| OCR Text |
Show ments of its working out in accordance with principles found in natural organisms. Study of the great architecture of the world solely in regard to the spirit that found expression in the forms should go with this. But before all should come the study of the nature of mate- rials, the nature of the tools and processes at command, and the nature of the thing they are to be called upon to do. A training of this sort was accorded the great artists of Japan. Although it was not intellectually self-conscious, I have no doubt the apprenticeship of the Middle Ages wrought like results. German and Austrian art schools are getting back to these ideas. Until the student is taught to approach the beautiful from within, there will be no great living buildings which in the aggregate show the spirit of true architecture. `N architect, then, in this revived sense, is a man disciplined from within by a con- A ception of the organic nature of his task, knowing his tools and his opportunity, working out his problems with what sense of beauty the gods gave him. He, disciplined by the very nature of his undertakings, is the only safe man. To work with him is to find him master of means to a certain end. He acquires a technique in the use of his tools and materials which may be as complete and in every sense as remarkable as a musician's mastery of the resources of his instrument. In no other spirit is this to be acquired in any vital sense, and without it--well--a good copy is the safest thing. If one cannot live an independent life, one may at least become a modest parasite. T is with the courage that a conviction of the truth of this point of view has given that the problems in this work have been attempted. In that spirit they have been worked out, with what degree of failure or success no one can know better than I, To be of value to the student they must be approached from within, and not from the view- point of the man looking largely at the matter from the depths of the Renaissance. In so far as they are grasped as organic solutions of conditions they exist but to serve, with respect for the limitations imposed by our industrial conditions, and having in themselves a harmony of idea in form and treatment that makes something fairly beautiful of them in relation to life, they will be helpful. Approached from the point of view that seeks characteristic beauty of form and feature as great as that of the Greeks, the Goths or the Japanese, they will be disappointing: and I can only add, it is a little too soon yet to look for such attain- ment, But the quality of style, in the indefinable sense that it is possessed by any organic thing, that they have. Repose and quiet attitudes they have. Unity of idea, resourceful adaptation of means, will not be found wanting, nor that simplicity of rendering which the machine makes not only imperative but opportune. Although complete, highly developed in detail, they are not. |
