Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/272

 254 THE BUILDING NEWS. Marcu 29, 1872. other for modern use. In the latter styles all the efforts of centuries haye left but two or three types of windows for our choice—the one a mere square hole in the wall, another the same hole adorned with a shallow ineffective moulding, and the third the same with the addition of a pediment, sometimes straight-sided, sometimes curved, and sometimes by special inspiration broken in two in the centre! Sad will it be if in so-called Gothic buildings these traditions are allowed to interfere with the whole spirit of the stvle! Yet that this fear is not groundless is proyed by the designs for some large buildings which we have seen, in which, in spite of a few Gothic mouldings and a good many pointed arches, all life has been sacrificed to a desire for uniformity. From windows let us turn to doors, and we shall again find a variety of examples affording us the greatest liberty it is possible to conceive. The open- ing may be arched or it may be square, and its pro- portions may be varied in any way. Our doorsmay be hung with hinges of brass or of iron, as simple as our poverty requires, or as full of cunning handi- craft as the best smith we can find can make them. Our external doors may be protected by porches, by cloisters, by covered ways, or, if we want none of these protections from the rigour of our climate, then by delicate overhanging canopies of wood or of metal, and they will still not depart from the strictest limits of ancient precedent. The inside finishings and fittings of a house may all be similarly devised, either in accordance with those of old buildings or on a principle of design entirely in harmony with them. Ceilings may either be open, showing the timbers, or boarded and panelled on the under side, or plastered and stamped, or painted with diapers, or of iron filled in with terra-cotta or brick, the only liberty not allowable being indulgence in the fashionable plaster cornice and unsafe plaster ornaments of our modern houses, the object of which is not quite intelligible, whilst the structure is invariably-false and not unfrequently dangerous. If we must have Gothic cornices they ought either to be of stone or of wood; in the former case giving additional support to the floors, in the latter being usually the moulded edges of the plates below the joists. Plaster may legitimately be ornamented with diapers in the manner common in England in the seventeenth century, or cut into patterns in the way we see in some of the best Moorish work in Spain ; but its use as an imitation of stonework is no more defensible inside our houses than it is outside. In both it is equally false in principle, and in both equally bad in effect. For other internal works the subtle delicacies of the carpenters’ work of the middle ages suggest and admit of endless development. The truthful treatment of material which characterises it will be, above all things, advantageous, whilst the suggestive character of some of the Italian works will show us how easily we may, if we will, introduce every kind of inlaid work in various coloured woods in furniture, floors, panelling of walls, doors, ceilings, and staircases. Our ancestors used oak because it was always readiest to their hands; we have no such facility now; and, if we are obliged to go abroad for our woods, we shall be wise to put all descriptions of wood under contribution, and to use them as we may be sure our ancestors would have done in our place. They varied their material in every possible way. Sometimes, for instance, they covered their doors with rich coloured leather, at other times painted them, and if they had possessed our facilities they would have inlaid them also. So that, as com- pared with the revivers of Classic art, those who follow Medieval precedents really enjoy great liberty in the treatment of the mouldings, carvings, and general details of their work, which may all be signi- ficant and illustrative, and not eternal reproduction of the same forms. We have shown sufficiently, we think, that the cause we advocate demands no sacrifice whatever of convenience or of reality, that it is easily adapted to our wants, and that one of the chief grounds on which we adopt it is, indeed, the perfect freedom which it affords for doing good work in every kind of material, and for every possible use; and, if this be so, there can be no pretence whatever for saying that there is any less reason for adopting it for houses and public buildings than for the churches, in which all the world allows that it has been of late years applied with no small amount of success. Let us now consider as briefly as possible how we should meet the problems which in these days ordi- narily present themselves to us in matters affecting, not the design of a single house, but the arrange- ment of groups of houses in cities, or the laying out of entirely new towns. How, for instance, are we are we to found our work rather upon an earlier and different system? The Parisian system excites, we confess, our strongest antipathy. We can see no beauty, no real dignity, no nobility in the eternal sameness of such streets as the Rue de Rivoli, or most of the new Parisian streets and boulevards, nor in the idea which they represent, that every row of houses must be perfectly regular and uniform in its scheme, that every square or place must be uni- form on all its sides, and that every street must be arranged as far as possible at right angles to its neighbours. This is not a Gothic system, because it is not a natural system, nor is it a Greek system or a Roman system, but simply the latest development of the poorest kind of Renaissance art. All good architecture has been natural in its growth, and a street which tells its own history is always picturesque, whilst a new street, made to order like Regent-street, Moorgate-street, or the new boulevards and streets in Paris, is invariably tame and uninteresting toa degree. We do not forget the examples of medieval towns built on a regular plan, such as Winchelsea, Carnarvon, or the Bas- tides in the south-west of France. But these were exceptional cases of towns planned all at once, and irregularity in their case would have been unreal and mistaken. Even in these cases, however, it was only the arrangement of the streets that was regular ; the buildings which lined their sides were as distinct in their individual character there as elsewhere. If we compare the examples of modern streets built on the two systems, we cannot doubt for an instant which is to be preferred. Take, for instance, Gower-street or Harley-street, where the dull mono- tony of the houses makes it certain that were it not for the numbers painted on the doors their very owners would be as likely as not to get into the wrong house; and such streets as Brook-street, or Grosvenor-street, where every one has built his house to please himself, and consequently with a comparatively good general effect, bald as the designs of the several houses are in themselves. In a square or place, again, unless the buildings are all for some perfectly similar purpose, there is no reason for absolute uniformity. Some defenders of Gothic, it is true, have maintained that it admits of asmuch uniformity as Classic, and quasi-Gothie designs have been made which are as senselessly regular and balanced in their plans as any of the Renaissance works of which we complain. But, with all deference to their authors, theirs is an en- tirely erroneous mode of design. The Cloth Hall at Ypres, which is often quoted as a regular and uni- form Gothic building, was made.so to a certain ex- tent (for it is most irregular in its general plan, owing to the shape of its site) solely because its ar- rangement and uses within were absolutely uniform. The Ducal Palace at Venice was similarly cireum- stanced, as were all really fine buildings of the me- dizval period which are regular in their scheme; and we know of no example of a square or place in which anything has been gained by the uniformity of buildings erected for different purposes on its ya- rious sides. Take the Piazza at Florence, and observe how everything is gained by the irregularity of the various buildings which surround it, each telling its own tale. Would the Piazza at Perugia be im- proved by making the magnificent Palazzo Publico a perfectly regular erection, or by the re-erection of the Pisano fountain just in the centre, and pulling down the Cathedral in order to erect another palace uniform with its neighbours in its place? So, too, at Venice; is not the irregularity of the Church of S. Mark and the one-sided position of its Campanile the very making of the Piazza, without which the whole would be tame and poor in its effect? The best Renaissance street, probably, in Europe is the Strada Nuova at Genoa; this is narrow, irregular, and amazingly picturesque. Each of its palaces has some individual purpose and character, and its course is not straight. Out of Italy, all our large central spaces are comparatively irregular. Even in London, so natural and gradual has been our growth, that most of our pullie places are fortunately somewhat irregular, and therefore natural in their shape. The finest view in Londuu, as every one knows, used to be that from the bottom of Ludgate-hill, with the wind- ing irregular acclivity, and the dark outline of a spire half-way up, cutting across the west front of S. Paul’s in the most natural and effective manner. And if we leave Sir Christopher Wren’s work, and, going westward, stand at the upper side of Trafalgar- square, we may well ask whether we should gain anything by a fourth side, square and uniform with the others, in place of the picturesque sweep which now leads the eye down to the Gothic group of spite of cavillers, the World will always look with admiration and interest, and which is undoubtedly the greatest architectural group of which London can boast. One of the best streets in England is the High- street at Oxford; yet it varies in width, is on a curve, and is entirely irregular in the arrangement of all its architectural attractions. Onthe other hand, the latest attempt on a large scale on the Parisian model is to be seen at Cologne, where they have bridged the Rhine exactly to the east of the Cathe- dral, leaving it the centre of a great Place, and any- thing more lamentable in its effect, and yet more ob- viously the result of a painful effort, can scarcely be conceived. In truth, all these examples are evidences of the charm of natural irregularity, even in the most im- portant and central positions of great cities; and they lead to the observation that in grouping of public, just as much in the arrangement of private, buildings, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it will be most inconvenient to attempt any great degree of uniformity. So an arrangement which brings out the individual uses and peculiarities of each house in a street, as far as possible, is surely much better than the modern system of driving herds of people into asuccession of similar houses, as though they were so many machines incapable of separate or original wishes or actions, and properly dealt with, as one is now-a-days ina great hotel, by being ticketed and numbered till almost all sense of per- sonal identity is lost. In a large public building the same argument is soundly applied. If the arrangement of the interior allows of perfect regularity without inconvenience or effort, and with due regard to the propriety of letting every part tell its use by its decorations and design, there is no objection whatever to uniformity. The nave of a Gothic cathedral is evidence that there is nothing in such uniformity contrary to the Gothic spirit; but, directly these conditions are not ob- served, uniformity is a crime, and the very men ~ who built the regular cathedral nave have surrounded it with a group of subordinate buildings, the Chapter House, the Cloister, the Refectory, the Dormitory, the Bishop’s Palace, the Vicar’s Close, the gateways, and the enclosing walls, each one of which was de- signed with absolute freedom from the bonds of re- gularity, and with a sole eye to usefulness and appropriateness. It is notorious that, when a regular outline is adopted for a building, it seldom happens that the internal arrangements allow properly of all the windows and doors being equi-distant, and of equal size. True and reasonable uniformity consists in making the main lines of a building, the cornices, the string- courses, the roof-lines, the general detail of the windows, harmonise, without doubting for an instant about the power of breaking this uniformity, wherever it is possible by so doing to give emphasis to the more important, or to withdraw attention from the less important, portions of a building. If a public office is to be built for five hundred clerks, ali equally insignificant, by all means let us put them into a barrack which tells nothing about them to any one; but if it is to contain a Secretary of State, Assistant-Secretaries of State, grand staircases, inferior staireases, grand public entrances, and small private doors, by all means let us fo'low the old example, and show as many as possible of these facts clearly on its face. Unless it does so it is a huge sham; and, whether its detail is Gothic or not, the result must be bad, be- cause unreal, and not instinct with any true artistic spirit. This protest against the attempt which is now sometimes made to disarm the hostility of the Renaissance school, by adopting the worst feature of their mode of design, appears to be very necessary, and we are the more disposed to make it, because it cannot be doubted that the true solution of the hostility which has been shown in some quarters to the designs for the largest building of this day—the New Courts of Justice—is almost entirely, if not altogether, due to the determination which has been shown to carry out the real principles of Gothic building as distinguished from Renaissance through- out the design. Sir Charles Barry, naturally enough —looking to his education and his taste for Italian architecture—designed an Italian building for the Houses of Parliament, and clothed it everywhere with Gothic detail. The only way in which his de- sign has been saved from failure and tameness is by the happy inspiration which led him to the pictur- esque grouping of the towers and turrets, which, when seen from the Thames Embankment or Trafalgar- square, compose as beautifully as can be desired ; and we know not where it would be possible to point out a happier example of one of the great gains in such cities as our own from the adop- to devise great public improvements in towns? Are ! steeples and spires which marks Sir Charles Barry’s tion of Gothie architecture than in the variety we to follow the example recently set us in Paris, or | great work at Westminster—a work on which, in and beauty of their general effect, owing to the in-