14, with the walls all blank (showing that they
are wanted for ranging something against, and cannot be pierced for
windows), and windows only in the upper portion. Similarly, if we want
to build it as the country bank, we should have to put the large windows
on the ground floor, bank clerks wanting plenty of light, and the ground
story being always the principal one; and we might indulge the humor of
giving it a grim fortress-like strength by a rusticated plinth (i.e.,
stones left or worked rough and rock-like) and by very massive piers
between the windows, and a heavy cornice over them; the residential
upper floor forming a low story subordinate to the bank story. It is
true this would not satisfy a banker, who always wants classic pilasters
stuck against the walls, that being his hereditary idea of bank
expression in architecture.
[Illustration: Figs. 14 and 15]
Now if we proceed to take to pieces the idea of architectural design,
and consider wherein the problem of it consists, we shall find that it
falls into a fourfold shape. It consists first in arranging the plan;
secondly, in carrying up the boundary lines of this plan vertically in
the shape of walls; thirdly, in the method of covering in the space
which we have thus defined and inclosed; and, fourthly, in the details
of ornamentation which give to it the last and concluding grace and
finish.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67