The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE Lx.x.xIV.--Interior Detail of Main Entrance, Congress Hall; President's Dais, Senate Chamber, Congress Hall.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE Lx.x.xV.--Gallery, Senate Chamber, Congress Hall.]

Architrave casings were the rule, sometimes extending to the floor and often standing on heavy, square plinth blocks the height of the skirting beneath its molding. There are instances of both types at Mount Pleasant and Whitby Hall. The thickness of the walls in houses of brick and stone encouraged the custom of paneling the jambs and soffit of doorway openings to correspond with the paneling of the doors, the effect being rich and very pleasing. Generally the architrave casing was miter-joined across the lintel, as at Upsala, but in many of the better houses this horizontal part of the casing was given an overhang of an inch or two to form the doorhead. How pleasing this simple device was, especially when a rosette of stucco was applied to each jog of the casing, is well exemplified by the doors on the first floor at Whitby Hall. Very similar door trim without the rosette is to be seen at Cliveden and in numerous other houses.

At Mount Pleasant, and in several of the more pretentious old Colonial mansions of Philadelphia, this type of door trim was elaborated by a surmounting frieze and heavy pediment above the architrave casing. The first floor hall at Mount Pleasant presents the interesting combination of a pulvinated Ionic pediment with a mutulary Doric cornice and frieze about the ceiling. Here one notices the flat dado and doors with raised and molded panels as contrasted with the paneled wainscot and bolection-molded, flat-paneled doors of the second-story hall. In this latter, also, some of the pediments are complete, others broken, ill.u.s.trating another whim of the early American builders. Here the cornice is also Ionic with jig-sawed modillions, and the ensemble is generally more pleasing. In proportion and precision of workmanship this woodwork is hardly excelled in Philadelphia. The simple, carefully wrought dentil course of the doorheads lends a refining influence and pleasing sense of scale that seems to lighten the design very materially.

Philadelphia has no handsomer example of the enriched pedimental doorhead than the interior treatment of the entrance doorway of the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street. Above the horizontal overhang of the architrave casing across the lintel two beautifully carved consoles, the width of the frieze in height, support a cornice which is the base of a broken pediment. The familiar Grecian band or double denticulated molding in the string course gives character to the cornice, while an attractive leaf decoration in applied composition adorns the recessed frieze panel. Projections of the cornice above the consoles lend an added touch of refinement. This elaboration of the white wood trim is further emphasized by the dark red-brown painting of the door to simulate old mahogany, which became a frequent feature of the houses of this period.

Round-headed doorways here and there, not only at the front entrance, but elsewhere, as in the hall at Hope Lodge, provided a welcome variation from the customary square-headed types and have been a pleasing feature of Colonial interiors since early times. As framing the glazed doorways of china closets already referred to, they were a charming feature of the interior wood finish. At the front entrance the round-headed doorway was utilized to provide an ornamental yet practical fanlight transom over the door which admitted considerable light to brighten the hall. As contrasted with this more graceful arrangement, the broad front entrance to Whitby Hall, with its severely plain unmolded four-panel double doors and wrought-iron strap hinges, bolts, latch and great rim lock, is of quaint interest. The accompanying photograph shows well the dado effect secured by a surbase and skirting, and one notes with interest the cornice with its prominent modillions and the heavy plinth blocks on which the architrave casings of the doors stand.

Round-headed windows were employed for landing windows in stair halls, as at Whitby Hall, and in the central part of the Palladian windows over entrances, as at Mount Pleasant, where they became decorative interior features of the front end of the second-floor halls.

Elliptical-headed openings are rare in Philadelphia, and in most instances were arches across the main hall, as at Hope Lodge. Sometimes they framed the staircase vista at the head or foot of the flight, where they became one of the most charming features of the best Colonial interiors.

The ill.u.s.trations of interiors at Stenton accompanying this chapter, serve, as might many others, to show that white-painted interior woodwork, although one of the greatest charms of the Colonial house, finds its princ.i.p.al mission in providing the only architectural background that sets off satisfactorily the warmth of color and grace of line possessed by eighteenth-century furniture in mahogany and other dark woods. Bright and cheerful, chaste and beautiful, it emphasizes the beauties of everything before it, yet seldom forces itself into undue prominence. It is a scheme of interior treatment which has stood the test of time and indicates what excellent taste the Colonial builders manifested in resorting to its subtle influence to display their rare pieces of furniture brought from England and the Continent.

The admirable work of Philadelphia joiners indicates conclusively the many possibilities of white-painted soft woods. Unlike hardwood finish, the natural grain of the wood is concealed by painting, so that broad flat surfaces and simple moldings would be monotonous. Beauty of form is therefore subst.i.tuted for the beauty of wood grain. Cla.s.sic motives and detail are brought to bear upon the interior woodwork in such a manner as to delight the eye, yet not to detract unduly from the furnishings of the room. And the charm of much of the resulting woodwork indicates an early realization by American craftsmen of the fact that a nice balance between plain surface and decoration is as important as the decoration itself. It was by their facility in the design and execution of this woodwork that skilled wood-carvers were able to impart that lightness, grace and ingenuity of adaptation to which the Colonial style chiefly owes its charm.

CHAPTER XII

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

As in its domestic architecture of Colonial times, Philadelphia is so rich in its fine old public buildings that a readable and instructive book could be made about them alone. Intended for religious, political and commercial purposes, erected from one to two centuries ago and ranging from the frugal simplicity of the Mennonite Meeting House in Germantown to the stately beauty of Independence Hall, these n.o.ble edifices of bygone days were the scenes of momentous events in the most glorious and troublous period of the world's first republic. Their histories are inspiring and likewise their architecture. Exigencies of s.p.a.ce in a book of this sort render it impossible to include all worthy examples, but an effort has been made to present a representative collection that does justice to the annals and building genius of this remarkable city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE Lx.x.xVI.--Carpenter's Hall, off Chestnut Street, between South Third and South Fourth Streets. Erected in 1770; Old Market House, Second and Pine Streets.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE Lx.x.xVII.--Main Building, Pennsylvania Hospital.

Erected in 1755.]

Probably the most famous historical monument in the United States is Independence Hall, on Chestnut Street between Fifth and Sixth streets.

Here the American nation really came into being and began to function, and here come thousands of visitors annually to view in awed admiration the greatest patriotic shrine of a free people. The building, designed by Andrew Hamilton, speaker of the a.s.sembly, and built under his direction for the State House, was used for that purpose until 1799.

The foundations were laid in 1731, and the main building was ready for occupancy in 1735, although the wings and steeple were not completed until 1751. The steeple was taken down in 1781, but was restored to its original condition by William Strickland in 1828, and further restorations of the building to its original condition were effected later by the city government. The east, or "Declaration" chamber, still appears substantially as it did when that famous doc.u.ment was signed, but the restoration of certain other rooms has been less satisfactory.

The building has been set apart by the city, which purchased it from the State in 1816, as a museum of historical relics, and during the past century has been used by various public offices and societies.

Many famous buildings of Colonial times were the work of amateur architects, but this is without exception the finest contemporary administrative building in America; a n.o.ble building rich in glorious memories; n.o.bler even than the Bulfinch State House at Boston or the Maryland State House at Annapolis. It is an enduring monument to Hamilton's versatility, showing that with his genius he might have won distinction as an architect no less than as a barrister. His sense of design, ma.s.s and proportion, his appreciation of the relative value and most effective uses of cla.s.sic detail and his ability to harmonize the exigencies of the floor plan with attractive appearance were second to those of no professional architect of his time.

Independence Hall is a stately structure of exceptionally well-balanced symmetrical arrangement, beautiful alike in its general ma.s.s and minutest details, and presenting a delightful appearance from whatever viewpoint it is seen,--dignified, s.p.a.cious and picturesque, a building that seems to typify the serenity of mind and steadfastness of purpose of those st.u.r.dy patriots who made it famous.

The structure comprises three parts; a large central building with hip-roofed wings for offices connected with the main building by open arcaded loggias. The present wings are restorations. Beyond the wings are two buildings erected after the close of the Revolution, but forming part of the group. That at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets was erected as the Philadelphia County Court House, while that at the corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets was the City Hall.

The entire group is of characteristic Philadelphia brick construction, delightfully mellowed by age, with marble and white-painted wood trim.

The main building is two stories high with a decked gable roof, heavily bal.u.s.traded between large, arched quadruple chimney stacks at each end, corners heavily quoined with marble and ends without fenestration other than a round bull's-eye window in each. Across the one hundred and seven feet of the Chestnut Street facade there is a range of nine broad, high, twenty-four-paned windows with flat gauged brick arches and high marble keystones, the central window being replaced by a simple, very high and deeply recessed doorway with a broad stone stoop before it. Tying into the keystones is a horizontal belt of marble across the entire front. A similar belt is located immediately beneath the window sills of the second story, and between the two belts and ranging with the windows are nine oblong marble panels set into the brickwork.

On the Independence Square facade everything is subordinated to the great square steeple-like clock tower, centrally located, which stands its entire height outside but adjoining the walls of the main building.

In construction the lower two stories of the tower correspond to those of the building itself, and the cornice of the latter is effectively carried around the tower. Above, the tower rises two more stories of brick with pedimented and pilastered walls in the Ionic order and surmounted with cla.s.sic urns and flame motives. Above this level the construction of the clock tower is of white-painted wood, one story with Corinthian pilasters and another bal.u.s.traded, rising in four-sided diminutions to the octagonal, open arched belfry and superstructure, above which is a tapering pinnacle and gilt weathervane. It is a tower of grace, dignity and repose, a tower suggestive of ecclesiastical work, perhaps, yet withal in complete harmony with its situation and purpose.

In the base of this tower is the main entrance, a simple and dignified pillared doorway in the mutulary Doric order with double four-panel doors, and a magnificent Palladian window in the Ionic order above, to which reference was made in a previous chapter. Thus three distinct orders of architecture are used in this tower alone, presenting another instance of the great freedom with which early American architects utilized their favorite motives.

Entering this doorway one comes into a great, square, lofty, brick-paved hall in the base of the tower where now reposes the Liberty Bell at the foot of what has often been called the finest staircase in America. And where, indeed, is to be found a more splendid combination of nicely worked white wood trim with touches of mahogany and dark green stairs?

Done in the Ionic order, with a heavy cornice having carved modillions and a prominent dentil course, deeply embrasured windows with paneled jambs and broad sills supported by beautifully hand-tooled consoles, and a nicely s.p.a.ced paneled wainscot, this entrance is a fitting frame for the broad winding staircase. Rising ramp after ramp by broad treads and low risers, it leads first to a broad landing in front lighted by the Palladian window over the entrance, and thence upward and around to a gallery across the opposite wall, where a broad double doorway with delightful fanlight above leads into the main hall of the second floor.

To the right a narrow staircase rises to the belfry. The cla.s.sic bal.u.s.trade, with its mahogany-capped rail and simple landing newels is heavy but well proportioned; the paneled wainscot along the wall follows the contour of the ramped rail opposite, and the under side of the landings, gallery and upper runs are nicely paneled. Elaborately carved scroll brackets adorn the stair ends, and a harmonious floreated volute spiral band runs along the edge of the gallery; while the pilaster casings of the upper doorway and of the Palladian window are enriched with straight hanging garlands. At the foot of the staircase the newel treatment takes the scroll form of the Ionic volute, the rail and bal.u.s.ters on the circular end of the broad lower step winding around a central column like the landing newels.

Hanging from its original beam, but within an ornamental frame erected in the center of this staircase hall, is the best-known relic of the building, the famous Liberty Bell, which is supposed, without adequate evidence, to have been the first bell to announce the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It was cast in England early in 1752 and bears the following inscription: "By order of the a.s.sembly of the Province of Pennsylvania for the State House in Philadelphia, 1752", and underneath: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof, Lev. XXV, V, X." In August, 1752, the bell was received in Philadelphia, but was cracked by a stroke of the clapper the following month. It was recast, but the work being unsatisfactory, it was again recast with more copper, in Philadelphia during May, 1753, and in June was hung in the State House steeple, where it remained until taken to Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1777, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the British. In 1781 the bell was lowered and the steeple removed. In 1828 a new steeple was erected, and a new bell put in place, the Liberty Bell being given a place in an upper story of the tower to be rung only on occasions of great importance. On July 8, 1835, it suddenly cracked again while being tolled in memory of Chief Justice John Marshall, and on February 22, 1843, this crack was so increased as nearly to destroy its sound. In 1864 it was placed in the east or Declaration room, but in 1876, the Centennial year, it was again hung in the tower by a chain of thirteen links. From the time of its second recasting in 1753, until it lost its sound in 1843, the Liberty Bell was sounded on all important occasions, both grave and gay. It convened town meetings and the a.s.sembly, proclaimed the national anniversary, ushered in the new year, welcomed distinguished men, tolled for the honored dead, and on several occasions was m.u.f.fled and tolled as an expression of public disapproval of various acts of British tyranny.

Pa.s.sing through a high, round-headed arch with paneled jambs and soffit one enters the central hall, a magnificent apartment in the mutulary Doric order, extending through the building to the Chestnut Street entrance. Fluted columns standing on a high, broad pedestal which runs about the walls like a wainscot, support a heavy complete entablature enriched with beautifully hand-carved moldings, notably an egg and dart ovolo between cornice and frieze and foliated moldings about the mutules and the panels of the soffit and metopes. It is a hall of charming vistas in a n.o.ble architectural frame,--straight ahead to the Chestnut Street entrance; back through the great single arch to the staircase; to the left through an arcade of three pilastered arches into the west or Supreme Court chamber; to the right through a broad, double doorway into the east or "Declaration" room, the original a.s.sembly chamber.

The treatment of the latter wall of the hall is most elaborate. Three cased arches correspond to the open arches opposite. On the wall within the two end ones are handsome, pedimental-topped, inscribed tablets, while in the middle one is located the doorway with an ornate, broken, pedimental doorhead taking the form of a swag.

Like the hall, the Supreme Court chamber is Doric with fluted pilasters instead of engaged columns, and walls entirely paneled up. There are three windows at each end and two back of the judge's bench with its paneled platform and rail, and bal.u.s.traded staircases at each end. In this room the convention to form a new const.i.tution for Pennsylvania met July 15, 1776, and unanimously approved the Declaration of Independence, and pledged the support of the State. Delegates to Congress were elected who were signers of the Declaration. In this room now stands the statue of Washington carved out of a single block of wood by Colonel William Rush, after Stuart.

Across the hall is the Declaration chamber, forty feet and two inches long, thirty-nine feet and six inches wide and nineteen feet and eight inches high. As in size, its architecture is substantially the same as the chamber opposite, and like it the two corners near the hall are rounding. Also it is of s.p.a.cious appearance, light, beautiful and cheerful, a room to inspire n.o.ble deeds. Instead of the high judge's bench at the side opposite the entrance, there is a relatively small platform or dais of two steps on which stands the presiding officer's desk in front of a large, elaborate, pedimental-topped frame with exquisitely enriched carved moldings, within which is a smaller frame containing a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence. To either side, between fluted pilasters, are segmental arched fireplaces with heavy mantel shelves above, supported by carved consoles, while beyond these are single doors with pedimental heads. Otherwise the room is substantially like that across the hall. They are regarded as the best of the restored rooms of the building, and of the two the courtroom is perhaps rather the better in its greater simplicity.

In the east or so-called Declaration chamber, the second Continental Congress met May 10, 1775; George Washington was chosen commander in chief of the Continental Army June 15, 1775; and the Declaration of Independence was adopted July 4, 1776. The American officers taken prisoners at the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, and of Germantown, October 4, 1777, were held here as prisoners of war, and on July 9, 1778, the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union between the States were signed here by representatives of eight States. The room contains much of the furniture of those days. The table and high-backed Chippendale chair of mahogany used by the presidents of the Continental Congress and occupied by John Hanc.o.c.k at the signing still remain, and on the table is to be seen the silver ink-stand with its quill box and sand shaker, in which the delegates dipped their pens in autographing the famous doc.u.ment. There are also fourteen of the original chairs used by delegates. On the walls hang portraits of forty-five of the fifty-six signers, also a portrait of Washington by Rembrandt Peale.

In fact, the collection of portraits is largely based on canvases secured from the famous Peale Museum which at one time occupied the upper floors of the building. There are also valuable paintings by Benjamin West, Gilbert Stuart, Edgar Pine, Thomas Sully and Allan Ramsay. The bronze statue of Washington standing in front of Independence Hall on Chestnut Street is a replica of the original one in white marble by Bailey, which was removed on account of its disintegration. Forty-five crayons and pastels by John Sharpless, purchased by the city in 1876, form a notable collection estimated to be worth half a million dollars. What is supposed to be the earliest exhibition of paintings ever held in America was that of Robert Edge Pine, which occurred in Independence Hall in 1784.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE Lx.x.xVIII.--Main Hall and Double Staircase, Pennsylvania Hospital.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE Lx.x.xIX.--Custom House, Fifth and Chestnut Streets.

Completed in 1824; Main Building, Girard College. Begun in 1833.]

On the second floor the princ.i.p.al room is a great banqueting hall extending across the entire building on the Chestnut Street side with its range of nine windows and having a fireplace at each end. There are smaller rooms on each side of the broad entrance corridor; its wide, flat arch has four fluted columns supporting a heavy pedimental head with elliptical fanlight. Architecturally the restoration of the second floor is less happy than that of the first. It is not in the spirit of the work below; nor does it accord with typical Colonial work of pre-Revolutionary days. It lacks that simple, straight-forward dignity of design; that fine sense of proportion; that refinement and appropriateness of detail. The s.p.a.cing of the paneling of both the wainscot and the fireplace mantels is not characteristic; the detail of the latter is poorly chosen and a.s.sembled, and the whole aspect, especially the entrance arch, suggests a studied effort to achieve picturesque effect.

On the northwest corner of Independence Square, which is the southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, is old Congress Hall, erected in 1787, in which Congress sat from 1790 to 1800, and in which Washington was inaugurated in 1793 for a second term with Adams as vice-president, and in which Adams, in 1797, was inaugurated president with Jefferson as vice-president.

Here Washington presented his famous message concerning Jay's treaty with England; here, toward the close of his second administration, he p.r.o.nounced his farewell address, which is still regarded as a model of dignity and farsightedness. Here, too, was officially announced the death of Washington, when John Marshall offered a resolution that a joint committee of the House and Senate consider "the most suitable manner of paying honor to the memory of the man first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen", thus originating a phrase never to be forgotten in America. For some years after 1800 the building was occupied by the criminal courts, now located in the City Hall.

Were it not so near the more pretentious Independence Hall, this demure little building would receive much more attention, for it is architecturally a gem of the Colonial period, and such of its interior woodwork as has been restored has been more happily treated than is often the case. It is an oblong structure of brick, with marble and white wood trim, two stories high, hip-roofed and surmounted in the center by a well-proportioned, octagonal open cupola. On the front a pediment springs from the cornice over a slightly projecting central section of the facade, while a three-sided bay breaks the rear wall and enlarges the building. The stoop and doorway are of simple dignity, the double doors having the appearance of being four separate, very narrow four-panel doors, and the graceful fanlight above being in accord with the round-headed windows of the lower story. These windows are set effectively in brick arches with marble sills, keystones and imposts. On the upper story the windows are twenty-four-paned and square-headed with gauged brick arches and marble keystones. Under the central front window over the entrance there is a handsome wrought-iron fire balcony.

The best exterior feature of the building is the beautifully hand-tooled cornice with its coved member having a series of recessed arches and the well-known Grecian band or double denticulated molding beneath. At the second-floor level a white marble belt accords well with the general scheme.

No less interesting than the outward appearance of the entrance is its inward aspect, with its deeply paneled embrasures and soffit, its quaint strap hinges and rim lock. The arrangement of the double staircases with a halfway landing in this lofty, airy stair hall compels admiration for effective simplicity. The stair ends are unadorned, but the s.p.a.ces under the lower run of both flights are nicely paneled up. The bal.u.s.ters are of good, though familiar pattern, and the lines of the dark ramped rail gracefully drawn.

Interest centers in the Senate chamber with its barrel ceiling and panel-fronted galleries along both sides supported by slender round columns. Here momentous business was transacted during the early years of the American nation, and many relics of those troublous times are here preserved. In the bay at the rear end the President's dais has been restored from remains found beneath an old platform. It is of graceful design with free-flowing curves and an elliptical swell front where the bal.u.s.trade has a solid three-panel insert. The turned bal.u.s.ters are of slender grace, while the paneled pilasters or newels at the ends and corners are adorned with straight hanging garlands in applied work. There is also a festooned border in applied work above the opening into the bay that is carried about the room above the galleries.

The central decoration of the ceiling and the eagle over the President's dais furnish excellent examples of eighteenth-century frescoes.

A short distance east of Independence Square, in a narrow court off Chestnut Street, between South Third and South Fourth streets, hedged about by high modern office buildings that dwarf its size, is Carpenters' Hall, in which the first Continental Congress a.s.sembled, September 5, 1774, and in which the National Convention, in 1787, framed the present Const.i.tution of the United States. The building was also the headquarters of the Pennsylvania Committee of Correspondence; the bas.e.m.e.nt was used as a magazine for ammunition during the Revolution, and from 1791 to 1797 the whole of it was occupied by the first United States Bank.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XC.--Old Stock Exchange, Walnut and Dock Streets; Girard National Bank, 116 South Third Street.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XCI.--Christ Church, North Second Street near Market Street. Erected in 1727-44; Old Swedes' Church, Swanson and Christian Streets. Erected in 1698-1700.]

The Carpenters' Company, established in 1724, was patterned after the Worshipful Company of Carpenters of London, which dates back to 1477, and the early organization of such a guild in America indicates the large number and high character of the Colonial builders of Philadelphia and explains the excellence of the architecture in this neighborhood.

The present building was begun in 1770, but was not completed until 1792, so that throughout the Revolutionary period it was used in a partly finished condition. Since 1857 it has been preserved wholly for its historic a.s.sociations. Here was conceived that liberty which had its birth in Independence Hall, so that its claim to fame is second only to the latter. Like it, too, there are many interesting relics of those glorious days to be seen within. An inscription on a tablet outside very properly reads, "Within these walls, Henry, Hanc.o.c.k, and Adams inspired the delegates of the Colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of war."

The building is in the form of a Greek cross with four projecting gable ends and an octagonal cupola of graceful design and proportions at the center of the roof. It is of characteristic Philadelphia brickwork, with handsomely cased twenty-four-paned windows shuttered on the lower floor.