BUILDING AND ARCHITECTURE. 869 



and vindication before the public is most essential in the 

 colonies, for, if the cry that the art of architecture is totally 

 misunderstood and ignored by modern communities in the old 

 world has any justification, how very much more may we 

 exclaim that the true art of architecture is a total stranger to 

 our shores ! 



By this I do not mean to assert that we have no architects 

 in the colonies, but I would have it understood that architecture 

 as an art is totally unacknowledged by even a small section 

 of any colonial community. 



We have innumerable examples in which rich colonists 

 have demanded and obtained gigantic buildings, ornate build- 

 ings, imposing buildings, and eccentric buildings, but we can 

 hardly find a single instance in which it has been expected 

 that beauty, majesty, suitability, or tasteful treatment should 

 be the essential characteristics of any executed design. In 

 other words, the public have expected a building that can 

 appeal only to the most ignorant, and have invariably over- 

 looked the possibility of the exercise of any art in the 

 expression of it. 



A layman's acquaintance with architecture is invariably 

 obtained through the medium of a building. His immediate 

 assumption is therefore that building is architecture. As a 

 building is primarily for his use, and, if he so pleases, for his 

 observation, he assumes that the profession of architecture is 

 at best but another form of domestic catering. This 

 unfortunate fallacy is so deeply seated that it would take much 

 more energy than the earnest practitioner can possibly exert 

 to eradicate it. That it is a fallacy is easily proved, for a 

 caterer knows but little more than the technical methods 

 necessar}' for the production of his wares. 



While any architect upon receiving a commission from a 

 client has perforce to be responsible for the convenience, 

 suitability, stability, and exterior expression to the world of 

 the design (you will notice 1 say design, not building) he is 

 commissioned to evolve, and in this evolution he receives but 

 scanty assistance from the client, who only approaches him in 

 total ignorance, or at best hazy doubt, as to what form such 

 a comraision should take. A building proprietor invariably 

 ignores his duty to the world. He does not recognise that 

 the exterior of his dweUing is not his own property. He is 

 not aware that it is the sole property of the surrounding 

 community, and that it is in his power to inflict pleasure or 

 p^in, as the case may be, in the re£|,lisation of his requirements. 



