is less general in America than in England, and club-houses are less prominent; yet the Union League and other political clubs often have fine buildings, and the Masonic and other slin ilar fraternities have erected in most cities structures which possess some architectural features.
The Union League in New York City is a prominent piece of Free Classic, with steep gables facing the street, pilasters of small pro jection, and a main cornice which does not crown the edifice. This is the most elegant club-house in America.
The Union League Philadelphia, is a quiet structure in Italian Renaissance, with quoins and pilasters of brownstone on a ground of red brick, and with a commanding entrance-porch and steps.
The ifasonic Temple is one of the most imposing and massive build ings in Philadelphia. Being 275 feet long by 15o wide, with a tower of picturesque outline 240 feet in height, it dominated Penn Square until the huge city-hall arose beside it. It is built of gray granite, and the exterior is round-arched and may be called Romanesque, but does not strictly con form to the Norman phase of that style.
Hospitals and Asylums do not always rise to architectonic dignity; they are often simply huge piles of buildings erected at a relatively small cost. But this is by no means universally the case, and many really fine edifices of this class have been erected. The most approved plan of a hospital does not, however, lend itself readily to architectural display, since, wherever the site is sufficiently large to admit of it, hospitals of every kind are now built in detached pavilions connected only by a corri dor upon the ground-floor. The plan permits of the grouping together of such patients as are similarly affected and of the isolation of dangerous cases, while it greatly lessens the risks of contagion, diminishes the dan gers of fire, and renders more effective the means employed for thorough ventilation and lighting.
The New York Hospital, New York City, has a carefully designed and effective facade. The Roosevelt Hospital, in the same city, is one of the best planned in the country. The New England Hospital for Women and Children, at Boston, small though it is, shows careful study. The Jeffer
son Hospital, at Philadelphia, is a quiet bit of good brickwork situated in the centre of the city, and the Hahnemann Hospital in tire same city is a structure of modern brick Gothic with prominent horizontal lines and a cornice of small pointed arches.
M-form is now considered the most appropriate for an asylum, the horizontal line representing the asylum proper, while the ver tical arm contains the entrance, committee-room, steward's stores, etc. The asylum portion must, however, consist of several pavilions echeloned back. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the mere expanse of exterior surface supplies an element of grandeur, and architects skilled in the treatment of masses have accomplished good results by making the most of this, of the diversity of sky-line gained by the varying heights of the buildings, and of the tall shafts necessary for ventilating and heating. The State Asylum for the Insane, at Buffalo, is an evidence of this. The Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum, at Columbus, is peculiar from its Norman characteristics.
The Hudson _River Stale Hospital for file Insane, near Poughkeepsie, is Gothic in sentiment, the arches having a circular extrados and pointed extrados. It consists of wings and a centre, connected by corridors.
The Ilarffrrd Orfihan Asylum is a fine brick building in Gothic akin to that recently practised in England. It consists of a centre with two advancing wings, while a large dining-ball projects from the rear of the centre. The windows of the ground-floor on the principal front are paired lights surmounted by a high-pitched relieving-arch; those of the floor above, triple lights, the centre highest, and the three enclosed in an arch. Many of the windows have lintelled heads. The chimneys are prominent, and a large five-sided bay gives variety to the eastern facade. Buttresses rise through the half-basement and ground floor of the principal front, and the dormers have deep projecting hoods.
The buildings of this class in the Western States are in many respects superior to the State and municipal structures, since the former are often of brick and do not adhere to classical traditions.