Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/391

 May 10, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 369 THE BUILDING NEWS. es LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1872. ARCHITECTURE AND THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. HE article on ‘‘The State of English Architecture,” a large part of which we haye reprinted, contains only one remark which will be particularly new to our readers. Most of its statements are trite enough ; they have been insisted on by our ablest architects time out of mind, and discoursed on in our own columns year after year. ‘The archi- tectural profession, or, at least, that constantly increasing section of it which is in earnest about its work, knows well enough what are the obstacles to architectural progress, and with incessant effort it has been trying to bring them under the notice of the intelligent British public. That respectable body, after an incredible amount of hammering and shouting at, may at last be said to have opened one eye, and by the mouth of the Quarterly Review professes to have arrived at a sense of its situation. What we have been dinning into its ears so long does not seem, after all, to have been wasted. On the con- trary, it is all returned upon us as the result of profound investigation, and with the air of a great and original discovery. The singular thing is that the British public ignores our share in the matter altogether, and professes to have found it all out without listening to us. So far it is of little consequence ; but when the same yeracious public goes on to say that it is our fault it did not find it out sooner, and that, in fact, we are to blame if there are any obstacles to architectural progress at all, it might tempt us to tell it a few truths more plain than complimentary. We are glad, however, to find that public attention is called by any means and in any spirit to the in- fluences which hinder the more rapid growth of architecture. On many points we may claim the Quarterly reviewer as a convert, but we protest against the ignoble spirit in which he writes. Amongst the members of the pro- fession there are more than a few with real love for their art, and clear discernment of the causes which obstruct it. They know, better than any outside observer, how faulty is the system by which they haye to work, and how fatal are the conditions which sur- round them. ‘These things have grown up, or rather haye been heaped up, by degrees: they are part of the general chaos out of which modern society must emerge, and it is somewhat hard that the blame of their existence should be laid on those persons pre- cisely who alone are really striving to subdue them. A state of things which has been going on for centuries cannot be changed in a day: it is unjust to hold those responsible for it who had no share in its production, and it is both unjust and unwise to condemn them when they only, out of all the world, are trying to improve it. The article under notice mentions five things which prevent us from attaining archi- tectural success. ‘These are (1) the influence of the ignorant public; (2) the false position of architects; (3) as an aggravation of the last evil, the overgrowth of certain architec- tural practices ; (4) the non-employment of the workman’s mental power; and (5) the custom of building on short leases. ‘To these we may add a sixth—the contract system, which is bound up indissolubly with the rest. Taking these evils as they stand, the first by itself is enough to ruin our art. The ma- jority of people prefer inferior architecture, just as they prefer inferior literature, and as long asthe decision rests with them they are sure to getit. This fact alone should induce some moderation in the censure of the pro- fession : for it proves beyond dispute that the quality of English architec- ture is no true measure of the ability of English architects. They build what they | may—not what they would. Their worst too often is accepted—their best rejected. How many of them follow their own judg- ment in preference to popular caprice no reviewer can well ascertain. To know all existing buildings is not enough: he must also have examined all proposed designs. Again, while this state of things continues, of what use is it to advocate any other changes? Suppose the architectural profes- sion abolished to-morrow, and the craft of bricklayers and masons put in its place : still, even the working man is human, and, if he could not get employment on other terms, might be tempted to popularise his produc- tions till they were no better than those of Mr. Street or Mr. Butterfield. Suppose, on the contrary, that our present designers were free—that they could follow their own tastes without the fear of vulgar patrons or sensa- tional critics—and we will venture to say that some of them, at least, wouldproduce a class of work which has been rare enough for cen- turies past ; and, as things now are, is likely to remain so still. What is the use of re- forming our system of building while it is certain that the public will not allow the reform to take effect? The Quarterly reviewer echoes the condem- nation passed long ago in our own columns on such architecture as that of Blackfriars Bridge and 8. Pancras Station. He admits, what we deplored, that they exactly suit the popular taste of the day; but he has no scheme for improving that taste, or for delivering us from its control. For all that appears, the uneducated public is still to be the supreme judge, and have the right of choice ; does he dream that the getting rid of an architectural profession will in some preternatural way endow the public with wisdom and discernment? ‘This, the most vital point in the whole argument, is passed over in silence. Who is to instruct our judges; who, in Mr. Lowe’s words, is to educate our masters, we are not informed. All past experience teaches us that as long as they can gorge themselves with trash, they will never take to wholesome food; all past experience teaches us, too, that the demand will create a supply, and that as long as a premium is offered for rubbish, so long will rubbish be brought to market. Our reviewer perhaps, looks on his glorified working man as superior to the temptations of ordinary humanity ; he expects him to pursue his way unmoved by offers of wealth on the one hand and threats of starvation on the other. If he doés not expect this, his whole theory explodes at once; it is absurd to devise a system for producing good archi- tecture, while it is certain that the majority of men will not put up with good architecture on any terms. We pass on to the second evil, and the one most prominently put forward in the review, the false position of architects. We should rather say the false position of designers ; for architects, according to our censor, ought to be deprived of existence forthwith. They ought to ‘‘ subside into their proper places as bookmakers, artists, business men, students of symbolism and archeology.” None of them, it appears, ought to have anything to do with building. A talent for building, as for other things, might, & priori, be supposed to be pretty equally distributed amongst different classes of the community; and the class which had followed that art by choice, and studied it with enthusiasm, might be thought as likely to succeed in it as any other. Not so : architects are the only people who are never under any circumstances to have any- thing to do with architecture. The plumber and the plasterer, the painter and the glazier, have a future before them; they are real working men, and capable therefore of pro- ducing architecture ; even the paper-hanger, probably, might get as far as to design a church, which, we are told, was always in the Middle Ages a very humble and inconspicuous production ; but the architect’s utmost pri- vilege, in the coming Millenium, will be to stand afar off and gaze with humility on their efforts. It is true, there will be a—no, not an architect, but something very much like him, only entirely different; like him in his functions, for he will have to settle plans and elevations and general arrangement of all sorts, but inconceivably and unutterably different in a more important point, since he will bear the name of a ‘““master mason” or a “foreman.” This is what the world has been waiting for, this is what is to bring back the fourteenth century, or to surpass it—the calling our designers ‘‘foremen” instead of architects! What a wondrous secret to occupy forty pages of the Quarterly Review! These foremen, indeed, are to be working foremen, though a little practical knowledge would convince our critic that a foreman, to fulfil the duties of his position in a moderate-sized building, cannot work much except in the way of superinten- dence ; still, he could lay a brick now and then, and the influence of this simple act. would be omnipotent for good. We do not. quite see how: perhaps we shall be en- lightened on this point in a future article = meantime we can only believe and wonder.. To be called a ‘‘ foreman,” and to carry about amallet or a trowel—this is the source of architectural greatness. Our designers, it seems, want less in their heads and more in their hands, and when the first are quite- empty and the second quite full our art revival will commence in real earnest. The third evil is the way in which fashion- able architects are overdone with business. A realinjury to the building art does, without doubt, lie here, and we have never shrunk from calling attention to it. It would be incomparably better if the prizes of the profession came in the shape of increased. commission rather than of excessive work. Instead of tempting one man to distribute his thought and attention over twenty different works at a time, architecture would obviously gain if each had the whole care of a competent designer. The assertions in the Quarterly about the way in which business is conducted in leading offices, and the amazing description of assistants as the ‘‘real architects of the day,” are, of course, ridiculous exaggerations. To produce a sensational article, a writer is compelled to draw on his imagination for facts, and amongst the multitude of quack medicine vendors, the Fergussons, and Deni-- sons, and Pugins, who have each an infallible: specific for all architectural maladies, a new— comer may be excused for making a few startling assertions. The only way to be listened to, so late in the day, is to invent some more outrageous paradox than any one: else has ventured on, and it would be cruel to inquire too closely into the truth of state- ments made under the pressure of this in- exorable necessity. We proceed to the next head: the non-employment of the workman’s mental power. The opinions of the Quarterly on this point would be more yaluable if Mr. Ruskin had not already expressed them twenty years ago, and if, from then till now, they had not been a constant subject of thought and discussion amongst everybody interested in the building art. We are all of one mind as to the advantage of having workmen competent to design their work : the only difficulty is to get them. Our reviewer states that it is the architectural profession alone which hinders their appear- ance ; we, knowing the facts of the case, are compelled to believe, on the contrary, that it is the architectural prafession alone which has ever tried to tram them. He seems, however, to think that training is not neces- sary : that once freed from superintendence, and left to themselves without an architect, they will develop the style of the fnture and bring back the Middle Ages. Here, ap- parently, he has overlooked the trifling cir- cumstance that nine-tenths, at least, of our street buildings are, and for centuries have been, put up by workmen without an archi-