Exchanges : The Produce Exchange, New York City, is an immense rectangular structure with three superposed series of arches, and has a tower connected with the main building by corridors. The arches of the lowest series are large, and are filled in with four storeys of iron windows. Those of the second tier are smaller and more numerous, and contain two storeys of windows. Above this tier of arches are an architrave and a frieze pierced with many square windows. The cornice is a most bold and effect ive one, and over it rises the upper tier of arches, forming the windows of the attic storey. The effect of these long ranges of semicircles, each range unlike the one above it, is very fine, although the partial disappearance of the attic tier behind the great projection of the cornice somewhat detracts from the effect of a near view. The tower, with its machicolated cornice and massive proportions, is a noble object in both a near and a distant view. The exterior is of red brick and red terra-cotta, and medallions and other decorative features in the latter material are freely introduced. The least admirable features are the columns of the entrances, the gray (granite) color of which does not harmonize with the red of the rest of the facades and gives a patchy appearance to the lower floor. Taken as a whole, this structure is one of the finest of the many grand new buildings which adorn New York City.
Richardson was par excellence the " Romanticist " of the United States. Full of genius and energy and untrammelled by precedent, he endeavored to make popular a phase of round-arched Romanesque which has often been called " Byzantine," but which has little of the Byzantine about it, picturesque, powerful, and often beautiful, though he could make it.
The Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, one of Richardson's works, expresses fully the fact that it encloses a large interior hall. This is marked by five large windows on the side and three at the end, the latter embraced beneath a grand arch which sweeps across the facade from one circular angle-turret to another. A range of smaller windows, two over each of the large ones, runs around above the latter.
The Galveston Cotton Exchange, Renaissance though it is, must not be classed with the ordinary American vernacular. The pilasters which rise through three storeys are only faintly like the orders, notwithstanding their Corinthian capitals, and have everyway the effect of piers. Round arches are prominent except in the second storey, and the windows are grouped in pairs and triplets. All the carved decorations are taken from the cotton-plant.
- huge though they are, are ephemeral in their nature. The great Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia has faded away like the fabric of a dream, and of its ironwork have been manufactured railway-stations for more western cities. The crowd of accompanying
buildings—some of them, as Machinery and Agricultural Halls, almost rivals in size of the main structure—have disappeared also, and some of the smaller ones form railway-stations, halls, etc., in various places. The sole remains, save bridges and smaller objects, are Memorial Hall, already noticed (p. 372), and Horticultural Hall, an ornate, flimsy, and highly colored piece of semi-Saracenic architecture.
Among the local exhibition-buildings may be mentioned the Mas sachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association at Boston. It stands upon a triangular site, and the outline is varied to suit the location; so that some good grouping is obtained. There is an effective low tower with an open upper storey, and altogether as much effect is obtained as is possible in a structure which must be comparatively inexpensive. The New Eng land Manufacturers and Mechanics' Institute, another exhibition-building, is the largest structure in Boston. It has an almost unbroken outline at its base, with higher central storeys, in the fashion set by the earlier exhibitions of London. It covers eight acres.
The Music and Exposition Hall, Saint Louis, Missouri (IV. 62, fig. 2), erected between rSS3 and ISS5 at a cost of six hundred thousand dol lars, is perhaps the finest and most complete structure of its class in the United States. It covers an area 328 feet long by 455 feet deep, and is three storeys in height. The basement-storey is of massive gray stone and the superstructure is of pressed brick laid in red mortar, with trim mings of buff sandstone and terra-cotta ornamentation; the whole is crowned with a high slate-roof terminating in hammered-glass skylights. The interior arrangement of the main floor consists, in addition to the various offices, reception-rooms, and parlors, of a grand Music-hall, 225 feet long, 12o feet wide, and 85 feet high, with a capacity for seating forty two hundred persons; an Entertainment-hall, 6o by 120 feet, accommo dating fourteen hundred persons; and two Exposition-halls, each 84 by 24o feet, intersecting a grand nave, 12o by 328 feet, and communicating with the rockery and floral departments, which are 120 by 64 feet.
sketch of the various phases of style that have invaded this country or have been evolved in it has already been given. For a generation after the second decade of this century everything noteworthy was Greek. Country and suburban dwellings were built a'istvle in antis or leirastyle in antis, with two or four stout board pillars reaching through the full height of all the storeys of the house, which did duty for a cella, and by their size blocking up the piazza. To this succeeded the American country vernacular with its jig-saw work and monotonous details.