American Architecture: StudiesSchuyler, Montgomery
General
American Architecture: Studies
Schuyler, Montgomery
Architecture -- United States
R. M. Hunt, Architect.]
Another interesting piece of Gothic work, though this time of distinctly
Victorian Gothic, is the house designed by Mr. Vaux for Governor Tilden.
The interest of this, however, is rather in the detail of form and color
than in general composition, since the building is architecturally only
a street front, and since the slightness of the projections and the lack
of visible and emphasized depth in the wall itself give it the
appearance rather of a screen than of one face of a building, and the
small gables which surmount it too evidently exist for the sole purpose
of animating the sky-line. But the color treatment of this front is
admirable, and recalls the best work of the most successful colorist in
architecture whom we have ever had in New York--Mr. Wrey Mould. It is
characteristic that interesting treatment of color, like every other
properly architectural development, has been stopped short by the new
“movement.” An unusually large variety of colors, and those of the most
positive tints that natural stones supply, has here been employed and
harmonized; and, what is even rarer, they have all been used with
architectural propriety to accentuate the construction and to heighten
its effect. An ingenious and novel use of dark granite, which when
polished is almost black, and which is employed in narrow bands
precisely where it is wanted, deserves particular remark. The decorative
carving attracts attention chiefly by its profusion, and by the
exquisite crispness and delicacy of its execution. In both these
respects the only parallel to it is in the house of Mr. W. K.
Vanderbilt, for, as we have seen, the carving upon the houses of Mr. W.
H. Vanderbilt does not count. That this carving counts so fully is the
result of the skill of the architect in fixing its place and adjusting
its scale so that it everywhere assists the architecture, and is better
in its place than it would be in another place.
[Illustration: REAR OF ROOF, HOUSE OF CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, FIFTH
AVENUE.
George B. Post, Architect.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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