The American Architect
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL. CXXV WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1924 NUMBER 2442 THINGS MISSED and OTHER THINGS—I
BY H. VAN BUREN MAGONIGLE, F. A. 1. A.
Illustrated by water color drawings, sketches and photographs by the Author
THE French have the faculty of interesting; menselves in their sensations, watching the r minds and emotions at work, in an enviable detachment. Emulating this detachment if not Entirely achieving it, a mature American finds an interest when revisiting lands and cities known long ago and loved, in confronting his own reactions, in noting his present attitude toward the things he once cared about so passionately or at which he turned up the lofty, contemptuous nose of the cocksure twenties.
Then architecture was all in all save for the Italian Primitives, the sculptures of the Golden Age of Athens and of the Cinque Cento. And that architecture must be pure—none of your fancy touches such as Michael Angelo indulged in with that inveterate disposition of his to think and see and do as seemed to him good, without reference to accepted canons; usually to the distaste of youth, and
a good thing too! Angelo is strong meat for babes and sucklings.
Was the result narrowness or concentration ? A complacent egotism would choose the latter suggestion as more soothing to vanity. Well, we spend our youth in narrow and burning enthusiasms, in tearing off on false scents, in rediscover
ing a world that thousands of eager-nosed young gentlemen have likewise insisted upon discovering for themselves and yet—and this is one of the joys of life—left in a dewy freshness for us when we should come; which we in our turn will be unable to stale for our successors simply be
cause they won’t believe our reports, and it is well they should not.
In maturer years we care so much more for scale than for dimension, for character than for period, for the third dimension than for mere elevation, for materials and their treatment, for surfaces and all the evidences of craftsmanship than for architectural draftsmanship. Of course it is because we have passed the time of life when a scale or a foot-rule was constantly in our hands as the natural means of translating what we saw back on to paper, in the flat, where we were used to judging things; when, in effect, but unconsciously, we were using them as aids to the learning of something about scale, character, the third dimension. We are haunted now by a guilty feeling that we have grown lazy or lost our enthusiasms because we are not irresistibly impelled to sketch and measure a hundred precious things as once we were, when, in truth, we have merely
H. VAN BUREN MAGONIGLE, F.A.I.A.
(Copyright, 1924, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.)
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL. CXXV WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1924 NUMBER 2442 THINGS MISSED and OTHER THINGS—I
BY H. VAN BUREN MAGONIGLE, F. A. 1. A.
Illustrated by water color drawings, sketches and photographs by the Author
THE French have the faculty of interesting; menselves in their sensations, watching the r minds and emotions at work, in an enviable detachment. Emulating this detachment if not Entirely achieving it, a mature American finds an interest when revisiting lands and cities known long ago and loved, in confronting his own reactions, in noting his present attitude toward the things he once cared about so passionately or at which he turned up the lofty, contemptuous nose of the cocksure twenties.
Then architecture was all in all save for the Italian Primitives, the sculptures of the Golden Age of Athens and of the Cinque Cento. And that architecture must be pure—none of your fancy touches such as Michael Angelo indulged in with that inveterate disposition of his to think and see and do as seemed to him good, without reference to accepted canons; usually to the distaste of youth, and
a good thing too! Angelo is strong meat for babes and sucklings.
Was the result narrowness or concentration ? A complacent egotism would choose the latter suggestion as more soothing to vanity. Well, we spend our youth in narrow and burning enthusiasms, in tearing off on false scents, in rediscover
ing a world that thousands of eager-nosed young gentlemen have likewise insisted upon discovering for themselves and yet—and this is one of the joys of life—left in a dewy freshness for us when we should come; which we in our turn will be unable to stale for our successors simply be
cause they won’t believe our reports, and it is well they should not.
In maturer years we care so much more for scale than for dimension, for character than for period, for the third dimension than for mere elevation, for materials and their treatment, for surfaces and all the evidences of craftsmanship than for architectural draftsmanship. Of course it is because we have passed the time of life when a scale or a foot-rule was constantly in our hands as the natural means of translating what we saw back on to paper, in the flat, where we were used to judging things; when, in effect, but unconsciously, we were using them as aids to the learning of something about scale, character, the third dimension. We are haunted now by a guilty feeling that we have grown lazy or lost our enthusiasms because we are not irresistibly impelled to sketch and measure a hundred precious things as once we were, when, in truth, we have merely
H. VAN BUREN MAGONIGLE, F.A.I.A.
(Copyright, 1924, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.)