双语+MP3|美国学生艺术史84 从茅屋到房屋

 
英国在克里斯多弗·雷恩爵士死后很多年后还在使用文艺复兴式建筑风格。在乔治一世、乔治二世和乔治三世统治时期，文艺复兴式建筑在英国形成了自己特有的风格。它被称作“乔治风格”。我们在后面谈论美国建筑时，会更多地涉及乔治风格。 
84 FROM HUTS TO HOUSES从茅屋到房屋
JUST suppose you had to go to a wild, unexplored land and live there the rest of your life. What kind of house would you build? Probably you would build a log cabin if you had an ax and could find plenty of trees. But if you had never heard of a log cabin, the chances are you would build some other kind of shelter that you had heard of—a cave perhaps. 
The first English settlers who landed in America had never seen a log cabin. What they thought of first were the little huts of the charcoal burners that they had seen in the woods in England. These huts were made of branches and twigs woven together, somewhat as a wicker chair is woven. The early settlers built their shelters like the charcoal huts and put steep-pointed thatched roofs on them. Do you know what a thatched roof is? It’s a roof made of straw. When these huts were finished, they must have looked very much like the wigwams of the Indians. 
But what about log cabins? Surely the early settlers used them? Yes, they did use them as soon as the Swedes had settled in Delaware. The Swedes had lived in log cabins in Sweden and when they came to America where logs were easy to get, they built log cabins there also. Then the use of log cabins quickly spread. Log cabins were used by the pioneers and settlers as they pushed west away from the seacoast, for trees were plentiful.  
At least one log cabin has become famous. It is the one Abraham Lincoln was born in. Now the whole cabin is kept in a big marble building built especially to hold it and protect it at Hodgenville, Kentucky, Some of the early buildings that the settlers from England built were Gothic in style. At Jamestown in Virginia the settlers built a simple little brick Gothic church which has since fallen to pieces. But another little early church called St. Luke’s is still standing. St. Luke’s has the pointed windows and steep roof of the Gothic, and this seems strange because the Renaissance had reached England some years before America was settled by Englishmen and the Gothic style had gone out of style in England. 
In New England as well as in Virginia some of the early houses were Gothic. They were built of wood and had windows opening at the side on hinges (the way a door opens), with many small panes of glass in each window—casement windows they are called. Generally the second story of these houses stuck out a foot or so beyond the first story so that there was an overhang in front. Several of these old Gothic houses are still standing. 
After a while books about architecture began to find their way into the American colonies. These books came from England where Renaissance architecture was in full swing. The books had plans and diagrams or drawings in them which the American carpenters found very handy guides for making houses. King George was reigning in England, first King George I, then George II, then George III, and so the English Renaissance architecture was called Georgian architecture. And after the first few Gothic buildings our early American architecture was Georgian too. We call it now Georgian Colonial or sometimes just Colonial. 
Most of the Georgian Colonial houses were made of wood in the North and of brick in the South, but in Pennsylvania stone was used. The houses weren’t built by regular architects, but by the master carpenters who used the books sent from England to guide them. The houses were so suited to this country that architects to-day still often use this Georgian Colonial style for houses. 
Besides Georgian Colonial there was Dutch Colonial much liked by the Dutch settlers in New York. The Dutch Colonial houses generally had a roof that sloped down beyond the front of the house to cover the porch. The Dutch Colonial style is also being used again in modern houses in America. 
The Colonial houses were generally made plain and simple. They were never decorated much, like Baroque buildings, and that is one reason they seem so charming to us. Most of the decoration was carved in wood on the doorways, the mantel-pieces, the stairways, and the ceilings. Sometimes there were wooden pilasters or half columns or columns in the Roman style at each side of the door. Often there was a transom window over the front door. This would be decorated with carved wooden tracery sometimes in the shape of a fan, and called a fan-light. 
Many of these old houses of colonial times are still standing. Most of them, of course, are in the Eastern States, which were settled first. Some are famous for other reasons than architecture—Mount Vernon, for instance, because it was the home of George Washington. Mount Vernon on the Potomac is visited every year by thousands of people who come to see where the Father of his Country lived. 
Independence Hall in Philadelphia is famous as the building where the American Declaration of Independence was signed. That is how it got its name. It was designed by a lawyer. It is a fine example of Georgian Colonial architecture in brick. The tower reminds us of one of Sir Christopher Wren’s steeples in London. In Independence Hall is the famous Liberty Bell which rang so hard that it cracked. 
The man who wrote the Declaration of Independence was Thomas Jefferson, later President of the United States. You may be surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson was one of the best architects of his time. Architecture was not his business but his hobby. He was a great believer in old Roman architecture and he designed many buildings that were Roman in style. One of these is Monticello, Jefferson’s own home. He also made the design for the University of Virginia, with the buildings arranged around the sides of a big square lawn or campus. The white columns against the dark red brick of the buildings are very attractive. 
Jefferson’s work in architecture was mostly done after the Revolution. We can hardly call it Colonial, because the country was no longer part of Great Britain’s colonies. A better name would be Early Republican. 
Then came a time when almost all buildings were made with Greek details—Greek columns, Greek shapes. An architect named Robert Mills made a Greek facade of columns for the Treasury Building at Washington. Mills also made the first monument to George Washington—a huge Doric column with Washington’s statue on top which stands in Baltimore. It was the same Robert Mills who designed the tallest building in the world at that time, the Washington Monument in Washington. The Washington Monument is a huge obelisk (do you remember the Egyptian obelisks like Cleopatra’s Needle?), which was not finished for many years after it was begun. 
 
No.84-1　INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA（费城的独立大厅） 
But while the United States was being born in the East, what about the western side of America? 
Well, in the Southwest and far West most buildings were Spanish. Mexico had been settled by people from Spain. The Jesuit priests built churches in Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico in the Baroque style. These buildings are called Spanish Colonial because they were built in Spanish colonies. 
Now, about the time of the American Revolution some Spanish monks called Franciscans pushed into California from Mexico. In California the Franciscans built churches and other buildings. Their settlements were called missions. They were built along the coast, a day’s journey apart, on a road called the King’s Highway. A mission was very much like a monastery of the Middle Ages. But as the Franciscans had no one to help them but Indians, they built the missions very plainly and solidly. 
Each mission had a church connected by cloisters with other buildings around a courtyard. The buildings were made usually of sundried brick or adobe. 
This Mission style has been used by present-day architects too, just as the Georgian and Dutch Colonial styles have been used. The Spanish Colonial seems suited to the warm climate of California and the Southwest better than any other kind of architecture. In California many of the old missions may still be seen, some in ruins, some carefully preserved. 
 
No.84-2　MISSION, SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA（加利福尼亚圣巴巴拉教区） 
Another kind of Spanish Colonial architecture grew out of the architecture of the Indians. Many boys and girls think of the Indians as having only wigwams of bark or skins. But the Indians of the Southwest—of Arizona and New Mexico—had houses built of adobe. They were really apartment houses, because they had rooms for many families. They were called pueblos. Pueblos had flat roofs because there was so little rain. They were often several stories high and had ladders outside, instead of stairs inside, to get from one story to another. 
The Spanish colonists who settled in New Mexico copied this pueblo style from the Indians. You can always tell houses in pueblo style because the flat roofs are on logs whose ends stick out from the top of the walls. The very old Governor’s Palace in Santa Fe is built in this pueblo style, although it is only one story high. 
New Orleans, settled by the French, introduced from France an architecture with long French windows and iron balconies. 
So you see that America in its early days used many different kinds of architecture. I’ll make a list of them for you so you can remember them better. If you want to test yourself see if you can name one fact about each kind. Here is the list: 
 
Log cabins Gothic Colonial 
Georgian Colonial 
Dutch Colonial 
Early Republican 
Spanish Mission Spanish Indian (pueblo) 
French Colonial