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Page 4
With the advent of Christ came new ideas which caused new departures,
not only in religious and monastic architecture, but in civil
architecture, as well. Christianity, in proclaiming a new virtue, love,
created retreats for the unfortunate, asylums for their reception and
hospitals for their care. Monkish orders, in their efforts to prevent
the destruction of old manuscripts, spread knowledge around them, and
following the example set by them in their monasteries, outside colleges
were founded. With the dissemination of knowledge, cities roused out of
their long sleep; their independent spirit began to shake off the yoke
of their oppressors; they formed themselves into communes and various
privileges were granted them. Under certain conditions, and in
consideration of the discharge of certain obligations, the commune is
seen at length assuming the administration of its own affairs. From this
moment an assembling-place is needed where communal interests can be
discussed and where questions can be put to vote. The town-hall, with
its belfry from which could be proclaimed afar all immunities won,
supplied the want. Around this centre markets sprang up, and exchanges
where merchants could negotiate and transact business. Finally, the less
exclusive modern spirit made itself felt, and, soaring beyond the city
bounds, it projected works of a genuinely public nature, not for the
benefit of this or that city, but for the entire country. Political
centralization, governmental unity, later on, made it possible to run
canals through different provinces, to establish barracks for troops
over broad stretches of territory, to build court-houses and prisons, to
reconstruct hospitals on new plans, and to open more extensive
exchanges, markets, warehouses and slaughter-houses. Public instruction
also had its imperious demands, and States were forced to sprinkle their
lands with school-houses of every grade, from the simplest asylums and
primary and secondary schools to special government institutions;
libraries and museums were founded to satisfy still other claims of
education. Then with the ever-increasing wants of a civilization, eager
for progress, in the presence of the important discoveries of science,
before the invasions of finance and the extension of governmental
machinery, architectural designs are indefinitely multiplied to supply
suitable departmental buildings, banking-houses, houses of commerce,
quarters for public officers and public boards, railway-stations, inns,
custom-houses and toll-houses; to say nothing of private residences and
play-houses, bathing establishments, casinos and villas, whose designs
change from time to time with the manners and customs of the period or
people.
Civil architecture, in the proper sense of the term, originated with the
Greeks and was extended in a surprising degree among the Romans. All the
other peoples of antiquity devoted themselves to the rearing of
religious and sepulchral monuments, and to the construction of palaces
for their sovereigns. Their political organization did not lend itself
to development in other directions. So long as a people is not
considered as an individual there can be no thought of erecting for its
comfort or education structures of any considerable importance; so long
as it has no existence as a civil body there can be no call for the
building of edifices wherein to discuss its own affairs or the affairs
of State. Nevertheless, aside from temples and palaces, there are
certain works of public utility which are forced upon all civilizations,
and among all organized peoples a domestic architecture exists which
answers to their needs and which we cannot pass over in silence.
The sacred books of the Hindoos give us the plans on which their cities
were built. There were forty different kinds of cities, distinguished
one from the other by their extent and form. The streets crossed at
right angles. The centre of the city was reserved for sacred uses and
was inhabited by the Brahmins; around them dwelt the people, and the
angles were occupied by the exchanges, markets, colleges and other
public structures. The city was always walled, with a gate on each of
the four sides and one at each corner.
Private dwellings varied in height according to the rank of the owners.
Those of the inferior classes could have only one story above the
ground-floor, and in most cases they were limited to the ground-floor
itself. The door was never placed in the centre of the fa�ade. Its
position, as well as its height and breadth, was fixed by rule; the same
was true of the windows. The streets were supplied with running water,
and adorned with avenues of trees; they were bordered by rich shops and
houses set close together, with no intervening spaces. The palaces,
which were composed of separate buildings, approached by porches, were
usually erected around small courts, and these courts were almost always
planted with trees. The roofs were flat, and the narrow, rude staircases
were made in the thickness of the walls. The Hindoos also constructed
huge reservoirs, and reared columns and square triumphal arches in honor
of their heroic victors; they are also known to have built bridges, the
piles of which, formed of enormous blocks, were connected by stones of a
single piece.
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