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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[July, 



OBSERVATIONS ON ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURE. 



By Henry Fulton, M.D. 



No. 11. 



It must be stated, although it is with grief I do so, yet without the 

 fear of contradiction, that the state of architecture is far behind that 

 of all the other branches of science and art. With us, its character, 

 without possessing anything noble, is almost degraded into the mere 

 art or trade of building. Some architects, fearful it may be of expos- 

 ing their own ignorance, discourage the attempts of amateurs to raise 

 the character of the art, when these latter endeavour to do so by 

 urging the necessity for a more extensive knowledge of its principles, 

 and a closer adherence to the best examples of antiquity ; but, instead 

 of tlieir being hailed as auxiliaries, they are stigmatised, or at least 

 treated, as inlermeddlers and idlers. To prove that a lamentable state 

 of ignorance with respect to useful knowledge prevails, we need only 

 refer to Professor Donaldson's expose of the circumstances attending 

 the eleclion of an assistant surveyor for the Westminster Commission 

 of Sewers : out of thirty-three candidates who were to be submitted 

 to an examiniilion, six oiily were selected as competent to go to the 

 election, all of whom were engineers ; indeed, it would almost appear 

 thi;t the architects feeling their own incapacity had bolted on reading 

 the paper containing the proposed questions. The publicity of such 

 a circiim?tance as this, ought to excite the laudable emulation of the 

 profession ; and although it would be unfair to judge of u whole pro- 

 fession from the deBciency of a few individuals, yet unhappily it may 

 be brought in aid to support a generally received opinion that the 

 architectural profession is behind most others in the acquirements of 

 both general and the higher walks of professional knowledge. Of 

 course, it must be admitted, even by those inimical to the art, (if such 

 indeed there be,) that to this observation there are some bright excep- 

 tions—to such I would now address myself, and beg of them to put 

 their shoulders to the wheel and extricate the good machine out of 

 the mire, into which the incapacity of some, and the apathy of others, 

 have suffered it to sink. 



That the acquirements of our modern architects, in the merely me- 

 chanical branches of the art, are respectable, 1 fully admit; the pres- 

 sure from the builders sufficiently secures that ; and if the latter class 

 saw, or could persuade others 'to see, that those who assumed the 

 station of directors had no superior qualification to fit them for the 

 office, they would soon throw off all subjection: of this propensity 

 there is a striking example in another profession, which in many in- 

 stances has been too successful. Then to mend matters, Mr. Gwilt 

 (of whom more anon) has made an attack on amateurs, who would 

 naturally be your allies, a force by no means so contemptible as he 

 supposes, a force though small in number they may be, yet possessed 

 of some of the material requisite for such a contest ; that amateurs 

 can write, and write well, I may mention Dallaway, Hope, Willis, 

 Whewell, and other "literary idlers of both Universities ;"— that 

 amateurs can design, I may mention Lord Burlington, and the Noble 

 President of the British Institute, although, from what I have seen of 

 the former, and have heard of the latter, I cannot mention either with 

 much pride, but within these few days I have seen a composition of a 

 non-professional, which I much doubt if there be many architects 

 amongst us who could equal it for the chasteness, simplicity and har- 

 mony which an ornate design should possess. Go to the Hall of 

 Commerce and see what I mean, it is in the immediate vicinity of the 

 Bank of England and the Royal Exchange, both of which buildings 

 probably cost thousands for the hundreds expended on the former, and 

 yet we "have in it what we may in vain look for in the others. It is 

 true Mr. Moxhav has hung a solitary effigy of a cocked hat above the 

 door, apparently in compliance with the Palladian predilections of the 

 profession; if he will take this away, he will remove all that mars a 

 very creditable design. I understand that the Noble President's de- 

 sign, before alluded to, is a Louis Quatorze castle, if so, his Lordship 

 shews great good sense in resisting the solicitations of those friends (?) 

 who have recommended its publication. 



Architects should be more communicative, they must not be so shy in 

 writing, but let them in every way support their own journal, and 

 through i(, as the best medium of communication, improve, guide and 

 direct the public taste, so as to enable the uninitiated to discriminate. 

 It is a thing much to be wished for that the profession would avail 

 themselves of such a vehicle more than they appear to do. A subject 

 most useful and improving in itself, may not admit of being elongated 

 into a book, vet may make a good paper in a scientific journal, and in 

 such a form be more extensively read and canvassed. Perhaps it may 

 be said that architecture is not a liberal profession, if so, the sooner it 

 ecomes one the better, otherwise it must be a mere trade. I do not 



want books or papers written with the title of "Every Man his own 

 Architect," I only want treatises to direct the taste of tlie public, not 

 their trowels; if architects will do this, then their own acquirements 

 must keep pace with the improvement they desire to effect in others, 

 which in itself must lead to an advancement of the art far more bene- 

 ficial than wasting time in dreaming over " a collection of all the edi- 

 tions of Vitruvius," or writing works which ought to be placed in the 

 " index expurgatorius," alluded to in Observations No. 9. _ 



II. Some time ago a writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review be- , 

 stowed some praise on the naissant taste for the revival of architec- I 

 ture in Germany ; no sooner does this meet the eye of Mr. Gwilt than 1 

 he rushes into print, and fulminates against "amateurs and hterary 

 idlers," on the supposition that the article in question was the offspring 

 of a non-professional pen. In taking up an offensive position against 

 these intermeddlers, Mr. Gwilt serms to have totally overlooked in a 

 military point of view, the necessity for taking care that his own lines 

 should be capable of being defended, in case of an attack, even from 

 so humble an assailant as the writer of these observations. At the 

 end of the article given at page 139 of this volume, a question is put 

 to Mr. Gwilt, which he has not answered, it may therefore be inter- 

 preted to mean that he cannof, answer the question ; and so let him 

 rest; "York Stairs" will do for his monument, but when next he ad- 

 vances to attack " mere amateurs" let him recollect that he has left 

 one unanswered behind. In speaking of monuments, let me beg Mr. 

 Gwilt's pardon whilst I digress to remark the omission of a writer in 

 a late number of this journal on that subject, namely the outrageous 

 violation of propriety in putting the pro Crista insignia of martyrdom 

 on Johnson's monument in St. Paul's; as well might a cross-legged 

 effigy be placed on the tomb of some knight-errant who, under the 

 guidance of a second Peter the Hermit, had engaged in a crusade to 

 drive amateurs out of the would-be preserved field of architectutal 

 knowledge. Certainly the Dean and Chapter of Westminster might 

 have admitted the statue of Lord Byron with more propriety than 

 their brethren of the other Chapter did this— as to Byron, his genius 

 is above all defence, some of his errant writings below it; let us, in 

 charity, whilst we admire and do honour to the one, pity and regret, 

 but not magnify, the others. 



in. " Architecture" occupies a very respectable portion of the cata- 

 logue of the present exhibition at the Royal Academy, namely, from 

 number 1046 to 1264, thus we ought to have no less than 218 archi- 

 tectural designs; but what is the fact of those which have any thing to 

 do with the art, there is not more- than one fourth of that number. 

 The first exhibit under the head of "Architecture" is the portrait of 

 a General Officer, which has nothing to do with the art except having 

 a cocked hat, which may be considered by some as a model for a win- 

 dow pediment, and the last is a portrait in wax of a lady deceased, 

 who may have worn a pulvinato, such as we see represented above 

 the windows of the Reform Club ; in fact there is only a sprinkling ol 

 stricllv architectural designs, and the greater part of these would have 

 been better at home. We are favoured with a design by Mr. Pap- 

 worth, for a collegiate edifice. He has shewn in this, by his broken 

 entablatures and non-supporting columns, an inveterate leaning to the 

 Palladian school, and by leaving the columns unfluted (even in a fancy 

 design), a total want of perception of the beautiful in architectural 

 composition. It will answer very well, however, as it stands, for a 

 ehattau en Espagne. Another design is a proposed, or as I rather hope 

 only a supposed, addition to the Banqueti'ng House at Whitehall, by 

 Messrs. Wyatt and Brandon. Inigo Jones design is bad enough, and 

 his architectural sins numerous enough, but in the supposed addition 

 they are not only perpetuated, but others are committed from which 

 the Banqueting house is free, namely, broken horizontal cornices and 

 a window like that of the East end of St. Martin's Church and the one 

 in the Gresham Club, spoken of at page 98 of this volume. If I err 

 in condemning this description of window, at least I err in good com- 

 pany ; Professor Hosking, in his excellent treatise, says — " The large 

 circular headed with two conjoined smaller rectangular windo ws found 

 in the later works of the Italian school, and called Venetian' is radi- 

 cally inelegant." Mr. Barry's views of the New Houses of Parliament 

 are by far the best designs exhibited, and on the Palace of Westmin- 

 ster he may base his claims for fame ; but we regret to see in the 

 edifice itself, that in neither his pointed nor four centered arches has 

 he chosen the most pleasing forms; the former are generally too obtuse 

 and the latter not flat enough; the finials on the minarets are, to our 

 eyes, rather too much Byzantine, and not the light srial things which 

 should accompany the pointed style. Tin; machicolated attic of the 

 interior court is rather heavy ; we mention what strikes us as defects, 

 the beauties of the building itself must be seen to be rightly appre- 

 ciated. 



IV. The Irish Institute of Architects has taken a step in advance 

 of the British; on the 23th ult. Sir Richard Morrison, the Vice Presi- 



