There is nothing to which the most captious critic could object in the
treatment adopted here; the pilasters and other features have plain
moulded members, and there is no principle of design in cast work which
has been violated--the only question being the purely aesthetic one--is
it justifiable to copy features in cast iron which have generally been
constructed in stone or marble? The answer is obvious: Certainly not,
when those features suggest the mass and proportions or treatment
proper only for stone or marble; but when they do not so represent the
material, it is quite optional for the architect to build up his front
with castings, if by so doing he can obtain greater rigidity of bearing,
strength, and durability. He ought, of course, to vary the proportions
of his pilasters and horizontal lintels, and make them more in accord
with the material. It is the wholesale reproduction of the more costly
and ornamental features, such as we see in many buildings of New York
and Philadelphia, where whole fronts are manufactured of cast iron and
sheet-metal, which has shocked the minds of architects of culture and
sensitive feeling.
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