140 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[April, 



exquisite vaiioty of liglit and shade which they afford when properly 

 insulated ; but when engaged doing any thing else or doing nothing, 

 we feel the w;int of that they do not give, and the more sensibly be- 

 cause they seem only to recall its absence to our memory. Engaged 

 columns give the substance but not the shadow. 



We must also notice the introduction of those bloated, stunted, 

 pot-bellied, corpulent things called balusters, (although we regret they 

 do not merit being designated by more elegant terms.) A critic in 

 the March number of a contemporary journal speaking of the Gresham 

 Club, (noticed in Observations No. 7,J says, " That the great merit of 

 club architecture is to make a good kitchen;" and in place of giving 

 any remarks on other points, gives in commendatory terms an account 

 of the " lifts " for the dishes to pass to and fro, and the washing of 

 plates; all this is no doubt very satisfactory to the readers of that 

 journal, and german to the guzzle-ability and gull-ability of the civic 

 members of the club, as well as creditable to the ability of the archi- 

 tect himself, however it may excite the risibility of others. In the 

 fafade of this club we have these architectural wall-_/?OHiers introduced 

 no doubt as emblems of the fat contented state, which the culinary 

 arrangements of the kitchen may probably produce. Sir Robert 

 Smirke has placed these gouty columns (as they have been called) on 

 the College of Physicians, for the more humane and noble purpose, 

 as emblems of swathed podagra, to remind those who are atEicted 

 with one of the most painful maladies which the pleasures of the 

 kitchen bring, that here they may be relieved. Where it is not ne- 

 cessary to set forth on the elevation by means of these pigmy co- 

 lumns either the bane or antidote, if a screen be requisite, the iron 

 founders furnish many examples in much better taste, more Greek and 

 not less classical. In the Travellers' Club, for instance, both may be 

 compared, and we can recommend this without the imputation of 

 flattery because we bestow our praise to its back and not to its face. 



Balustrades might be made highly ornamental and appropriate on 

 gastronomic principles for "Club architecture," if instead of dwarf 

 columns with their capitals reversed, specimens of fat inflated hu- 

 manity were designed and placed in the same position. 



It is the practice of some architects to treat their antse and pilasters 

 either to foliated or voluted capitals; now the true and legitimate use 

 of a pilaster in a composition is to connect columns with the walls, 

 that the transition be not too violent, and these connecting links should 

 partake of the nature of both ; which can be best obtained by neither 

 fluting, diminishing, nor giving them capitals other than suitable 

 mouldings. 



Old women and children (it may be remarked without disparage- 

 ment to the taste of some persons who do not rank as either) invari- 

 ably prefer the Ionic and Corinthian orders to the Doric. This latter 

 order is plain and severe, and can only recommend itself to the eye 

 by its well adjusted proportions. It would almost appear that its 

 inventors had telt this, and laid down an unerring rule, which, like the 

 laws of the Medes and Persians, properly admitted of no change, 

 namely, that two metopes, and two only, should intervene on the 

 frieze between centre and centre of each column. It is true there is 

 one instance of the contrary, but it forms the exception, not the rule, 

 and it is an example rather to be avoided than magnified and taken 

 as a precedent. I am very far from holding the opinion that the pro- 

 portion of frieze just mentioned should not in any instance be deviated 

 from. Jot even so much as the entire space of a third metope may be 

 given and the eye shall scarcely detect it if the index be not given iu 

 the form of triglyphs. In the basement story of Carlton Terrace, 

 facing St. James's Park, an instance of what I mean may be seen. But 

 in the name of good taste, what innate beauty is there in a triglyph ? 

 Is there any form or figure in architecture more devoid of beauty ? 

 Yet as used it is the index either of beauty or deformity ; it is either 

 the index of a well proportioned arrangement, or the indication of a 

 struggling and weak one, which can neither permit the eye nor the 

 imagination to be deceived. In the Roman or emasculated Doric 

 (which is no more a specimen of the noble order from which it is said 

 to have been derived, and whose name in part it bears, than the un- 

 happy modification of the genus homo is a fair example of the class 

 whence he is taken, and whose garb he wears) triglyphs are of the 

 same advantage as false curls are to the shrivelled and withered face 

 of an old harridan, which, as the index respectively of due proportion 

 and youth, only renders deformity, debility, and decripitude the more 

 apparent: and although the age and infirmities of the ancient dame, 

 even when thus indicated, may excite our sympathy, yet the Vitruvian 

 epicene and fibled personification of the other sex has no claims on 

 the extension of our gallantry. 



An example of faulty metopical arrangement may be seen in the 

 portico of the University Club, as it appears in Leeds' "Illustrations 

 of the Buildings of London ;" there are two columns flanked bv coupled 

 antK, and the triglyph is not placed over the centre of the internal 



I pilaster, and there are three metopes on the frieze above the centre 

 intercolumniation; these incongruities and irregularities would not 

 have been so evident if the frieze had been altogether naked or en- 

 riched with sculpture instead of the triglyphs. The Universities have 

 some reason to be dissatisfied with suoli an attempt at a classical 

 portico. 



It neither was the practice of the ancients, nor is it of modern 

 architects to introduce triglyphs into Ionic or Corinthian compositions, 

 yet there seems no reason for not doing so, when the arrangement of 

 the columns admit of it : but we have ancient examples in abundance , 

 and too seldom followed, of sculptured friezes without triglyphs in all 

 the orders. 



The first and somewhat distant view of an edifice should give a 

 bold unbroken outline; all ornament should from such a point of view 

 appear softened into a mass, merely soliciting a closer inspection : and 

 when to obtain this the spectator advances, the eye ceases to take in 

 the outline, or to feel that it is all interrupted by the most highly 

 finished or minute sculptured details : but if instead of these, broken 

 entablatures, poly triglyphs, senseless rustic lines, and a spongy-looking 

 surface meet his view, better nothing existed to incite a close exami- 

 nation. Of all the ancient architects, the Egyptians first, and after 

 them the Greeks, alone seem to have been aware of the advantages of 

 these principles. On these the beauty of a composition depends; 

 without them an edifice may be ornate but not ornamental ; con- 

 venient but not symmetrical ; well constructed but ill designed ; the 

 work of a skilful builder who understands his trade, but not the pro- 

 duction of an accomplished architect who aims at the highest walk in 

 his profession ; it may induce the groundlings to stare, but it must 

 force the judicious to grieve; the censure of one of which ought, in 

 the allowance of an architect to o'erweigh a whole crowd of others. 



It cannot be denied that disappointment often arises when a struc* 

 ture is finished, an event which was not expected when the drawings 

 of the design were in the first instance submitted for inspection. 

 Employers seldom look at a design except as a picture, and they are 

 ignorant of what the result may be in the solid. Unfortunately archi- 

 tects are obliged to minister to this state of things, particularly in 

 cases of competition, and I believe that fevf are the instances where 

 the most highly finished and tasty drawings have not been the suc- 

 cessful ones ; and vi'hen once these receive the fiat of approval, the 

 architect is naturally loth to suggest any alteration. A geometrical 

 elevation appears a cold stiff" production to every eye that cannot 

 realize its erection, hence the architect is tempted to set it off to the 

 best advantage, and to give it pictorial effect by the introduction of 

 light and shade, to procure which he must often break up his composi- 

 tion. In short, the efforts of the architect may be directed to produce 

 a design on paper as the primary object; the erection of the edifice 

 itself being altogether of secondary importance, and instead of his 

 conception being (if I may so speak) in stone, it is on paper, and must 

 be viewed from very different points of sight. The architect's whole 

 thoughts are centered on the draught, on the ornamenting of which he 

 spends the might of his mind, careless it may be of the effect, which 

 must result in the solid, from his projecting lines which ornament his 

 picture; and as drawings are generally to the subject what an inch is 

 to ten or twenty feet, features scarcely observable are, when thus 

 magnified, rendered unsightly. 



It would be most desirable, in all cases, if models were prepared, 

 instead of, or in addition to drawings ; it is true some expence would 

 be incurred by the practice, but in many cases it would tend to save 

 expence. Buckingham Palace, for instance, a great part of which was 

 taken down whilst the works were in progress, I believe more than 

 once; and in others, the National Gallery, for example, it might save 

 us a world of regret and disappointment. This is an inventive age, 

 and as soon as the demand for models shall arise, we shall have suit- 

 able materials discovered for their construction. 



It is said of Fuseli that on seeing a student in the Royal Academy 

 staring at vacancy, he asked him what he was looking at, "Nothing, 

 Sir," was the reply; "See something," retorted Fuseli, "I always 

 see the subjects I am about to paint;" so it should be with an archi- 

 tect, he ought to think of the solid, and in this respect building cast/is 

 in the air may not be an unprofitable occupation, as regards the ad- 

 vancement of his taste. Drawings ought merely to be the memoranda 

 for the assistance of his own memory, and the means by which he 

 wishes to demonstrate to others the subjects of his thoughts. 



Some of our readers may be disposed to think that many of the 

 observations in these papers are so trite and self-evident as to be un- 

 called for; I wish thev could show me from modern practice that they 

 were unnecessary ; I wish they could bring forward the erections of the 

 last ten years in refutation of what is here urged ; then, indeed, the labours 

 of "a mere amateur" would be superfluous, and I should gladly lay 

 down my pen, and give myself up to the contemplation of the beauty of 



