1840.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



18.3 



THE UNION BANK OF LONDON. 



10 



-t— 





The Joint-Stock Banks promise like the Assurance Offices to giv e 

 some employment to architects in the metropolis, as they have already 

 done in the country. Any thing in fact is worthy of encouragement 

 which rises above the mere brickbat and whitewash style. This 

 building situated on the north side of Argyle Place, Regent Street, in- 

 tended to form the West-end Branch Establishment of tne Union Bank 

 of London is nearly completed, from the designs and under the super- 

 intendance of Mr. William H. Newnham and Mr. George B. Webb, 

 joint architects to the bank. Tenders for its erection were sent in by 

 public competition last September, when that of Messrs. Turner and 

 Sons, of Little Moorfields, being accepted by the Court of Directors, a 

 contract was entered into with them for building it at the sum of £38G0. 

 It occupies a frontage of 7U feet towards Argyle Place, and is three 

 stories in height. It contains on the ground floor, a banking office 28 

 feet long (exclusive of circular end towards Regent Street) by 20 feet 

 wide, and 16 feet 6 inches high, divided at one end by a screen of 

 Bath stone Doric columns and entablature from a lobby 20 feet by 6 

 feet, which communicates with the Directors' Coramittee-room, the 

 Manager's, and the Waiting rooms. On the basement is a groined 

 strong-room, 18 feet by 14 feet, washing-room, &c., for clerks, porter's 

 room, and coal-vaults. The remainder of the house is devoted en- 

 tirely to the use of the Manager, who will reside on the premises, and 

 comprises, on the first story, which is 13 feet high, a large drawing- 

 room with circular Venetian window, a breakfast parlour, bed-room, 

 and dressing-room, four bed-rooms and store-room on the second floor, 

 with kitchens, wine, coal, and wood cellars, and other requisite ac- 

 commodation on the basement. 



Simple in its character, this building has a solidity of appearance 

 which we trust is appropriate to the institution to which it is devoted, 

 and it cannot fail to prove an ornament to the neighbourhood, and an 

 example to other companies, 



Dyeing Timber. — Amongst the subjects lately discussed in the French Aca- 

 demy of Sciences are. a discovery, by a Dr. "Bourguet, for dyeing and pre- 

 serving timber, and one for obtaining" blue or red silk from silkworms. Dr. 

 Bourguet states, that if the lower part of the trunk of a tree be immersed, as 

 soon as it is felled, in a preparation of pyroligneousacid, the preparation will 

 be absorbed throughout the whole of the tree, and that the timber wdl sub- 

 sequently resist decay. He states, also, that if colouring matter be placed in 

 the liquid, it will be carried through all the vessels of the tree, even to the 

 leaves, and be permanently fixed. As this gentleman has made frequent ex- 

 periments, there appears to be no doubt of the correctness of his theory. The 

 mode of obtaining Ijlue or red silk from silkworms is kept a secret, except as 

 to an admission that it depends on the food of the insect. M. Flourens, a 

 member of the ncademy, had previously ascertained that the flesh, and even 

 the bones of animals, may be coloured, by keeping them for a long period on 

 food highly impregnated with colouring matter. 



Bendable Stme. — In the Museum of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, one 

 object of curiosity is a bending or elastic stone. This stone is, apparently, 

 of granite, i-> about two and a half feet by six inches in length and T)readtn. 

 and about an inch thick. This stone, being lifted at one end, yields to the 

 pressure, and from the half begins to bend as it is lifted, and as the lifted end 

 is raised, the bend approaches nearer to the further extremity. On the lift- 

 ing power becoming relaxed, the stone reverts to its former level.— Caicu«a 

 Paper. 



TABLE OF ARCHITECTS. 



Sir — There was more than one reason wherefore I did not give 

 authorities for the names introduced in the Table of Architects. In 

 the first place, I did not imagine any thing of the kind would be looked 

 for, it not being usual to accompany Chronological Tables with similar 

 references ; in the next, an additional column would have been re- 

 quired for the purpose ; and for reason the third, I was of opinion 

 that to do so, would be considered coxcombical ostentation and fussy 

 parade. I should have had to make out a catalogue of journals and 

 books in nearly half-a-dozen different languages, Italian, Spanish, 

 French, German, and Russian : — and to what purpose would it have 

 been to have referred your readers to the Khudozhestzennya Gazeta 

 for an account of Voronikhin, and of Thomond, — to the Entziktopeti- 

 tzeskii Leksikon for a notice of Bazhenov, and so on? If your corres- 

 pondent is desirous of meeting with a memoir of Don Ventura Ro- 

 driguez he will find one in Jovellanos' Works, but then unless he happen 

 to possess the latter, where is he to meet with them ? — certainly not in 

 the British Museum. Of most of the other Spanish architects inserted 

 in the Table, notices will be found in Llaguuo and Cean-Bermudez, and 

 Ponz. Relative to Quarenghi, some information may be found, prefixed 

 to his Fabbriche e Disegni. Of Cagnola various notices have appeared 

 in the Biblioteca and other Itahan Journals, and there is also a memoir 

 of him in Fbrster's Bauzeitung; while bis countryman and contem- 

 porary Zanoja has obtained mention in an English work entitled 

 "Notes Abroad," and a portrait of him may be found prefixed to the 

 "Raccolta di Poesie Satiriche del Lecolo XVni," which contains 

 three of his Sermoni. As regards German architects, biographical or 

 necrological notices of many of them will be found in Nicolai, Seidel, 

 Nagler, the different Kunstblatts and other periodicals ; but it is im- 

 possible here to specify the numerous authorities individually. A bio- 

 graphy of Hirt, has been recently published in Germany ; and there is 

 a little meagre one of Weinbrenner by Aloys Schreiber, with a por- 

 trait that makes him look like a butcher. Count Raczynski's "Art 

 Moderne," supplies us with some personal information relative to 

 Klenze, Gartner, and a few other architects, including Ohlmiiller, 

 whose name will be found in the table, and who has obtained a little 

 biographical niche in the Penny CyclopEedia. — Apropos to Klenze, if 

 the portrait given by Raczynski be a faithful one, his countenance 

 bears a very strong resemblance to Nelson. — Having got upon the sub- 

 ject of likeness and portraits, 1 may be allowed to remark that that of 

 II Cavalier Quarenghi, prefixed to his above-mentioned collection of 

 Designs, has a look of most imperturbable stupidity: — let us hope 

 that the artist to whom he sate betrayed instead of pourtraying his 

 physiognomy. — One omission in the Table lies heavy upon conscience, 

 to wit, that of the name of Francis Johnston, of Dublin, architect of the 

 Post Office, Richmond Penitentiary, St. George's Church, and other 

 buildings in that capital, one of which is that for the Royal Hibernian 

 Academy, which he erected in 1824 at his own private expense, and 

 bestowed on the members; — an act of public spirit in a private indi- 

 vidual which would here have been trumpetted in every newspaper 

 through the country, as one of vmparalleled munificence. I almost 

 deserve to be horsewhipped for having forgotten such a man; and the 

 more so because I have a fine portrait of him after a painting by T. C. 

 Thompson, R.H.A., remarkable for the vigorous intellectual expression 

 of the countenance and the animation of the eyes ; on which account it 

 forms a striking contrast to the dull fat-headed-looking phizes of 

 Weinbrenner and Quarenghi. Just at this moment, unfortunately, I 

 cannot refer to the Annual Register, where I could obtain the precise 

 time of Johnston's death. 



There certainly is room for doing much in the department of archi- 

 tectural biography both English and Foreign, for the period comprised 

 in the Table. The greater part of the lives would be entirely new in 

 our language. But then cut bono ? — would more than half-a-dozen 

 persons among the public, and about as many among the profession, 

 care for such a work ? It would be ruinous to a publisher unless he 

 were to undertake it out of sheer public spirit, making sacrifice of the 

 entire cost : and therefore if anything of the kind were ever to be 

 attempted, it should be by such a body as the Institute. 



W. H. L. 



P.S. With regard to the names of Craig, Pilkington, Byfield, &c., 

 whom another correspondent has pointed out as having been omitted 

 in the Table, it is sufficient excuse to say that I have never met with 

 them anywhere, therefore they can hardly be of any note, certainly 

 not of any historical importance. A line must be drawn somewhere, 

 otherwise, if all the illustrious obscure are to be included, any table 

 or list of names would be amplified to the extent of a Court Guide, 

 and would become quite the reverse of a synopsis for reference. 

 Methinks, too, the party who has called attention to the above-giv^n 

 names, might, at the same time, have stated what are their claims to 

 distinction. 



2 B 



