass and form, in efficient essentials refined and made beautiful, in simplicity. Called on to enclose new forms of spaces, the architect has developed new methods of construction and is achieving new results.
The steel frame is rectangular, neither curved nor arched. Its most expressive covering, therefore, is designed in straight lines and right angles. The best American work has a real "lift" that carries the eye upward in each line of construction, by emphasiz ing everywhere the vertical, by subordinating the aesthetically less pleasing horizontal, and by pyramiding the masses that support the central tower. Such designing assures suitable facing for the skeleton, and the minimum of wasted material and space. The jacket of the building is then true to the underlying structure, which bears the load.
In the Telephone building, New York (McKenzie, Voorhees and Gmelin, architects), the effect is one of proportional masses, and impressively simple. The architects approached their problem from the point of view of designing something with respect for this present "machine age"; they thought in terms of what could be done with the labour of to-day, with the construction of to-day and with the machinery that would shape the materials; an en tirely new and thoroughly modern feeling is expressed. In matters of detail, the old-fashioned cornice, which is meaningless when raised to a height of 20 or 4o storeys, disappeared entirely. The vertical accent is never lost, however, even when the building reaches its climax; instead of crossing it with a horizontal band, the band is ornamented by inserts that give a proper finish to the wall composition without interrupting its verticality; the same holds true for the interior. All embellishments, and these, in keep ing with modern simplicity, are few, were designed for manufac ture by machines. The marble work, instead of being cut in pilas ters with flutes carefully chiselled out, was designed for machine production. By so using machines as a basis, architects can evolve designs characteristic of this period. Notable results have already been reached.
(See COLOUR IN ARCHITECTURE.) Problems to be Solved.—The problems of the immediate future confronting the architect demand a well-trained and highly developed imaginative faculty. With the concentration of popu lation in cities, previously referred to, city architecture became the art's most important phase, and the architect is now called on to help to solve many problems not properly his own (see TOWN AND CITY PLANNING). Right concentration multiplies business efficiency and convenience, and the drift of building developments toward single units covering entire squares has an enormous in fluence on design. A growing tendency to bring business and resi dence together, thus preventing the present waste of transporting city populations from home to office twice daily, may well lead to structures with a residential zone on top, a business zone below and sidewalks at a high level for the residents. The architect must consider, too, the movement of traffic through the now crowded streets, whose capacity only double-decking, arcaded sidewalks or tunnelling can extend. To modern man, spending most of his waking and all of his sleeping hours indoors, buildings mean more in comfort, convenience and well-being than any other material entities. If architecture serves his purpose, life is good; if it fails to serve it, life is harsh; it affects his thought, his art, his mode of living and his future.