The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mentor, by The Editorial Staff of the Mentor Association.

Beauty in architecture is as difficult to define as beauty in nature. No single factor renders a building beautiful. Size and proportion, style and decoration, age and setting, all enter into account. And moreover there is the power a building possesses to appeal to the ideals of the beholder, to his mind as well as to his sight and touch. Even when judged from this broad viewpoint, the number of beautiful buildings in the world is legion. It would be impossible to point to anyone as the finest, or even to select a dozen without leaving a dozen more that were equally beautiful. Every age, and every nation, has left to us some crowning achievements of the builder's art. The following are therefore merely selections from this storehouse, illustrating to some degree the wealth of architectural treasures that is our heritage.

Few if any buildings in the world have been the subject of such praise as that bestowed upon the Taj Mahal ("Gem of Buildings"). Travelers,[2] painters, authors, and poets have all sought to express in word or color the indefinable charm of this gem of Indian art. Built at Agra, in India, by the great mogul of Delhi, Shah Jahan, as a tomb for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj is a veritable translation into stone of human remembrance and affection. It was begun in 1632, and was completed in twenty-two years. The material of which it is built is pure white marble, and inlaid in its walls are jaspers, agates, and other stones in marvelous designs. But it is perhaps the dome that gives the greatest beauty to this tomb. Of typical Eastern shape, it rises a mass of white against the deep blue of the Indian sky, or shines like silver in the radiance of the Indian moon.

It cannot be denied that the Taj Mahal (tahzh mah-hahl´) owes much of its beauty to its setting. Not merely has it the contrast of the brilliant sky above, but also the deep green of the gardens at its feet, and more than this the four tall, graceful minarets standing like sentinels at the corners of the marble terrace on which the tomb is placed. The interior is scarcely less impressive than this outside view. Its subdued light serves only to show more clearly the beauty of the garlands of red and blue and green inlaid along its walls as never-withering memorials of the queen who sleeps beneath the lofty dome.

It is perhaps beside her tomb that the traveler sees a vision of the proud and mighty Jahan, cruel in many ways, but steadfast in his love, building this glorious resting place for his fair consort, whom he called by the familiar name of Taj. One may see even farther still and picture to himself this once proud ruler, bereft of all his power and even of his throne, looking out from his chamber window toward this same Taj Mahal. Perhaps its wondrous dome gleamed in the moonlight on that last night before he came to rest beneath its shades as it gleams today to the enraptured gaze of thousands who take the pilgrimage to Agra to see this wonder of the Eastern world.

It is not such a step as it may seem from the Taj Mahal to the Alhambra (al-ham'-bra). Both are oriental. Both are the products of Mohammedan art, and mark in a way its Eastern and its Western expressions. As early as the eighth century of our era the Moors of northern Africa crossed to Spain and made the Iberian peninsula a Moorish califate or kingdom. Its capital and last stronghold was Granada. And here on a lofty hill, overlooking the city, King or Calif Al Hamar began the mighty fortress of the Alhambra in the early years of the thirteenth century.

As is the case with almost every Mohammedan building, its exterior is extremely plain. But once the door is passed one seems to have stepped from Europe to the Orient. Courtyards and porticos, halls and passages, open before the visitor in a truly oriental maze of color and decoration. The first important court is known as that of the Myrtles. In its center is a marble basin a hundred and thirty feet long, bordered with trees of myrtle and orange, and flanked at both ends by two-storied pavilions with slender marble shafts[4] and graceful Moorish arches. From one of these pavilions opens the Hall of the Ambassadors, the throne room of the califs, and the largest chamber in the palace.

But it is not its size that makes this room imposing. Here, as elsewhere in the palace, it is the decoration. Rising for three or four feet from the floor is a band of colored Moorish tiles. All the wall above is of stucco, molded in lacelike patterns and painted in blues and reds and brilliant golden yellows. The designs are largely geometrical or floral, frequently interspersed with Arabic inscriptions. Some of these when translated read, "God is our refuge," "Praise be to God," familiar phrases in Mohammedan faith, or "There is no conqueror but God." Add to this decoration of the walls imposing stalactite domes, and ceilings often of cedarwood inlaid with mother of pearl, and imagine the floors and windows again adorned with oriental rugs and hangings, and the beauty of the Alhambra will be easily understood.

But neither the Court of the Myrtles nor the Hall of the Ambassadors is the crowning glory of the palace. This honor belongs to the Court of the Lions. One hundred and sixteen by sixty-six feet in size, this court compares with any apartment in the world for pure, exquisite beauty of design. An open portico, its ceiling borne on a hundred and twenty-four slender and beautiful marble columns and delicately ornamented[5] arches, incloses the central space, in the middle of which rises a magnificent fountain, its basin cut from a single giant block of alabaster, and supported on the backs of twelve lions of white marble, emblems of courage and strength.

It is small wonder that the last of the Moorish kings, Boabdil (bo-ahb-deel´), looked back with many tears at this glorious palace as he surrendered it in 1492 to his Christian conqueror Ferdinand. Sadly indeed he and his followers must have crossed again to the dreary deserts of Africa, since they left behind them the whole fair land of Spain, which they had adorned not merely with the Alhambra, but with the Alcázar at Seville, the mosque at Cordova, and other monuments of their civil and religious greatness.

At the very period when the Mohammedan conquerors of Spain were building their palace of the Alhambra, the Christians of northern France were erecting those vast cathedrals which stand today as the crowning achievements of the builder's art. Paris, Chartres (shahrtr), Bourges (boorzh), Rheims (reemz), Rouen (roo-ong´), Le Mans (lee-mong´), Beauvais (bo-vay´) and Amiens (ah-mee-ong´) are but a few of the long list of French Gothic cathedrals of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. From such a list it is most difficult to choose. Each one has its distinctive claim to recognition, and its distinctive features which are not surpassed in any of the others. This fact, indeed, has caused it to be said that the ideal cathedral should have the façade of Rheims, the spires of Chartres, the nave of Amiens, and the choir of Beauvais. But even such an ideal cathedral would not be perfect without the addition of features from each of the other churches in our list.

Since, however, it is necessary to choose, let us choose Amiens; for perhaps this church is most widely acknowledged as the finest example of the Gothic style. Its façade is a masterpiece of decoration. Three deeply recessed portals in the lower story are covered with a wealth of sculptured figures in the round and in relief. Bible lessons and the events of human life and history, carved here in stone, taught the terrors of sin and hell and the joys of a godly life as preached in the church beyond these lofty doors. Nor is the decoration confined to sculpture; for the whole façade, and in fact the entire church, is a tracery of stone.

It is from a side view, however, that Amiens shows at its best the true glory of Gothic architecture. Nearly five hundred feet long and over two hundred feet to the ridge line of the roof, it rises high above the buildings of the city in which it stands, a symbol of the supremacy of spiritual over earthly things. To be sure it has its faults. The towers are too low and the central spire is of awkward shape; but the huge windows, with their tracery in geometric patterns, occupying the entire space between the buttresses, and these buttresses themselves with their soaring arches spanning the aisle roofs below, afford an unsurpassed example of beauty of design combined with the utmost structural daring. Moreover, the[7] interior is even more imposing. Lofty piers and pointed arches separate the nave from the aisles. Slender shafts carry the ribs of the huge vaults of stone forty-three feet in span, which seem suspended in air one hundred and forty feet from the pavement below. In the support of these vaults lies the keynote of Gothic architecture. Though they seem hung as if by magic over walls of glass, with very little masonry for their support, their weight and thrust are borne by the sweeping arcs of the exterior flying buttresses and the huge piers of masonry from which they rise beyond the side aisle walls. Viewed from a central point, the majestic sweep of the nave, the soaring height of the eastern apse, the wondrous window of the northern transept, and the maze of piers and arches and chapels, all unite to produce a glorious whole which cannot be surpassed in any monument of any age.

If the interior of Amiens personifies in the highest degree the majesty and glory of Christian faith, the spire of Salisbury may be said to embody its hope and aspiration. Rising four hundred and four feet from the ground, this spire has few to rival it in all the world. Other cathedrals might dispute its claim to first place among spires; but none is set upon a church so fine. That Salisbury is the most beautiful cathedral in England is not claimed. As was the case in France, so here,[8] there are too many churches, each with its own distinctive points of beauty, for anyone to be the finest of them all.

But Salisbury at least must find a place among the first, and is especially interesting because it is exactly contemporary as to date with Amiens in France. Architecturally both are Gothic; yet the difference in design is as great as the distance in miles between them. Low instead of lofty, with little decoration, and set in the midst of nature's grass and trees instead of in a crowded city, Salisbury's appeal is through the quiet beauty of its line, and the simplicity of its construction in contrast to the complex structure of the French cathedral. The Gothic of England was rarely the Gothic of carefully balanced thrust and pressures, of flying buttresses and huge window spaces. Here at Salisbury the walls are still quite heavy and the windows only moderately large. They have no tracery of stone; but are simple, narrow openings in the walls, with pointed heads so like a lance in shape that they have given the name of Lancet to this period of English Gothic architecture. Slow to throw off their earlier traditions, the English builders clung, even in Gothic days, to many of the characteristics of the Norman era, which had produced such masterpieces as Durham and Peterborough, Ely and Norwich, cathedrals. The result of this is especially evident in the interior of Salisbury;[9] for here, in spite of the shafts of Purbeck marble, one for each hour in the year, and in spite of the rich moldings of the piers and arches, the lack of structural unity, and the comparative smallness of the windows and lowness of the vaulting cause Salisbury's nave to fall far short of that of Amiens in beauty of construction. Viewed from the west, the cathedral is also disappointing; for the façade is an ugly screen wall, badly decorated, and deserving of little praise. But when seen from north or south or east, with its spire rising from the very heart of the church, Salisbury is truly inspiring. In its quiet close it seems the very expression of the church at peace.

Between the construction of Amiens and Salisbury and the building of the Château of Chambord (shong-bore´) lie two centuries of history. In them the spiritual power of the church, and the temporal power of the pope and clergy, which had been supreme throughout the Middle Ages, gave way to a large extent to a spirit of individualism and a rising power on the part of the king and nobles. This change had its effect upon the arts. The palace took precedence over the church in architecture as the secular took precedence over the religious in painting and the other arts. The Château of Chambord dates from the earlier stages of this new architectural era. Built by King Francis I in the early years of the sixteenth century, it is but one of the hundreds of châteaux erected by the kings and nobles of France, from Francis to the fall of the monarchy. Its architectural style is what is known as early Renaissance.[10] The claim of Chambord to beauty is due, not so much to its decoration as to its imposing size, to the sense of spaciousness it conveys, and to the manner in which it reflects the spirit of its age.

Four hundred feet square along its outer walls, this vast château was designed by Francis I merely as a hunting seat. The chief exterior attraction of the building lies in its roof. This is a very maze of gables, dormers, chimneys, and cupolas, dominated by the lantern that crowns the center stair, and in which lights were hung to guide belated hunters from the forest.

This stairway is the chief attraction of the interior. Sweeping round a central newel which forms an open well, it rises the full height of the building. Moreover, it is not a single flight of steps, but two, so placed that one person may go up and one come down, yet never meet. From this stairway four large halls open at every floor, and four hundred and forty rooms and fifty other stairs fill up the wings of this great palace. The interior, when richly furnished, must have been magnificent.

In spite of its size, Chambord has little history of which to boast. Nothing of importance or even of special interest took place there.

We are fortunate indeed as a nation to have had in our earlier days an architecture that could boast of such pleasing monuments as the New York City Hall. Our ancestors in both the North and South were strongly influenced from the point of view of art by that English Renaissance which reached its culmination in the hands of Sir Christopher Wren. Many a New England church and many a Southern home boasts an architectural beauty of rare charm and in rare accord with the natural setting of this new land. Nor were we less fortunate in public works. The old and new statehouses[11] in Boston, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and the Capitol in Washington are but a few of the early buildings in America that, like the New York City Hall, are worthy to rank among the best in beauty of design. The latter was the work of John McComb, Jr., and was built between 1803 and 1812 in a style based largely upon the Italian Renaissance. Though not of very great size, its proportions are remarkably fine, and its architecture beautiful. For good taste and for excellence of workmanship it is as worthy of the city of millions today as of the city of thousands for which it was first built.

That the source of beauty in architecture is indefinable, this brief account of six of the world's finest buildings has clearly shown. No two are alike; yet all are beautiful. And this quality lies not merely in size and proportions, in design and decoration, but in the appeal that each one makes to the mind as well as to the eye. Thus the Taj Mahal fairly speaks of human remembrance, the Alhambra is the embodiment of oriental luxury, Amiens affords a majestic picture of religious power, and Salisbury of quiet Christian worship, Chambord conjures up visions of gay kings and courtiers, while New York in its City Hall possesses a worthy monument of civic interest and pride. Many another building could be added to such a list as ours, and in the case of each it would be found that added to its visible and tangible beauty was an invisible character that marked it above its fellows. It is from this broad standpoint that all architecture should be judged.

A man much occupied in his business was asked how he came to know so much on so many different subjects. His answer was: "Not by study—I have had no time for that—I have got my knowledge from the men who could give it to me, and from the reading that they have suggested to me. When several of my friends who know a subject have told me about it, I have got it in a way that I could not get in study. I have got it from different points of view."

These words were said in the course of a conversation about The Mentor. Someone had referred to the variety of subjects offered in the schedule of The Mentor Association, and had asked whether certain regular courses of reading could not be included with advantage. With the thought of that business man and others like him, we are aiming for something larger and more beneficial than a fixed set of reading courses. We have planned to give in The Mentor the broad, liberal knowledge that comes not from a strict course of study closely adhered to, but from contact with writers of authority in varied fields. The readers of The Mentor get the rich benefits afforded by many minds, and the year's reading is wide in its reach and well balanced.

So much for the general plan of The Mentor Association. But there is something to be said for the reader who wants to have a logical course of reading through the seasons. So while we offer variety from week to week, we plan to cover the larger subjects in groups of articles that are definitely related to each other.

If one wants to follow out a certain subject, whether it be travel, history, or art, he can take up the reading of his Mentors in groups. Look at the schedule of 1913. In the varied program of the year's reading you will detect numbers that naturally belong together. You can select a set of Mentors that will take you on a trip to interesting places, with Mr. Dwight L. Elmendorf as a companion. If literature is a subject of interest to you, you can select Mentors on literary matters prepared under the advice of, and some of them written by, Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie. Suppose that history is what you are after; Professor Albert Bushnell Hart gives you the "Story of America" in several numbers. It is hardly necessary to point out what Professor John C. Van Dyke has done for fine art in the numbers of The Mentor prepared under his direction. And so groups of Mentors on other subjects may be brought together out of the schedule.

In preparing the schedule for 1914 we have taken thought not only for the wide scope of the whole year's plan, but for the treatment of special subjects in a way that will form natural groups. We have found this condition has met with favor, and it seems worth while to assure ourselves that all the readers of The Mentor appreciate it. We are told that some are gathering the numbers relating to a single subject together so as to have a small library on each subject available for reference. Not a bad idea. Imagine what an attractive set of volumes could be made out of twenty or thirty Mentors on travel by Mr. Elmendorf! Think what a beautiful and valuable set of books could be had by binding up the art numbers! Keep your back numbers. They are just as valuable as the ones to come.

AT the top of a precipice overhanging the River Jumna in India stands the most poetic mausoleum in the world. The Taj Mahal, "a dream in marble, designed by Titans and finished by jewelers," is the tomb built by Shah Jahan, the Mogul emperor, for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, whom he called Taj-Bibi. She was the loveliest beauty of the Indies, and Shah Jahan loved her so passionately that he thought of no other woman while she lived and was lost in grief after her death. He vowed that her tomb should be the most beautiful building in the world.

The Taj is of snow-white marble outside and jeweled mosaic within. It was planned by a Persian, Ustad Isa, who designed in the Persian rather than the Indian style of architecture. Twenty thousand men worked twenty-two years to finish it. In the center of a great square, paved with white marble and having a slender tower of the same stone at each corner, rises the memorial of Taj-Bibi—not merely a masterpiece of architecture, but also a perfect interpretation of womanly nature. The spirit of Mumtaz Mahal seems to have been carved into the marble.

The mosaic work of the interior is the finest to be found in any eastern country. Precious stones are used unsparingly—jasper and agate, carnelian and chalcedony. Marble lacework of wonderful lightness screens the windows and doorways. In the center are the tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan; but their bodies, according to the Indian custom, lie in a vault beneath the building. Shah Jahan had begun a tomb for himself on the opposite side of the river, which he never finished because Aurantzeb, his son, rebelled against him and took away the empire. He was therefore buried by the side of his beloved wife.

Shah Jahan was a cold and haughty man; but he ruled India well, and his pride was softened in later life by the death of his wife. It is said that during his reign he brought India peace and prosperity by putting all his rivals to death. Besides the Taj Mahal, two other famous buildings, the Pearl Mosque at Agra and the great mosque of Delhi, which were built by Shah Jahan, have made his reign one of the most memorable in Indian history. The emperor's treasury must have been practically unlimited; for the peacock throne, made during his reign, was estimated by Tavernier to be worth sixty million dollars. The festival at his coronation alone cost eight millions.

There is a legend that when he had finished the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan ordered the architect to be thrown over the cliff into the River Jumna, for fear he might plan another building as beautiful as the Taj.

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. I, No. 33. SERIAL No. 33
COPYRIGHT. 1913. BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

THE people about Granada have always held that the Palace of the Alhambra was built under a magic spell. To their minds human workmanship and the power of wealth are too feeble for the erection of a structure so enduring and magnificent. Indeed, great architects can hardly conceive the skill that balanced those halls and gardens and towers one against the other with perfect symmetry, or the patience that worked out each interlaced design without error in either the art or the chiseling.

Pains and expense were not spared in the construction, and it is no wonder that the Spaniards should have thought the work supernatural. Slim pillars of the rarest white marble give grace to every court of the palace. The carvings and designs are everywhere gilded, and where these are painted between the gilding, blue, red, and yellow, the purest colors only are used. The blue is ultramarine, made from a precious stone, the lapis lazuli of the Egyptians, which never fades.

Besides warmth of color and grace of form, the Moorish architects worked for durability. The aqueducts they built still bring an abundant supply of water from the mountains to fill those baths, fountains and marble-bordered ponds for which the courts and gardens of the Alhambra are famous. In spite of earth-quakes the columns and arches have nearly all held their place and their perfect form. The palace that Charles V built there in a vain effort to rival the Moorish masterpiece, and for which he made room by removing part of the Alhambra palace, stands today an uncompleted and roofless ruin; while the much older Alhambra is still clothed in a glory of bright, fresh color.

The Alhambra is not one building, but a collection of buildings on a high plateau. Long before the erection of the great palace the hilltop was surrounded by a wall with many towers for defense, and the Alcazaba, the first palace built on the Alhambra hill, was used as a residence by the early kings of Granada. Older than all, the "Vermilion Towers" stand on a neighboring hill, some distance outside the now ruined Alhambra wall.

The Palace of the Alhambra is said to have been started by Mohammed: but the foundations were probably laid by Calif Al Hamar, who is also distinguished for having begun to pay a yearly tribute to the kings of Castile. The construction went on during several reigns, and was completed by Yusuf with the building of the Gate of Justice in 1348. All the later kings of Granada lived in it until 1492, when the Moorish power fell before Ferdinand and Isabella, and Boabdil was banished forever from the home of his fathers.

IT was at Amiens that the renowned Saint Martin gave half of his cloak to a beggar who stood shivering by the roadside. Other saints in that city, though we know less of their life histories, must have exercised even more generosity during the Middle Ages to build and rebuild the old cathedral in the face of repeated misfortune. The patience and zeal with which those men of Amiens raised up their cathedral four times from its ashes, remain forever in the fame of this most perfect of French Gothic churches.

When the Norsemen plundered the coast of France in 881 they sent a great fleet up the River Somme. Amiens, taken by surprise, fell before the attack of those reckless and powerful old Vikings, and the cathedral, then a flimsy wooden structure, was burned to the ground. A new building which the people of Amiens put up in the same place when they had sufficiently recovered from the losses of the invasion, was destroyed by lightning in 1019. The next structure was burned in 1107, and the one that replaced it was struck by lightning in 1218 and completely ruined. Then in 1220 the present cathedral was begun. Even that has not escaped entirely from the lightning and conflagration that had wrecked so many structures on the same spot. In 1258, before the work was completed, the woodwork caught fire, and was so badly charred that part of it had to be taken down and rebuilt. Traces of fire may still be seen on some of the arches. Later the slim central spire, which is one of the striking features of Amiens Cathedral, was so badly damaged by lightning that it had to be made over.

The chief treasure of Amiens is part of the head of John the Baptist, naturally a religious relic of extraordinary interest. It is kept in the chapel of Saint John Baptist, and shown only at the most important ceremonies. All that remains is the front part of the skull, including the face, and this is inclosed in a hood of silver-gilt. The relic is said to have been kept for a long time in one of the churches in Asia, from which it was removed to Constantinople, and later taken from that city to Amiens, where it has rested ever since.

THE Cathedral of Saint Mary at Salisbury is not filled with gilding and warm color as the churches of southern Europe are. Its builders aimed rather at simplicity such as their forefathers used—plain gray walls, unornamented columns and arches, and few paintings. The edifice seems to reflect the antique dignity of those upright pillars of the Druids at Stonehenge, which is not far from Salisbury. Here we have the outcome of British race feeling in splendidly finished architecture placed almost side by side with that early crude expression of it.

The cathedral was begun in 1220 by Richard Poore, the bishop at Old Sarum, who was so much annoyed by the officers of the king that he decided to move the church to a site on his own land which has since been named Salisbury. Old Sarum Cathedral, built on a bleak hill, had suffered for lack of water. In his choice of a foundation Bishop Poore went to the other extreme; for the swampy fields by the Avon, on which this new cathedral was erected, were so often flooded that services sometimes had to be suspended for days.

The beautiful Lady Chapel was built in five years. The entire building, except the spire, which was not in the original plan, took only forty-six years to complete. It was consecrated in 1266. But when the spire was erected the architect in charge failed to strengthen the foundations sufficiently. The pillars and arches bulged; for they had never been intended to support such weight. In spite of arches walled up and buttresses built, the tower sagged nearly two feet toward the south, and has remained in that position ever since.

Though simplicity and calmness are characteristic of the original Salisbury Cathedral, they have been emphasized to the point of bareness by the restoration of James Wyatt, who destroyed nearly all the stained glass windows, two chapels, and a belfry, and moved many of the tombs. There are niches in the cathedral for over a hundred statues, which for some reason were nearly empty at the middle of the last century. The statues now in place are almost all modern: sculptured, however, with a view to holding the original significance of the architecture. They are arranged to represent the Te Deum.

IN the park of the château, near the banks of the Loire, great ragged trees reach out across the sky, cutting off the faint light of the stars. It is midnight. Indistinctly from the direction of the château comes a baying of deerhounds. It passes overhead through the middle air, with trampling and the sound of horns, then dies away into the distance. The ghost of Tibault de Champagne, first hereditary Count Blois, a black hunter followed by black dogs, is chasing the stag. Each midnight, so the people of that country say, the grim old baron rides by with a full pack.

Count Tibault had a castle there by the Loire, and for centuries his descendants used it as a hunting resort. In 1397 it passed into the hands of Louis d'Orléans. Francis I, a king of the house of Orléans, who knew the abandoned structure in his boyhood, developed in the country round this castle his well known passion for the chase, and that is why he chose the ruined feudal stronghold in the heart of a great forest for the site of his royal palace, when he might have built on any one of a hundred lovely spots not far away along the Loire.

The king's taste did not please his courtiers, who were less found of hunting and solitude. They would have preferred a large city, or at least some fertile valley nearby. Chambord was a palace in the wilderness. It could not be seen from a distance, and the view from its windows was only a dreary wood. The building has been described as a dream from the Arabian Nights come true.

Louis XIV made many alterations in the château. He ordered Mansart to construct rooms enough for the accommodation of a large court, and the architect, after racking his brains over the problem, cut up the roof for projecting windows in that style which has since become known as the Mansard roof. The principal door of the court is also Mansart's work.

In 1793 the revolutionists sold everything of value that could be moved from the château, and Chambord was stripped of its glory in a few days. It has never been completely restored. Though by no means a ruin today, the château suffers for lack of the magnificent furnishings for which it was originally designed.

WITH the highest buildings in the world rising in rivalry nearby, attracting every eye because of their novelty, the New York City Hall often escapes notice, or is given shorter consideration than its excellent architecture and historical significance deserve. Though it is neither large nor expensive, it is better designed and more carefully executed than any of the older public buildings in the country.

John McComb is generally accepted as the architect; but it would be safer to speak of him as the builder, since most of the designing seems to have been done by a French surveyor, Joseph Mangin. To Mangin are probably due that shapely and dignified architecture which gives it a place among beautiful buildings, and the skilful design of its decorations. McComb carried out the work of building with great care, receiving six dollars a day for his time. The construction was begun in 1803. The first intention was to use brownstone. McComb, however, saw that no meaner material than marble could do justice to the purpose or the workmanship of the proposed City Hall. Accordingly he persuaded the committee in charge to let him use marble on three sides. The stone was hauled over from the Berkshire Hilts by horses and oxen; for locomotives had not yet been invented.

One room of the City Hall was set aside for the State governor's use; and it has lately been restored to the original condition. Many excellent portraits hang on the walls. The furniture of the Governor's Room was largely taken from Federal Hall, where Washington was inaugurated and the city government was located before the building of the City Hall. Federal Hall has unfortunately been destroyed. It stood at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets, and was built with stone from the wall that gave Wall Street its name.

A number of years ago there was a proposal to remove the City Hall from its present position because it was no longer large enough for the city government and was too far from the center of Greater New York. Then, because of its architectural merit as well as its history, such protest was aroused that both building and park have been kept intact.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mentor: Beautiful Buildings of the World, Serial no. 33

The Mentor

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS of the WORLD

THE MENTOR

ISSUED SEMI-MONTHLY BY

The Mentor Association, Inc.

381 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y.

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDTaj Mahal

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDThe Alhambra

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDAmiens Cathedral

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDSalisbury Cathedral

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDChâteau de Chambord

BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDCity Hall, New York

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