The Background
This is the third in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.
The title of the article is misleading, as Goodrich provided no advice for builders here — they wouldn’t take it anyway. Instead, this article delves into the design of doors, porticos, and other building entries, which allowed Goodrich to whip out such fancy architectural terms as “pronaos” and “antæ”. He obviously read Vitruvius at some point.
Goodrich’s writing style was overlong and overwrought, and you have to wonder how many people actually read this insufferably boring article when it was published — certainly not the newspaper’s editor or proofreader, as the article is chock full of typos and grammatical errors.
Given his grandiose ramblings on the subject, you’d think Goodrich was some genius of architecture, but if you look at the quality of his work, it’s clear he was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill designer with delusions of grandeur.
And that’s the nicest thing you’ll hear me say about him.
Hints To Builders,
A Chapter On Beautiful Entrances.
Houses That Speak to Beholders.
Tame, Flat and Uninteresting Building — Hospitable and Polite House –An An [sic] Article that will Prove Interesting to Journal Readers.
Written for the Journal.
Has anyone ever felt or been impressed by the character of an ignoble or imposing entrance. The insignificance and meanness of a narrow, cramped doorway is as certainly experienced as a sense of nobility and grandeur is awakened by the sight of a great cathedral. Not only, however, in edifices of public character such as these do we feel the influence of the entrance; we find that it impresses an important character on buildings of an official and private class. A small and insignificant entrance stamps the character on the building; in effect it says to every passer-by, “I am only intended for private use.” On the contrary, the wide doorway invites entrance, it proclaims to every observer free and unrestricted ingress, and it stamps the building with an hospitable character. No other feature of a building addresses itself more directly to the eye than the entrance. Every good architecture has a language of expression of its own; the modes by which it gives expressions are few, and may in a word be said to symbolize or represent corresponding qualities or emotions of the mind. Thus we can make a building look vapid and tame by flat treatment and want of vigorous features, or we can make it frown and strike terror to the beholder by massive treatment, bold projections, and overhanging cornices; we can give it an air of amusement and gloom by windowless walls and by severe details; and we can make a building hospitable and polite by harmonious arrangements of the features, wide apertures and ornamental details.
This phonetic quality of architecture is as universal and as easily learned as the qualities of musical composition, or the varieties of rythm [sic] and harmony which expresses the grave and sprightly, the solemn and the frivolous. It has been said that an overture without words can express nothing; but all who can appreciate fine musical competitions know how eloquent and impressive certain passages are in appealing to the emotions and heart. In architecture likewise, though the differences of expression may be few, they are clearly pronounced, and the modes by which they are produced appeal with equal power to even the unlearned and artistic person. Thus we need not inform the least observant the effect that is produced of an excess of a paucity of openings in a building. A wide open fenestration expresses life and liveliness, large apertureless wall spaces gloominess and dullness. The most illiterate and least artistic can appreciate the difference between these conditions of building. The large paned windows of the modern villas as certainly express sprightliness and vivacity as the massive unpierced walls of a goal do gloom and austerity.
The entrance doorway has always appeared to us to be an equally powerful means of obtaining character of a facade, making it inviting or hospitable, sullen or selfish, and it is worth while to consider it as a very important feature in design.
There are several varieties of entrance; the most generally known may be broadly classed under the simple doorway, the projecting entrance and the recessed entrance. Of the second class, the porch or portico is a representation, and of the third, the open vestibule. Each of these kinds admits of many varieties, according to the style chosen and the purpose of the building. The style rather than the purpose of the building has been chiefly taken by architects as the only rule in the matter, and thus it happens that a few conventional modes of treating the entrance continue to be used, in total forgetfulness or in ignorance of what is demanded by purpose and expression. Of all forms of entrance perhaps no more noble or majestic can be found than the classic portico or pro-style arrangement in front of the cella; no meaner than the ordinary doorway in a flat wall. The classic and Italian architect never produced a more impressive entrance than the arrangement known as “in antis,” in which the temple of the building is entered through a pronaos or outer open covered space between two columns and the doorway. In the large and more important temples columns were placed in front of the antae, making a deeper covered space or portico. What is in classical nomenclature known as the “pronaos,” is, in Italial [sic] architecture, a kind of screened vestibule, recessed from the front wall. But as in other inventions of the ancients, modern architects frequently travesty this feature. They make it too shallow to be of value, or make it so small as to become ridiculous. The opening occupied by the columns between the antæ should bar some proportion to the facade, the larger the more dignified and impressive, it should form a convenient shelter from the weather, and should therefore be proportionately deep.
To lay down any rules of size would be superfluous and misleading, for it is a feature that should be planned in conjunction with the internal walls of the vestibule or hall. In a public edifice, as a hall, size is of importance, though it would appear the dimensions of the portico is accounted a small matter, the subject being left to the accidents of planning rather than to destination. We often find public edifices with meagre entrances, and private villas with spacious porticos. If we look at mediæval [sic] edifices, we shall find the noblest of our cathedrals have imposing entrances. The grand triple portals of Amiens and Rheims [sic] are majestic works of sculptural architecture, depth being obtained partly be [sic] external projection, which is gabled, and partly by recess in the wall. The splay of the jambs and seried arch members filled with sculpture play a great part in giving apparent depth to the portal, a principle followed also by the mediæval architects, in diminishing the members, shafts and statues as they approached the plane of doorway. Height, too, was not sacrificed, the tympana are richly sculptured, and the apices of the outer arch mouldings reach to a full third of the height of facade. The entrances to our own cathedrals are less important features, but are largely obtained by recess in the thickness of the wall.
Projecting porticos and porches form a notable kind of entrance, and their chief use is in obtaining external shelter and protection from the weather. Projecting arrangements forcibly express entrance, and are probably of all forms the least tractable in the hands of the architect. In towns they require the setting back of the building, and are, therefore, rather wasteful of area. The chief failure in this mode of expressing the entrance is the want of connection with the building. Unless the porch is designed with special reference to the elevation, it has the appearance of a clapped on adjunct, and this is the common weakness of the porch. From all we have said there a few rules to be observed which may be enumerated. First, the entrance should accord with the purpose of the building in size; second, in its architectural treatment and decoration it should express its function of access and shelter clearly, and its lines should be made to unite with those of the facade; third, a half projecting and half recessed entrance is more pleasing and desirable than a flat doorway. To these, a fourth principle should be added–that the external entrance should correspond with the internal arrangement. A wide entrance or portico should always have an inner vestibule or hall of similar width and importance; and sense of disappointment is otherwise at once felt on passing the external entrance and find a narrow hall within. Yet this is a very common fault in entrance designing which has been studied in elevation and not in plan. We often see porticos and porches stuck on, having no reference whatever to the internal walls. The walls of entrance internally are suddenly reduced to the width of a corridor, and the visitor at once realizes the deception practiced upon him of a counterfeit portico–having no connection whatever with the hall inside. In short, the vestibule and hall should be a continuance of the entrance, and it is better, to enlarge than diminish its width and to increase rather than lessen its architectural embellishment. The object for any entrance hall should be to invite the visitor, not to repel him, as he passes the threshold. It is a feature upon which the ablest architects of all ages have exercised their highest skill, and its treatment, both architecturally and decoratively, ought to be to conduct the visitor to the apartments, instead of by meanness or ostentation to arrest his footsteps, or to disappoint his expectations of the interior.
W.W. Goodrich.1
References
- Goodrich, W.W. “Hints to Builders.” The Atlanta Journal, June 7, 1890, p. 10. ↩︎