1845.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL, 



33 



OUR MODEUM MON'UMENTAL nUILDlNGS, AND THE 



NEW ROYAL EXCHANGE. 

 So miiny cluiiigcs lirive already been rung in llje newspapers on tlie 

 subject of th.' Royal Exchange Ibat we seem to come limping a day, 

 or ratlK r weeks, after the fair, or else to be attempting to collect 

 cream from "thrice skimmed sky-blue." That the newspapers got the 

 start of us is not to be denied, yet what they chiefly hel))ed them-ielves 

 to was rather the mere froth than the cream of the matter, — fussy 

 reports of the fuss and fussiness attending what, by strange misnomer, 

 ^vas citled the "Opening" of the Exchange, for after that grand and 

 solemn house-warming the building was shut up again — even sealed 

 liermelically — in order to be completed, an inilispensable process, 

 albeit it seems to li ive bei'n forgotten during the vast hurry and eager- 

 ness of civic K'valty. However, the eitinens took good care to con- 

 vince her Majesty that however unfinislu'd some otlier parts of their 

 edifice might be, its cuianie was complete. All the nine-days'-wonder 

 interest of the inauguration aflfair is now entirely evaporated, there- 

 fore we shall not think of bestowing other admiration upon it than we 

 have just expressed as to the haste wilh which it was got up. Neither 

 shall we touch U|)on any of those staler matters which the newspapers 

 runiniagod cut and furbished up as being ()propo3 to the occasion. 

 Of Sir Thomas Gresham all we say is rtquitscat in pace, we are not 

 going to resuscitate, alias biographize, that worthy; nor shall we 

 trespass upon the province of the Illustrated News by giving a view 

 of Holt School as an illustration of Mr. Tile's Royal Exchange. Nay, 

 we shail not even so much as enter into the pedigree and family his- 

 tory of the predecessors of the present structure, leaving them to the 

 Dr. Dryasdusts who haunt the British Museum, and contenting our- 

 selves with remarking that both its grandpapa and papa went out of 

 the world in a blaze and that not a merely poetical a;;d figurative, but 

 a literal and good earnest one ; — in other words, lliey were carrieil 

 oft" bv those sudden and violent inflammations of the bowels which 

 gentlemen of their speci<'S are so liable to. 



Such was the splendid fate, a la Scmclc, of the literally feu Houses 

 of I'arli.iment, which, thanks to the imperturbable composure evinced 

 by Mrs. Wright on the occasion, made a n]Ost glorious flare-np. What a 

 woman that same Mrs. Wright ! slie deserves to have a statue erected 

 to her in the New Palace of Westminster, if not at the public expense, 

 at that of the architect himself, as being his greatest benefactor. Had 

 not that most worthy dame resisted the apprehensive hints and precau- 

 tions her nose might have suggested to her, the fire might have been 

 timely detected before it broke out, and comparatively very little 

 damage would have been done. As good kick would have it — and 

 we challenge Charles Barry to contradict us — it \^'as as it was, other- 

 wise we should still have been looking at James Wyatt'sgothic, almost 

 twin brother to that of the front of Guildhall. As to fresco painting, 

 that would never have been so much as dreamed of had the old 

 "Houses" remained in slalii quo; what an impulse ihi-n has been 

 given to art — if merely as regards the talking about it — and what re- 

 sults may eventually be produced, all in consequence of a lit:le laudable 

 indiscretion and want of vigilance. Laudable, no doubt, in the opi uioii of 

 architects, whom we take to be fire-ivorshippers at heart, and Vul- 

 canists in secret, except when they happen to be of the pontificial 

 order — pontifices alias bridge-builders — because the aquatic struc- 

 tures of these latter are not at all liable to fall a prey to the flames, 

 BO one having as yet succeeded in setting the Thames on fire, often 

 as the attempt has been made. 



After this opening apropos, we come to our professed subject, and 

 shall enter into the heart of it at once, without repeating what is suffi- 

 ciently well known already, the newspapers having taken the trouble 

 of description olV our hands, — in saying which we also acknowledge 

 that the descriptions of Mr. Tile's edifice which appeared in the 

 Times and Morning Herald were most satisfactorily drawn up, and 

 most unusually circumstantial. Under any other circumstances, they 

 would, we sus|)ect, have been considered by far too minute and tedious, 

 but the royal visit cast a nimbus over the building itself and all be- 

 longing to it. For ourselves we prefer contemplating it in a less 

 glaring light, and considering it soberly with regard to its own in- 

 trinsic interest and merits alone, and as matter for critical opinion and 

 speculation. Well! the new Royal Exchange is for a certainty no 

 Parthenon, not even a bit of it— no make-believe Greek Doric temple 

 after the fashion of the notable "Durham Testimonial" lately erected 

 on Painshaw Hill— a curosity, by the bye, in its way, it being not only 

 according to such architectural type, but also according to that of a 

 "shocking bad hat," viz. one without a crown to it, the Durham Doric 

 affair having no roof at all to it, although it has a pediment at each end ! 

 Neither is our London Exchange such a piece of classieality as the 

 Parisian bourse — that architectural compound of the veritable modern 

 No. b9.— YoL, Vni,— riiUiiuABV, 18i0. 



and pseudo-antique, produced hy paltisadivg a building full of arched 

 doors and windows all around with Corinthian columns, whereby the 

 latter look as if they had been added afterwards to what was never 

 intended to enact Corinlhianism, and support the character of a 

 Grecian peristylos. Nor is it such another piece of be-Corinthianized 

 quakerism as is ihat other building in Albemarle Street, which is 

 similarly dignified by the epithet " Royal." For what it is not let us 

 then be grateful ; grateful, too, for what it is, since it turns out to be 

 very much better than we had reason at first to expect, and so very 

 much superior to any other public edifice that has been erected in the 

 metropolis from the commencement of the present century. Among 

 those of late date scarcely one is really monumentil in character, or 

 noble in expression. Even magnitude is in many instances made to 

 strike as littleness, owing (o littleness of manner, while embellishment 

 is so niggardly and awkwardly applied as to (iroduce a more naked 

 and starved appearance than there would be w-ithont any at all. 

 As a piece of architecture, the Jlint is of the most common-place 

 design and humdrum quality, and is so tcjlally devoid of any indica- 

 tion of its purpose that it might pass for anytliing save what it is, 

 Ditio, with regard to quality, may be said of the Custom House, 

 which, notwithstanding that there is plenty of it, is marked by nothing 

 so much as insignificance, feebleness, and even paltriness of style. 

 Wretched as the original design was, — wholly unworthy of the occa- 

 sion and opportunity, there was at least some sort of physiognomy in 

 the river fafade, whose centre, consisting of a single row of nine lofty 

 arched windows, at least plainly enough indicated that there was the 

 "Long Room," but when afier its falling down that portion of the 

 structure was be-dociered, it w'as altogether deprived of such expres- 

 sion, and the design ])atched up as we now behold it, when the best 

 that can be said of it is, that it is consistently insignificant and insipid 

 throughout. Of course anything of such size will pass with the vu'gar 

 for grand, and may even aspire to obtain the epithet of magnificent 

 from those critics who are in the habit of flinging about their high- 

 flown terras of admiration so freely and so much at random that their 

 praise is mere brummagem. What most forcibly strikes the observer 

 is that the building sceins to have been executed altogether as a mere 

 Jul), with just the kind of taste, and as much of i', as was to be had by 

 " contract;" beyond that, not a soul, neither the architect nor any one 

 else, appears to have cared for anything, so long as the "mate- 

 rial" purpose of the structure was answered. Of one thing alone is it 

 characteiistic, namely the easy and short-sighted indilferenee as to 

 matters of architecture and art wliicli prevailed at the time of its 

 being erected. With the example of Dublin to stimulate to emulation 

 — unless the noble pile on the banks of the Liffey happened just then 

 to be utterly forgotten — London was content that its Custom House 

 sl'.ould yield undisputed arcliitectural precedence to that of the sister 

 capital. The latter city, however, exhibits iu its Post-office a sad 

 falling off from the general beauty and excellence of its public build- 

 ings. Francis Johnston was an estimable man, quite as munificent as 

 ol(l Soane, although his munificence was of a less trumpeting and fussy 

 sort, for he erected in Ins life time, at his own privLite expense, the 

 building for the Royal Hibernian Academy, but he showed himself, as 

 we are sorry, yet as truth and regard for ait compel U5, to say, little 

 better than a mere botcher in architecture when he applied a maero- 

 xhjlc Ionic order — one, moreover, aflecting a a very unusual degree of 

 decoration, even the frieze being enriched — to what is quite an ordi- 

 nary house front, thereby producing a sadly tasteless jumble of full- 

 dress costume and dishabille — of the would-be poetical and the veritable 

 prosaic. Were all the rest knocked down and the portico alone left 

 standing, we might then give the architect credit for a fine feature in 

 what we should presume had been equally dignified in all other re- 

 spects; which remark applies to a great many other building-;, and to 

 not a few in our own metropolis. The India House for one, is in 

 jiretty much the same predicament as the Dublin Post-office ; there 

 likewise, we behold an hexastyle Ionic, which for sumptuousness of 

 character and prodigality of decoration may be called unique, it being 

 the only thing of the kiiid we have where sculpture has been ap|ilied 

 to the same extent. Taken by itself, apart from what is alongside of 

 and immediately behind it, the external elevation of the portico is 

 fully enriched— almost to overHowing-both frieze and pediment are 

 sculptured, and groups of statuary crown the acroteria of the latter; 

 yet all this pomp of architecture shows itself but as a splendidly em- 

 broidered pinafore upon a very homely dress. Iu sad and sober truth 

 it must be confessed that modern porticos are seldom other than so 

 many architectural pinafores, consisting of only a single range of 

 columns — let them be four, six, or any other number — attached to the 

 front of a building, but not f/it, on the contrary frequently contrasting 

 witli it so oddly and so harshly as to show utter disregard of all keep- 

 ing and consistency of character, with a parading display of cheap 

 classieality— now almost vulgarized by being hackneyed ad nausiam 



