New-York tribune., 1922-07-02
Square Houses Followed Many
Centuries after Round Ones
Man First Burrowed Into the Earth, Then He Built
Upon the Surface, Following Architectural
Form of Sub-Surface Homes !

The earliest human dwellings were
shelter places made by nature, as in
caves, but when the progress of man
had reached its Ncolithic period form
OF human architecture was developed,
| and it had much in common with the
building methods Of burrowing ami
mails
That is to say, primitive man went
to earth like n hunted fox. seeking
warmth and refuge in pit dwellings,.
why he went underground is a mys-
terry which is explained partly by that
human instinct which now reconeiles
US to coal pits and tube railways, says
The Fortnightly Review" and partly
also by the disappearance Of many
huge animals which in earlier prehis-
toric times would have broken through
the roof Of pit dwelling.
Each pit was round in shape, just
like the entrance to burrow; it went
times for ten, and over the mouth was
a firm cover Of interlaced branches
plastered with clay and mud From
| the bottom tunnel ran upward to
the surface and along it women and
men crawled to their pen pit home Un-
derground houses akin to the Neolithic
were built in Germany during the times
of Tacitus, the first century of the
| Christian era, for the Roman historian
says that remote German tribes made
artificial caves in the earth covered
with vast heaps Of dung, so as to form
In winter shelter from cold and a
storehouse also for harvests.
Round Houses Come First
Through all this unimaginable pc
riod of time, from Neolithic days to
our own, that first idea of man-his
instructive liking for rounded shapes
has gone on progressing, so that we
find it in prehistoric funeral mounds.
in the beehive houses in Ireland, in
Roman temples didicated to Vesta, in
in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral
and in pleasant rooms built only the
other day, as in France.
Yet somehow after being the prin-
cipal form in architecture for time
unimaginably long, the round became
very subordinate thing. yielding en-
pire and precedence to shape never
to be found IN natures own work
j. e., the square, the right angle
Squares and oblongs denote repose
and weight, while circles and rounded
forms are identified with everything
in the universe that suggests life,
mystery, intelligence, light and heat,
movement and speed and illimitable
| space.
So long as the diameter of round
house did not exceed from eighteen to
twenty feet, traditional methods would
suffice. probably their thin walls of
wattled poles plastered with clay be-
ing strong enough perhaps to bear up
the rafters of good roof-that is to
say thatched roof, weather-tight
and wind resisting. But circular houses
of that size were for families only;
there was no room in them for q chief
with servants and retainers, and so we
may suppose that when the headman
of tribe wanted a much bigger round
house for his court, builders were
| troubled, since a much larger circle
had to be rooted over with heavier
rafters.
Structural Weakness Caused Change
This put on the simple wattled
walls a stronger thrust and a greater
burden; there was also a larger sur
face for the wind to beat against, and
these new factors upset the old ira
ditional routine Of unskilled workmen
1t must have taken many centuries for
the Saxons to evolve their system of
living with retainers in great oblong
halls. If the architectural problems
were hard nuts to crack during the
first periods of Gothic vaults, they
must have been thousandfold more
difficult in primitive times and with
primeval meth DDS of construction, and
hence the Importance of the diameter
in building circular huts and halls.
Few things are more interesting
than the fear which early craftsmen
had about the security of their roofs;
interesting not Onlv because their fear
was justified, but because we may read
in Matthew Paris how often during
the thirteenth century their work
Even the keeps of great Norman
castles were often unroofed as was
proved by a royal survey for Henry
III; and thusc we get from the great
times of architecture evidence in ia
vor of the contention that round prim-
tive houses lost their popularity be-
cause of the great difficulties thrust
upon inexpert builders by q large di-
ameter to be rooted securely.
Again, small round houses had an
other drawback; they were not friend
ly to chieftain's ambitions as to rank
and state ceremony, because there was
no means of keeping retainers and
servants at deferential distance. In
oblong halls the chieftains end had
usually dais, and each retainer had
his rank acknowledged by the place
he occupied in the hall, either near to
his lord or far from him; but in round
houses all this was impossible, since
they were never large enough to ad-
nit of real court life.
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