Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/431

 May 24, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 409 THE BUILDING NEWS. et LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1872. THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD COMPETITION. HE competition designs for six schools about to be built by the London School Board were exhibited on the premises of the Sunday School Union on Friday and Saturday last. The sites selected are Kender-street, Hatcham; Essex-street, Stepney ; Mary- street, Bromley ; Old Castle-street, White- chapel ; and St. Paul’s-road, Bow Common ; and we may as well notice some of the principal designs in this order. The first set of drawings on our list, for the Hatcham School, are by Mr. J. P. Seddon. They exhibit a compact three-story building, in which the infants, asusual, are placed on the ground floor, while the girls and boys occupy the first and second stories respectively. The block throughout is two rooms deep, the school in each plan occupying the front and the class rooms the back. This arrange- ment has its advantages, of which economy in cost may possibly be one, but it is evi- dently less favourable for lighting and venti- lation than a system which admits of windows on both sides of the main apartment. It must be remembered that in these many- storied structures effectual ventilation cannot be counted on—at least, in warm weather—by any appliances fixed in the ceiling. The case is quite different from that of a one-stor school, which, even if it had class-rooms attached to three sides of it, might still be thoroughly cleansed from foul air by dormers or other contrivances in the roof. ‘The fact, too, that rooms one above the other naturally have flat ceilings and limited height is an additional reason why every provision should be made for rapidly changing the air in them, and we doubt the possibility of doing this by a range of openings confined toa single wall of the chamber, Mr. Seddon’s arrangement is no worse than those of many other competitors; indeed, as regards the infant school, which is |_ shaped, and has openings both back and front, it is better, but it offers us the first opportunity of calling attention to the subject. Two opposite principles are noticeable amongst the designs in general: the principle of getting light and air from one side of the school- room alone, and the principle of getting them from both sides ; and if our opinion as to the sanitary advantages of the latter is well founded, the matter is of sufficient conse- quence to be noticed in the future instruc- tions of the School Board to competitors. Another point, too, as to which marked differences of opinion seem to exist, is the position of the classes in reference to the windows. In many designs, and Mr.Seddon’s amongst the rest, the children are placed, for the most part, with the light behind them, while other places have evidently been worked out so as to get the light from one side. No draughtsman, we are sure, would sit with his back to a window, when he had the alternative of keeping it on his left hand, and the position which is most con- venient for drawing is also that which is best for writing. On this point, therefore, though it is less vitally important than the last one, an official recommendation might be of service. It might not always be possible to carry it out completely, but it is well to know what to aim at; the standard of per- fection can hardly be kept too high. The next competitor for the Hatcham School, Mr. Joseph Gale, adopts a much more extended plan than Mr. Seddon. His buildings form two sides of a square, with the infants’ and boys’ schools on the ground floor, and the girls’ above. For light and air and general healthiness this comparatively than the compact one. It takes, of course, more roofing and more foundations, and so might be anticipated to be rather more ex- pensive; though Mr. Gale’s estimate, indeed, is only £5,521, while Mr. Seddon’s is £7,902. We should anticipate, however, that for either design the latter sum would be nearer the truth than the former one. The exterior of Mr, Gale’s design is picturesque and un- pretending—plain in its details, but acquiring satisfactory @haracter from its general form and composition. Mr. Giles sends the next set of plans for this site on a system approaching more nearly to Mr. Seddon’s. His building is a three-story one, with the boys on the second floor. The windows are behind the classes in the school, but on one side of those in the class-rooms. The archi- tecture is of a plain Pointed style, with mullions. Mr. Wyndham Tarn adopts an H-shaped plan, like the common section of an iron girder. What would be the web in the girder is occupied by the schools, and the two flanges by the class-rooms. This is a good arrangement for light and air; but it is worked out in a rigidly and uselessly- formal way, and its dreary, lifeless exterior is suggestive of imprisonment rather than of education. We are not quarrelling with its plainness, but with its mechanical, repulsive uniformity ; with its want, not of ornament, but of cheerfulness and homeliness. Few of the competitors, in fact, fall into the folly of over-decoration; and scveral of them have known how to import interest and character into their work, without relying on positive ornament atall. This is just the end that needs to be attained, not only in our schools, but in a very large proportion of our buildings, whatever they may be; and it is a hopeful sign in this competition that it has been more than usually kept in view. For the school at Stepney Mr. Lewis Banks submits two designs. One, with an estimated cost of £5,077, is partly an adaptation of an old building. The infants and junior girls are on the ground floor ; the senior girls and boys on the first floor, and the drawing school on the second floor. The exterior has a treatment somewhat Italian in spirit, but admitting the pointed arch to the windows and doors. The design B is for a larger build- ing, not, however, so good architecturally as the previous one; and the estimated cost is £7,000. Mr. Hennell’s design for this school has a rather complicated plan, with effectively shaded elevations, which are somewhat dis- appointing when they come to be put into perspective. This building is chiefly a two- story one. Mr. Quilter gets the bulk of his accommodation on the ground floor, putting only the senior girls and junior boys on the first. There are some peculiarities in the shape and arrangement of the rooms, which look as if they had been introduced rather for their attractiveness on paper than for their advantages in actual execution. Geo- metrical forms of plan, unless worked out with a close attention to internal and external perspective, are apt to be mis- leading. They look plausible and pretty in asetof drawings, but in real work they are apt either to end in failure, or to be entirely overlooked. Mr. Joseph James proposes a nearly straight oblong block, in three stories, with class-rooms behind the schools. The latter are consequently lighted from one side only, and, in opposition to the prevailing practice, the desks are shown on the opposite side to the windows. There is a low-pitched roof and an exterior of extreme plainness. If Mr. James has not done himself injustice in his estimate of £8,000, some of his fellow-competitors are apparently wide of the mark. Mr. Charles Barry’s design differs from the rest in comprising two blocks of building connected by a corridor. The infant school is, of course, on the ground floor ; above this is the junior mixed school, and highest of all the senior girls and senior boys. There are low-pitched hipped roofs, straggling arrangement appears far better | and some Gothic details in the front elevation, Mr. John Young’s plans, again, are arranged on a scheme of his own. He has a square central block divided into four class-rooms, and from the right and left of this the two ranges of school-rooms stand out as wings. This allows of ample light and a thorough draught when neccessary, and for these im- portant advantages deserves commendation. The elevations are not without picturesque- ness in parts, but in detail they approach un- pleasantly to the Southwark-street type of Gothic. For the Castle-street School, Whitechapel, we first come on some plans by Messrs. Habershon & Brock. They indicate three blocks of buildings, besides the swimming- bath, which it is in this case proposed to place on the site, and which will be by no means the least valuable of the educational appliances. Mr, Robins sends a design with a creditable and carefully represented ex- terior, but with a general arrangement which may be described as rather complicated. Mr. Biyen has two picturesque views intended for this site : one Gothic, and the other in a style which in feeling, though not in detail, has some affinity to Greek. Messrs. Tarring & Son submit a plan which has advantages on the ground of air and light, combined, un- fortunately, with elevations which we should be sorry to see adopted, even in Whitechapel. A public school in a poor neighbourhood, as most of the competitors seem wisely to have considered, needs little in the way of decora- tion, though much in the way of design. Messrs. Tarring have reversed the conditions, and instead of producing a good general form and leaving it plain, they have produced a very poor one, and then tried to enrich it, This is beginning at the wrong end, and could not be commended even if the enrichment were tolerable. Being what it is, it is doubly unfortunate that it should be em-~ ployed so freely, and that those designers precisely whose talents do notliein theregion of ornamentation should always persist in covering their works from end to end with ornament. For the Battersea School, Messrs. W. M. Teulon & Cronk have adopted the H-shaped arrangement, with tne schools in the centre, They exhibit simple and not unsatisfactory elevations. Mr. Edis, however, shows to the most advantage as regards his architecture, and sends some elevations which, on this ground, we should be glad to see adopted. The skyline, indeed, as we have observed in Mr. Edis’ previous works, is somewhat tame and flat, and we could wish that he would take a leaf out of Mr. Norman Shaw’s book, so far as to.turn his chimneys to better account artistically. On the whole, however, this design strikes us as being (externally) as appropriate and characteristic as any in the room, though the tinting of the perspective is almost too quiet and delicate to attract general notice ina competition. The planning has the merits—and the demerits—of com- pactness ; and as to the windows, we observe that the light on the school desks will come from the side. We must pass over several designs of no great interest, merely noting that for the Mary-street School, Bromley, Mr. Watson proposes a plain and compact building ; Mr. Lacy Ridge an equally plain, but more extended one; and Messrs. Slater & Carpenter a T-shaped one, for the most part convenient and economical. The designs for the §. Paul’s-road School, Bow Common, do not happen to offer many points of interest, but that by Messrs. Phené Spiers & Hall has some picturesqueness and considerable merit in its planning. eee ee meenerred ARCHITECTS IN THE CAPACITY OF THUMBSCREWS. ANY, if not most, employers seem to consider an architect in the light of an instrument of torture, a sort of moral thumb- screw, formed to wrench from wretched builders the uttermost scruple of that pound