AN EXAMPLE OF CLASSIC INSPIRATION IN A MONUMENTAL
BUILDING ESSENTIALLY OF BEAUX-ARTS DESIGN
Columns partly built into a wall, as here, are called "engaged columns"
(The New York Public Library)

Modern French architecture by the exponents of pure Italian styles.

It was said in a previous paragraph that, excepting in the works of the Classic Revival or "American Empire," Classic derivations unmixed with Beaux Arts influences, are rarely met with in American architecture. This, in a measure, is true, though designs of direct Classic inspiration are usually met with in bank buildings, certain libraries and art museums, and in such mausoleums as Grant's Tomb in New York City.

Classic inspiration, it is true, underlies nearly all the monumental buildings in this country, whether the actual rendering follows the character of the Modern French School, or the Renaissance Italian School.

The Classic Ideal in architecture, and Classic forms, have endured many architectural developments, but through the Renaissance, through the Classic Revival and through the Modern French or 'Beaux Arts School, have always proved to possess qualities greater and more potent than the stylistic movements which have sought to adopt or re-mould them.

And it is safe to predict that Classic forms, through future cycles of architectural evolution, will retain their immortal qualities when other architectural forms have been forgotten, and that "Classic Derivations" will be apparent in the architecture of successive future centuries--for the genius of the ancient Greeks has lost none of its significance in the centuries which have passed since the golden age of Hellenism.

The design of the following chapter is to aid in discerning what part in American architecture has been played by the Byzantine and Romanesque styles, and by that remarkable fabric of the Middle Ages, called the Gothic style.

CHAPTER V

BYZANTINE, ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC

DERIVATIONS

THE "ROMANESQUE REVIVAL" IN AMERICA. THE PLACE OF ROMANESQUE STYLES IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF TO-DAY. GOTHIC DERIVATIONS, ECCLESIASTICAL, COLLEGIATE, MILITARY AND SECULAR, IN AMERICA

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O group American architectural derivations of Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic styles, is to establish a triology which might be said to be logical only in that these historic types have played but a partial rôle in the stylistic expression of architecture in America.

A brief consideration of the Byzantine and Romanesque styles will recall a past phase of architectural inspiration in this country, but a phase which left a great many important monuments, destined to endure for a long time to come-buildings both ecclesiastical and secular. And in ecclesiastical architecture, the Byzantine and Romanesque styles are distinctly to be reckoned with to-day as an important factor in the inspiration of our church architects.

A brief consideration of the Gothic derivations and adaptations in American architecture will outline the very important part played by that great mediæval style in ecclesiastical architecture, as well as the lesser part it has played in some secular types of building.

The acquaintance formed with Byzantine architecture in the second chapter of this book will recall that it was a style developed by the early Christians, considerably after the fall of Rome (with the temporary

ROMANESQUE DERIVATION OF THE ROMAN TYPE A brick church in New York City, the dome of tile, the pediment figures of terra-cotta, and the shafts of the Roman Corinthian columns of granite

THE MOST NOTABLE MONUMENT OF "ROMANESQUE REVIVAL" IN AMERICA Trinity Church, in Boston, Massachusetts, marked a turning point in the architectural thought of the country