186 president's address — section j. 



Architecture is eminently conservative, long suffering, and 

 slow to changes ; the very nature of its existence, the hold it 

 has on the admiration, veneration, and love of the heautiful 

 in men's minds, requires that there shall he no hasty changes, 

 no crude novelties in this stately and venerable art ; accord- 

 ingly we find a stability in its designs, a slowness in its 

 progress, which is altogether out of place in engineering. 

 The most admired and approved architectural designs are 

 still those of the Ancients, or some modification of them, and 

 even in our days it appears hopeless to try to dispense with 

 the old Greek, Gothic, or Italian styles. 



"The force of nature can no further go, 

 To make a third she joins the former two." 



One must not, therefore, reproach architecture with failing 

 to produce novelties in stone or brick ; whenever architects 

 had a new material placed in their hands they were not long- 

 in showing what they could do, — the marvellously beautiful 

 and novel styles in iron and glass do great credit to the 

 architects of our day, and prove that we have still a share of 

 that originality, delicacy of perception, and love of the 

 beautiful which animated those who brought the ancient 

 styles to their greatest perfection. 



One of the first works in this new material was the Crystal 

 Palace, erected in London in 1851. Since then the new 

 style has been elaborated, and many admirable buildings have 

 been erected for railway stations, markets, summer palaces, 

 and hot-house buildings. Styles of architecture usually take 

 centuries to bring to the state of perfection at which they 

 culminate, and any variation after that shows decay instead 

 of progress. The new style of iron architecture in buildings, 

 towers, bridges, and even in naval architecture, is the growth 

 of the last forty years, and no one can say when it will 

 culminate. 



Among the new materials which architecture has had 

 offered to it, concrete is the most remarkable, as being the 

 finest artificial stone that has been invented. Architects have, 

 however, shown no fondness for it, either used in mass or 

 in blocks ; they seem to think, as an eminent architect once 

 said to me, " Its texture is hideous and its newness offensive," 

 and I agree with him so far as to say that I have not met 

 with any building in concrete that was pleasing. It is to be 

 hoped that these objections will be got over, for concrete is an 

 admirable material, combining a certain amount of tensile 

 strength with great crushing resistance. For domes and 



