File:Architect and engineer (1922) (14781414262).jpg

Identifier: architectenginee7022sanf (find matches)
Title: Architect and engineer
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture Architecture Architecture Building
Publisher: San Francisco : Architect and Engineer, Inc
Contributing Library: San Francisco Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: San Francisco Public Library

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s are no less vulnerable in demanding a standardized (com-mercialized) product in the name of style. Since the histories con-cisely tabulate Ilomanesque of the Italian, French. Spanish, and Englishtypes, and so on, the same varieties of Gothic and of llenai.s.sance, there-fore the exigencies of systematic filing require the continued use of neatclassifications by periods and countries. The fallacy becomes apparentwhen we reject stock phrases to pry into reality. Were there, for in-stance, four or five distinct varieties of Renaissance? Depending upon 50 THE ARCHITECT AND ENGINEER the point of view, there may be said to have been one or a thousand.Certainly the styles did not sharply change at the Ijoundaries of themodern political states. Buildings in the south of France may havemore in common with those in the north of Italy or of Spain than build-ings in the northern and southern portions of the respective countries.It is convenient to be able to speak of Italian Renaissance, French
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WROUGHT IRON GRILLE. IKiLSK cji i,I.(ii;i;E WASHINGTON SMITH, SANTA BARBARA,(ALIK,George Washiny^ton Smith. Architect Renaissance, etc., and does no harm so long as we remember that theterms are no more than convenient but artificial groupings without nxedcorrespondence in the, infinite variety of reality. The most significantfact about any of the accepted styles is not that they are uniform, butthat their vaiiety is truly infinite. Such diversity is, in fact, the condi-tion of vitality. If the domes of Santa Maria del Fiore, Santa Mariadelle Grazie, St. Peters, and the Salute were all alike except in size; ifpalaces of Genoa, Siena, and Palermo might be interchanged without THE ARCHITECT AND ENGINEER 51 shock to the least sensitive observer, then would the conclusion be ines-capable that the Italian Renaissance was decadent, that life had ebbedand left it prone. The glory of Italian architecture is only secondarilythat all its cities are Italian, and primarily that each has its ownin

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