I840.J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



257 



ELIZABETHAN SHOP FRONT. 



CORXER OF OXFORD STREET AND BERXERS STREET. 



With an Engraving, Plate XIII. 



Our readers will recollect that last year the decline of the Louis 

 Quatorze style, and approaching rise of the revival was announced 

 in the Journal, and already to a certain extent is this realized, the 

 Louis Quatorze after a long and widely extended rule has already gone 

 to the tomb of its predecessors, and will leave scarcely a wreck be- 

 hind. Known to us only in one of its very worst forms, that of its de- 

 cline during the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, it became Iiere the most 

 unmeaning and unintellectiial mass of patching and gilding by which 

 the public taste has ever been perverted. Still, such as it was, it was a 

 style harmonizing with itself however low in its degree, and as sym- 

 metry even in a morrice or a chimney sweeper's dance will attract the 

 public, we need not wonder that it was so successful, when we have 

 been so often tortured by styles that show no style at all. Perhaps 

 the reign of this trumpery was one of the evils leading to good, one of 

 the accidents in our artistical destiny which is to minister to our future 

 progress, for it may have taught the public a greater feeling for unity 

 of purpose, and may so far have performed a useful duty. 



Slowly the revival has entered upon its career, and it is already evi- 

 dent that it is destined to be popular, and to take its place among the 

 passing fashions of the age. We are inclin.'d to view its advent with 

 the greater pleasure as it is at any rate higher in the scale than its 

 predecessor, but we must not be considered as pledging ourselves to 

 an admiration of it per se, or a vindication of it as a paragon of art. 

 We are not so enthusiastic as our French neighbours, nor so much 

 disposed to succumb to the fashion of the hour, we like the revival, 

 not for itself, not even for the good it may do, but as a type of the 

 coming of that better time of art, which is still we fear too distant, we 

 look upon it as one of the sets of artistical dumbells, with which the 

 public taste must be invigorated, rubbishy materials with a tawdry 

 outside, but which still in their exercise fortify our intellectual strength 

 and health. If we thought this style of itse'f calculated to produce 

 any permanent influence, if we thought it a part of the lesson to be 

 retained in after years, we should be prepared to denounce its errors 

 in all their extent, to expose its meritriciousness, to strip it of its tinsel 

 gewgaws, and to point it out as a stumbling-block to be avoided. For 

 we are convinced that there is nothing more to be dreaded than the 

 system of swimming with corks, particularly if bad ones, for we are 

 sure to cling to their use, or to recur to their aid, when we ought long 

 since to have flung them totally away. The revival has the advantage 

 of its predecessor, that instead of representing foreign and unknown 

 associations, it appeals to those which are common to all countries and 

 all ranks. It is more intellectual in its scope, is obliged to refer back 

 to higher sources, and requires the exercise of a better class of art, so 

 that if we reap no other fruit, we shall have the advantage in more 

 practised workmen, and in tlie demand for a greater degree of in- 

 struction. The schools of design could never have come at a better 

 time than when their capabilities are likely to be so much called out. 

 So much is the style of revival in advance of English workmen, that 

 when, as we mentioned last year, its introduction was seriously con- 

 templated, it was feared that it would be necessary to import the arti- 

 sans as well as well as the style. We hope, however, to see a difterent 

 state of things. 



Most of our readers have seen the shop in Regent-street, we have 

 now to call their attention to another in tlie same style, that of Messrs. 

 Battam, Craske and Coleby, decorators, at the corner of Oxford and Ber- 

 ners-streets, represented in the engraving. As the details are visible 

 in the engraving, we shall merely describe the materials employed, a 

 knowledge of which as a point of economy is most important to our 

 architectural readers. The general ground of the whole including the 

 mezzanine story is of wood, parts of the upper dressings as the trusses 

 and dressings to lights are of cement, and the rest of paste composi- 

 tion. The enrichments of the entablature, mouldings, modillions, block 

 dressings, heads, &:c. are in paste; part of the lower dressings in deal, 

 the figures cast in Atkinson's cement. The whole was designed and 

 executed by Messrs, Jackson and Son, of Rathbone-place, and we think 

 will not only get for them present applause, but future patronage, the 

 task was arduous, and as far as they are concerned, they have per- 

 formed it well. We wish, however, that both here and in Regent- 

 street, the character of the style had been kept up in colour as well as 

 in form, as otherwise our works will be but the mere g'uosts of the 

 Parisian style. We hope no fear of the expense will deter tradesmen 

 from having the decora! ions complete, for we are convinced that they 

 would derive more benefit from a properly finished building than from 

 the dead white phantoms that have been produced. These want all 



No. 35.— Vol. III.- August, 1840. 



the light and all the life of the style, they want that provocative to 

 luxurious appetite that leads us into the Parisian shop wdiether we 

 will or not. The shutters are Bunnett and Corpe's patent, and which 

 when down take greatly from the effect, a defect avoided in the origi- 

 nal design, which provided embossed, pannelled and moulded shutters 

 in accordance with the general character. 



EXHIBITION— ROYAL ACADEMY. 



( Concluded from page 222.) 



Many architects seem to entertain as great a horror of exhibition 

 as Bartholomew does of competition, in regard to which he is even 

 rabidly furious. How else happens it, that among the number of de- 

 signs sent to the Academy, we invariably meet with so exceedingly 

 few which afford us any information as to public buildings and other 

 works that have either been just completed, or are in ])rogress in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country ? Why does not Mr. Pugin, for instance, 

 we ask, exhibit, by way of contrast, and for the needful edification of 

 his Protestant brethren in the profession, some of those Catholic chapels 

 " in the purest taste," on which he recently has been, or is now, 

 actually employed?* We miss several things that, if we may trust 

 what we have heard concerning them, we think would have been cre- 

 ditable to their authors, and should have been glad to find here, 

 among others, Mr. Hosking's Egyptian Propylffium to the new cemetery 

 at Abney Park; the Gothic church lately completed by Mr. Basevi, 

 in Hans Place, Sloane Street, the Dorset County Hospital, now erecting 

 after designs by Mr. Ferrey, and the mansion just commenced, we be- 

 lieve, by Mr. Blore, for Lord Francis Egerton, near Manchester ; be- 

 sides many other works which, even if of no particular merit in them- 

 selves, would afford information as to what is actually going on, but of 

 which we seldom find more than a very small sprinkling at the Annual 

 Exhibitions of the Academy. Even what subjects of this class we do 

 meet with, are not always the best productions that might have been 

 furnished ; many of them, indeed, neither tasteful as designs, nor of 

 interest as representations of buildings of any importance. This 

 remark applies only in part to No. 968, " Entrance Lodge, as erected, 

 West of London and Westminster Cemetery, at Earl's Court, Ken- 

 sington," B. Baud; for the structure itself is of considerable extent, 

 and of a kind affording scope for design, and for marked expression of 

 character. As it is, it presents only a very tame composition of 

 Roman Doric architecture, which is, besides, altogether marred by 

 being filled in with windows that are equally at variance both with 

 the style indicated by the order, and with what seems suitable for the 

 particular occasion, inasmuch as they loo strongly suggest the idea of 

 a mere dvvelling, not otherwise distinguished than by having an arch- 

 way leading through it. For structures of this kind, and also for 

 those intended for railway terminusses, some useful hints and studies, 

 we may observe, are to be found in Sanmicheli's designs, for entrance 

 gates and similar works, demanding mass and solidity, yet not reject- 

 ing architectural decoration. 



No. 914. "Facade of the Wesleyan Centenary Hall, now building 

 in the city of London," W. T. Pocock, is another drawing that shows 

 a building of some magnitude now in execution. We cannot say that 

 we greatly admire the design, either as we behold it here entire, or 

 judging of it from the building itself, (in Bishopsgate Street,) as far 

 as it is already advanced. On the contrary, we decidedly object to the 

 basement, which has small arches, and is merely scored by a few hori- 

 zontal stripes — a sort of apology for rustic joints — w hich produce a 

 most harsh and disagreeable effect, where, instead of radiating towards 

 the centres of the arches, they are cut off" by the archivolts of the 



' We rejoice to have assurance afforded us by the letter from " A Protest- 

 ant Architect," given at pa^e 228, that the structures alluded to are su 

 creilitable to Mr. Pugin's taste and ability; but wo think that the wriler 

 altogedier overlooks a serious dilliculty when he says, "it now remains for 

 Protestant architects to display their zeal and their talents in a similar man- 

 ner " ; si roe neither the one nor the other can avail ihem much, so long as 

 they are obliged to move in. the shackles imposed upon them by the Church 

 Cummissioners, and by the pig-headed obstinacy of those who regarj all 

 originality of design, any abandonment ot the barbarisms and the penurious- 

 ness displayed in our churches— of our squeezed up pews and piled up gal- 

 leries, for the sake of architectural character and eticct,— as scandalous and 

 dangerous innovations, savouring of Popery and the Scarlet Lady with the 

 title unmentionalde. The regulations enforced by Church Commissioners are 

 of themselves calculated to operate as a " wet blanket '' upon all but mere 

 plodders, who may even find their account in the proscription of aught ap- 

 proaching to originality. We fancy it would puzzle Pugin himself to produce 

 much effect, were he similarly circumstanced, unless his ability be such that 

 he could make a Quaker's meeting-house magnificent, without depriving it 

 of its primitive plainness. 



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