44 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[February, 



all its details. Iiuleetl, (here ai'e only one or two buildings in the 

 whole metropolis that can stand the test of comparison with it in that 

 respect. I'lxamine the capitals and entablature of the order that 

 forms the sliop front itself, and you must allow them to be no less 

 beautiful than novel, that is, supposing you are competent to appre- 

 ciate the origiualilv and tnste then' manifested. After all, it must be 

 allowed to have (jue unpardonable fault : how great soever may be its 

 merits in point of design, it wants magnitude — at least to give it suffi- 

 cient consequence and importance in the eve? of ordinary beholders. 

 Truly it does ; and so, also, does that beautiful little architectural gem 

 of antitpiity, the monument of Lysicrates, which, in regard to size, is 

 little better than a mere model, or toy. To be sure, the one example 

 is at London, the other at Athens; and that, it must be acknowledged, 

 does make a vast dilierenee in the o[iinion of the vulgar, both learned 

 and unlearned. Most certainly, there is no denying that Tavistock 

 Place is not Athens, any more than that Satfron Hill is not Mount Hy- 

 mettus. 



The only thing that can fairly enter the lists with the facade we 

 have been sjieaking of, is the one No. 2-, Old FJond Street, which is 

 likewise singularly beaidiful, and treated throughout vvitli true artis- 

 tical feeling. It is the production of the Messrs. hnvood, or of one of 

 the Ijrothers, and it certaiu'y displays more invention and taste than 

 all their other designs put together, if we except the columns and 

 doors in the portico of St. Fancras Church ; the former of which, how- 

 ever, are merely copies from those of the triple temple on the Athe- 

 nian Acropolis. These tw'o are almost the only instances in whicli 

 the whole of such a front is consistently designed and ilecorated 

 throughout, so as to be altogether of a piece from bottom to top ; for 

 the shop and the house above it are, we may say, invariably treated 

 as distinct from each other, instead of being combined, as far as their 

 inevitable dilference of character will permit, into one uniform com- 

 ))osition. This is more or less the case, even wdiere architectural em- 

 bellishment is liberally bestowed on the n])per part of the front, the 

 superstructure having so littie architectural connexion with the base- 

 ment on w liich it stands, that the etiect is cpute incongruous. (.)f this 

 we have notable proof in a shop in St. Paul's Churchyard, already 

 spoken of; since, so far from there being an apparent connexion be- 

 tween one part and another, we might fancy that the ujiper portion, 

 with its Corinthian pilasters, hail been taken olf from a rusticated 

 Ixisenient, and sus|ieuded upon the huge glass case beneath it, wdiich 

 it threatens to crush. A greater architectural antithesis than the one 

 thus produced can hardly be imagined, the whole of the lower portion 

 luesenting the very minimum of strength, an appearance of unusual 

 weakness and fragility, wliile the upper has a more than usual charac- 

 ter of solidity, owing, among other circumstances, to the breadth of 

 the piers between the windows ; that is, however, of solidity when it 

 is considered apart from its baseless position, because that exceedingly 

 lalse position gives it the appearance of being particularly insecure, 

 and in imminent peril of performing an aplomb. 



Perha|)s, of tlie two inconsistencies, it is the lesser one where, as is 

 almost the general rule, architectural expression is confined to the 

 shop-front itself, all the rest being left quite unpretending and plain, 

 even to nakedness. It must be "admitted, that the other mclhod is 

 greatly preferable, as far as the general appearance of a street is con- 

 cerned, inasmuch as it conduces to its architectural dignitv ; yet, as 

 regards the iiouscs indivitlually, it is better that the shop-front itself 

 should be made exclusively the feature on which architectural design 

 is bestowed, unless, indeed, it can be consistently carried on upwards. 



Although frequently no other ecoivimy tluin that of space seems to 

 be regarded, it cannot be alhrmed that much eitlier of invention or 

 taste is displayed in our Loudon shop-fronts, of which carpenters seem, 

 for tlie most ])art, to be the designers; yet here and there one may 

 meet with a clever bit, — gooil both in regard to ornament and compo- 

 sition. These, however, form merely the exceptions ; for the taste 

 usually displayed is most flimsy and frippery, and full of inconsistencies. 

 At the best, things of this kind can be little more than mere bits ; be- 

 cause, owing to their want of size, they can hardly produce any eH'ect 

 in a general view, or until approached and examined ; yet that is no 

 reason wherci'ore they should be undeserving of examination, and bits 

 of tawdry trumpery in lliemselves. On tlie contrary, if they do not 

 aiford much l.ititude for the <lisplay of design and invention in any 

 other respect— an opinion, however, to which we outselves are strongly 

 opposed — they most incontestably olVer ample scope for experiment- 

 alising in the way of columns and entablatures. Nevertheless, so far 

 from any advantage being taken of this, we scarcely ever find any 

 novelty wdiatever of decoration attempted in regard to such features, 

 which are no other than copies from Stuart's plates. However anti- 

 classical, gimcrack. Cockney, every other part of such design may be, 

 we behold Grecian Doric and Grecian Ionic copied with most super- 

 stitious exactness, and repeated «y(/«c ad naitisecnii. The Athenian 



Doric of the Parthenon, and the Paestau example of the same order, 

 are most ridiculously minified, and applied when they are most offen- 

 sively out of place, putting us out of conceit both wdth them and with 

 what but for them wmild have been honest, unsophisticated. Cockney 

 carpenters' work. Away with the worse than schoolboy — the dull 

 schoolmaster vapouring, about the intrinsic beauty of form and pro- 

 portions belonging to the ancient orders, as if they possessed an inde- 

 feasible charm adhering to them under any circumstances. At that 

 rate, it would be excellent taste to convert the legs of a table into 

 four pigmy columns, Doric or Ionic ; or if the mere models of such 

 tilings possess in themselves a magic charm for the eye, neither could 

 they fail to please were they dragged in any where else for the nonce, 

 even should it be into a Gothic building. The truth is, no such kind 

 of beauty exists either in them cm' any thing else: a tine arm and hand 

 arc very beautiful in a fine woman, or, for the matter of that, even in 

 a plain one ; yet how they could be made to add to the beauty of a 

 horse, we certainly do not see. Of all the styles, the one least suit- 

 able for purposes which require it to abandon more or less of its ori- 

 ginal character, is the Grecian Doric, whose sternness and severity, 

 apart frcjm the imposing grandeur attending magnitude of dimensions, 

 are apt to degenerate into frigidity and hardness when the order is 

 exhibited upon a tiivial scale. Instead of attempting to counteract 

 this defect, which lU'edominatcs in most modern imitations of that 

 style, we increase it bv omitting all sculpture and other decoration, as 

 nut included in the idea of the architecture itself, although it is essen- 

 tially indispensable to its effect. i3y the chilling bareness thus occa- 

 sioned, a style naturally stern in itself becomes aggravated into dis- 

 agreeable harshness ; more jiarticularly when reduced to more than 

 ordinary insignificance of size ; for all dignity of expression is lost, 

 and in lieu of it we obtain poverty of style, with an affected heaviness 

 of form, — something nearly as grotcisque as a little Cupid proportioned 

 after the brawny form of the Farnese Hercules. 



Yet such is the style upon which, at least, one-half of our modern 

 shop-fronts are modelled. As far as the columns alone go, they are 

 tolerably accurate, and intolerably dull fic-similes of the different ex- 

 amples measured by Stuart and others ; but there all resemblance ends. 

 The frieze — shoulil there happen to be any such mendjer in the en- 

 tablature — is as plain as the architrave ; nevertheless, such disregard 

 of authorities is a trivial fault, in comparison with the wholesale dis- 

 regard of the genius of the style itself. Vet so it is: over- exactness 

 as to certain particulars goes hand in hand with the most fantastical 

 licentiousness — if that can be called fantastical which manifests not 

 the slightest aim at fancy. It is, however, not so much the deviation 

 from precedent that we censure in such cases, as the awkward and 

 absurd adherence to it, or rather the affectation of adhering to what it 

 is impossible to follow consistently as a model. Even supposing that, 

 in regard to the architecture itself, the style could be sufficiently well 

 kept up, still it would very ill assort witJi the display which it is in- 

 teniied to accompany. Fancy goods and Faestan columns — plumes, 

 velvets, artificial flowers, and Doric pillars — do not harmonise well to- 

 gether, nor seem to be suitable company for each other. A striking 

 instance of such disparity between the richness of the stock it contains 

 ami the shop itself is Ihiliues's shawl warehouse, in Regent Street ; 

 where, notwithstanding the splendour of the coup d'(eil of its interior, 

 the exceedingly massive, not to say rude, Doric columns supporting 

 the ceiling look most uucouthly lumpish amidst all the costly finery 

 around them. Surely, a lighter style would have been far more in 

 character: or, if pillars of that bulk were irbsolutely required, they 

 might easily have been enriched. It is true, they might then have 

 lost all reseiublance to L)oric columns ; yet of what conseipience would 

 that have been, or rather it would have been so much the better, sup- 

 posing them to be ;ippropriate and pleasing in themselves — that is, 

 successful inventions; and if we dare not venture upon any experi- 

 ments in architectural design on such occasions, we are not likely ever 

 to make them, when the question is to erect a building ol magnitude, 

 where every thing is expected to be perfectly ntciindini artem, and 

 where, of course, nothing can be admitted that might possibly be 

 sneered at as a rash innovation — a startling new idea. 



Perhaps it would be siuue step towards improvement, were such 

 style of design adopted for the decoration of shops as would in a cer- 

 tain degree accord with the stock itself and the particular business 

 carried on. Attenti<jn to congruity of this sort would, doubtless, have 

 suggested for the one just referred' to above, a style altogether different 

 from w hat we actually behold — something liglit, fanciful, luxuriant ; 

 and, if not professedly in the Oriental taste, that is, after an express 

 pattern of it, yet more or less approaching to it. Characteristic pe- 

 culiarity of this kind, however, would of necessity be chiefly limited 

 to those cases — at present exceedingly rare ones — where the interior of 

 the shop itself is fitted up, like some of the Parisian ones, with regard 

 to ert'ect as an architectural eiiumbk, so as to have more the air of an 



