Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/355

 qe ee gy: Pe ee " ¢ Aprit 26, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 335 or other ignorance. And if the architect is held re- sponsible, he may refer at once to the system. Of course the work is mechanical and unimaginative ; but does the public demand anything better? Are there those among us who are able to judge of work and to sympathise with and efficiently to support a genuine workman? We have, in fact, no real artist workmen, like Fischer of Nuremberg, or John of Padua, and our enterprising directors must, there- fore, put up with what they can get—an eminent architect, “ art manufacture,” and sufficient money. Here, then, is Mr. Street’s lesson and example. We are not dealing with an art that ennobles, but with a profession that pleases, or is supposed to please.. And now tliat so much nonsense has been written about “Temples of Themis” and ‘ Palaces of Justice,” it is possible that an architect may have really good common sense, and yet find his courage unequal to the determined assertion of the doctrine that Courts of Law should be simple even to plain- ness in their general appearance. Law personified is of majestic presence, and were we engaged in pre- paring a palace for an ideal representative of justice, perhaps our highest efforts would fail to produce a fit abode for so august a sovereignty. But we are now concerned with no ideal, but with a very homely common law, and precarious Chancery practice. We are providing a place for the settlement of miserable ‘disputes, originating in folly or knavery, or in the very imperfection of the law, or, it may be, in all three combined. It requires but a glance around a court to see that a grave, not to say a sad simplicity of style, will best reflect the mental, moral, and material condition of those whose interests compel their unwilling attendance. Comfort, cleanliness, tranquillity, and air, are of course essential; but what is called grandeur or magnificence is merely impertinent. It would do to gape at for a day or two, and then be either forgotten or offensive. The court would not be ennobled, but there would be so much grandeur, and so forth, thrown away or brought into contempt. In fact, the association of Courts of Law seems tobe rather with lunatic asylums and debtors’ prisons, than with palaces or temples ; and, taking a middle position between the two groups, a style neither grandiose nor mean, splendid mor sad, but a happy medium of decent plainness, seems to be the most satisfactory and appropriate. The Strand front of the building, 70ft. high to the eaves, with an additional 70ft. at the hall and the tower, must be effective when designed with simplicity of outline and rhythm of parts, and with such variety of detail as may be necessary to give characteristic expression to the several rooms; and this may easily be done by slight modifications of the windows and their tracery. Above all, we must, in the name of the public, express an earnest hope that the lower part of the Strand front may form a continued extension of the line of shops. The in- trusion of a blank stone wall will be a constant and incalculable injury to the neighbouring property, The slightest observation will be sufficient to show that if the lower arches of Somerset House were treated in the same way as those round the Royal Exchange, the Strand would gain immensely in business value, and the building itself, though still a dark cloud over the street, would have a golden lining. Besides, it should be borne-in mind that the Strand frontage of Somerset House is only one- fifth of the entire length of the building. The design for the Law Courts is, however, but of transient interest, in comparison with the popular ignorance of the building arts which the competition has brought to light, and the cause of this ignorance swe shall now endeavour to explain. The fact is that we have at present no such thing as a building art. This is entirely lost. We have whatis called the profession of architecture, which, asit pretends to the practice of art, is in the nature of an imposture. The essence of artis handiwork, not the preparations for work, such as the ‘‘ designs” and drawings compiled by the architect, his ‘ assis- tant,” or his numerous ‘ staff,” any more than the scaffolding erected by the Irish labourer. Art is the practice of the instructed, free, and self-guided workman—the conjoint operation of head and hand; not the painstaking of an imitator, the dull labour of adraughtsman, nor the dry mechanical drudgery of an artisan. There is no absolute refusal of me- chanical assistance or of any worthy tools, but there is a constant tendency to give the utmost play and freedom to the intellect and the imagination—to the well-trained hand and thoroughly instructed mind. ‘The best buildings of all ages haye been made,not by professional gentlemen and their drawing clerks, but by labouring handicraftsmen of various schools of art. The chief buildings of the last three centuries of the Art History of Europe have been designed by “architects.” They are scholarly, elaborate, im- posing, expensive, and of late, pretty, vulgar, childish, or grim, as the prevailing fashion or individual fancy may have required. At present there is no help for this substitution of the imposture for the reality. In olden time people, both in public and private, built on their own free- holds with honest intention, and with the prospect of endurance. They employed workmen whose delight was in the product of their own skill, and with whom the employer was in constant and familiar intercourse. The style of work was national, and as well understood by the people as their own language. People no more thought of building in “styles” than of talking in tongues.” The mason could build simply for a cottage, or gloriously for acathedral. Tis perfect familiarity with his work, his good sense and cultivated imagination, were his only guides; and to these plain working men, whom our modern architects are very proud to imitate, we are indebted for the chief remaining glories of the middle ages. The system was universal until the Classical revival. The art of Egypt. of Greece, of Nineveh, and of Hindustan, was evidently in each case genuine, the product of the workman. No architect, as we understand the word, would have designed the Parthenon with its amazing delicacy of curve, and its rich variety of sculpture. The need and value of these curves would never have been discovered by an architectural draughtsman, and their recognition and adoption show that the builder was a genuine workman, Ictinus, the so-called architect, was a cunning master-builder (codoc oucodomoc) the working head of a band of working men. The same is unquestionably true of Phidias and his helpers. Their carvings are clearly spontaneous—not imitative second-hand work. The metopes—some of them archaic in style— prove that even under the prince of sculptors, the older carvers held their own; and the Panathenaic frieze appears to be the direct expression of the chisel, without even previous modelling. The very failings and imperfections of the buildings of the Acropolis are conclusive evidence of this rule, and of the independence of the working mason. Of course there was subordination, but the subordination was all within the workman class. So in our own old churches and cathedrals, the design was ob- viously done by the workman; in fact, there is no record of design at all. The work was ‘ built,” or the stone was “cut,” and that included what we call the design. The constant activity of thought, indi- cated in slight modifications of plan or detail—the quaint and often exquisite winding-up of portions of the work—the natural and spontaneous outgrowth of the carving—the boldness and even coarseness of idea and treatment, in conjunction with surprising delicacy and tenderness of feeling, reveal the master and the workman in a single mind. But now instead of a class of noble working men, we have the ‘‘ architectural profession,” a number of soft-headed “ gentlemen,” who may or may not be able to make sketches, or ‘plans and elevations,” but who, at any rate, can get them made—who pre- pare what are called “designs” in any “style,” and submit them to people ignorant of every style, for their approval and acceptance. Of course this ap- proval is not gained by real merit, as members of many a building committee can testify, and it argues little for the business sagacity, with which profes- sional men are sufficiently endowed, if the design is not made carefully bad, should the employers’ whim demand the effort. We remember to have seen this method exemplified in a certain competition with very marked success. Nor is this designing to order the only evil of the system; the profession is, in fact, a mere trade. Designs are made and sent to any distance, to be contracted for by any speculator, who will make money of them, if nothing else; and to be built by mere slaves of workmen, who will make sad work of them if they can. The architect’s superin- tendence, instead of being constant and careful, and in a sense almost affectionate and paternal, is scanty, heartless, perfunctory, or altogether wanting. How, then, will the building fare? The only hope would be in the “clerk of the works,” but he is a sort of stepfather or trustee, who has to adhere strictly to the drawings. There is, consequently, no motive for expression in the work, and none of that ‘‘ handling,” the evidence of the artist’s presence and effort, which is as valuable in building as it is admitted to be in painting or in sculpture. Nothing is more to be regretted in the so-called restorations at our eccle- siastical buildings, than the total loss df this per- yading evidence of the workman’s mind. This customary trading in designs has now become absurd. Architects are so little like ‘‘ chief builders,” that they almost cease to be builders at all; and there are ludicrous but authenticated tales of their ignorance of their own nominal works. One large building, on which the “commission” amounted to some thousands of pounds, is said to Lave been visited by the architect for less than half an hour during its entire construction. We have recently seen the statement that nearly sixty “restorations” have been superintended for an ‘‘eminent architect” by one clerk of works. Let our readers translate this fact into the sphere of any other profession, and imagine the Attorney-General, for instance, com- posing speeches for every circuit in the calendar, and employing law stationers to recite them; or an archbishop “designing” sermons on commission ; with an additional allowance for “ pulpit clerks” to deliver them; or a surgeon receiving heavy fees for operations to be performed, and handing over the necessary ‘‘drawings and specifications” to various country chemists and druggists; and they will be enabled to understand something of the present practice of the architectural profession. It is quite time that the system should be exposed, condemned, and thoroughly exploded. The public should be taught to understand that the names of ‘‘eminent persons” in the profession are delu- sions, and that they are themselves the sufferers by the continuance of a deceptive custom, and are deeply interested in its abolition. There is another remarkable contrast between the old method and the new. On examining any of our ancient buildings it becomes clearly evident that, however commanding and impressive the work may be to the beholder, it was not so to the builder. His power of intellect and imagination could demons- trate itself in stone, and overcome those minds that had less comprehensiveness of idea in that special direction and form. But his own mind was in no subjective condition. He had no awe of, and little reverence for, his work. He was a ‘“ master worker” and a creator, or an associated ‘ chief master ;” and superintendent of ‘‘ creators,” and his work was simply a delight to him, the outward form and expression of a mind sympathetic and serious, but not in the slightest degree superstitious or debased. Nothing can be more opposed to this than the modern counterpart. There is no evidence of delight or power, but only that the architect was intensely eager for applause, and painfully careful for further employment, or else that his mind being weakened by subordination toa vain imagination, he became a feeble worshipper of his own poor work, The interiors of most of the high ritual churches are marked by the latter peculiarity, and some clear evidences of this kind of mental debasement are seldom wanting.’ The font at S. Alban’s, Holborn, for instance, which has been designed with much care, would be beneath the genius of a manufacturer of Tonbridge ware; and the speckled and spotted coloured brick patterns on the walls, here and at All Saints’, Margaret-street, are precise reminis- cences of afayourite nursery toy. These several characteristics are, however, generally more strikingly manifested in what is called the ‘reredos,’ not the old eastern choir-screens, which are some- times so called, but a comparatively recent impor- tation from abroad, an un-English innovation, favoured as giving an opportunity for a much- desired patch of prettiness, or the exhibition of such superfluous folly as is not entirely used up in other details of the church, and which gives the com- munion table the appearance of a quasi-Medieval sideboard. —————<>—__—_ CHIPS. Tast week the foundation stone of a cottage hospital for Ulverston was laid by Mrs. Myles Kennedy. The building will provide accommodation for six suffering and four conyalescent patients. Mr. Pearce, of Orford Hill, Norwich, has been ap- pointed Surveyor to the Norwich Board of Guardians, Mr. Brown, surveyor to the Dean and Chapter, was a candidate. Mr. Benest, one of the City Surveyors of Norwich, has resigned his office. It is not yet decided whether to appoint a successor or not; probably there will only be one suryeyor instead of two, as heretofore. Mr. S. Welman has been appointed Town Surveyor of Godalming. There were three other candidates. A New Roman (Catholic) Church has been opened at Wiean. It was constructed out of a modified and enlarged Primitive Methodist Chapel, from designs of Mr. Edward Kerby, architect, Liverpool. From some unexplained cause, according to the Liverpool Mercury, there is an immense disparity between the consumption of water for domestic pur- poses in Manchester and Liverpool. With the constant supply system in operation, Manchester householders only use 14 gallons per head; while in Liverpool, with a supply of ten hours, the consump- tion rises to 21 gallons per head per day. The Margate Pier and Harbour Company have determined to accept the tender of Messrs. Charles Powis & Co. of Millwall, for the construction of the new extension jetty, for the sum of £15,000.