structural lines, by suppressing the mouldings and more familiar historic forms, and by the free use of flat surface ornament. The Schiller, Auditorium, and Fisher Buildings, all at Chicago, Guaranty Building, Buffalo, and Majestic Building, Detroit, are examples of this personal style, which illustrates the untrammelled freedom of the art in a land without traditions.[27] [Footnote 27: See Appendix, D and E.] [Illustration: FIG. 225.--COUNTRY HOUSE, MASSACHUSETTS.] +DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE.+ It is in this field that the most characteristic and original phases of American architecture are to be met with, particularly in rural and suburban residences. In these the peculiar requirements of our varying climates and of American domestic life have been studied and in large measure met with great frankness and artistic appreciation. The broad staircase-hall, serving often as a sort of family sitting-room, the piazza, and a picturesque massing of steep roofs, have been the controlling factors in the evolution of two or three general types which appear in infinite variations. The material most used is wood, but this has had less influence in the determination of form than might have been expected. The artlessness of the planning, which is arranged to afford the maximum of convenience rather than to conform to any traditional type, has been the element of greatest artistic success. It has resulted in exteriors which are the natural outgrowth of the interior arrangements, frankly expressed, without affectation of style (Fig. 225). The resulting picturesqueness has, however, in many cases been treated as an end instead of an incidental result, and the affectation of picturesqueness has in such designs become as detrimental as any affectation of style. In the internal treatment of American houses there has also been a notable artistic advance, harmony of color and domestic comfort and luxury being sought after rather than monumental effects. A number of large city and country houses designed on a palatial scale have, however, given opportunity for a more elaborate architecture; notably the Vanderbilt, Villard, and Huntington residences at New York, the great country-seat of +Biltmore+, near Asheville (N.C.), in the Francis I. style (by R. M. Hunt), and many others.