44 



THE CiVlIi ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Jan. 27, 



features are uniform with the porch, but instead of an entrance is a 

 bow window, which was introduced as essential, in the opinion of some 

 members of the club, to the morning room, atfording the loungers a 

 view of Pall Mall and St. James's Street. The whole front is of Caen 

 stone, and with the rest of the building has been carried up in about 

 six months, the foundations having been commenced in the middle of 

 June, and the whole clubhouse being now roofed in, with much of the 

 interior plastering far advanced. The contractors are bound to com- 

 plete ttie building by the end of the present year. 



Lglh. of 

 Built. Architect. Front. Height. 



feet. feet. 



University Club 1822-6 Wilkins & Gandy 70 



Unjion Club 1825-7 Sir R. Smirlie G5 57 



Seriior United Service .... 105 



AthencBum 1829 D. Burton 76 



Tiavellers' 1831 Barry 74 50 



Carlton 1835-6 Sir R. Smirke 90 



Oxford & Cambridge 1836-7 Sydney Smirke 93* 57 



Keform 1837 Barry 120t 68 



Do. with side entrance .... 135 



Club Chambers 1839 D. Burton 76 55 



Conservative 1S43-4 S. Smirke, G.Basevi 117 69 



* The length of this is elsewhere given as 87 feet. 

 ; t According to some authorities the length without the entrance to the dormitory, is 

 117 feet. 



It will be recollected that Mr. Sydney Smirke was one of those who 

 ■sent in designs for the Reform Club, (Vol. I, p. 67,) when he proposed 

 a building with a grand tetrastyle portico. Mr. Barry's design was 

 then preferred, but on the present occasion Mr. Sydney Smirke, con- 

 jointly with Mr. Basevi, has had the opportunity of exhibiting his 

 talents on one of the finest sites in London, and he has well availed 

 himself of it. Difference of opinion will exist with regard to the 

 merits of the Conservative Club, but at any rate the design is not hack- 

 neyed, while the grandeur of the edifice cannot be denied. It now 

 forms the most prominent feature in St. James's Street, and the half 

 view from the front of the Palace is very good. A difficulty existed 

 in the shelving nature of the ground, but that has well been mastered 

 by the able architects. 



OBSERVATIONS ON GWILT'S ENCYCL0P.S:DIA OF 



ARCHITECTURE. 



By Henry Fulton, M.D. 



This work, although reviewed in former numbers of tins Journal 

 by an abler and more experienced pen than that which now takes up 

 the subject, is by no means exhausted. Our author says in his pre- 

 face, that his object has been to impart to the studtnl all the knowledge 

 indispensable for the exercise of his profession, but should the perusal 

 of it serve to form, guide, or correct the taste even of the mere 

 amateur, he will not consider that he has laboured in vain. A work 

 which could effect all this is much to be desired, but as far as the 

 book before us is concerned, it is to be feared that the attempt is a 

 failure. The fact alone of professing to treat of no architects or their 

 works, subsequent to the end of the ISth century, renders this an in- 

 complete encyclopaedia for publication in the middle of the 19th, and 

 the reason given for the omission is " the fear of coming into contact 

 with cotemporaries and their connexions, which if not dangerous and 

 fearful, might be unpleasant." But let not the reader suppose that 

 these sentiments, be they right or erroneous, at all embarrass our au- 

 thor, either in relation to himself or others, whenever he pleases to 

 deviate from it, for, in page 726 he tells us of "the execrable mass of 

 absurdity to which the government who sanctioned it have facetiously 

 given the name of National Gallery." And in what he calls " a cata- 

 logue of the principal and most useful works to the student of archi- 

 tecture," we find the name of our author recorded eight times. To do 

 Lim justice, he mentions the name of Wilkins also in this catalogue, 

 as the author'of the Antiquities of Magna Gr£ecia ; to be sure Mr. 

 Gwilt in some measure takes this work out of the list of the " most useful 

 works to the student of architecture," for he adds to it, "an ill-drawn 

 work," and that too, without making almost any special observations 

 in praise or dispraise of any of the other productions mentioned in the 

 catalogue. 



But although Mr. Gwilt gives us his own name, and that of his 

 works eight times, yet no mention is made of Hosking's Treatise on 

 Architecture and Building ; no doubt this was out of sincere regard to 

 Mr. Hosking, for if mentioned at all, he would have been forced to 

 add as a pendant, an ill nritlen work ! But although he liad done all 

 this, that treatise must be read and esteemed even when students shall 

 spring up «' who know not Joseph," and in the jneantime " the mere 



amateur " will find it better calculated to "form, guide, and correct," his 

 taste than even Mr. Gwilt's Encyclopaedia. If Mr. Gwilt had desired 

 to leave out all mention of the "ill drawn work," he might have sub- 

 stituted Rovine Delia cilia di Peslo. Di P. Paoli,io\. Rome, 1784. 

 This, and another work omitted, I happen to have, viz. PincluriS 

 Jliitiq. Cryptarum Rom. et Sepulcri Nasonum. A. J. P. Bellorio et 

 Mich. Ang. Causseo, fol. Rom. 1750. I could mention the names of 

 32 other works omitted, and which are in the library of the Royal 

 Dublin Society, many of them of merit. Mr. Loudon's jjrchileclitral 

 Magazine is named, but ti\e Civil Engineer ^ Architect' s Joimialisaot; 

 were it worth the trouble of the search, no doubt the moving cause of 

 the high honour conferred on the Magazine might be fouud to consist 

 in the merits of some review of Mr. Gwilt's publications. I trust that 

 this article alone may procure insertion for the Journal in the next 

 edition of the Encyclopaedia. 



We shall now proceed to some of the other chapters. That on tlie 

 Architecture of Russia is both defective and erroneous. From what I 

 have already written on that barbarous country, it cannot be supposed 

 that I now enter the lists, in opposition to our author, as a panegyrist, 

 such as Dr. Grenville, but in justice, I must admit the public edifices 

 and street architecture of St. Petersburgh, and the private palaces of 

 Moscow, are in better taste than those of London. Mr. Gwilt knows 

 of no Russian architect of the 18th century ; but as he speaks of the 

 " church of our Lady of Kevan," meaning, I suppose, that of Casan or 

 Kasan, he ought to have told us that it was erected from the designs of 

 Woronikin, a Russian architect ; but he tells us " that on account of 

 its columns it has obtained more celebrity than it will acquire for the 

 beauty of its composition." Woronikin took St. Peter's at Rome for 

 his model, but instead of falling into the error of its architects, made 

 the Easan of the same order throughout ; the colonnade in front having 

 150 Corinthian columns; the cornice of the vpings ranges horizon- 

 tally with that of the portico, which gives it a great advantage over 

 St. Peters; nor has he made part of the colonnade at right angles to the 

 portico as in St. Peter's, but semicircular throughout, so that its ground 

 plan may be described without a diagram by representing it as the 

 curve of an arch, the portico forming as it were a dipping key stone. 

 The interior, in which both workmanship and material do justice to a 

 magnificent design, is not dishonoured by a comparison with St. Peter's 

 or our own St. Paul's. I regret that I cannot describe the St. Isaac 

 lately finished in the Russian capital and said to excel any other 

 church in the world. 



Mr. Gwilt mentions, "Ivan IV. as a great patron of the arts:" if he 

 means the Czar Ivan Vasilovitch, which from the date given I presume 

 he does, he was Ivan II., and his patronage of the arts can scarcely be 

 extolled as "great," if by that he means desirable for the artists them- 

 selves, for having procured an uufurtuuate Italian to erect the church 

 of St. Vasil at Moscow in 1538, he put out his eyes lest he might be 

 able to erect any other building as great or greater elsewhere. This 

 church, which contains 20 chapels of nearly equal size under the same 

 roof, is not of great dimension, and is entirely in the Tartar style. 



The chapter on the art in China is neither satisfactory nor laudatory. 

 I regret that I did not see it with the eye even of a " mere amateur," 

 or I should be better able to set Mr. Gwilt right; still the impression 

 left is favourable, and I may say without praising it too highly, that 

 its ornamental details are better than those of the style called that of 

 Louis Quatorze, and as good as many of the Gothic. I trust we shall 

 soon, either by some native or foreign artist, be made better acquainted 

 with its details. 



Our author, quoting from Sir William Chambers, says that the 

 shops form the fronts of the dwelling-houses. This is not so, and I 

 doubt if it were the case when Sir William was in Canton, for there, 

 as in all the cities of the East, even in Russia, the shops are for the 

 most part in open bazaars, quite detached from the dwelling-houses. 

 In ground plan the dwelling houses in China present a striking simi- 

 larity to those of Pompeii, and like them have no opening to the 

 streets except doors. Again, in the ground plan of the temples, 

 particularly that of Honan, we have almost a copy of those of Egypt ; 

 we need not be surprised at this latter circumstance, when we knowr 

 that an intercourse must have been kept up between the two countries 

 at a very remote period, as is proved by Chinese vases having Chinese 

 characters on them, which can be understood in the present day, 

 being found in the mummy tombs of Egypt. 



Mr. Gwilt only mentions the large circular openings, which I beUeve 

 are peculiar to Chinese architecture. There is scarcely a house or 

 pleasure ground in which they are not introduced, forming open 

 doorways and windows from six to eight feet in diameter. The effect 

 of them in our own country would be very good, vfhere, as in gardens 

 and pleasure grounds, the doorway is not required to be closed. 



In the chapter on the pointed style, a view is given of the west 

 front of the Duomo at Milan* which is not correcti V, would appear 



