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Show Fig. 52 Gables. (A: upper left) Gothic Revival, Midway (Bargeboard scroll cut by Moroni Blood). (B: upper right) Later nineteenth-century "Victorian" shingling, Central. (C) Greek Revival, Mt. Pleasant. and external symmetry; the facade is rhythmically balanced and the rooms of the house are equal in size (see the double-pen plan in Fig. 5IB).37 Three- and five-opening facades on hall-and-parlor floor plans (Fig. 5lC) adhere most closely to the tripartite ideal yet sacrifice the symmetrical division of internal space for outward appearance. The houses pictured in Figures 55A and 55C reflect a conflict in the builder's mind between external and internal priorities. Each of these houses has a hall-and-parlor first-floor plan and a double-pen second-level room arrangement-hence the odd-number opening pattern downstairs and the even number on top. The lack of control on the facade suggests that the conflict between inside and outside concerns was never fully resolved and that a compromise solution was never totally effected. The insertion of a central hall between two equal-sized rooms (Fig. 5 ID) is one common answer to the question of internal-external symmetry. Yet Utah's experience with the central-hall house has been overstated; 38 many builders chose instead to work out spatial problems on the facade of the hall-and-parlor house type. The selection of one particular house type with one predictable facade pattern would point to the consolidation of design principles and the contraction of the rule set. In Utah, despite the theocratic organization of the society, such a selection and contraction did not occur. Figures 56A-E effectively demonstrate the openness of the design tradition on a statewide level. While the three-over-three-, the four-over-four-, and the five-over-five-opening houses are the most commonly encountered types in Utah, the attention given here to the unusual houses has not been to highlight the exotic but rather to illustrate the flexibility of the tradition to accommodate a wide range of facade designs. The rules could be stretched to cover even the visual disharmony of houses such as that illustrated in Figure 55B. Utah folk builders manipulated the ideas of order and symmetry up to and beyond the breaking point. Most writers have ignored this diversity in Mormon folk architecture in their desire to find the closed system felt intrinsic to the orderly, authoritarian world of Zion. Yet architectural eclecticism was a reality in early Utah,39 as John Taylor, Brigham Young's successor to the Church Presidency, told a group of Saints in Malad, Idaho: You have a beautiful location, and I would like to see you make the most of it. I would like to see at least a hundred times more apple, pear, and cherry trees planted out; and all of your streets lined with shade trees. And improve your dwelling houses. If you cannot find the style of a house to suit you, go off to other places until you do find one, and then come back and build a better one.AQ The Mormons were hard pressed in their exile, but architecture comforted them. 51 |