Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1886 — Moral Influences of Architecture. [ARTICLE]

Moral Influences of Architecture.

Our architects are scarcely conscious, I fancy, of the happiness or unhappi* ness, progress or retrogres, pleasure or pain, for which they are accountable. They do not realize w hat a moral as well as aesthetic influence they have over the people, Ull, l howi responsible they are for the. moral tone of society. The planners of qur houses have as great an influence'in forming out character as the preachers in our churches —a more lasting influence; for while the latter nimrt reach and move us by too-swiftly-forgotten words, the former find expression for their teachings in enduring structures of wood and stone. What some of these lessons are will be pointed out in the sequel. How quickly and accurately we judge, by driving through the streets of a town, wlyit is the grade of its citizenship. WheWwe seq row after row of houses built after much the same plan, with no expression of individual style, tftste, or preference, we expect to find the inhabitants as strangely alike, of tile same low standard of intelligence, destitute of independent opinions, public spirit, and personal ambition. On the other hand, the citizens of a town whose houses express character, variety, and good taste are likely to possess the same qualities. Where houses lose all individuality, the people who live in them are likely to suffer the same loss, and vice versa. But beside the general effect which good or bad architecture has upon the people, there are special traits of character which are developed and fostered by special merits or defects in our public and private buildings. One humble but very important lesson which domestic architecture should enforce by giving no room for its opposite is cleanliness. All gloomy corners, dark cupboards, and damp closets, in which to store away rubbish and invite dust, mold, and decay, should be banished from the earth. Another lession is cheerfulness. If blue sky, bright sun, and green fields make the heart of man rejoice, why should not pleasant, comfortable, tasteful homes ? If dull days, dreary landscapes, barren deserts make people feel gloomy and sad, why should not sour tempers, and morose dispositions be fostered by badly lighted, awkwardly planned, poorly decorated rooms? For the four walls of the room are the only landscape which many people see from one day’s end to another. Such lessons as these may seem slight and trival, but human happiness or misery is often caused by the continued presence of little pleasures or annoyances. Of the lessons of fitness, proportion, or good taste, of which every well-built house is an embodiment, I need not speak, for they have less to do with the moral than the aesthetic influence of architecture. There is yet one lesson taught by good architecture whose importance makes it deserve far more attention than it has yet received. The architecture is a living sermon, and its text, which it writes on every building it constructs, is “Avoid sham; be what you appear to be.” Not all have learned rightly to read this text; but all may and wiil learn it as architectural principles come to be better understood by the public. And surely no nobler lesson .could be before our people than this which is symbolized by all our buildings worthy of the name. A parent should be as careful that his house does not teach his children deceit as that his words do not. Many of our boys and girls, I fear,learn to like sham, to do and wear for effect, to be what they do not appear to be, from the deceitful construction, false windows, sham doors, painted marble, and paper~carving of their father’s house. In our more elaborate public buildings—the school, church, library, court house—if the building is architecturally adapted to its intended use, it will awaken ambition, reverence, love of knowledge, respect “for the powers that be, ”as the case may be. A gaol or prison, whose forbidding aspect, barred windows, and massive walls bespeaks its intended use, will have a more wholesome influence on a community of young rascals than a dozen sermons preached from the text “thou shalt not steal.”— E. S. Babbitt, in Building.