DESIGN. 



eon at their being too technical and difficult, they become, when 

 once explained, intelligible enough to any person of common capacity, 

 however ignorant he may be of architecture. To begin with the plan 

 (the plant, or flol, M it U sometime* termed by old writer*), aa the 

 fint in natural order, it being that which tmmt lw determined upon 

 before the walk can be raised. The plan may no lea* briefly than clearly 

 be described aa the map of the building ; consequently, any one who 

 undentaod* geographical or topographical plans of that kind can be at 

 no lost to comprehend the nature of an architectural one ; the Utter 

 being a far more exact and lea* arbitrary and conventional representa- 

 tion than the other cUss. By means of the plan we distinguish moot 

 clearly the exact shape and extent of the building as regards the space 

 on which it stands ; the thickness of the walls, the internal arrange- 

 ment, with the forms, number, and areas of the rooms and passages 

 into which it is divided ; and the situation and width of the doors, 

 windows, fire-places, staircases, Ac. ; the solid and raised parts, such 

 as walls, columns, piers, 4c., being shaded, and the voids or apertures 

 in the walls, such as doors and windows, being left plain. For every 

 story of a building there must be a separate plan, although it is not 

 usual in books of designs to give more than those of the ground-floor 

 and the principal floor, above it, from which the arrangement and size 

 of the rooms above them may be tolerably well guessed at, unless 

 there should happen to be some uncommon deviation in such respects 

 from those below. Plans may further be distinguished as simple or 

 detailed : the former are mere Jour-plant, indicating no more than 

 belongs to the floor and walls, while the latter describe, by means of 

 dotted lines on the floor, the projection of cornices, the compartments 

 of ceilings, or the groining and coffering of those which are vaulted or 

 arched ; likewise domes and skylights. Or else, instead of expressing 

 what belongs to the ceiling plane, a plan of this kind is made to indi- 

 cate the pavement of floors, the situation of statues, sideboards, book- 

 cases, and other pieces of furniture, particularly of beds in sleep- 

 ing-rooms, the position of which is of material importance. Some- 

 times, too, plans are given showing the exterior of the roof of the 

 building, with its chimney-stacks, gutters, skylights, dormer-windows, 

 parapets, Ac. 



Another species of plan is that termed a block-plan, namely, a map 

 displaying the general mass of the building, together with its locality, 

 either in regard to other edifices or not, as the case may be ; and such 

 plans are an exceedingly useful accompaniment to those already 

 described, because they serve to make us acquainted not only with the 

 structure iteelf, but with its situation. From a ground-plan alone, for 

 instance, of St. Paul's, all that could be learnt in respect to the last- 

 mentioned circumstance U, that it is insulated, whereas a block-plan 

 would show the precise form and extent of the surrounding area ; how 

 confined and irregular it is, and how far it would be necessary to set 

 back the houses in some places in order to reduce the whole to 

 uniformity. Plans of this kind are, in fact, ipeeial maps laid down 

 upon a larger scale, and therefore more exact and detailed, although 

 less comprehensive than ordinary ones. 



An elr ration (formerly termed an " upright," in Italian ahulu, in 

 German aufritt) may be described as a vertical plan, showing the front 

 or one external face of the building as raised upon the plan ; it there- 

 fore gives the precise forms and measurements of every part, deli- 

 neated geometrically according to scale, and not as they appear accord- 

 ing to distance or the accidents of perspective, whether depending 

 on the level at which the eye is placed, or as the building happens to 

 be viewed parallelly, or more or less obliquely. When the elevation is 

 a single general plane, as is the case, for example, with the Travellers' 

 Club House, in London, it will not differ very much from a direct 

 front view, the projections being only those of the cornice, the dress- 

 ings of the windows, Ac., which are rendered manifest, and may be 

 measured from their profiles ; consequently, an eye unaccustomed to 

 such drawings cannot be puzzled. It is necessary, on the contrary, 

 that a person should understand the principle of geometrical drawing 

 before he can form a correct idea of the subject, and judge what its 

 actual appearance would be, if it consists of several planes or separate 

 elevations placed one by the side of the other, all standing upon the 

 same line, and without their returns or the planes perpendicular to and 

 connecting them together, being shown ; because, unless the plan is 

 also seen, the shadows alone serve to indicate what part* project and 

 what recede beyond the general line of the front, and in what degree 

 they do so, the shadows being at an angle of 45, whereby they are 

 made equal to the projection of the part which occasions them, beyond 

 the plane or surface they are thrown upon. This may be easily ex- 

 emplified by St Pauls Cathedral : in a geometrical elevation of the 

 western front, the shadowing informs us (without referring to the 

 plan) that the columns in the centre arc at some distance from the wall 

 behind them, yet do not form a projecting portico (or porticoes, one 

 above the other) ; for that would cast a shadow from itself on the 

 building; but that the parts behind the columns recede inwards. 

 Again, we should perceive the whole of the cupola just as if it were 

 immediately over the front, and btlaeen the two western towers. The 

 only thing to indicate the contrary is, that the shadows would be less 

 forcible, and a tint would be thrown over it, by way of expressing 

 distance; and although, independently of that, no architect would 

 imagine it to be so placed, yet it would be impossible to determine 

 the precise distance from the front, there being no shadow cast upon 



Consequently, this would 

 round-plan or from a lateral 



it by any other part of the building, 

 remain to be ascertained, either from the ground-pi 

 elevation of the building, in which the cupola would be shown above 

 the transept One particular in which elevations differ materially from 

 other drawings and from the ap|iearanoe of the objects themselves, is, 

 that no distinction is made between curved horizontal lines and 

 straight ones : so that whether the part be a plane or curved surface, 

 can be understood only from the shadowing, unless there happens to 

 be something that assists in denoting curvature of plan. Thus, the 

 mouldings of the base of a column are all straight lines ; consequently, 

 without shadow to express rotundity, we could not determine whether 

 they belonged to a flat or round surface, unless the shaft be fluted, in 

 which case the flutes will diminish in width, according to their dis- 

 tance from the centre, as may be seen by referring to the cuts in the 

 article COLUMN. So likewise, in respect to a tower without either 

 apertures or vertical lines regularly placed, we cannot judge whether 

 it be circular or not ; whereas, if there be either of those descriptions 

 of lines, they suffice to show that the surface is curved, although 

 represented only in outline; because the apertures and the spaces 

 between them would become narrower in proportion as they are more 

 distant from the centre, and their rcreali, or inner surfaces, would 

 appear. Still, without shadow, we should not know whether the 

 surface was convex or concave, except by referring to the plan, or by 

 the nature of the subject, there being no difference between the two 

 aa regards outline alone. This will be obvious when it is understood 

 that the elevations of curved surfaces are projected, as it is termed, 

 from their plans, by lines drawn perpendicularly to the geometrical 

 plane of representation, which determine where the vertical lines to be 

 shown in the elevation will fall, and the distances between them ; con- 

 sequently, whether the elevation be projected from a convex or concave 

 plan, the result will be the same. When no curved parts occur in the 

 elevation, the process just described is superfluous, because the 

 measurements may be taken at once from the plan. The same method, 

 however, it should be observed, is employed for polygonal figures as 

 for circular or curved ones. Thus, of an octagon three sides would l>o 

 shown in elevation : yet, although of the same width, the two diagonal 

 or oblique ones will appear narrower than that seen directly in front; 

 and the same applies to all oblique surfaces, let the angle they arc 

 placed at be what it may ; and to such likewise as are oblique to the 

 horizon aa well aa to those which are vertical. Hence a roof termi- 

 nated by gables or pediments at the ends of the elevation will, as 

 regards outline, be drawn as an upright plane, and the sloping lines of 

 the pediment will appear vertical. 



Notwithstanding, however, these circumstances, which are apt to 

 perplex those who are prejudiced against geometrical drawings because 

 they are not satisfactory as " pictures," a person at all accustomed to 

 them is so far from being in danger of misconceiving them, that it 

 would require an effort on his part to imagine the objects other 

 than what the drawings are intended to express to fancy a semi- 

 circular projection to be a plane, or the profile of a pediment to be 

 upright. 



Nevertheless, although the whole may be perfectly well understood, 

 it is not always that sufficient allowance is made, even by architects 

 themselves, for the great difference which sometimes occurs between 

 an elevation and the building itself ; or that the real effect is duly 

 considered beforehand. Recourse is therefore occasionally had to 

 what is termed a perspective devotion a kind of conventional repre- 

 sentation, partly geometrical, partly perspective, and combining in 

 some degree the advantage of both modes, although strictly neither of 

 them. As in elevations of the usual kind, the building is shown 

 exactly parallel to the picture, with the point of sight precisely in the 

 centre, at the proper height from the ground, and as for as regards 

 the first or principal plane, is treated as any other geometrical drawing ; 

 but the parts beyond this plane are thrown into perspective so as to 

 show the sides of projections, the soffit of entablatures, the ceiling and 

 pavement within porticoes, and how much of a dome or other part of 

 the structure, standing back from the front, would be concealed from 

 view, at a given distance. It may be further observed, that elevati> ms, 

 both those of the above description and such as are strictly geome- 

 trical, have very frequently a pictorial character given them, not only 

 by colouring as well as by shadowing, but also by the addition of sky 

 and background. Yet it would be better were such accompaniment 

 no more than what is just sufficient to relieve the building, instead of 

 being extended over the whole drawing, and carefully worked up; 

 because it is calculated to seduce the eye, while, by making to< > 

 pretensions to the character of a picture, it causes the elevation itself 

 to appear offensively formal and unnatural. In fact, outline elevations 

 (which mode is now generally adopted in modern architectural publi- 

 cations, especially foreign ones) are preferable to those which arc 

 shadowed, as they exhibit all the forms more distinctly, and admit of 

 being measured with much greater exactness. They do not, indeed, 

 convey any notion of effect ; yet that may very well be dispensed with, 

 in such drawings, particularly if they be accompanied with perspective 

 views. 



We now come to speak of tectioni, which are for the interior what 

 elevations ore for the exterior of a building. A section of profile 

 (in French coupe, Italian tpaccato, German durcjuchniu), is a plane 

 cutting through the structure on some line of its plan, and showing 



