Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/454

 432 THE BUILDING NEWS. May 31, 1872. to be hoped for under the present system of putting aa works to competition? Setting aside the extreme unlikelihood afforded by such means of getting hold of a man able ee willing to be taught what may be summarised as the architect's ways, the fact of his not having already been so ‘tanght should cause committees and employers to hesitate before they thrust together two men who are not, even if they might be made, en rapport the one with the other. Unfortunately, such considerations seldom have the weight given to them which they deserye. From our own personal knowledge, however, we can state that wiser counsels sometimes prevail, and with the expected better result, and it is from this experience that we would argue for their more general adoption. Quite “recently, the remark with eth we haye commenced this article, ad- dressed as a protest to a committee who were desirous to put to competition an important church restoration, caused the abandonment of that intention. ‘The folly of giving an architect an oyster-knife to shave with, and expecting him to perform cleanly so delicate an operation, was recognised, and the hope of beating down the cost, so dear to the hearts of a committee, foregone, and the work was entrusted to the builder recommended by the architect, on the ground of being a tool the temper of which he knew. In acting thus, good precedent might be quoted, since the stripling Dayid, when he set forth to encounter Goliath, put aside the armour and weapon with which King Saul would have encumbered him, on the plea that he had not proved them. It is the same argument we would press home to those who would perhaps, unwillingly, if they saw the matter in the right light, sacrifice everything to cheapness. Good work cannot be cheap. To reduce cost to the minimum is, however, generally a necessity, though a disagreeable one, but it would be well for employers that they should be reasonable in their expectations. Now, it is anything but reasonable to direct an ar- chitect to put a work to competition, to accept the lowest tender, to decline to employ aclerk of works, and refuse to pay any but actual travelling expenses for visits of inspec- tion, and then to grumble at the architect if any of the chimneys smoke, or if the joiner’s work shrinks at all. Yet, certainly, the most usual course pursued is thus to ensure that the price paid should only be for third-class work, while everything is stipulated to be first class, and the architect to whom only the bluntest of razors has been given is blamed for not having cut as with the ke eenest, and com- pelled the execution of the specification to the letter. After the above consideration, it will be seen that there is an importance in a certain clause attached to most contracts which is not always perceived. ‘That work should be done to the architect's satisfaction is the condition upon which payments to the con- tractor are generally made to depend. If, however, contractors are appointed according to this system of competition, it is more than unlikely that they could, even if they would, fulfil this condition. Is an architect, then, if the work does not satisfy him, to refuse any certificate whatever, or be answerable himself to the employer it he does? ‘To plain, if an he should, there is little work now executed which can afford him much satisfaction; and that done behind his back, by a builder who is forced upon him, and who has never worked under him before, is hardly likely to be of such a character. Only rec ently, one of the profession having watched a bricklay er lay a course of bricks in an indifferent, but unfor- tunately, extremely usual manner, requested that workman to lay the next course properly before his eyes, using whole bricks, and flush- ing each joint. The man, after repeated trials, having failed, naively excused his in- ability on the ground that he had never before seen or heard of work being so executed. be | architect knows his business as | Such being the case, and we know that he spoke no more than the truth, how is it pos- sible that any of the brickwork done can be to the satisfaction of the architects em- ployed? On the score of morality, then, let architects cease to strain their consciences as they must daily be doing by certifying under contracts which contain such a clause, and substitute at least for the future that their satisfaction should be such as is ‘‘ reasonable under the circumstances,” or they will find sometimes that the omission of any such qualifying words will seriously hamper their proceedings. In saying this, we are not putting a hypothetical case, but one which has just happened within our own experience. An employer has refused to make any pay- ment whatever to a builder who has executed a work which has been taken full possession of, until the architect states, as he is bound to do by the contract, that ‘‘everything spe- cified has been done to his satisfaction,” and is threatened that if he does so it will be at his own risk, and yet he feels that the right course would be to make a reasonable deduc- tion from the balance due upon the contract for work indifferently done, but which cannot now be undone. ‘The razor was a blunt one, which never ought to have been used, but its destruction is a heavy penalty to require. ee THE QUARTERLY AND ART ACTION IN THE FUTURE. HERE are certainly two, if not more, things in the architectural atmosphere which must lead some of those who now bring architectural works into existence, and who guide the art building of the age, to take into their thoughtful consideration what that is which is called architecture, and how it best may be brought into being and made a veritable fine art. These two—if but only passing—things are—yiz., the architec- tural article in the Quarterly Review, and which has been already more than once noticed in this journal, but which will still bear a little more being said about it; and the proposed Conference of Architects at the Rooms of the Institute. Both show how uncertain the present state of things is, and it may be of some interest, therefore, to say a few words, not so much on these notable writings and acts, but on the subject matter itself in which they are both of them concerned. It takes us to the very founda- tions of art and art action. First, then, what is architecture, and how is it to be distinguished from mere and simple building? Generally and broadly, we may define building as the result of simple neces- sity and utility: nothing else—no other element entering into it. As instances of simple building we have nothing but to cite the ordinary plain brick-and-mortar-built town house, everything in it being abso- lutely and simply useful—no artistic idea either in general forms or in added details, except, perhaps, by mere accident, finding its way into it. There can be no more useful and instructive journey taken by the earnest student in architecture than into and round the ‘‘old” London—places like Portland Town, Palmerston Town, close upon Batter- sea Park, Hoxton, and, indeed, the brick districts all round London, forming a curious sort of belt round it, and dividing the main city or town itself from the suburban * villa” circle, wherein houses and detached build- ings and gardens go together. Nothing can possibly be so entirely void of art interest of any sort or kind as are the long lines of streets and ways in these ‘‘ towns.” They almost seem as if built in their long Bthighe weary lengths for the sake of realising the idea of utter mental vacuity, so impossible is it to find in them anything on which to hang a thought. ‘This is plain ‘ building,” without fine art or architecture, and is at one end of the scale. The next idea of work, and at the other end of the scale, is such architectural work as that of Inigo Jones at Whitehall, and in the church in Covent Garden, and in the Water Gate. Such work is fine art architecture. <A careful study of the general forms and details of such build ing and architecture as the Whitehall Banqueting Room shows us what is meant by art architecture, and to do such work demands an art architect, not a medium simply between the executive workmen and the public, at the head of an organisation of assistants. It is wonderful how two such things can be for a moment confused together, or how one can be mistaken for the other. This middle kind of work, or architecture, i is not common or simple building merely: it aims at and is architecture. No “buildings ever erected have been more profusely decorated or covered with ornamental details than are some of the buildings put up within the last few years. The reviewer has cited several of them, but we think he might have instanced very many more quite as remarkable. The hotel at the Victoria Station is almost one mass and maze of ornament, both inside and outside; but, unhappily, it is but the result of a system of manufacture and machine-like repetition, without meaning or character. It is typical of the work of the day, and we mention it because it is so, and because all have seen it, and will readily call it to mind. With a few exceptions, all modern work is of this kind, from the simple fact that all has been pro- duced by the same means—by the system of art manufacture. Thus, we haye, first, simple building, without architecture; then apaiE ture, the work of the mind and hand, as far as the indicative means go, of the ‘artist~ architect ; and then, and lastly, there is the modern system of to-day: architecture pro- duced through an organisation of art labour —i.e., a number of assistants ‘‘ get out” the work under the mental supervision of the “architect,” as he is called in modern langzage. What can be more different than the two methods? We ask the careful reader to ponder over this great subject without pre- judice or bias, to free himself from his office prejudices and education, and think of it from an old stand-point of observation. Everywhere the real strength of art will be found to lie in the actual work of the artist- workman. No one can take his place, and work for him, without the work itself losing so much of its power and native force. It seems somewhat strange that the ‘‘ reviewer ” kas not dwelt more fully on this vital point ; he alludes to it, of course—he could not help it—but he has strangely enough left it out of his ‘‘headings.” In the Burtpina News this has been dwelt on, and urged again and again for years, yet never did even Mr. Gladstone say he ‘‘ felt uncomfortable about it”! But still more, for the subject is an almost endless one, and most curious and interesting. A correspondent last week asks a most import- ant question: What authority is there for supposing that the old buildings, such as our own Westminster Abbey and Chapter House, or Notre Dame, Paris, had no * architect” in the modern sense of the word, as supposed by the writer in the Quarterly? Our cor- respondent says, ‘‘ Can any further evidence be adduced either on the one side or the other?” We answer confidently: the best of all possible evidence—eyesight, and the study of the work itself, will prove beyond all possible doubt that the old Gothic work generally was the result, not of an organisa- tion of assistants working as art manufac- turers towards the pr oduction of a given re- sult, but that one single mind and hand worked out the eo ral proportions, and general forms and detail of mouldings. Surely the study of the mouldings and columns of the sanctuary, or altar end—to confine our- selves to that—would prove it. No written ‘documents ” are needed, no original draw- ings need be searched for, for we see by a study of the mouldings of the caps, and arches, and windows, and roof vaulting, that one artist-architect did them all ; they ‘show