The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 05, May 1895 | Page 4

executed, inspection of which will be the

strongest endorsement possible. We refer to the Murdock Parlor Grate
Company of Boston, a house known by name at least to every architect
and builder of New England.
Organized over forty years ago, and with prospects of active existence
for as many or more years to come, their contracts contain the element
of responsibility that is the best guarantee an architect can have that his
client's interests are in good hands.
The mosaic and terrazzo flooring department of the Murdock Parlor
Grate Company already has a list of over fifty public buildings in
which important work has been done. The terrazzo floors so much
admired in the new Public Library, covering a surface of 60,000 square
feet, the mosaic floor of the Members' corridor in the Massachusetts
State House, and especially the entrance to the Members' vestibule, a
part of this floor, and the lobbies to the Bowdoin Square and Keith's
Theatres, Boston, also mosaic, are examples easily inspected by Boston
architects.
Other public buildings in New England in which this company have
done admirable mosaic work are the new McLean Asylum buildings,
the Arlington (Mass.) Public Library, the Exchange Club, Boston, and a
number of bank buildings.
Throughout the Back Bay district there are numberless vestibule and
hall floors in fine residences, many of which are gems in color and
design.
We have mentioned only a few examples, but almost every New
England architect can, by writing to the Murdock Parlor Grate
Company, be referred to examples of their work in his neighborhood,
and we think he will find their estimates as low as it is safe to accept,
and their responsibility is beyond all question.

Books.
A Handbook of Architectural Styles: Translated from the German of A.

Rosengarten by W. Collett-Sandars. New edition, 639 illustrations.
New York: C. Scribner's Sons. 1895. For sale by Bates & Guild,
Boston. $2.50.
A review of the contents of this work is scarcely necessary, as it is
already recognized as a standard by all who are at all familiar with
architectural literature. As compared with other books upon the history
of architecture, the point of view from which the subject has been
looked at furnishes the main distinction. This cannot be better stated
than in the words of the editor of the present edition, Professor T.
Roger Smith. He says: "It is essentially that of an academic and
classical professor, and one brought up not only in familiarity with the
best examples of ancient art, but with the habit of mind which recurs to
classic and especially to Greek originals, both as a standard of taste and
as models for treatment of modern works. This feeling, which held
sway in England in the day of Chambers, of Soane, and of Cockerell,
has now almost died out from our practice and our literature. The works
of the contemporary English and French writers on architecture, which
are now widely known and read, proceed avowedly and unmistakably
on a different basis. Such writings as those of Street or Scott,
Viollet-le-Duc, and Ruskin breathe a totally different inspiration; while
even the valuable series of architectural writings which we owe to the
pen of Mr. Fergusson are too cosmopolitan in range and too impartial
in tone for such a peculiarity as is here traceable to be visible in them."
The illustrations show some of the wear and tear of former editions, but
are still of great value.

The Brochure Series
of Architectural Illustration.
PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY
BATES & GUILD,
6 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS.

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and the complete reference index which will