Another of the large public buildings of the country, and one of the finest, is the City-hall of Baltimore, completed in 1875—an edifice of which the city is justly proud. It is a four-storeyed marble in the Renaissance style, with a mansard roof, and is crowned with a dome 26o feet high. Boston has a city-hall of the usual type, with dome and superposed orders.
The recent revival of art has as yet scarcely penetrated into the West ern cities, where, even more than in the East, public buildings cling to the traditions of the past. The few erected before the present generation fol low the Grecian manner, and almost all later ones affect the English ver sion of Italian Renaissance or the French neo-Greck. Works containing illustrations of French buildings have been widely circulated, and literal copies have in some cases been made. Most of the capitols and city-halls are expensive edifices whose construction has extended through many years, and, as it is seldom that an architect or a public is bold enough to make so radical a change as was made at Albany, they have not unfre quently been completed after the current of architectural fashion has commenced to take a new direction.
Chicago twin public buildings of Chicago—or, to speak more correctly, of Cook County and of Chicago—are an exception to the rule of the dome. Almost identical in design, but differing slightly in materials, these structures, which occupy a spacious square, are con nected at the ends by large arches which give access to interior courts. A dome was contemplated, but conviction of its uselessness more than the consideration of expense caused its abandonment. This edifice is also, happily, without the mansard, which has too long been so prominent in American architecture. In style it is Renaissance a little less elaborate than the City-hall of Philadelphia, but artistically its equal. The State house at Springfield, Illinois—a structure rivalling the Chicago public buildings in cost—has a mansard roof ou each wing and a dome in the centre; the Indiana State Capitol at Indianapolis has a dome, and that of Iowa, at Des Moines, constructed since 1S7o at the cost of about one million five hundred thousand dollars, has a small dome.
The New of San Francisca, California, is another huge muni cipal building as yet unfinished. This structure will cover more ground than even that of Philadelphia, since one of its fronts is over Soo feet in length, and another over 600. As a piece of artistic design it is superior
to its Eastern rival. Pavilions, domes, towers, and connecting curtains— each of which is in itself symmetrical—are grouped into a grand whole which culminates in the cupola of the spacious entrance-rotunda. The style selected is Palladian, and the pavilions and porticoes consist of one series of Corinthian columns and pilasters surrounded by a deep entab lature and crowned by a balustrade, the single order serving as a mask to three or four storeys. The detail is monotonous, but the outline charms. Unfortunately, the material selected—on account of the great expense of stone at the time the building was commenced—is brick coated with cement. One of the most pleasing parts of the design is the Hall of Records, a circular building surrounded by a colonnade, surmounted by a dome, and connected with the main building by a quadrantic corridor. The outline recalls the baptistery at Pisa.
Libraries: The Billings Library, Burlington, Vermont, is a good example of the Romanesque of Richardson, and would in any age or country be accounted a notable structure. No other architect in this country has ever entered so thoroughly into the spirit of the round-arched styles as Richardson; yet all his buildings bear the stamp of originality and every detail is worked out with the utmost delicacy.
The Library at Woburn, Massachusetts (pl. 63,.fig. 3), is among the best of Richardson's buildings. The octagon at one end, with its grouped columns at the angles and shafts between the lights, surmounted by lin tel and roof; the contrasted rectangular room and gable on the opposite side of the tower; the tower itself, with its artistically-disposed openings; and the broad deep recess of the entrance,—make this a strikingly pieta. resque structure.
Among the other works of Richardson are, besides those before men tioned, Sever Hall, Harvard College, Cambridge; the library at North Easton; the Crane Library, at Onincy; the Converse Memorial Library, Malden; the Court-house, Springfield, in conjunction with Gambril; the famous Gate Lodge at North Easton; the North Church, Springfield,— all in Massachusetts; and the Cheney Building-, Hartford, Connecticut.