E-text prepared by Leah Moser and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
1918
[Illustration: PLATE I. THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING, NEW YORK]
This book can lay no claim to unity of theme, since its subjects rangefrom skyscrapers to symbols and soul states; but the author claims forit nevertheless a unity of point of view, and one (correct or not) socomprehensive as to include in one synthesis every subject dealtwith. For according to that point of view, a skyscraper is only asymbol—and of what? A condition of consciousness, that is, a state ofthe soul. Democracy even, we are beginning to discover, is a conditionof consciousness too.
Our only hope of understanding the welter of life in which we areimmersed, as in a swift and muddy river, is in ascending as nearto its pure source as we can. That source is in consciousness andconsciousness is in ourselves. This is the point of view from whicheach problem dealt with has been attacked; but lest the author be atonce set down as an impracticable dreamer, dwelling aloof in an ivorytower, the reader should know that his book has been written inthe scant intervals afforded by the practice of the profession ofarchitecture, so broadened as to include the study of abstract form,the creation of ornament, experiments with color and light, and suchoccasional educational activities as from time to time he has beencalled upon to perform at one or another architectural school.
The three essays included under the general heading of "Democracyand Architecture" were prepared at the request of the editor of TheArchitectural Record, and were published in that journal. The twofollowing, on "Ornament from Mathematics," represent a recasting anda rewriting of articles which have appeared in The ArchitecturalReview, The Architectural Forum, and The American Architect."Harnessing the Rainbow" is an address delivered before the Ad. Clubof Cleveland, and the Rochester Rotary Club, and afterwards made intoan essay and published in The American Architect under a differenttitle. The appreciation of Louis Sullivan as a writer appears here forthe first time, the author having previously paid his respects to Mr.Sullivan's strictly architectural genius in an essay in House andGarden. "Color and Ceramics" was delivered on the occasion of thededication of the Ceramic Building of the University of Illinois,and afterwards published in The Architectural Forum. "Symbols andSacraments" was printed in the English Quarterly Orpheus. "SelfEducation" was delivered before the Boston Architectural Club, andafterwards published in a number of architectural journals.
Acknowledgment is hereby tendered by the author to the editors ofthese various magazines for their consent to republication, togetherwith thanks, however belated, for their unfailing hospitality to thechildren of his brain.
August 1, 1918.
I. Before the War
II. During the War
III. After the War
I. The World Order
II. The Fourth Dimension