Saturday, May 1, 2010

Introduction

A history of architecture is a record of man's efforts to build
beautifully. The erection of structures devoid of beauty is mere
building, a trade and not an art. Edifices in which strength and
stability alone are sought, and in designing which only utilitarian
considerations have been followed, are properly works of engineering.
Only when the idea of beauty is added to that of use does a structure
take its place among works of architecture. We may, then, define
architecture as the art which seeks to harmonize in a building the
requirements of utility and of beauty. It is the most useful of the fine
arts and the noblest of the useful arts. It touches the life of man at
every point. It is concerned not only in sheltering his person and
ministering to his comfort, but also in providing him with places for
worship, amusement, and business; with tombs, memorials, embellishments
for his cities, and other structures for the varied needs of a complex
civilization. It engages the services of a larger portion of the
community and involves greater outlays of money than any other
occupation except agriculture. Everyone at some point comes in contact
with the work of the architect, and from this universal contact
architecture derives its significance as an index of the civilization of
an age, a race, or a people.

It is the function of the historian of architecture to trace the origin,
growth, and decline of the architectural styles which have prevailed in
different lands and ages, and to show how they have reflected the great
movements of civilization. The migrations, the conquests, the
commercial, social, and religious changes among different peoples have
all manifested themselves in the changes of their architecture, and it
is the historian's function to show this. It is also his function to
explain the principles of the styles, their characteristic forms and
decoration, and to describe the great masterpieces of each style and
period.


+STYLE+ is a quality; the "historic styles" are phases of development.
_Style_ is character expressive of definite conceptions, as of grandeur,
gaiety, or solemnity. An _historic style_ is the particular phase, the
characteristic manner of design, which prevails at a given time and
place. It is not the result of mere accident or caprice, but of
intellectual, moral, social, religious, and even political conditions.
Gothic architecture could never have been invented by the Greeks, nor
could the Egyptian styles have grown up in Italy. Each style is based
upon some fundamental principle springing from its surrounding
civilization, which undergoes successive developments until it either
reaches perfection or its possibilities are exhausted, after which a
period of decline usually sets in. This is followed either by a reaction
and the introduction of some radically new principle leading to the
evolution of a new style, or by the final decay and extinction of the
civilization and its replacement by some younger and more virile
element. Thus the history of architecture appears as a connected chain
of causes and effects succeeding each other without break, each style
growing out of that which preceded it, or springing out of the
fecundating contact of a higher with a lower civilization. To study
architectural styles is therefore to study a branch of the history of
civilization.