Architecture

Architecture. Architecture is one of the decorative arts, that is, a fine art applied to the beautification of that which is primarily utilitarian. Because the work of the architect is carried out on a large scale and is in fixed locations obvious to the public eye, it is the most important of the decorative arts. The architecture of a country is indicative of the civilization, culture, and prosperity of that country in proportion to the excellence and abundance of the art. The utility and strength of a building depend upon engineering and construction; its beauty and attractiveness are created by architecture. The three chief elements of architecture are: first, size or vastness which gives a sense of majesty and power; secondly, harmony, proportion and symmetry, the absence of which is glaring and unpleasant, though the reason is difficult to assign; and, thirdly, ornament and color, which lend variety to the many surfaces.

The first purpose of man’s buildings was utility, ornament being unthought of. The buildings to which decorative art was first applied were not primarily utilitarian but rather religious or memorial shrines, temples, and mausoleums, where sentiment and impressiveness were all-important. In ancient times, the usefulness of temples was subordinate to their beauty. Originally, therefore, usefulness and ornamentation were separate qualities employed on separate structures. The progress of engineering knowledge enabled the beautiful temples to be made more commodious, while, on the other hand, the increase of artistic talent and taste brought ornamentation to purely utilitarian buildings. Eventually the most important buildings became both useful and attractive, the first being basilicas and churches. The first architects were those who could apply engineering principles, making the structure strong and durable, and could ornament it artistically, making it beautiful and admired.

Strange as it may seem, at the middle of the 20th century, when the present generation boasts of an all-time peak of wealth and knowledge, we find architecture giving way to modernistic designs primarily utilitarian and, like much current music, painting, and sculpture, too often crude or bizarre. Artistic architecture is in a retreat which threatens to become a rout. The metaphor is apt, for the devastation of two world w*rs and the inevitable inflation of money have taken their tolls. W*r reaches far beyond the field of battle in both time and space and its consequences must be borne years and decades after armed conflict ends. Harsh architecture follows the hard fact that fewer owners can afford the luxury of art because they must pay more and more for mere protection from the weather. Should affluence pass away, art would be suppressed; and finally people would no longer care how a building looked if it would turn wind and rain.

EGYPT, CHALDEA, AND ASSYRIA

The oldest remains of architecture are found in the valley of the Nile and next in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Egypt is antecedent, because of the availability of stone, whereas the Chaldeans had only sun-dried brick, with some burned brick or tile for facings. In those times and throughout the ancient period, architecture was confined to temples and tombs, among the oldest being two small temples and the celebrated Pyramids erected between 3700 and 4000 B. C. by Khufu (Cheops) and others of the Memphite Dynasty. The celebrated Temple at Karnak was the work of the second Theban Dynasty 1600-2450 B. C. The interiors of such temples were largely occupied by columns, which uniformly had great diameters in proportion to height. They, as well as some other surfaces, were covered with hieroglyphics. For want of good building material, the Chaldeans and Assyrians constructed little that endured or that was architecturally attractive, though some works were stupendous. The usual temple was the ziggurat or stage-tower of several stories, each higher story occupying less area than the one beneath, thus, leaving a terrace or deck all around. The best of this kind of work was done around 800 B. C. by the Assyrians.

PERSIA

The Persians became builders of note, because they located their principal cities near the mountains where stone was available. The Palaces of Darius and Xerxes at Persepolis were built on a grand scale, occupying a tableland approximately one-quarter mile square. The stones were fitted neatly and secured with metal clamps. Another curious building at Persepolis was the Palace of the Hundred Columns, about 250 feet square, containing 10 rows of 10 columns each and a portico of 16 columns in two rows.

PALESTINE

Hebrew architecture must be mentioned, not because there was any such form, but solely because of one edifice, the TEMPLE OF SOLOMON (q.v.), which was really not a Hebrew product, both the materials and the workmen being imported. (II Chron. 2:17, 18; I Kings 5:6; I Kings 6:7.) Indeed, there seem to have been few buildings in Palestine of sufficient character or importance to be mentioned by Scriptural writers, though a few temples were. (II Sam. 7:2; Judges 17:5; 18:18, 30; I Sam. 1:9; 3:3, 15; 21.) (See TEMPLE OF SOLOMON.)

GREECE

In Greek architecture, we meet the first type that exerted influence in Europe and ultimately on the Western Hemisphere. The oldest Greek architectural example preserved is the Temple of Hera (or the Heraeum) at Olympia erected about 1000 B. C. Yet, even so early a form seems to have set the example for all that followed it, being a simple, rectangular colonnaded form with gables at the two ends of what should be the roof, though Greek temples had no roofs, or only partial ones. The two best preserved Greek temples are of the Doric order, being the Temple of Poseidon (Neptune) on the east shore of Italy and the Theseum on the Acropolis at Athens. The most famous Greek Temple is the Parthenon also on the Acropolis at Athens which, however, is in a state of ruin.

ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE

The Doric builders began to use stone columns about the 6th or 7th century B. C., their columns being of great diameter in proportion to height, somewhat like those in Egypt but probably not so marked. This massiveness was accentuated by placing the columns so close together that the separation was but little more than the width of a column. Doric columns were set up in sections or drums, without cement or mortar, an upper drum being rotated on a lower drum until the line of junction was imperceptible, except after it had become discolored by age and weather. The general shaping of the column, including the entasis, the channeling and even the final sculpturing of the capital was done after the shaft was in place. Adjacent channels met in a sharp line or arris, and a peculiarity of the Doric column was the absence of a base, the lowest drum resting directly on the stylobate or floor, though there was an abacus (q.v.) or the flat stone above the plain simple capital.

The Ionic was the second style of Greek architecture. It originated in Ionia, comprising the Greek settlements along the west shore of Asia Minor. The first of the Ionic temples was that of Diana at Ephesus, about 350 B. C. The Temple of Apollo near Miletus was the largest. The temple at Ephesus and the mausoleum at Halicarnassus were reckoned among the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Ionic column differed from the Doric in being taller and more slender and in resting on a base and having a capital ornamented with volutes, that is, spiral or scroll-like conformations. In place of the shallow channels meeting in a sharp arris, the Ionic column had deeper, semi-circular flutings separated by a fillet or flat band. Greater ornamentation was used than in the Doric.

The Corinthian was the third order invented by the Greeks, and first appeared in the Temple of Jupiter Olympus at Athens, begun in 174 B. C. but not completed until about 300 years later. It was 135 feet wide by 354 feet long, built entirely of marble, with columns 50 feet high. The Corinthian column resembled the Ionic, except that the ball of the capital was concave and was adorned with acanthus (q.v.) leaves, which seem to have had symbolic significance.

Those three were the Greek orders of architecture as represented by the columns, but it must not be supposed that the differences in columns exhausted the distinctions in the orders of architecture, for each column type was accompanied with a characteristic group of other proportions and decorations, the column simply being the first thing to catch the eye and enable one to make a quick classification of the building. The Tuscan and the Composite orders were modifications of the three primary orders. The Tuscan was the Roman interpretation of the Doric, equally plain, likely to be more slender and to have a base, but also likely to be without channeling or fluting because the Romans worked with harder stone than the Greek marble.

The Composite was a combination of Ionic and Corinthian, having both volutes and acanthus leaves in the capital and being more decorative than the other orders.

The simplicity of Greek architecture, which constituted its greatest appeal must not be deemed to have made slight demands on the architectural talents of the builders. Indeed, in such a naked style, miscalculation of proportion or the disorganization of lines is more glaring and disturbing than in the more ornamented. The tops of the columns were of less diameter than the bases, yet, the vertical line of the surface was not straight but bulged outward a very little, and this was called the entasis. Nor were the columns uniformly separated, the three at each corner being closer together than any of the others along the colonnades. Then, too, the columns all slanted a trifle inward at the top, that is, toward the building. One would naturally suppose that the floor or stylobate would be level, but it was not. By sighting along the edge of it just outside the colonnade, one could see that it bulged up in the middle, because, if it did not, it would have appeared to the eye to sway down in the middle. All these devices were employed to counteract optical illusions, which would have made perfect geometrical lines and surfaces seem distorted.

Another distinct classification of Greek temples is into hexastyle and octostyle, the former having six columns across the end of the building and the other having eight, and this distinction produced other variations in various parts of the temple to conform most nicely to the style involved.

UTILITY

All of the architectural types above mentioned had one character in common: they were all weak in utility, and they were all religious, symbolic, or commemorative, none of them being designed for occupancy in proportion to the work necessary to produce them. None furnished a room or auditorium for a congregation of any considerable number of people, or, if they did, it was only by means of an open, unroofed court. The temples served merely to house the image or statue of a divinity, with perhaps small apartments for the priests, records and appurtenances. In a Greek temple, less than half the area of the structure was enclosed within the walls of the naos or cella, the rest bring in the porticos and colonnades, which were roofed but otherwise open to the weather. Most of the space within the naos was occupied by the columns necessary to support the roof. The ancients had not mastered the principle of the truss, so that a roof could be supported only by pillars and by such short distances between pillars as could be spanned by wood beams or poles laid between the tops of the columns. Any large assembly of people had to be in the open. Thus, King Solomon addressed the multitude out of doors. (I Kings 8:22.) The Greek structure for a large gathering was the Greek Theatre, built against a hillside with terraced seats of marble. The largest of these was at Magalopolis with an auditorium space 415 feet in diameter.

ROME

It remained for the Romans to develop the arch and the vault so as to span wider spaces and employ fewer columns and provide more room for occupants under roof. They were the first to build basilicas or churches capable of holding a congregation of people. The dome was also perfected by the Romans. Geometrically, a vault is a series of close-set arches and a dome is a number of arches rotated, so to speak, around a vertical axis through the apex or keystone. The arch and the vault were primarily stress-absorbing devices, while the dome was almost completely decorative, and all of them were built in a variety of forms and proportions, depending on the effect sought for strength or ornament. Among the most remarkable Roman structures of this type were the vault with a span of 80 feet in the Thermae or Baths and a dome 100 feet in diameter at Lake Avernus. Unwilling to rely on the strength of stone or mortar, the Roman builders incorporated into their structures great masses of stone, the very mass and inertia of which would resist movement in the structure. Thus, in the Parthenon, which included a rotunda 142 feet in diameter, with a hemispherical dome 140 feet high, the supporting walls were 20 feet thick. As a consequence, Roman buildings were massive in appearance and massive in fact. Moreover, they were dark in the interiors, for it was futile to set windows deeply recessed in such thick walls. The glory of Roman architecture first broke forth at the end of the first century B. C., under Augustus, who boasted that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. The art and skill of the Roman builders were carried throughout the Roman world and, in addition to churches, tombs and palaces, they were displayed in colonnaded streets, theatres, ampitheatres, thermae (hot baths), gates, triumphal arches, memorial buildings, and aqueducts.

ROMANESQUE OR BYZANTINE

In 324 A.D., Constantinople (Byzantium) became the capital of the Roman Empire and the center of the arts as well as of government. The Roman style was modified by the ideas already prevailing in Syria and the Levant, producing what is called the Romanesque or Byzantine form. One of the outstanding developments of this style consisted of a complete reversal of the Greek purpose to exhaust their artistic talents on the exterior of the building, leaving the interior somewhat neglected. The Byzantine builders bestowed the most ornate decorations upon the interiors of their basilicas and left the exteriors, not only void of decorative effect, but even rough and barn-like. The eastern builders were also poor engineers, for almost every structure of note erected there had a history of failure of foundation, walls, buttresses, arches, vaults, or domes. The Roman churches had developed under a popular floor plan which represented the Christian Cross, but the Byzantines adopted instead a round, octagonal, or square plan. This round church kind of plan was brought by the returning Crusaders into western Europe, and such a church is to be found in London. The finest example of the Byzantine style is the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, built under Justinian (532-558) A.D., which is 238 by 260 feet in plan, the central portion surmounted by a dome 107 feet in diameter with its apex 175 feet above the floor. It is to be recalled, however, that the first dome on St. Sophia fell in 555 A.D. and, when rebuilt, was raised higher and pierced with 40 windows. The exterior is so plain as to excite no admiration whatever. Another of like plan but much more ornate on the exterior is St. Mark’s in Venice, built in 1464 A.D.

GOTHIC

This style is of peculiar interest to Freemasons because it was during the period from about 1150 to 1550 A.D., the period when Gothic architecture was predominant, that the Freemasons flourished, and it was in the latter part--perhaps the last years of that period--that two or three of the Gothic Constitutions (q.v.) were written. That name was applied to them by Dr. Anderson in his Constitutions of 1738, and is adopted in this Encyclopedia, because it is identifying and descriptive, though some authors affect to call these documents Ancient Charges, Old Charges of the British Freemasons, York Constitutions, MS. Constitutions, etc. But these documents contain more than the Charges; they contain the very important though inaccurate Legends, from which much Masonic lore and ritualism sprang, and none of these other names emphasizes that these Legends and Charges were probably coeval with the heyday of the Freemasons, the Gothic era.

The so-called Gothic type of architecture, which is so easily distinguished from all others, sprang up rather suddenly, dominated western Europe, including the British Isles, for about 400 years and gave out about as suddenly as it had arisen. Moreover its decline seems to have left the Freemasons without support, for the operative Fraternity never recovered its former glory. The first example of the Gothic was erected in the Ile de France, a district surrounding Paris, in 1135 A.D., the first in England in 1150, and in Germany, 1235. Because the most pretentious works of this character were cathedrals of the Roman Catholic Church, the type of construction in which the Freemasons were so proficient was discouraged by the Lutheran Reformation of 1517, to which was added the English Reformation instituted by Henry VIII in 1535. Work was continued from time to time on some Gothic structures for many years but the undertaking of new work was practically ended, and by the time the Church had recovered somewhat and the Protestant sects had begun to erect religious edifices, Gothic architecture had been succeeded by the Renaissance and the Freemasons were finished so far as important construction was concerned.

There is no difficulty in recognizing the Gothic. Gould names three distinguishing characters: (1) Stone vaulting; (2) Walls consisting largely of glass windows; and (3) Interior space unencumbered by piers and other supports; and he suggests a possible (4) Lightened interiors. But that comes far from expressing the effect of the Gothic, for it has a spiritual appeal and gives the appearance of lightness and elevation that no other style offers. Not only were the walls and the interior ceilings of the vaults of great height, in many instances over 100 feet, but everything from the pointed arches to the high spires seems to be pointing upward, as if aspiring to Heaven. There can be no doubt that these characters, together with the typical floor plan of the Christian Cross were intended to have spiritual and symbolic meaning.

The outstanding structural innovation of Gothic was the substitution of relatively thin, high walls, with windows so numerous and so large as to justify some critics in calling them ”walls of glass.” All of the openings for windows and doors were enclosed and topped by the invariable Gothic or pointed arch, with the exception of the large, stained glass, rose window, in the west front, which was circular, diameter of 20 to 40 feet. By such lightness of construction, arches could be wider and piers and columns less numerous so that there was attained a very advantageous decrease in the ratio of space occupied by walls and piers to total area. At Chartres and Paris, France this was 1:8; at St. Ouen 1:10; and at Ulm 1:15. The best in England was 1:10, yet, arches, pillars, and columns were as high as or higher than in former styles. Whereas the Romans and also the Normans secured stability by mass of stone, the Gothic Freemasons used an entirely different method or principle, that is, the counterbalancing of forces. Instead of brute mass, they used science. Instead of inertia, they used force or stress. Where there was to be a stress in the building, they interposed a counter stress. Not only that, but the architectural members doing this work were exposed and developed into ornaments, not hidden. Thus, the relatively high, thin walls, much pierced by windows were supported within the building by the arches and pillars of the lateral aisles, and to counteract those forces, buttresses and flying buttresses were added on the exterior. The flying buttress was an arch of stone, rising from the top of a pier standing some distance outside the wall, then pressing against the top of the wall and counteracting the outward force of the vault and roof.

The interiors and exteriors of the building were decorated with carvings of various kinds from mere moundings to sculptured figures. For this purpose a fine-grained sandstone was used which permitted undercutting, which stone was commonly called freestone. Hence one theory of the origin of the name, ”Freemason,” has it that a mason of freestone or freestone mason very naturally if not inevitably came to be called a Freemason.

• Plan: The Gothic cathedral consisted of a long central nave, extending from the front or west end to the choir or apse in the east end, flanked by aisles on either side and sometimes two or even three aisles on either side. About three-fourths of the way to the east was a transept, crossing the nave at right angles, and sometimes there was a second and shorter transept between the main one and the apse. The first or simpler type would constitute a Christian or Passion Cross and the second a Patriarchal Cross. The length of a cathedral was 300 to 600 feet and its width at the transept 150 to 250 feet. The width of the nave and aisles was from 80 to 150 feet. The height of the vaults (ceiling) ran from 80 to 90 feet in England and from 120 to 140 feet in France.
• Columns and Arches: The introduction of pointed arches in connection with ogival vaulting was the second step in the development of Gothic. The aisles were set off from the nave by a colonnade supporting the arches which, in turn, supported the clearstory walls, that is, the wall above the aisle roof. The columns were individualistic Gothic, often not following any pattern but especially designed for the place, and often compound, that is, several columns merged into one. Sometimes arches were as high as 80 feet and the spans as great.
• Walls and Windows: These must be discussed together for, as has been said, the walls were often largely windows. The walls were from 65 to 150 feet high, and frequently the aggregate width of the windows extending in a belt around the building exceeded the aggregate of the small portions of the walls, usually buttresses, left between the windows.
• Roof: The roof was invariably high-pitched and covered with slate or flat stones.
• Vaulting: The cross-groined vault, that is, two vaults crossing each other, with the groins supported by ribs or arches extending diagonally over the space from wall to wall, is a distinctive character of Gothic, especially with two ribs crossing at a boss stone or apex of the crossing. This is said to form an ogive, and the vaulting is called ogival.

Buttresses. All builders used buttresses which are essentially thickenings of a wall at places where extra stress was to be resisted. But they were of unusual importance in the Gothic, because the higher and thinner the walls the more numerous must be the occasional reinforcement. The Gothic then introduced a new idea that, instead of making the buttress itself as thick and heavy as seemed necessary, it would be skeletonized by building a pier some distance outside the walls and, from its top, sending an arch of stone ”flying” to press against the top of the wall. Thus, the flying buttress became a distinctive feature of the Gothic and would sometimes extend in considerable number around the south, east and north sides of the structure.

West End. The west end or front of the cathedral was flanked by two towers which were square and large enough to support the intervening wall without the necessity for buttresses which would have interfered with entry or spoiled the beauty of the front. Sometimes these towers were truncated or ended in turrets and sometimes one or both carried tall spires 300 to 485 feet high. Also, there was often a spire directly over the crossing of the nave by the transept, or even lower steeples at the ends of the transept.

PRINCIPAL GOTHIC CATHEDRALS

MAGNITUDE

At the time of the Lutheran Reformation (1517), there were in England alone 9000 parish churches, 20 cathedrals, 645 monasteries, 90 colleges, 2374 chantries, and 110 hospitals, a total of over 12,000 Gothic structures.

ARCHITECTS

At the time the Gothic cathedrals and other buildings of that style were erected there probably were no architects as distinguished from master masons or builders. Strange to say, no mention is found in the records of antiquity from which any very definite opinion can be drawn as to what men or class were responsible. It was often suggested that the Church dignitaries had done the designing, but that is now generally rejected in favor of the theory that the master masons, themselves, did the designing, planning and building.