Architectural Taste Research Articles

“YONDER LIES YOUR HINTERLAND”: RHODES, BAKER AND THE TWISTED STRANDS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN ARCHITECTURAL TRADITION

This article considers the various strands that make up the classical architectural tradition in South Africa. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, under British rule the tradition of the Palladian style for civic buildings and of Graeco-Roman building styles for institutions of higher learning reflected the imperial ideals of South Africa’s political overlords. This was the tradition in which Sir Herbert Baker had been trained and which he encountered when he reached South Africa late in the nineteenth century. South African architecture would have been less rich without the strong influence of Cecil John Rhodes’ admiration for indigenous Cape Dutch architecture on Baker’s architectural taste. This architecture was strongly rooted in another aspect of the classical tradition. During Dutch economic and imperial rule, the northern European style of classicistic or baroque gabling on perpendicular buildings had at the Cape been translated into the gables of sprawling low buildings. Illustrations show earlier examples of classical styles at the Cape, including examples of the second classical strain (via Holland and Germany) in South African architecture, so much admired by Rhodes. The article continues with an examination of some of Baker’s best known buildings that show a blending of these two strands. It ends with some thoughts on the durability of the Classical tradition and neo-classical vestiges in post-colonial (and postapartheid) South Africa.

Evolution, Transformation, and Representation in Buddhist Architecture - The Square Shrines of Buddhist Monasteries in Central Asia after the Fourth Century

This study notices that all religions in Central Asia from the fourth century through seventh century C.E. provided considerable hands in keeping a uniform unity through a process of assimilation, although art and architecture were greatly stimulated by the creative genius of the many people. The study thus intends to argue that the common ideas of rituals and primitive forms of religious shrines lead the square-based layout of Buddhist shrines the unity and universality in the architectural products of particular regions or epochs: i.e. the "square-based plan" in Buddhist temples of Central Asia was a significant prototype in the synthesis with pre-Buddhist architectural models and Buddhist universal ideas. Thus, this thesis notes that they did not lose the universal principles of the Buddhist shrine plans due to ritual functions, and even there have been never differences from pre-Buddhist building models remarked by the periods and the venues in which they were produced, although there had been continuous evolutions and adaptive transformations in the local tastes of religious architecture. Accordingly, this study discusses how such plans in Buddhist architecture had been consistently produced within that regional style also representative of the local idioms of architecture, and how they were adopted in the sites, founded on the composition of ritual functions. The foreign architectural cultures were selectively chosen getting along with local building types of each site according to each taste for architecture as a result.

Discussion on Guidance Space and Mediation Space Environment Design in Cinema

In recent years, with the accelerating process of urbanization and increasing environmental problems, there has been increasing awareness of environmental quality for the taste of the importance of building space. Therefore, many buildings actively create the garden space environment in order to further improve the environment, enhance the image of architectural space and taste the environment. China has a rich cultural heritage and development advantages. Chinese contemporary landscape design should fully learn the traditional classical garden design, construction techniques and artistic expression, to guide the construction of indoor and outdoor landscape design. From the cinema users' point of view, the construction of indoor and outdoor space and intermediate space environment design are discussed, and this article introduced the two space environment to create the built environment means, and from the perspective of environmental psychology,cinema and architecture space environment lead the design of the space environment to improve the quality of cinema space.

Schooled by Wren, or a School by Wren? The Conception and Design of Christ’s Hospital Writing School, London

On 2 March 1692, Sir Christopher Wren visited the governors of Christ’s Hospital in London, bringing with him a design for a new writing school to be erected on the Hospital’s Newgate Street site. Seven drawings for the school building survive in the Wren collection at All Souls College, Oxford. However, rather than suggesting Wren’s authorship, these drawings are customarily attributed to his pupil and long-time assistant, Nicholas Hawksmoor. It is generally accepted that Hawksmoor received delegated commissions from Wren by at least the early 1690s, but, although the draughtsmanship and stylistic evidence of the Writing School drawings suggest consistency with this interpretation, the surviving documentary evidence by no means proves Hawksmoor’s involvement. In fact, Wren’s name appears no less than thirteen times in the surviving Hospital minutes of 1691 to 1696, while Hawksmoor is never mentioned.The Writing School designs are briefly described in most architectural histories of the period, although they are considered remarkable more for heralding a shift in architectural taste than for the building shown in the drawings or for the social and ideological impulses that impelled its creation. This article considers the Writing School in the context of contemporary debates and anxieties concerning the provision of education for the poor, and within the wider sphere of late seventeenth-century charity-school building. Wren’s involvement is considered in relation to his philanthropic interest in the charity-school movement. The article concludes with an analysis of the designs and building history of the Writing School, and, on the basis of previously unpublished eighteenth- and nineteenth-century graphic sources, discounts Giles Worsley’s suggestion that Hawksmoor added a pediment to the final design. Wren and Hawksmoor’s specific responsibilities for the conception, design and execution of the building are considered, and it is argued that, although Hawksmoor was responsible for most of the surviving drawings relating to the project, Wren directed the process, taking responsibility for all designs produced in his office and claiming authorship for the drawings produced.

An Acre of Entertainment for the Entire Community: Rapp & Rapp’s Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville, Virginia

JAMES TIPPECONNIC FOX Figure 4 Rapp & Rapp, Paramount Theatre, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1931, Main Street facade ca 1964, example of a stand-alone movie palace (Photograph courtesy of the Theatre Historical Society of America) 38 ARRIS I VOLUME NI NETE EN 2008 JAMES TIPPECONNIC FOX AN ACRE OF ENTERTAINMENT FOR THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY: RAPP & RAPP'S PARAMOUNT THEATRE IN CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA JASON TIPPECONI\JIC FOX T he 1931 opening of the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville, Virginia, brought the small college tovvn a luxurious and modern standard of moviegoing previously only available to audiences in the region's largest cities. Designed by C. \V & Geo. L. Rapp of Chicago and New York ("Rapp & Rapp"), one of the nation's foremost firms specializing in the type, the Paramount is representative of the careful adaptation of the movie palace typology to local conditions. This process , which is frequently overlooked in studies of the type, was integral to the proliferation of movie palaces across the country. Rapp & Rapp accomplished this by balancing a strict adherence to the typology's proven functional and stylistic formulas with deliberate responses to local circumstances and culture. In Charlottesville, this practice is illustrated by the Paramount's response to three themes: function, architectural taste, and culture. Functionally, the Paramount relied on established formulas employed by movie-palace architects across the country-profitably adapting the typology's complex requirements to the community's size and built environment . The Paramount established an immediate connection with Charlottesville audiences by foregoing the Art Deco designs characteristic of the chain's contemporary movie palaces in favor of the locally popular Colonial Revival. Culturally, the Paramount strove to reconcile the "democratic" ideals associated with the type to the city's racial segregation. THE MOVIE PALACE·Movie palaces emerged between the mid-191 Os and the early 1920s in response to the functional requirements unique to the emerging medium of film. Shaped by economic concerns, movie palaces bad to continually attract large crowds of moviegoers and accommodate them in a complex assortment of spaces squeezed onto irregular plots of prime real estate. 1 The type emerged from the work of a number of architects, notably Thomas vV. Lamb in the Northeast and Rapp & Rapp in the :Midwest, working on behalf of rival exhibitors. vVithin the context of the careers of these architects, who, along with John Eberson, founded the three most prominent firms specializing in the type, movie palaces reached the height of their construction during the 1920s before falling out of favor in the United States after 1932.2 vVhile there is no standard definition of what constitutes a movie palace, such theatres typically shared a number of characteristics in relation to decor, function, service, and amenities.3 These elements distinguished them from other types of motion-picture theatres and together defined a distinct moviegoing experience. Architecturally, movie palaces were characterized by ornate decor in varying exotic, historicist, or modern styles meant to attract patrons and convey an atmosphere of escapism. Functionally, they accommodated at least 1,000 patrons and contained luxurious lobbies, foyers, VOL UM E I ~.ETE.E 2008 I ARRIS 39 JAMES TIPPECONNIC FO X and lounges to comfortably hold waiting audiences. Their auditoriums featured unobstructed sightlines and good acoustics and provided for live performances. The experience of the movie palace went beyond the building itself to encompass the services of teams of uniformed ushers, the sounds of theatre organs, a variety of live entertainment programs, and amenities such as museumquality art and furnishings. These attractions, as noted by David Naylor, made movie palaces not only sources of entertainment but also community gathering places.4 CHARLOTTESVILLE'S MOVIE PALACE On December 11, 1930, Charlottesville's newspaper, the Dai£y Progress, announced that a deal had been finalized for the construction of the town's first movie palace.'> Local investors Hollis Reinhart and Percival H. Faulconer spearheaded the effort to construct the theatre, which would be part of the Paramount-Publix Corporation's Publix theatre chain. They hoped to capitalize on Charlottesville's need for a motion-picture palace of the type found in the region's larger cities, such as Norfolk, Richmond, and \'Vashington, D.C. Reinhart and Faulconer assembled a half-acre site bordered by :Main, 1\tfarket...

McMansions: The Extent and Regulation of Super-sized Houses

In response to the increase in oversized houses and plats, this paper reports the results of a survey of 103 US cities about the presence and extent of McMansion houses (infill and greenfield plats) and on their approaches to regulation. With a response rate of 57%, the results revealed that many cities have McMansions and some have adopted regulations (such as limiting building height, design review, and limiting floor area ratio) to control their development. As McMansions continue to spread, communities may need to consider more effective mechanisms to control for undesirable impacts—for infills on neighbours, and for greenfield plats on sprawl. On … a small road … four major construction projects are under way on individual lots. In each case, the existing, one-story home was sold and pulled down. A builder is now constructing a massive mansion some ten times larger than the pre-existing building on each lot … These large land-use changes in such a small area have significant effects on the town as a whole … tens of trees have been removed to make way for not only the massive buildings but also for the vast sprinkled lawns that surround them. Large decorative lawns and small clusters of shrubs is very different from the slightly overgrown woods … They also mean fertilizer, weed-killer, other chemical products … These changes of vegetation, and the increase in built area, alter both the flora and fauna of the area, especially when introduced on such a massive scale—not one mansion, but four and possibly five on the same small street! Second, when a new subdivision of million dollar plus homes is proposed, community members may have an opinion on the uncontrolled removal of smaller, more affordable homes for the young and/or the old members of our community. And finally, whatever your architectural tastes, no one can pretend that these homes are adding to the beauty of our town. But none of these objections would be meaningful if neighbourhood residents had been consulted, as we imagine they would have been if an entire new subdivision was proposed … By tearing down individual homes and replacing them, builders and realtors seem able to sidestep any conventional public approvals process. Only those of us who live nearby are aware that our neighbourhood is changing radically. (Letter to the editor, Carlisle Mosquito, 8 June 2002, John and Jacqueline Zeisel)

:Architecture and Image‐Building in Seventeenth‐Century Hertfordshire.(Oxford Historical Monographs.)

Paul M. Hunneyball's objective in this book is to examine cultural change in the seventeenth century, specifically through an analysis of the evolution of architectural style in Hertfordshire. The basic outline of shifts in architectural taste in this period—from Jacobean to artisan mannerist to classicism—has, of course, been long established, but the originality of Hunneyball's work lies in the meticulous analysis of how these changes were disseminated down the social scale, beyond the elite of trend-setting patrons, and how the meanings of the various motifs, styles, and forms changed in different social and architectural milieux. To the twenty-first-century reader, the choice of Hertfordshire as the county of study might seem perverse: its modern identity is one of dormitory towns and creeping suburbanization. But in the seventeenth century the very factors that make its modern architectural landscape featureless and anodyne made it particularly dynamic in architectural terms: its easy proximity to London rendered it attractive to gentry with political, professional or mercantile interests in the capital, but who also wanted a residence in a rural setting. Thus Hertfordshire had an unusually high proportion of newcomers among its gentry, many of whom had strong links with the capital and its cultural innovations. It offers the opportunity, therefore, to consider architecture as an expression of social identity within a mobile society, and to chart the dissemination of cultural forms away from London.

Expose Ignorance and Revive the "Bon Goût": Foreign Architects at Jacques-François Blondel's École des Arts

This article focuses on four foreign architects who attended Blondel's school during the 1740s and 1750s: the Dutch architect Pieter de Swart, Sir William Chambers, and German architects Simon Louis du Ry and Karl Philipp Christian von Gontard. Through analysis of relatively unknown documentary evidence, the author reconstructs the actual content of Blondel's teachings. These sources underline Blondel's importance as a promoter of the study of architecture at all levels of society, a principal teacher of both theory and design, a master of spatial organization, a critic of contemporary architectural taste (Rococo and early neoclassicism), and an enthusiastic advocate of the interests of the architect as a professional in control of the entire building process. On the whole Blondel's views were heartily embraced by his foreign students. These facts suggest that, from an international perspective, Blondel should be regarded as a major propagator of the renewal and revival of the language of classicism and not merely as a traditionalist or as the last great theoretician of the Renaissance. Designs completed by his foreign students in their subsequent careers illustrate Blondel's efficacy in changing attitudes to classical architecture and theory, particularly outside France. After their schooling at Blondel's École des Arts, Chambers, de Swart, du Ry, and Gontard all rose to important positions in their homelands and, thanks to their acquired skills, used their education to redirect the practice of architecture. Moreover, their approaches to architectural education, theory, design, history, and contemporary taste clearly distinguished them as disciples of Blondel. To a large extent, they personified Blondel's new professionalism and were responsible for spreading his doctrine and renewed classicism throughout Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century and, at least in part, for carrying it well into the nineteenth century.

Grand Tour: uma contribuição à historia do viajar por prazer e por amor à cultura

O trabalho aborda o Grand Tour enquanto fenômeno social, pontuando aspectos técnicos e culturais desses pioneiros fluxos de viagens do século 18 por puro prazer, matrizes dos fluxos de turismo de lazer e cultural do nosso tempo atual. A pesquisa apóia-se nos diários de viagem à Itália de três notáveis grand tourists - o novelista britânico Thobias Smollet, o poeta alemão Johann W. von Goethe e o especialista inglês em antigüidades Richard Payne Knight. Com base em seus relatos, olhamos para as condições de realização do Grand Tour observando rotas e destinos, meios de transporte, guias e acomodações. Entre as questões permeando o universo cultural do grand tourist, destacamos o gosto pela arte e a arquitetura dos antigos, o culto à ruína e a atração de valores estéticos sublimes, em meio às quais podemos distinguir a emergência de uma visualidade dessa experiência de viagem dita "clássica".

重商制成功者の上流社会に対抗するが参入も図る自由貿易論者のパラディオ風/ロココ風ゴシック

Mercantilists formed a close league with free traders by sucking them up to new "Gentleman" class, and ruled England in the interests of the commerce and the Empire. Transformation of the architectural taste was continuously and finely graded as the English social order was. Snobs of free traders, who were looking for an adventurous advance into new worlds, inherited the idea of Palladianism and shared so called "Gentleman Culture". They mix the Palladian and the Gothick taste to make Palladian Gothiek. Rococo was agreeable for free traders who had strong bent for going to the expense of acquiring "surveyable" wealth". Decorated Gothic reminds snobs of a pleasant success story, namely promotion to be "Gentleman" class, of Middle Ages merchants. They mixed the freedom and universality of Rococo, and Englishness of Decorated Gothic to make Rococo Gothick. Then, Palladian / Rococo Gothick became a status symbol for newly born gentlemen of free traders.

Contrasting Visions of History: The Rambler's Rejection of Pugin

The historic and once august hierarchy of Rome some generations ago lost its chance of being the religion of the future by … throwing over the little band of New Catholics who were making a struggle for continuity by applying the principle of evolution to their own faith, joining hands with modern science, and outflanking the hesitating English instinct towards liturgical restatement. Thomas Hardy, Late Lyrics and Earlier (London, 1922) Pugin’s interpretation of the history of the medieval world shaped progressive architectural taste in the later nineteenth century. It touched on every aspect of the styles of the era, first through his application of its lessons to his own work, and then through the affirmation or the rejection of its precepts by others. Significantly the most fundamental opposition to Pugin’s historical interpretations was that expressed by his adopted Roman Catholic Church. In a coherent body of informed criticism his aspiration to a romantic recreation of a lost medieval culture was undermined by representatives of that church and, ultimately, dismissed. Two complementary articles published in the Roman Catholic periodical, The Rambler , at either end of the 1850s, constituted a firm theoretical counterblast to Pugin’s dogma, and form the main subject of this essay.

Apostle of Taste: Andrew Jackson Downing, 1815-1852

In June 1849, a writer who had just moved to a new community described its buildings as completely devoid of architectural taste. Is there no way of instilling some rudiments of into the minds of dwellers in remote country places? the writer asked the editor of the Horticulturist, a popular magazine devoted to improving rural art and taste. Andrew Jackson Downing, the editor, replied by ordaining this correspondent an apostle of taste and charged him with the responsibility of providing examples of architectural and landscape design worthy of imitation by other Americans. This was Downing's mission as well. Apostle of Taste is the first full-length biography of Downing, the horticulturist, landscape gardener, and prolific writer on architecture who, more than any other individual, shaped middle-class in the United States in the two decades prior to the Civil War. Through his books and the pages of the Horticulturist, Downing preached a gospel of that promoted the modern or natural style of landscape design over the formal and geometric arrangements that were the hallmark of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century gardens. Together with his longtime collaborator, architect Alexander Jackson Davis, he contributed to the revolution in American architectural from the universality of the classical revival to Gothic, Italianate, bracketed, and other romantic or picturesque styles. Downing celebrated this progression from classic to romantic not simply as a change in stylistic preference but also as a reflection of the nation's evolution from a pioneer condition to a more advanced state of civilization. In this compelling biography, illustrated with more than 100 drawings, plans, and photographs, David Schuyler explores the origins of Downing's ideas in English aesthetic theory and his efforts to adapt English designs to the different climate and republican social institutions of the United States. Schuyler traces the impulse toward an American architectural style in Downing's work, demonstrates the influence of Downing's ideas on the appropriate design of homes and gardens, and analyzes the complications of class implicit in Downing's prescriptions for American society. Schuyler's excellent study of Downing's writings and career, complete with excellent illustrations and an extensive, annotated bibliography, will serve as one major starting point for future studies.--Winterthur Portfolio

Reviews and Short Notices

Reviews and Short Notices

Idaho Loners: Hermits, Solitaires, and Individualists by Cort Conley

Reviews 375 Place for Ryden is about far more than the objective geographical facts ofa given topography. Aswith Olson’s study of Melville, place (so similar to Olson’s “SPACE”) is here seen as among the most formative and significant facts in American cultural experience. What he calls “invisible landscape”points to the constellation of stories, memories, feelings, and imaginative responses with which that topography is imbued, and without which that topography remains in many ways unknowable. The first chapter establishes Ryden’s premise for “invisible landscape” by examining the representation of place in Colonial cartography. Seventeenth century map-making is a decidedly imaginative and interpretive act for Ryden, illustrative not just of property lines, but of the “ecology, economic base, settlement history, [and] architectural tastes” of the day. The work of such cultural geographers as E. V. Walter and D. W. Meinig assists Ryden’s project of reading the cultural significance ofnarratives derived from a response to place. The crux of Mapping comes from Ryden’s attempt to discern the signifi­ cance of invisible landscape in the regional folkloric narratives he gathered in the Coeur d’Alene mining district of Northern Idaho, and in the nonfiction essay of place as practiced by such familiar lights as Thoreau, Berry Lopez, Ivan Doig, and Gretel Ehrlich. In the former chapter, “The Folklore of Place,”Ryden comes across as an adept and compassionate folklorist. In the latter, his discus­ sion of a kind of “peripatetic essay” and the connections he makes between walking, writing (that is, essaying), and mapping is perceptive, if not always original. By detecting and examining a dialectic between a given locale and the representation of that locale in folklore and literature, Ryden has added a significant voice to this growing field of criticism. The wide-ranging, interdisci­ plinary sweep of Mapping the Invisible Landscape corrals much of the most important research previously carried out in this area. As such, it sets a standard by which other studies of “Place”will invariably (and profitably) be measured. RALPH W. BLACK New York University Idaho Loners: Hermits, Solitaires, and Individualists. By Cort Conley. (Cambridge, Idaho: Backeddy Books, 1994. 322 pages, $19.95.) Cort Conley begins his chapter on Clydeus Dunbar, Wheelbarrow Annie, with this statement by MaryAdare: I DID NOT CHOOSE SOLITUDE. WHO WOULD? IT CAME ON ME LIKE A VOCATION, DEMANDING AN EFFORT THAT MARRIED MEN CAN’T PICTURE. The three women and nine men whom Conley exposes are shrouded in soli­ 376 WesternAmerican Literature tude of place or mind. Some came to Idaho specifically to be hermits, to isolate themselves from the entrapments of civilization: law and order, diet, domestic­ ity. Some, like Wheelbarrow Annie, found seclusion to be a great and good companion and wed it for better or for worse. Through research and byhaving a good ear for story, Conley captures these persons as legend and as character. His journalistic-styled essays tell the tales and refine the facts. He has recorded more than “Hermits, Solitaires, and Individualists.”He has fleshed out a time, an atmosphere, when the quirky, selfreliant person trusted that distance and seclusion go hand-in-hand. A notion much proved by Beaver Dick, Buckskin Bill, The Hermit ofImpassable Canyon, The Ridgerunner, and Dugout Dick. A notion unattested by the Wildhorse Cowgirl and Free Press Frances; yet, a notion too soon in its dotage for the Outback Outlaw, Claude Dallas, who murdered two Idaho Fish and Game Officers in 1981. For Dallas, the Wild West wasn’t over. At the heart of Idaho Loners is what every reader might expect and want: these strange and sometimes unruly individuals have left or are leaving their mark on Idaho and the imagination of Idahoans. There is an undercurrent throughout that suggests the familiaritywith which Idahoans relate their knowl­ edge of these peculiar folks who live, principally, in Idaho’s Outback. This is a book about characterand characters. Each coot conjured up is unique of mind and spirit: Cougar Dave, The Cove Recluse, even the good All-American former spy—The Poet. And to help the reader settle in and believe the truth, there are pictures and map. The pictures are specific, life-giving images of the...

Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing, and the Sense of Place by Kent C. Ryden

374 WesternAmerican Literature into the fabric of the story so that there is no seam, just as past, present, and future meld together in a person’s experience of a place. Geary particularly favors us with excerpts from the writings ofClarence Dutton, who accompanied John Wesley Powell in his exploration of the area in 1875. The richness ofthis book isfar too great to express in these few lines. In one section, Geary voices the contemporary Westerner’s ambivalence about water. He decries the practices that deplete our groundwater, but expresses awe at the beautiful green transformation caused by irrigation water. He ponders the differences between inhabiting a landscape and visiting it; the influence of romanticism on our views of how land should be managed; and the difficult times various ethnic groups have had learning to live together. Excellent notes and an index help the reader who wants to make a study of the region. Geary describes the plateaus and their inhabitants lovingly but without illusions. For him, these high landscapes are real—he grew up there, and he has studied them. They are populated by rocks, plants, animals, and humans, and they are his community, with all itsjoys and sorrows. They are notjust picture postcards, or highway view points, or fishing spots, or picturesque mining towns. When I first started reading the book, I was extremely disappointed in the quality of the photographs. They could have been much better, sometimes in the shooting, always in the reproduction. But one would not want this narrative to be accompanied by big, gorgeous, full-color photographs. This is a book about stories, about the complexities of place that go well beyond a beautiful vista. So, in a way, the pictures—small, black and white, sometimes a little hard to read like family snapshots—are somehow appropriate, like visual footnotes thatjust suggest what can be found if one looks more deeply. The one thing I longed for was a great map. There is a map, but as I read the text, Iwanted a better one. I wanted to see a detailed topographic map with overlays showing roads, towns, explorers and settlers’ routes, and all the other things mentioned in the narrative. This is an important book in landscape writing. Its mix of genres resulting in a clearer picture ofplace will appeal to serious students oflandscape aswell as to tourists and natives of the high plateau country and its environs. ELAINE THATCHER Western StatesArtsFederation Mapping theInvisible Landscape:Folklore, Writing, and the Sense ofPlace. By Kent C. Ryden. (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993. 326 pages, $39.95/$17.95.) Kent C. Ryden’s Mapping the Invisible Landscape, an ambitious and emi­ nently readable examination of place, writ large, in American culture and literature, could aptly claim as its epigraph Wendell Berry’sdictum that we can’t really know whowe are until we know wherewe are. Reviews 375 Place for Ryden is about far more than the objective geographical facts ofa given topography. Aswith Olson’s study of Melville, place (so similar to Olson’s “SPACE”) is here seen as among the most formative and significant facts in American cultural experience. What he calls “invisible landscape”points to the constellation of stories, memories, feelings, and imaginative responses with which that topography is imbued, and without which that topography remains in many ways unknowable. The first chapter establishes Ryden’s premise for “invisible landscape” by examining the representation of place in Colonial cartography. Seventeenth century map-making is a decidedly imaginative and interpretive act for Ryden, illustrative not just of property lines, but of the “ecology, economic base, settlement history, [and] architectural tastes” of the day. The work of such cultural geographers as E. V. Walter and D. W. Meinig assists Ryden’s project of reading the cultural significance ofnarratives derived from a response to place. The crux of Mapping comes from Ryden’s attempt to discern the signifi­ cance of invisible landscape in the regional folkloric narratives he gathered in the Coeur d’Alene mining district of Northern Idaho, and in the nonfiction essay of place as practiced by such familiar lights as Thoreau, Berry Lopez, Ivan Doig, and Gretel Ehrlich. In the former chapter...

L'amphithéâtre de Nîmes. Remarques à propos de sa date, sa place, son image

Nîmes amphitheatre was built at the end of the first century on the city's periphery. With an orientation similar to the neighbouring districts it is besides apparently to be connected with Nîmes civic and religious centre. The shaping of its façade evinces the builders' attachment to already ancient principles : the receding entablatures were developped according to a pattern put to the test on various honorary arches at the beginning of the first century ; the bulls' protomai that support the entablature on the northern axis are reminiscent of Augustus' gate. Such characteristics evince an archaistic taste for Augustan architecture.

Woolworth Building Renovation Precast Concrete Used for Terra Cotta Facade

T he decision to use precast concrete for the renovation of the 53-story terra cotta facade of the Woolworth Building was based on the results of extensive accelerated weathering tests. Alternate materials were studied because of the high cost and limited availability of terra cotta replacement units. In the early 1900's, when the Woolworth Building was constructed in New York City, terra cotta was the in vogue material for building facades. The hand-molded clay units easily reproduced the rich ornamentation being demanded by the architects of the day, and the ceramic glazed surfaces on the units could be produced to simulate natural stones or to create whole new ranges of color never before available. Architectural tastes changed, however, and as elaborate ornamentation began to be forsaken in favor of the smoother cleaner look of modern architecture, most of the terra cotta manufacturers either went out of business or turned their attention to the production of bricks or other clay items. In 1981, when a large number of replacement units were needed for the renovation of the Woolworth Building, only one manufacturer could be located. The 792 ft (241 m) high Woolworth

The Grant Monument

The Grant Monument, popularly known today as Grant's Tomb, was comparable in sheer size and costliness to only two other memorials erected in 19th-century America-the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty. When General Grant died in the summer of 1885 it was anticipated that a shaft of some kind would be built over his grave. This had been the usual choice for the nation's major memorials in the post-Civil War period. The issue was widely debated and other suggestions were advanced. In an official competition for the monument in 1888/1889 a shaft was selected. The results of the competition were subsequently set aside and John Hemenway Duncan's very different proposal for a classical mausoleum was chosen in a second, decisive competition in 1890 (Fig. 1). The Grant Monument thus became the most significant of a growing number of memorials to be modeled after classical sources, indicating in part the development of more sophisticated architectural tastes, as well as the rising sense of nationalism in the last decades of the 19th century. Within this framework, classical monuments, with their aura of ancient glory, seemed to express forcefully and didactically the importance of the nation's heroes and the grandeur of its history.

Notes on Some Mosques in Eastern and Western Saudi Arabia

In studies of Islamic architecture dealing with the earliest periods, a natural emphasis has fallen on the mosques of the Holy Cities of Arabia, the Ḥaramayn, whenever the architecture of the Arabian Peninsula has been discussed. In later periods, extensions and restorations in the Ḥaram in Mecca and the Mosque of the Prophet in al-Madīna have likewise been discussed, but until recent times, little has been said of any other Arabian mosques. As far as mosques beyond the Ḥaramayn are concerned, this neglect has been caused largely by their inaccessibility; but as a result of the imbalance, students of Islamic architecture have been left to judge Arabia by the Prophet's Mosque, which was only truly Arabian at its foundation, and the Ḥaram and the Ka'ba, which were always unique in Islam in terms both of religion and of architecture. As for later extensions and restorations of either mosque, these tell more of the development of Islamic architectural style and taste beyond the Peninsula than of any Arabian religious architectural tradition.

A History of Building Types

Why does the Hilton Hotel look different from a coaching inn - because of changes in architectural taste or changes in the hotel business? The study of building types is a history of institutions - official, social and commercial; of their changing architectural requirements; and of the way in which these requirements have been met. The building types covered here are national monuments, government buildings, theatres, libraries, museums, hospitals, prisons, hotels, exchanges and banks, warehouses and offices, railway stations, market halls and exhibition buildings, shops and department stores, and factories. Now available again, this winner of the Wolfson Literary Award in 1976 is an expanded version of the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts delivered at Washington in 1970. It was Pevsner's major preoccupation after the monumental Buildings of England series came to an end.