THE BEAUTIFUL NECESSITY 16

A black and white line drawing of the Athenian Acropolis, reconstructing its appearance in antiquity. The image shows the rocky hill topped with various classical temples and monuments, including the Parthenon. A complex of stairways and paths leads up the hillside, and several small figures of people are depicted walking among the structures.

forth its purpose, forming with the surrounding buildings a unit of a larger whole. The Athenian Acropolis is an illustration of this: it is an irregular fortified hill, bearing diverse monuments in various styles, at unequal levels and at different angles with one another, yet the whole arrangement seems as organic and inevitable as the disposition of the features of a face. The Acropolis is an example of the ideal Architectural Republic wherein each individual contributes to the welfare of all, and at the same time enjoys the utmost personal liberty (Illustration 1).

Very different is the spirit bodied forth in the architecture of Imperial Rome. The iron hand of its sovereignty, encased within the silken glove of its luxury, finds its prototype in buildings which were stupendous, crude, brute masses of brick and concrete, hidden within a covering of rich marbles and mosaics, wrought in beautiful but often meaningless forms by clever, degenerate Greeks. The genius of Rome finds its most characteristic expression not in temples to the high gods, but rather in those vast and complicated