Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/376

 354 THE BUILDING NEWS. May 3, 1872. THE ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. LTHOUGH the number of architectural draw- ings exhibited this year at the Royal Academy are, as of yore, few in number, yet we are glad to say that they are of considerable interest and ex- cellence, and comprise specimens from some of the best men in the profession, who have evidently striven by them to maintain their reputation, and to give a practical contradiction to the lugubrious dirgerecently chanted over modern architecture by the writer inthe Quarterly Review,from whom we quoted last week. From the necessarily cursory glance, un- aided by any catalogue, that we have yet been able to bestow upon them, we believe that among Acade- micians Mr. Scott is conspicuous only by absence, but Mr, Street has seized this opportunity to place before the public his designs for the Law Courts from several points of view in importaut drawings. Some of these are in his well-known peculiar style, executed in pen and ink by his own facile pen, but one large and elaborate coloured birds’-eye view sets forth the whole group of buildings from the nor- thern side, or that next to Lincoln’s Inn. Having so fully reviewed this work at no distant date, we leave it now to speak for itself, feeling that whatever shortcomings may be found in it, there will be throughout the vast structure a wealth of design which, in spite of all detractors, will render it second to none of the buildings in this metropolis, and difficult to be matched in any other. Mr. Street sends also another exquisite, though small, drawing of the Christ Church Cathedral, in Dublin. The new Associate, Mr. Norman Shaw, again oc- cupies the post of honour, with a magnificent outline drawing of a picturesque mansion in the Old English style in the North of England, and two lovely views of the house that he has been erecting for the veteran sea-painter, Mr. Cooke, R.A. We can well imagine that this will prove a bone of con- tention to many, and fail to satisfy those who are hankering after anew style, but those who are satisfied with what the world has already achieved will gratefully welcome this admirable new edition of an old theme. Mr. Shaw also exhibits a stately facade of a town church he has recently built at Lyons for the English congregation in that city. Mr. Seddon has a very large and most carefully executed pen-and-ink drawing of his Welsh Uni- versity College at Aberystwith, which, we regret, is hung so much above the line of sight as to render it difficult for any one toexamine the details as they might wish; he also has sent a series of drawings of painted windows executed from his own designs for the apse of the church at Fishponds, near Bristol. Mr. E. W. Godwin is well represented by good coloured drawings of both the exterior and in- terior of his design for the municipal buildings at Leicester, which deserved better treatment than they received in that mismanaged competition. Mr. Burges shows us the interiors of the two churches which he is building in Yorkshire, and which, for elaborate detail and real polychromatic effect, might rival §. Mark’s in Venice. He is fortunate in being able to steer clear of committees who clamour for churches to be built at a fixed sum per sitting. Mr. Burges also gives us a house he is building in the town of Cardiff. Mr. E. M. Barry is a large con- tributor, having sent his Children’s Hospital in Great Ormond-street, and more than one mansion of importance in course of erection under his superin- tendence. Mr. Talbert has a delicately-coloured interior, with a very elaborate fireplace, in his olden style improved, with luxurious couches within its hooded canopy. This may be compared with another of the same kind by Mr. Shaw, who seems to despise all advances beyond the settles of our forefathers, and who errs somewhat on the side of exaggeration in making the outer arch on the scale of that of a chancel arch for a moderate church, supplemented by a portentous arched lintel below. The space enclosed under this vast chimney hood is a room in itself, lit by windows, and furnished with another secondary fireplace and chimneypiece, in themselves of no trivial proportions. Sir M. D. Wyatt is not so liberal a contributor as usual; nevertheless, he claims attention by more than one drawing of large works which he is carrying out; as does Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, by small but vigo- rous sketches from his own hand of his large Owen’s College at Manchester, and other buildings. We have by no means exhausted the list of architects who have their drawings hung this year on the walls of the Academy, and who, we think, will be found fully to maintain the reputation of the profession by the works thus represented; whether they, on their part, will be equally content with the space allotted to them, we are not prepared to assert. They have been ejected from their own special room, and are, consequently, placed more in that competition with the works of painters which is usually dreaded as disadvantageous to the more modest style of archi- tectural drawings. As these are arranged in several tiers, mainly upon one wall of the left-hand central gallery, fully one-half of their contributors will find their works out of sight and out of mind, and this we must maintain to be wholly unfair, for the public is not supposed to come provided with an unlimited number of opera-glasses, or to be sufficiently curious about architecture to use them if they had them. If drawings are worth acceptance at all, they ought to be placed where they can be at least seen, and not merely utilised to cover wall space. It is a fact that, for all practical purposes, about one- half of the architectural drawings hung in these Bur- lington Galleries might as well haye been placed upside down as otherwise. In marked contrast to this treatment is that which the profession has this year received at South Kensington, where, un- fortunately, a far smaller and less choice collection of works has been sent. All these drawings, however, are placed in a strikingly-prominent and well-lighted position, upon screens fixed in one of the curved corridors leading to the central Conservatory. Architeets will be compelled in future to remember this, and the Academy will probably find that they will transfer the result of their labours from the one arena to the other ; and however their room may be thought better than their company, irfjustice We shall at an early opportunity review more at Jength these architectural drawings, and repair the omissions which on this occasion we haye been compelled to make. generally provokes unpleasant consequences. ee THE QUARTERLY REVIEW ON MODERN ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE.* HE old builder tad not heard anything about the “profession” of art. He was a simple workman, and would make the plan, arrange the elevations, and be, in fact, the foreman of the work. The general requirements might, of course, be sug- gested to him, but he and his fellow-workmen con- trived the building and perfected its details. In those times, when handicraftsmen were acknowledged to have brains, and were in the habit of using them, building was not recognised as a “fine art,” but only as a common and very noble work. These handicraftsmen were evidently men of high culture and powerful mind, with great faculty of expression in their workman’s language—a language that for purity, variety, copiousness, and dignity, has never been excelled. and which every one in those days perfectly understood. The enormous quantity of building during the fourteenth century, compared with the then small population of the country, shows that the Englishman of that day must have been at least as well informed on the merits of a house as his very enlightened descendants pretend to be about the favourites for the coming Derby. In those days the working men made the building of a church, or the progress of a cathedral, their great delight and glory. Now we have those superior persons, ‘‘ the valuable middle class,” who are ‘not working people,” and whose crown of rejoicing may be the ‘‘ Derby” or the “Chester Cup,” but who are utterly ignorant about the construction and ar- article in the April number of the Quarter/y Review, and we give some more this week. The article isa remark- able one —remarkable alike for the good and eyil it con- tains, and next week we hope to offer some general ob- chitecture of their own dwellings, and have even a conceit of their ignorance. In those days the mason worked, not in a mental solitude under a greedy contractor and a driving foreman, nor was he instructed by a dainty archi- tect, who as a true builder would be half ignorant and wholly incapable, nor superintended (overlooked would be the better word) by a committee destitute alike of knowledge and discernment. He worked at home among his family and his fellow-workmen, who perfectly comprehended, and could at once ap- preciate, every idea and thought as quickly as the chisel expressed it. The man’s circumstances were: entirely sympathetic. He had not to send compe- tition drawings to be approved by a dozen men who happened to be rich or well placed; but he was judged by his works, and his judges were his peers. His work was a social one, the direct and lively manifestation of the sentiments and habits of the time. He had to adopt no “style.” His own homely language was sufficient, and hence the per- fect ease and endless variety which charm us in old work. Though the expression is constantly chang— ing, there is nothing incoherent or obscure. There is, moreover, no vanity in the work, and though the workman is direct and simple in the expression of his own mind, he does not think about himself, nor at all about a possible critic. There is no dull care to be correct. There is, on the contrary, a constant development of thought and detail that makes the buildings appear to live, and, in an undetected way, we find our sympathies engaged and our interest ex- cited by the very waywardness and seeming errors of the workman. There is no constant or even ha- bitual endeavour at ornament or display. Nothing is more remarkable than the way in which oppor- tunities for decoration are neglected. The builder goes on working in the quietest way until he has a worthy idea to express, and then he does it in the most unconscious manner. The most beautiful thoughts are often thrown into the work as if they were mere common-places. There is no painful striving to make the greatest possible display with the money and material. The man and his associations are the real stamp and informing spirit of the work. How many a village church can be brought to mind where there is not even an external plinth, but the rudest unsophisticated walling, a stumpy ‘‘ ungraceful” but very sensible and useful tower, and scarcely a mould— ing or ornament about the building, until in some unobtrusive doorway, or aisle window, we find the gem of thought that gives dignity and refinement to the entire work. It is true that in many of their largest buildings this simplicity of method did not appear. Men in all ages differ, and there are de- fective spirits at the best of times. As a rule, how- ever, a profusion of ornament, by which the work is mechanically overlaid, is an indication that some— thing in the nature of a modern architect is causing this artistic aberration. William of Wykeham seems to have been a great transgressor in this way. In total contrast with what we have thus de- scribed is a very marked and nearly universal characteristic of our modern churches. Whether they are “high” or “low,” “correct ” or “impure,” original or eclectic, there is a general and constant straining for effect. It seems as if each architect thought that he would have no other opportunity, and must seize the present chance to make his mark, and light his pound of candles all atonce. There is a want of dignity and repose about the building, a consciousness that it will be looked at, and a vain hope that it will be admired, leading to a sort of ar- chitectural posture-making and display, that no affectation of propriety, and even asceticism, will save from a charge of meretricious vanity. Now all this is very unbecoming and inconsistent. A church requires nothing of the kind. It is, in fact, a very ordinary common-place building, and only particu- larly remarkable now because Domestic architecture is so excessively debased. In olden times, the church was, as a rule, rather plain in comparison with its surrounding houses. Little of the old domestic urban architecture remains; but careful search and examination will show that in most cities there was more expenditure on house than on churelr decoration. Crosby Hall, and the adjacent churches of S. Ethelburga and 8. Helen’s, may serve as a convenient, though perhaps not quite a fair illustra— tion; and at Canterbury and Chester, Lincoln and Exeter, examples might be multiplied. Churches were then known of all men as houses of prayer, and were appropriately humble and unpretending, and even almost obscure. Of public buildings, churches are the most numerous, unless indeed “« public-houses ” are included in the category. There is little necessary difference in their plans, excepting: what the exigencies of the site require. There need + benone of that agonising superfluity of contrivance:
 * Last week we gave some copious extracts from an
 * servations onits teachings,—Ep,