The Catalogue of the T - Eguare Club.—It is with great interest
that we have looked at the architectural drawings in the Catalogue of the exhibition of the T-Square Club of Philadelphia. The interest of American architecture is great. In Europe the art of building seems to have come to a standstill, all the best work being imito.- tion of past styles. What is happening on the other side of the Atlantic? Are they developing a new and national style ? This question is discussed in a number of letters in the present Catalogue, but the answer is uncertain. English archi- tecture of the present day is a Babel, but we have, at any rate, escaped the French official style, --Tart adonntstratif. But from the drawings in the T-Square Club Catalogue this style of frigid pomposity seems to have some influence in America. Indeed, it is hard to say what style has not, for there is no lark
of variety, and most of the countries of Europe seem to have been ransacked for examples. Two styles find no place here, and these are two which might yield good results when applied to modern requirements. Lombard and Venetian Gothic. For the distinc- tive American style we look in vain. But this is the age of scientific criticism and classification, not of creation. The world is going through a highly inartistic period, when no one will sacrifice the smallest practical convenience for the sake of an artistic idea. If it is not presumptuous, we should like to offer a query for the consideration of American architects. Is not artistic form just as much a peculiarity of race, as is language ? Are American architects more likely to express themselves truly and freely in styles borrowed from France, Germany, and Italy, than their authors would be if they wrote their books in French, German, or Italian ? An American style may come, but it will not come because America is a great industrial country with a vast population. It will come when there is a body of the population possessed with the creative artistic spirit.
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