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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



g;ible end of any temple in their own country. But although these 

 pediments are necessarily small, yet they are worthy of being praised 

 more highly than it is in our power lo do, on account of having their 

 cornices with an equal if not greater projection than the crowning 

 cornice of the edifice itself; this latter is 72 feet long, and each of 

 the pediments little more than half as many inches, which shows the 

 talent and resources of the projectors in giving greater importance to 

 the lesser parts. 



The original idea of a pediment was that it should surmount a por- 

 tico, now a portico is an opening, so is a door, so is a window, there- 

 fore why should not a window or a door have a pediment? These 

 pediments are not all of the same form, but by a happy mixture of 

 pyramidal and segmental, the spectator is presented with " a pleasing 

 variety." We may be indebted for this to a difference of opinion 

 existing in the council of the Institute as to the relative merits of the 

 two figures, not that the reader is for one moment to suppose that it 

 is intended to insinuate that the members of the Institute are not 

 most harmonious on all matters of importance ; but only that they 

 •were divided in the selection of two figures of equal merit. How 

 happy should we be with either, and still more so with both. 



Ignorant persons may be inclined to find fault with the slashing, 

 gashing and frosting of the lower portion of the fa9ade ; but if they 

 vein only be at the trouble of examining the tatooed liead of a New 

 Zealand chief in the Britisli Museum, they may see that the beauty 

 and interest of it consist in those kind of gashes and slashes; and if 

 such expedients add to the beauty of the human face, why may they 

 not be suitable to the face or facade of the human dwelling? And in 

 point of fact the frost-work, though rustic and vulgar in itself, yet in 

 such master hands seems as if produced by the fair fingers of science 

 to set off the edifice to advantage. Formerly the house had only one 

 door, now it has two. 



With a due regard to economy, as vfell as to afford a pleasing con- 

 trast, the compo is only carried up as far as the window stools of the 

 first floor, thus forming a demi-facade, which viewed in connexion 

 with the parallelopepids of the remainder and the window ornaments 

 and cornice, obviate the effects of monotony, so frequently to be ob- 

 served in other designs. Suetonious mentions in praise of Augustus, 

 that he found the city of brick and left it of marble ; may we not 

 conclude in praise of the Institute, that it found Antrim house of 

 brick and left the half of it compo. 



II. Gresham Club, London. — In the West-end we have clubs, and 

 why should we not have clubs in the East? The wise men are said 

 to have come from the East, but certes the architects of that quarter 

 do not display much wisdom in such erections as we are threatened 

 with in the shape of the Gresham Club, as it appears in the published 

 lithographic design. The outline of the edifice is well enough ; that 

 is, it is in keeping with the Farnese style, and although there is a 

 kind of offset or bay at the end of the main building, yet as this is 

 not carried up all the height, it has not the effect of breaking up the 

 general outline, thus far all is well ; but how shall we speak of the 

 miserable details? 



I have never yet spoken of such devices, as the centre window 

 above the entrance presents to us, because I thought such windows had 

 been scouted out of practice by every one having the least pretension 

 to taste in architecture: in short, I considered that a reference to them, 

 "even by a mere amateur," would almost have been tantamount to an 

 insult to the profession ; but here it is, an ugly arch with an ugly 

 key stone springing from two Corinthian columns, and these latter 

 flanked by two others connected by bits of cornice, and the interspaces 

 fitted with transoms and muntons, forming what is called a French 

 window. Bad indeed must be the taste of any one who conceives 

 that any form of arch is improved by a projecting keystone, inasmuch 

 as it destroys its completeness and simplicity of form, however, the 

 keystone in the plan appears to break into the frieze which is placed 

 above the arch; and above this frieze we have a cornice, on the 

 centre of which rests a window supported in heraldic style by two 

 curly-cues something like a lion and unicorn, giving the said last- 

 mentioned window the effect of a broken pediment. Hercules with 

 his club might have been substituted for the upper window, or like 

 the Colossus of Rhodes he could stand with afoot on the apex of each 

 curly-cue, and admit the window between his legs, to complete the 

 picture. The principle of ;irches imposed on columns, as here ex- 

 hibited, is the state of architecture in the transition or debased Dio- 

 cletian style before it passes into the Gothic; it is the worthless grub 

 before it expands into the beautiful butterfly. 



The Rev. James Dallaway, in his "Discourses on Architecture," (a 

 very interesting work,) has fallen into a mistake with regard to the 

 date of the origin of arches on columns. At page 7, London, 1833, 

 he says, " the Basilica of St. Paul's at Rome, by Constantine, has the 

 earliest instance of arches constru ;ted on columns instead of piers, 



which was universally the Roman method." Now if the reader will 

 look at Adam's views of Diocletian's palace at Spaltro, he can see ex- 

 amples of it in almost every plate, and many of them flanked by rect- 

 angular compartments, as in the Gresham design, and in the east end 

 of St. Martin's Church. Although the interval between the time of 

 Diocletian and Constantine is so short as scarcely to require notice, 

 yet the precise date, as well as the locality, is of great importance, as 

 fixing the Pagan and not Christian origin of the practice. 



Columns are quite unsuited for window ornaments, for their effect 

 never can be good in any case or under any circumstances when the 

 intercolumniations must be wider than the best examples of antiquity. 

 Columns well proportioned and properly placed form the great and 

 distinguishing beauty of the Greek style, and this never should be 

 lost sight of even in its degenerate oft'spring, which climate, manners, 

 uses, and convenience impose on our adoption. But although the 

 Greek style does not furnish us with columns for any such illegitimate 

 purpose as we see them here applied to, it gives us mouldings in 

 abundance, which may with advantage be used instead of them. 



A due proportion of ornament gives pleasure to the spectator, but 

 the thing overdone turns the composition into ridicule, and, as in the 

 Gresham Club, places it on a level with the tasty exhibition of the 

 compo shops in the Paddington and Commercial Road, for besides the 

 window with the arched head and rectangular wings, we have no less 

 than twelve pedimented windows in front, destroying all repose and 

 preventing the edifice from having the least claim to dignity, which 

 it would otherwise have from its unbroken outline. And again, the 

 cornices which support these pediments rest on pulvinated friezes or 

 bustles ; and if there be one form in ancient or modern architecture 

 worse than another, the pulvinated frieze is the example ; it too 

 forcibly reminds one, of those of our fellow creatures, whose heads 

 appear too heavy to be supported on the vertibral column, and hence 

 their backs protrude, so these fiiezes protude, weighed down as it 

 were by the great weight of the liltle gables, which they appear to 

 have been unable to support. 



" Atlas Rroaned the world beneath — 

 They groan beneath " — a pediment. 



It h;is been urged, and with some reason, that the use of projecting 

 quoins is necessary to define, I may say insulate, a composition, and 

 that it gives it the appearance of stability; but if quoins are to be 

 used with that intention, surely it is not absolutely necessary that they 

 should be pared and frittered away to show open joints. I admit that 

 I never saw or heard of projecting quoins (headers and stretchers as 1 

 believe they are called) with close joints ; but would they not look 

 better than open ones, and give all the desired effect with more sim- 

 plicity and less effort and expense than the present mode. 



It will be long ere ''even the mere amateur" of Greek architecture 

 shall be reconciled to the expedient of transplanting triglyphs to 

 friezes which have no architraves and columns beneath them ; the soil 

 is not congenial, nor does their introduction in the Gresham Club 

 House seem likely to prove an exception. To be sure we find these 

 well placed in such situations in the Egyptian style, but there they 

 have a different character; nor are the Egyptian the debased offspring, 

 but rather the parent of the Greek triglyphs — as we may almost say 

 — the cause and not the effect. 



It is to be hoped that if Clubs shall continue to be trumps, those 

 architects who hold the honours in their hands will in future play the 

 game according to Hoyle, and not lead the knave to be taken by their 

 competitors queen. With all its imperfections (and it has some to 

 which many of the remarks in this paper are applicable) the Reform 

 Club is still the king of trumps; but the best court card has yet to be 

 played. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 



FASCICULUS LVI. 



" I must have liberty 

 AVitlial, as large a charter as the winds, 

 To blow on whom 1 please." 



I. Some of our own public buildings are strange patchwork — 

 merely masked just in front, though more than that side may be ex- 

 posed to view. The National Gallery, for one, betrays more offensive 

 meanness, as we are allowed to see that the back is a mere brick wall; 

 a defect that might have been avoided by continuing the east end so 

 as to form an architectural screen with a mere portal or opening 

 through it for the public thoroughfare behind the building ; which 

 would also have given some importance — now very much wanted to 



