ARCHITECTURAL REFINEMENTS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16418, 11 January 1919, Page 4

ARCHITECTURAL REFINEMENTS.

THIS BEAUTY OF CURVES. A curious architectural _ theory has been advanced in connexion with the reconstruction ot some of the oW churches, damaged or destroyed, in Northern France, that is the uso o curved lines to produce -graceful ctfeets. Professor Goodyear, Curator ot the Brooklyn Museum, -has devoted manv years to the survey of auro pean cathedrals for the discovery of these architectural refinements, and has now on exhibition there a number of photographs, especially ot the cathedrals of Rheims and Amiens, showni" departures from straight lines with the object of pleasing the eye. The idea is not new, but it seems to have been forgotten for many centuries (remarks the "Toronto ulobo ;. Tho Parthenon at Athens has always been regarded as a model of grace, but it was not until 1837 that Pennethorne, an English architect, pointed out some of the divergences from straight lines. The exact measurements and calculations, published ny Penrose in 1851, came as a revelation to architects, for it was .proved that there was hardly a straight line m tho whole building. Tho steps on which it rests have a convex curve, columns apparently vertical lean - toward the centre of tho building, the architrave and frieze lean backward, while the pilasters at tho angles lean forward. A similar discovery regardin-' constructional curves in the beautiful Roman temple in Xisines. Franco, called the Maison Carree, was maae bv Professor Goodyear in 1891. nut tho Church of the Madeleine in Paris, which is a straight-lined copy of the Maison Carree, fails to reproduce its beautv. The walls in the nave of Westminster Abbey. London, are bent inward at about the height of tho keystones of the arches, and outward above and below this point. In the same way the piers and upper walls of the nave of St. Mark's, Venice, lean outward about eighteen inches, a deviation which, if accidental, would have ruined the mosaics. All these departures from straight lines were made deliberately, but it is questionable whether they can or will be reproduced now. In the good old davs buildings went up slowly and it was possible to judge effects during the progress, but now concrete is shot into, the upoer walls of steel-frame sky-scrapers before the lower walls are started and the architect has no chance to change the desian. Division of labour has"lowered the capacity of individual artisans, and time has become the essence of building contracts.