A National Style.

In H. H. Richardson (1838-1886) America recognized indisputable genius. But could any one architect, or any one architectural style, be singled out as quintessentially American? Throughout the 1880s a debate raged between those architects eager to identify a representative "American" style and those who believed that no single style could hope to represent the vitality —and diversity—of the nation. One critic suggested that his countrymen "aim to unite the quiet serenity shown in the Greek with the heaven-aspiring tendency of the Gothic. Aim to have the proportions as agreeable and the whole as harmonious as the Greek. As agreeable as the French. As vigorous as the English. As refined as the Florentine. As systematic as the German. . . . and the time may come when foreigners will copy as eagerly from us as we now do from them." Champions...