designed it, or it may express the facts of its own
internal structure and arrangement. The former,
however, can only, I think, be said to be realized
in the case of architecture of the highest class,
and when taken collectively as a typical style.
For instance, we can all pretty well agree that the
mediaeval cathedral expresses an emotion of aspiration
on the part of its builders. The age that built
the cathedrals longed to soar in some way, and this
was the way then open to it, and it sent up its soul
in spreading vaults, and in pinnacles and spires.
So also we can never look at Greek architecture without
seeing in it the reflection of a nature refined, precise,
and critical; loving grace and finish, but content
to live with the graces and the muses without any
aspirations that spurned this earth. We can hardly
go further than this in attributing emotional expression
to architecture. But in a more restricted sense
of the word
expression, a building may express
very definitely its main constructive facts, its plan
and arrangement, to a certain extent even its purpose,
so far at least that we may be able to identify the
class of structure to which it belongs. It not
only may, but it ought to do this, unless the architecture
is to be a mere ornamental screen for concealing the
prosaic facts of the structure. There is a good
deal of architecture in the world which is in fact
of this kind—an ornamental screen unconnected
with the constructional arrangement of the building.
Nor is such architecture to be entirely scouted.
It may be a very charming piece of scenery in itself,
and you may even make a very good theoretical defense
for it, from a certain point of view. But on
the whole, architecture on that principle becomes
uninteresting. You very soon tire of it.
It is a mask rather than a countenance, and tends
to the production of a dull uniformity of conventional
design.
For we must remember that architecture, although a
form of artistic expression, is not, like painting
and sculpture, unfettered by practical considerations.
It is an art inextricably bound up with structural
conditions and practical requirements. A building
is erected first for convenience and shelter; secondly
only for appearance, except in the case of such works
as monuments, triumphal arches, etc., which represent
architectural effect pure and simple, uncontrolled
by practical requirements. With such exceptions,
therefore, a building ought to express in its external
design its internal planning and arrangement; in other
words, the architectural design should arise out of
the plan and disposition of the interior, or be carried
on concurrently with it, not designed as a separate
problem. Then a design is dependent on structural
conditions also, and if these are not observed, the
building does not stand, and hence it is obvious that
the architectural design must express these structural
conditions. It must not appear to stand or be
constructed in a way in which it could not stand (like