From Architectural Record, March 1908. Read a PDF of the original article here.

The reader of architectural discourses encounters with increasing frequency discussions on American Architecture, Indigenous Architecture. These are generally to the effect that in order to establish a vital architecture in the United States, it is necessary for the architect to sever his literal connection with past performances, to shape his forms to requirements and in a manner consistent with beauty of form as found in Nature, both animate and inanimate. Articles in this strain have appeared, from time to time, in this and in other architectural journals, and have been in most cases too vague in their diction to be well understood, either by the lay reader or the architect.