214 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[July, 



toffPther by being placed at right angles to each other, so as to form 

 a re-entering angle between tliem, where they are connected by a 

 somewhat receding and rather lower intervening portion. The whole 

 is faithful not only to the style adopted, but to the architectural phy- 

 siognomy and constitution which, apart from mere stylo, mark build- 

 ings of the period here imitated. The combination is pictorial rather 

 than architectural,— studied only in being apparently quite unstudied 

 and accidental, perh;ips somewhat too much so considering where the 

 building is to be erected— in a city distinguished by stately piles of 

 collegiate architecture. There is, moreover, somewhat of affected 

 homeliness in the range of gabled lucarnes over the school building, 

 introduced perhaps with the intention of preventing that mere chapel- 

 like appearance which it would else have. The drawing is, as we 

 have observed, an admirable one, — so much so that we cannot help 

 ascribing to the charm of its execution much of the satisfaction we 

 feel on looking at the subject. Unusually rich and full in tone, it is 

 also perfectly sober and free from the vice of being "colouied-up." 

 Still it flatters, because the building itself will not wear such ripened 

 complexion until it shall have become completely tanued by sun and 

 stained by weather. 



There are other designs for the same building, and that one of them 

 which we next come to in the order of the Catalogue is 1253. Al- 

 though designated only " A design for a Choristers' School," we have 

 no donbt of its being intended for the one at Oxford, the title being 

 otherwise an unintelligible one, there being no such express class of 

 buildings ; and to its title alone is it indebted for notice, the style being 

 that of the smug "lath and plaster Gothic." In the days of Straw- 

 berry Hill virtuosity, of Walpolian and Wyatl Gothicizings, it might 

 have done very well, but now it will not pass muster. Unluckily for 

 it, it is placed almost midway between two very bad, overbearing 

 neighbours, viz., the one we have just been speaking of, and (No. 

 1256) E. B. Lamb; the only circumstance in its favour is its being 

 hung quite down by the floor, therefore so as to escape detection ex- 

 cept from those who are determined to look at it and can condescend 

 to stoop, most back-breaking work though it be.i After all we do 

 not say that there was absolutely no chance whatever for this design, 

 supposing it to have been sent in to the committee, for committees have 

 before now taken a fancy to things of the same calibre, and have had 

 them perpetrated in stone or brick, for their own pleasure and to the 

 utter disgust of every one else, — that is, every one who has any feel- 

 ing for architecture. It is quite a relief to turn from this idea for a 

 Choristers' School to Lamb's, whose design would have furnished a 

 suitable and worthy appendage to the buildings of Magdalen College. 

 It is not, indeed, set oft' to advantage like Derick's by the captivating 

 charm of pictorial treatment, the drawing being only a sepia one, 

 showing merely a perspective elevation of the front, with scarcely 

 any thing at all in the way of accompaniment and filling up, conse- 

 quently it is hardly possible to institute a fair comparison between the 

 two designs, without imagining for the one the scenic effect and ac- 

 companiments given to the other, or the latter to be stripped of those 

 allurements and left to be judged of solely by its intrinsic merits. 

 Were this done, the disparity between them would be greatly les- 

 sened ; nay, it is most likely that Lamb's would obtain the preference, 

 as having more the character of a piece of collegiate architecture in- 

 tended to be towards a street. Without its being exactly symme- 

 trical, a general correspondence and balance of parts are kept up in the 

 composition, which is well marked, the School forming one main divi- 

 sion or wing of the building, the Master's Residence the other, con- 

 nected in front by a screen or open cloister of five arches, through 

 which is seen a small court, and in the background that portion of the 

 building which forms the fourth side of the court, and unites the ad- 

 vanced parts of the plan. The combination is a very effective, and 

 by no means a hackneyed one. A small court closed in, yet partly 

 exposed to view — and therefore more piquantly so — through a clois- 

 tered screen would be attended with great play of perspective, and the 

 whole front would have unusual force and relief as to light and shade 

 — matters which, if architecture deserves to be esteemed something 

 higher than a mere mechanical art, are to be attended to as well as 

 style, not, indeed, at all to the neglect of the latter, but in addition to 

 it. One advantage which this design possesses over Derick's is that 

 it would tell admirably from the street, in whatever direction it might 

 be viewed, whereas the other will look rather flit and poor, not to say 

 insignificant, when, not viewed as it is shown in the drawing, only the 

 ude of the School building, or that parallel to the street, is seen. That 

 portion— and it is the principal one or front in point of situation — de- 



rives its effect almost entirely from contrast and grouping with parts 

 that come into accidental view. We are very far from intending to 

 say that no advantage ought to be taken of such accidents and the 

 perspective combinations that may be derived from them ; on the 

 contrary, we would urge the utmost attention to that point, it being 

 one that is scarcely ever studied or taken into consideration at all. 

 Still, front or parallel view eftect aird character are not to be neglected. 

 We do not much suppose that Barry entered the Oxford competition, 

 but, had he done so, it is not very likely that he would have hit the 

 taste which preferred Derick's design to Lamb's, for he would, al- 

 most of a certainty, have produced quite a regular facade, of the same 

 stamp as his Birmingham School, — of which building, by the bye, 

 there is a view in the present Exhibition, viz., (No. 1194), and as it 

 is neither an original subject nor a fresh one, nor shown otherwise 

 than has been done again and again before, we do not see what claim 

 that and other things of the kind have to be hung up in the architec- 

 tural room. If not originality, freshness of subjeet ought to be made 

 a sine qua non ; and we get both novelty and interest of subject in ' 



(No. 1107), House of M. Guvin, banker, in the Rue de Commerce 

 at Tours, an edifice of the 10th century, H. Mogford, — a capital draw- 

 ing of its kind, and a most piquant specimen of the French domestic 

 style of that period. It is a mere fa9ade shown directly in front, 

 without anything to make it up according to usual and approved re- 

 cipe into a picture — a process not at all requisite, it being so emi- 

 nently picturesque in itself — extravagantly uncouth, yet deliciously pic- 

 turesque. If Mr. Mogford has brought home more plunder of the kind 

 from France, we hope he will allow tire public to share in it. Perhaps 

 the colouring is, to make use of a dandy phrase, a soupcon exagge- 

 rated, it being so rich, glowing and sunny as to quite kill some of its 

 neighbours ; and the bairgers seem to delight in contrasts quite as much 

 as Pugin, taking care to put the most vigorous and feeblest coloured 

 drawings, the showiest and most pretending, alongside of each other. 

 But we must return to collegiate architecture, if only to express our 

 wonder that such a thing as (No. 1293), purporting to be a " Design for 

 a College (in the first edition of the catalogue styled a cottage,) should 

 be hung upon the walls of a Royal Academy, especially hung where 

 it displays itself very conspicuously. Surely that piece of dulness and 

 imbecility can have been put there merely because nothing else of the 

 same size could be found to fit into the space it occupies; and the 

 Academy is by far too thrifty to allow any space to be lost, it does 

 not deal in blanks, though they wonld frequently be preferable to some 

 of the prizes it gives us.'' 



As vre have affected very little method — certainly not to follow the 

 order of the catalogue, which is an exceedingly elastic one, rudely 

 jumping us from one pole of art to the other— from Athens to Oxford 

 Street, Irom the venerable Parthenon to the "spick-and-span" new 

 Show-room of Messrs. Williams and Sowerby, the respective Nos. 

 being 1184 and 5, and as we prefer jumping after our own fashion, — we 

 turn to (No. 1244), Design for the Carlton Club, S. Beazley. This 

 drawing is by no means a striking one upon the wall, it being only in 

 sepia, and besides placed so high that it is quite a fatigue to attempt 

 to examine it. Little more can be made out than the general composi- 

 tion and leading forms : like that of the Conservative Club-house, the 

 facade is divided into three compartments in width, with five windows 

 in the centre and a triple one at each end. On a rusticated ground 

 floor with a Doric entablature rises a Corinthian order of ten columns 

 disposed in pairs, so as to form in the centre an open arcade or loggia 

 of five arches which spring from the entablatures of the columns, aud 

 corresponding with which is a second row of semicircular mezzanine 

 windows over those of the principal floor. Some novelty there cer- 

 tainly is in the idea, but it is hardly of the happiest kind ; at any rate 

 consrderable revision and further study are required to harmonize the 

 ensemble, and among the corrigenda is the large square lantern on the 

 roof, which as it here shows itself is a sufficiently conspicuous, yet 

 somewhat too ordinary and homely feature. We ought, perhaps, to 

 say that the drawing se^ms to represent a south-east view, conse- 

 quently the open loggia would not be in the street front, but in that 

 towards Carlton Gardens, where it would be more appropriate. How- 

 ever, we hardly need inform our readers that this design will not be 

 realized, that of Messrs. Basevi and S. Smirke being the one chosen 

 by the Club; and if we do not see tirat at the Exhibition next year, 

 we probably shall find there some of the others, — we hope Barry's, 

 for we are curious to learn whether he adhered to the astylar charac- 

 ter of his other club-houses, and if so, whether he produced on this 

 occasion a decided variety of it. We may, too, expect to be favoured 



J If the Academy should tal;e ' Punch's' hint, they will provide visitors with ladders — 

 and why not scaffolds too ?— next year, that they may mount and look at the supreme tiers 

 or ' exalted' pictures. A few hassocks or footstools are also very much needed, in order 

 that we might set down upon them and get a comfortalile peep at some of the things 

 which ar« put ne^t to the tloor, imd which we Deed not say are some of the smallest of all. 



2 In one of the rooms a great space upon the line is occupied hy a vulgar subjectcalled 

 " The Oxford Race Course," one tilted only to the taste of stable-boys and jockeys, and of 

 their equally coarse aud low-minded though perhaps aristocratic patrons, and the silly 

 imitators who affect to copy the spirit— that is, the proHigacy— of the latter. When will 

 the march of intellect give the death-blow to horse racing and all the ecoundrelism con- 

 nected with it ? 



