Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/377

 Mar 3, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 355 i, Sid detail that we are compelled to observe and pain- | gradually sinking, as the man of trade rose higher fully to regret. We know all about the sacred character of the building, the superlativeness of its requirements, and the “ lamp of sacrifice ;” but we say that the sanctity of its dedication, and the dig- nity of its character, would be best demonstrated and maintained by the abandonment of all the frippery and excess of detail that architects find it to be their business to display. There is no “sacrifice” in this elaboration : its removal would, in fact, be a purification. The real sacrifice is the offering, genuine, hearty, intelligent, and refined, of the simple working man. The true mason, being serious and unselfish in his work, is generally satis- fied with the mild excitement of his ordinary care, and, working in his homely modest way, gains all the variety and change he needs in those occasional hours of imaginative and ornamental work which give all the needful and appropriate enrichment to his worthy building. This method is impossible for architects. They have none of this healthy mechanical plodding. Their business is not to build but to make drawings. The work that would occupy a mason several weeks or months is indicated by perhaps a single line or at most a few hours’ labour at the drawing-board. The professional designer feels and knows that the public would soon discover that for sound and simple svork his help is not required, and to save his ex- istence he must needs employ his pencil and bow- pencil pretty freely, until at last it becomes impos- sible to get the architect and his cleverness, or want of if, out of the mind, and the building is perma- nently desecrated. Architecture seems to have been in all countries a very trustworthy indication of the ruling charac- teristics of the people. In Egypt, the sacerdotal and royal powers combined have given their influence a record to the end of time. In Egyptian work no- thing is weak or sordid. Faith and power tho- roughly excluded all the meaner motives. Mere vanity and love of display do not waste themselves in works of such enormous difficulty and endurance, and requiring so many years for their construction, as the Pyramids and temples of the Valley of the Nile. In Greece the Parthenon, in its refinement of ar- chitectural outline, is an evidence of the intellectual culture of the ruling class. And the carvings that enrich the work show the perfect acquaintance of the Athenian people with the unrivalled beauty of the human form, a knowledge in which the meanest of the Athenian mob would probably exceed the most cultivated cockney of our time. In England the massive Norman, bulky with ma- terial, but scanty in detail and ornament, grand in idea and costly in execution, may be taken as an il- lustration of the crushing power of the conquering race. The ‘‘ Early English” work of the following century is a symptom of the rising spirit of the working men. Confidence and sympathy were not yet perfeetly established, and the English workman, though growing in imaginative power, and in the expression of details, was somewhat chill and formal, yet charmingly graceful in the outlines of his work. To his upper and outer world he could not be genial and unreserved, but among his brethren his cordiality and sympathy were perfectly aroused; and the lavish richness, chastened fancy, and perfect form of the details, moulded and carved, of Early English work, are perhaps the most beautiful memorial of the reviving spirit and happiness of a nation that the history of art can show. Under the Edwards the national spirit was tho- roughly restored. King, Church, and People, each had honour, and all were for the most part on very friendly terms. The genius of the nation then be- came completely manifested, and the England of that time reached, as the spontaneous expression of the most wonderful age of political formation, the very climax of national architecture in the history of the world. Egypt, Greece, and Rome, each had its peculiar glory, but they had neither a climate that compelled, nor a building material that readily lent itself to, the development of a national domestic architecture such as ours, which was, in fact, the glorify the land. These have a character quite dis- tinct from coeyal works in France and Germany, Italy and Spain, a character most evidently due to ‘the greater influence of our domestic buildings. The workmen then were quite at ease. They worked among intelligent and sympathising friends. The clergy, who were the main dispensers of the surplus income of the nation, were men of the people. and they planned and built in a dignified and manly way. Even when, in the course of the fifteenth century, mere commercial wealth became a predominating influence, and the workman was inthe financial world, the churchmen still main- tained the architectural dignity of their order, until at last the tide of luxury swept merit all away, and the Italian fashion took its place. Still in this Italian style Englishmen have succeeded as well as their neighbours. Castle Howard, Whitehall Chapel, and Greenwich Hospital, and more recently the Travellers’ Club, and last, and best, the Sun Tire Office—the most beautiful work in Europe of its style and dimensions—show that there has been an artistic spirit among us that could bring good out of evil. But now we have sunk down so low that a work of such painful ineapacity as the London University building is praised by the leaders of the “ profession ;” and the Government are presenting to us, on the Piccadilly side of Burlington House, the most contemptible public building that the ar- chitectural profession has achieved. It is necessary to bear in mind that building and architecture are two different things. The one is essentially the workman’s work, the other merely a fine name fora spurious—we had almost said—a quack profession. The modern ‘‘chief builder,” is, in fact, no builder at all, but only a drawing-master. The ancient Egyptiansand Greeks, and the Italian and Western ‘‘Goths” were simple workmen, and built in a truthful manly way. Roman building was principally the imitation work of slaves, and very offen bad in taste. But the Renaissance Italian is the ‘professional style.” Witlr it the profession of architecture became established. Its foundation was a “knowledge” of the “orders,” and its prac- tice was that of ‘‘ composing” these orders in yarious fanciful displays. In fact, it might be called a school of architectural ‘‘deportment.” Any draughts- man, with a reasonable knowledge of these “‘orders,” might become an architect; and with an eye for outline, and some cleverness in arrangement, he might produce on paper anendless variety of classical combinations. The style was expensive, but when it arose questions of expense were of secondary im- portance: it was, somehow, seldom the proprietor that had to pay thebill. But the great success of the style was due neither to its novelty nor its variety, but to the facility with which the architect: could prepare, at any distance from the work, the drawings for an entire building, and the little personal superintendence of the handicraftsmen that the work required. Instead of giving his constant at- tention to one building, the architect found that he could accept commissions for a dozen or a score, The amount of drawing in each case was compara- tively small. A little shuffling of columns and windows revealed some new accident of combination that passed for design ; and as for detail, the Classic orders served for all. Thus, then, all parties were well pleased. The employer was in the fashion, and piqued himself on his Classic refinement and excep- tional good taste: the architect had large practice in a gentlemanly profession: and both, with the vanity and self-gratulation of ignorant conceit, could despise the Duomo of Pisa or the Choir of West- minster, as the ruderelics of a barbarous and unen- lightened age. In England Vanbrugh and Lord Burlington have made us see how quickly men of literary culture and of noble rank could master the designing “knack,” and then provide new luxuries of architectural display to put their wondering and confiding friends on the high road to ruin. Blenheim House is critically known as “picturesque,” but is a “scene” rather than a dwelling. There may be a house imbedded in the stonework, but the real effect, which is geological rather than architectural, more suggestive of a quarry than of a palace or a home, is due entirely to non- essentials, to the mass of superfluous material symmetrically disposed, and yet altogether hideous and unseemly; in fact a sort of well-arranged architectural elephantiasis. Burlington House, though an exotic, was a very respectable and praiseworthy effort, and the colonnade was no doubt a grateful memento of the Italian tour. Both the houses haye been much admired, and may be acknowledged to reflect great credit on the ‘ profes- sional” skill of their respective designers. Gradually, however, the Classic enthusiasm wore away. The style ceased to be new, and it was found to be costly. And when what is called the Grecian style had passed through its brief period of public favour, and urgent want arose for some new thing, it happened that a few careful publications about Gothic work appeared, and gained the atten- tion of the artistic world. Here, then, was another chance for the ‘‘ profession.” The “ style” was not new, but it was practically unfamiliar. True, it was made or developed by working masons, at a time when there was no Classical artistic knowledge, and so was merely the picturesque effort of semi-barba- rous “knayes.” It was not Classical, but it would bring business to the profession. The public thought it pretty, the clergy sympathised, as it was ‘quite in their line,” and it became curiously enough the fashion to be very proud of any weak imitation of the poor rude workmen that heretofore had been so very much despised. Theimitation was faint enough certainly, for the ‘‘ profession ” had no intention of giving up their gentlemanly position, and becoming real builders, carpenters, and stone-masons. A class of quick-fingered draughtsmen soon prepared “examples,” gathered from the old masons’ work, which their professional customers might mix and mingle, with almost as much facility as the Classic orders, and it was really found that designs in the various ‘‘styles” of English and Continental Gothic might be manufactured with such “ correctness” of detail, and so much promptitude and rapidity, that the dilettanti could be satisfied, the public hood- winked, and clients thoroughly pleased; while the trading element of the profession was profitably ex- tended, and its returns increased to an amount that was never dreamt of by the half-experienced profes- sional architect of thirty years ago. We had ex- changed handicraft long since for finger-work, and the new method is neither an advance nor a reform. We have taken no step towards the necessary and essential change of system, but only made a prudent and remunerative change of face. We have ‘in- struments ” as formerly in place of tools, fingers in- stead of hands, and ‘‘ examples” to serve for brains, just as in the Italian of Classie work. We are only moving with the times, and as customers increase in numbers, and correspondingly decrease in average wealth, ‘‘ Gothic,” which may be made both cheap and pretty where required, brings more and easier business to the trade. We have, as in the Classic revival, compilers instead of artists, and machines instead of workmen, and, worst of all, a public that, constantly advancing in numbers, influence, and architectural ambition, is unable to distinguish good building work and true imaginative art from mechanical copying, scholastic imitation, whimsical conceit, and vulgar pretence. The new Gothic fashion soon became popular. Firms of competition speculators flooded the market with their illusory but attractive wares. The busi- ness had its risks, and for a time expenditure might bring but little prompt return. But names became sured extended popularity. And thus, instead of the quiet local developmont of the true practice of Gothic work, a fashionableimposture spread through- out the land. ‘Art manufacture,” a falsehood in its very name, was duly established, and fittings and furniture, carving and stained glass, embroidery, painting, metal work, and encaustie tiles, all were designed by architects or ‘‘drawing clerks,” and turned out wholesale, at trade prices, by the manu- facturing firms. The workman is nowhere seen. He is not even heard of. He is at the “factory” wheu the bell rings, and he files and polishes the bit of work that he is set to do. But thought, fancy, and volition all are wanting. The man is but a slave, an imperfect machine, whom we may hope one day to supplant by some new patented contrivance, that will have no brains, and consequently be safe from all mistakes, and automatically true. The workman, who is the very spring and scurce of art, sinks toa mere tool, and instead of thousands of real artists, handicraftsmen whose mental energies and poetic faney would by this time have gone far to elevate and refine the whole community of our working class, we have as the total result of thirty years of painful and expensive building, our parish churches and cathedrals, college chapels and town halls, country mansions and public buildings, laden and encumbered with a profusion of art-manufac- tured gewgaws, which are thoroughly debasing both to the buildings and the workmen, but bring enor- mous profit to the manufacturing firms, give fame and fortune to the successful architect, and enable him to pander with a facility, that has never before been equalled, to the childish sensuality of the public, the professional vanity of the clergy, and the yulgar luxury of the rich. - . . < eee Mr. Alexander Peebles, architect, Walbrook-build- ings, has taken from the Metropolitan Board of Works four plots of land in Queen Victoria-street, upon which to erect extensive premises for a large firm of lithographers. A memorial has been signed by the Lord Mayor and others, parishioners, &c., of the united parishes of S. Benet and 8. Peter, Paul's Wharf, &c., to the Metropolitan Board of Works, calling attention to inconvenience they have been put to in consequence of the formation of Queen Victoria-street, and also to the unsatisfactory manner in which the rew way which connects the street by the church of 8. Benet’s with Paul’s Wharf has been carried out. It will be considered at the meeting of the Board to-day.
 * prentice work for all the noble monuments that
 * known, and the constant use of pretty details en-