Architecture; Architecture -- United States; Decoration and ornament; Sullivan, Louis H., 1856-1924
Thus, by a long detour, Mr. Sullivan returns to his initial
proposition, that the falsity of our architecture can be corrected
only by integrity of thought. "Thought is the fine and powerful
instrument. Therefore, _have thought for the integrity of your own
thought_."
Naturally, then, as your thoughts thus change, your growing
architecture will change. Its falsity will depart; its reality
will gradually appear. For the integrity of your thought as
a People, will then have penetrated the minds of your
architects.
Then, too, _as your basic thought changes, will emerge a
philosophy, a poetry, and an art of expression in all things;
for you will have learned that a characteristic philosophy,
poetry and art of expression are vital to the healthful growth
and development of a democratic people_.
Some readers may complain that these are after all only glittering
generalities, of no practical use in solving the specific problems
with which every architect is confronted. On the contrary they are
fundamental verities of incalculable benefit to every sincere artist.
Shallowness is the great vice of democracy; it is surface without
depth, a welter of concrete detail in which the mind easily loses
those great, underlying abstractions from which alone great art can
spring. These, in this essay, Mr. Sullivan helps us to recapture, and
inspires us to employ. He would win us from our insincerities, our
trivialities, and awaken our enormous latent, unused power. He says:
Awaken it.
Use it.
Use it for the common good.
Begin now!
For it is as true today as when one of your wise men said
it:--
"The way to resume is to resume!"
COLOR AND CERAMICS
The production of ceramics--perhaps the oldest of all the useful
arts practised by man; an art with a magnificent history--seems to be
entering upon a new era of development. It is more alive today, more
generally, more skilfully, though not more _artfully_ practised than
ever before. It should therefore be of interest to all lovers of
architecture, in view of the increasing importance of ceramics in
building, to consider the ways in which these materials may best be
used.
Looking at the matter in the broadest possible way, it may be said
that the building impulse throughout the ages has expressed itself
in two fundamentally different types of structure: that in which the
architecture--and even the ornament--is one with the engineering; and
that in which the two elements are separable, not in thought alone,
but in fact. For brevity let us name that manner of building in which
the architecture is the construction, _Inherent_ architecture, and
that manner in which the two are separable _Incrusted_ architecture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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