American Renaissance A Review Of Domestic Architecture

“The predominant local color which distinguishes American Renaissance has been given to it by what has been our great national building commodity, i. e., wood. The Greeks and Romans built of stone when they had the money to pay for it, as does ever ybody else; otherwise, people in new countries fall back upon a less expensive material. Our less expensive material was wood. Both stone and wood have grain, and have to be used with the same careful regard to it. Whether we build our columns up of stone or wooden sections—latitudinal in the one case, longitudinal in the other—to support a cornice also constructed in sections according to the convenient sizes of commerce for the particular material, makes no difference to the canons of art so long as we are not tr ying to deceive or to imitate one material with another simply with that end in view.”