The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Aug. 1869
Various Authors
9781465636652
118 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Of all the intellectual qualifications which man is gifted with, there is not one as sensitive as that which enables him to discern between what is intrinsically good, and what is bad or indifferent to his eye. Yet are there none of all man’s mental attributes so frequently and so grossly outraged as is this to which we now allude, called Taste. Custom has much to say in the question of arbitrary rule which taste so imperatively claims. Persistence in any thing will, of necessity, make itself felt and recognized, no matter how odious at first may be the object put before the public eye, and ultimately that object becomes what is commonly called “fashionable.” This apparent unity of the public on one object is variable and will soon change to another, which in its turn will seem to reign by unanimous consent and so onad infinitum. In Architecture this fickle goddess, Fashion, seems to reign as imperatively and as coquettishly as in any or all the affairs of this world of humanity. That which was at first esteemed grotesque and ridiculous, becomes in time tolerable and at last admirable. But the apathy which sameness begets cannot long be borne by the novelty worshippers, and accordingly new forms and shapes remodel the idea of the day, until it ceases to bear a vestige of its first appearance and becomes quite another thing. Of all the prominent features of architecture that which has been least changeable until late years is the “roof.” The outline of that covering has been limited to a very few ideas, some of which resolved themselves into arbitrary rules of government from which the hardiest adventurer was loath to attempt escape. Deviating from the very general style of roof which on the section presents a triangle, sometimes of one pitch, sometimes of another, but almost universally of a fourth of the span, the truncated form was to be found, but so exceedingly sombre was this peculiar roof that it never obtained to any great extent, and indeed it presented on the exterior a very serious obstacle to its adoption by architects in the difficulty of blending it with any design in which spirit, life, or elegance, was a requisite. There are occasionally to be found in Europe, and even in America, examples of these truncated roofs, but it is very questionable whether there are to be met with any admirers of their effect. The principle on which they are constructed has, however, a very great advantage in the acquirement of head-room in the attics, giving an actual story or story and half to the height, without increasing the elevation of the walls. The architects of the middle ages took a hint from this evident advantage, and used the truncated roof on their largest constructions. Its form is that of a pyramid with the upper portion cut off (trunco, to cut off, being its derivation.) Mansart, or as he is more commonly called Mansard, an erratic but ingenious French architect, in the seventeenth century invented the curb roof, so decided an improvement on the truncated that it became known by his name. This roof adorning the palatial edifices of France soon assumed so much decorative beauty in its curb moulding and base cornice, as well as in the dormers and eyelets with which it was so judiciously pierced, that it became a source of artistic fascination in those days in France; and as Germany was indebted to French architects for her most prominent designs, the Mansard roof found its way there, and into some other parts of Europe.
