balconies, and with a great Aztec fountain playing in the centre of a tiled floor, wherein appear strange and interesting figures of ancient South American mythology. The patio, however, has been strangely neglected in American architecture, and its Italian counterpart, the courtyard has fared little better, although our eyes have been turned more to Italy for architectural inspiration than to Spain.

Spanish architecture, as well as that of Italy, is peculiarly adaptable to construction with hollow tile and stucco, and with the increasing popularity of these materials the spread of both these Latin derivations has widened.

The Italian villa or the Spanish casa can never occupy a place in our architectural thought entirely comparable with the English country house, because, as a race, we are not of Latin extraction, but AngloSaxon. Our esteem for these types, as well as for the French château, will be based very largely upon literary association and upon superficial æsthetic attraction -they will be esteemed and accepted because they bring foreign elements into our life-not because they are, ancestrally, a part of our life.

CHAPTER VIII

NATIVE AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

AMERICAN TYPES CHARACTERISTIC OF NEW ENGLAND, THE MIDDLE ATLANTIC STATES, AND THE SOUTH. CREOLE AND SPANISH COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE. "SECESSIONIST" WORK IN MIDDLE WEST, THE "CRAFTSMAN IDEA" AND SOME COMMENTS ON THE BUNGALOW

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ESPITE the continued pronouncement of writers and critics and architects who bewail the fact that there is no "national style," no truly "American" architecture, the fact remains that there exist not one type, but several types peculiar to this country. And these types, considered as divided by what naturalists would call their "habitat," should afford a rich source of inspiration to our architects throughout the country.

It is important at the outset to correct the loose and often misleading term "Colonial," and to divide early American buildings a little more accurately, with some proper chronological distinction. This division may be made to a great extent irrespective of locality, and a consideration of the types of native American architecture characteristic of North, South, East and West may then be better understood.

It is a common matter to hear any American building, of date prior to the Civil War, designated "Colonial," which would be as absurd as it is inaccurate, if people were to give the question even a moment's thought.

The evolution of native American architecture, from its necessarily primitive beginnings, through its more highly developed manifestations, is a consecutive one, and would afford a peculiarly interesting opportunity to study the history of the American people—if

a study so detailed could properly be included in a review so broad and extensive as the present book, wherein may be pointed out only the more salient and important points.

The broad distinction between "Colonial Architecture" and "Georgian" (or "Georgian Colonial") architecture is that the first is essentially native and necessarily primitive, while the second is essentially imported and, by reason of greater national prosperity and development, far more sophisticated and elaborate.

Early Colonial architecture reflected very accurately the various home-country influences of the settlers-English, Dutch, Swedish, Welsh, French, or German-who erected buildings in different parts of the original thirteen colonies, while Georgian Colonial architecture tended toward effecting a certain uniformity, at least in detail, and toward effecting, as well, great modifications of the previously distinctive architectural modes of the varied nationalities.

The architecture of Post-Colonial America, and of the Classic Revival is distinct from earlier styles, as will be seen by a brief survey of Early and Georgian Colonial architecture.

The clearest and most useful manner in which to study this chapter of architecture would seem to be the study by general locality, the divisions being both architectural and geographical. We have to consider, then, the architectural types prevalent in the Early and Georgian Colonial periods in New England, in the settlements of New York and adjacent portions of New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, Delaware and the southwest portion of New Jersey, and in the Southern States.

The architecture of the French and Spanish Creoles in Louisiana, and of the early Spanish missionaries in the Southwest and on the Pacific Coast-these are varieties as separate from the architecture of the thirteen colonies as they are interesting in themselves, and will be taken up in due course.

In New England the rigorous climate, as well as the yearly demolition which goes inevitably in the wake of "progress," have left but few examples of the homes of the earliest colonists, and for this reason we are too likely to picture the New England type of Colonial house as the type which was evolved in Georgian Colonial times, and of which a wealth of examples may be seen to-day.

The earliest New England houses were strange and interesting off-shoots of contemporary houses in England, modified, it is true, by local necessities and limitations.

One of their most conspicuous characteristics was sturdy construction. The corner posts of the frame were often twelve and fourteen inches square, heavily braced, and held together with tenons and dowels, or wooden pegs. It has been discovered that many of these very early New England houses were actually of English half-timber construction, concealed behind a purely superficial mask of clapboards. The heavy frames were filled in with stone and mortar-sometimes with brick, the interior surfaces finished with rough, hand-made laths and plaster, the exterior sheathed with clapboards.

An interesting feature of direct English tradition was the overhang of the second story, as well as the small diamond-paned casement windows which are to be seen in the earliest examples. New England houses

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with gambrel roofs nearly all belong to the earlier period of New England Colonial architecture.

As the country grew more prosperous, the architecture of the colonists developed correspondingly. More ships plied the perilous route between the Old and the New World, and brought with them an ever-increasing number of skilled artisans, trained in the more sophisticated forms which characterised the architecture of Georgian England.

The New England houses were still severe and Puritanical in their exterior aspect, save for the entrance which became more and more elaborate. Classic columns or pilasters flanked the door, supporting a curved or pointed pediment, or a delicately moulded entablature. Beneath the pediment there was often a graceful fan-light, with wooden or leaded divisions. The usual exterior treatment was a complete sheathing of white-painted clapboards, shutters painted green and the whole four-square house roofed with a lowpitched shingle roof. There were other types, of course, the most common being the barn-roofed type, with plain gable-end and the utmost simplicity marking the whole exterior. The more pretentious of the larger New England houses were often embellished with imitation "quoins," or corner stones, fashioned in wood and intended to distinguish the house of some prosperous merchant prince from those of more humble neighbours.

An interesting peculiarity of the New England house is the oft-met-with disparity between exterior and interior-a house which would appear, from the road, to be a farmstead of the most humble kind may disclose within the most rich and intricate carved woodwork and panelling.