A few years later Schmidt came to Vienna, where he built four large churches, of which the Fiinfhauser Church, shown on Plate 52 (fig. 6), is the most important. Among many works designed in Austria proper, he built at Vienna the academic gymnasium, with a magnificent exercise hall, whose severe Gothic, worthy of praise though it is, was not appre ciated by the public; so that in the magnificent Rathhaus, which was intrusted to him, he engrafted many heterogeneous elements into his design (fig. 3). (See page 329.) On the whole, Gothic found little acceptance for secular purposes in Austria, where the Renaissance was completely master of the field. Not withstanding the bitter contention carried on by the partisans of the Re naissance against the Gothic, Hauberrisser, a pupil of Schmidt, suc ceeded, though not till after a temporary suspension of his work, in bring ing to completion his Gothic Rathhaus at Munich. The strife between Gothic and Renaissance continued, aud it seemed as though the Gothic must always give way before the encroaching Renaissance. Of late years churches have been built in the Renaissance style in both Paris and Vienna, and for the most important ecclesiastical structure of the imme diate future, the cathedral at Berlin, scarcely any other than the Renais sance style has, under existing conditions, a chance of acceptance. The German Renaissance, helped as it is by its very name, is less a matter of contention; it obtains where Gothic is disliked, though it can scarcely be distinguished from it, and many an architect is contented with his German "Renaissance," which in name at least is not distinguishable from the style which has become most prevalent.
Suninza;y.—We need only remark further that, since all styles have been introduced, the Moorish also has its advocates, though as yet it can not take root anywhere, and finds application only for the construction of synagogues, as in that at Berlin (by Knoblauch), those of Vienna and Pesth (by the older Forster), those of Stuttgart and NureMberg (by Wolf), those at Paris, etc. These isolated buildings constitute a mere episode in the architectural movement—an episode which is not possessed of any considerable influence, nor has it laid claim to such.
Vet in an extended series of buildings a movement is perceptible which ignores all considerations of style, all outlay upon architectural forms, as superfluous, and executes purely utilitarian structures simple and plain as the requirements of the general plan and construction dictate. The
material thus remains everywhere visible and exercises its influence upon the construction and external appearance. The great number of util itarian structures which our period requires—the railroads with their sta tions, warehouses and bridges, the great exhibition-buildings, the fac tories and market-houses—are examples of this. This tendency is also evident in barracks and hospitals, and extends oftentimes beyond the province wherein absolute plainness might be justified. It is the third of the movements which are active in our age, and comes in as a reaction against the exaggerations of the others. Its origin is linked with that of the older school of Carlsruhe, and it is only a more sober rendering of what Eisenlohr so poetically accomplished, but it is also linked with many still-extant popular modes of building, and thus represents to a certain extent the broad foundation of the common people out of which the higher classes arose, just as artistic styles have arisen out of this purely constructive architecture. Transitions and points of contact with the two other movements naturally also occur. The plainness is not always abso lute, and thus many works incline toward the medieval direction, while the simplest works of the latter again approach the other style. Many o-f these works incline toward the Renaissance, which is again here and there constructively severe. In pure constructive architecture a new element is introduced through the extensive use of iron, which has here, where architectural forms are not aspired to, its proper place, but which has also penetrated into the other two directions of style. Yet in the severely medixval direction it cannot find widespread application, while in the Renaissance it entirely renounces its own characteristic forms and accepts the universal one, modified only in certain features. But the employment of iron has also led to some modification of the Renaissance forms into accordance with the characters of the material, and has introduced new elements and new form-combinations into the Renaissance.