1847.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



297 



THE CARLTON CI.UB-HOUSE. 

 (With att Engrailing, Plate XV.) 



Since Mr. Smirke chose to forego the opportunity of exhibiting a production 

 of his own, under such peculiarly advantageous circumstances as the occasion 

 afforded, we are, for several reasons, very glad that for a work of reproduc- 

 tion he has gone to the example he has done. Independently of its intrinsic 

 merit, we welcome that composition of Sansovino's as being likely to dis- 

 abuse us of many prejudices, — although prejudices are apt to be so dread- 

 fully obstinate and inveterate, that it may be questioned if even ocular de- 

 monstration will help to correct them. The Library of St. Mark at Venice, — 

 of which, we presume, our readers are fully aware that the new facade of 

 the " Carlton" is a direct copy, the original design being so well known by 

 engravings of it in various architectural publications, — is so admirably con- 

 trary to all rules and all systems of the orders, as quite to confound them, 

 and to nonplus that plodding sort of criticism which speaks according to 

 book, orthodoxly enough, of course, but sometimes very stupidly. Had Mr. 

 Smirke himself ventured to deviate in the same degree, or even half as much, 

 from " approved recipes" for the orders, he would most assuredly have been 

 taken to task by small critics for his extravagant licentiousness, — would 

 perhaps have been put into the same category with Borromini, at least have 

 been sneered at by the fribbles, for his conceit in presuming to make so ex- 

 ceedingly free with the established and only legitimate proportions of the 

 ancient orders. To one who is acquainted with the orders only formally, — 

 who knows them only by rote, as a schoolboy does his grammar, Sansovino's 

 treatment of them must appear most extravagant, and little less than de- 

 testable ; to the eye of an artist, on the contrary, it will show itself to be 

 truly admirable, because highly effective ; — and what, let us ask, is the pur- 

 pose and object of architecture as art, except to produce effect ? — since, 

 take away that, and it becomes mere building, than which common-sense, 

 if we are to abide by mere common. sense, demands no more. 



In Sansovino the artist predominated over the architect, — that is, over the 

 regularly-trained one, he being less attentive to direct authority and precedent 

 — as far, at least, as the orders are concerned — than to artistic sentiment and 

 effect. He* was more of the sculptor, or we may say of the artist, than the 

 mere architect. As if for the purpose of exemplifying that line of Pope's, 

 which says : 



" And snatcti a grace beyond the rules of art," 

 he mapped his fingers at rules, and proportioned the entablature of the 

 Ionic or upper order, rather to the entire elevation than to the columns them- 

 selves, it being, in fact, somewhat more than half the height of the latter, in 

 bold defiance of the regulations laid down by such exemplary martinets as 

 Messrs. Vitruvius, Palladio, Viguola, and Co. In palliation of this enormity, 

 it is alleged to have been in a manner forced upon hira by the necessity, at 

 least desirableness, of making his building agree in height with the adjoining 

 Procuratic Vecchie in the Piazza di San Marco. Yet as no such consideration 

 can possibly have influenced Mr. Smirke, it maybe presumed that he adopted 

 the license for the sake of the happy artistic effect attending it, knowing 

 also that he himself was well shielded from the reproach of desperate inno- 

 vation and disregard of all system, since he has only adhered to his precedent 

 for it. 



Besides serving as an excellent lesson against narrow priggish systems 

 respecting proportions — which some have laboured to reduce to the " rule 

 of thumb," — such an example as Sansovino's, and as here carried out by Mr. 

 Smirke, may be efficacious in correcting that excessive tameness and penu- 

 riousness in architectural design which we have been wont to dignify to our- 

 selves by the flattering epithets of " chaste" and " simple." It is true, thanks 

 in a great measure to Mr. Barry, the miserable " starvation style" — more in- 

 tolerable perhaps than even the mere " hole-in-the-wall" style — has been 

 brought into disrepute; still, some specimens of bolder, freer, and more 

 copious modes of decoration than we have hitherto been accustomed to in 

 modernf architecture, are desirable. We need something too to correct our 

 taste for that flashy and frivolous mushroom sort of design which puts a 

 showy barrack-looking front to a mile-long range of houses, and then dubs 

 such brummagem a " Terrace." 



Not very many years ago, — when such truly prosaic buildings as Stafford- 

 house were looked upon almost as architectural marvels, and as indicating 



* For some account of him we refer our readers to what can be more easily referred to 

 than Temanza, the second series of Gailhabaud's Ancient and Modern Architecture, ac- 

 companying the description of the very edifice which has now been repeated in Pall- 

 Wall. 



t We here employ the term " modern" in contradlstinctiOD from medieeyal architec- 

 ture and imitations of it. 



No. 121.— Vol. X.— October, 1847. 



nearly a seven-league-boot-stride forward in taste— the idea of such a facade as 

 is the new portion of the Carlton Club-house, would have been deemed most 

 startlingly extravagant. It certainly does make the original Club-house, 

 which still stands by it entire and intact, cut a more dowdy and dismal figure 

 than ever. The contrast bet« een the two is positively curious, and worth being 

 recorded by the pencil, ere the first-mentioned structure be removed to 

 make way for the completion of the other. Not the least curious circum- 

 stance of all is that two such strongly antithetical and antagonistic tastes 

 should be exhibited in the works of two brothers, who most assuredly do not 

 at all fraternise in their architectural sympathies. The contrast presented 

 by the old (although not very old) and the new Club-house may, besides, 

 be taken as an index of the revolution in architectural taste generally, for per- 

 haps neither would Sir Robert venture to propose such a design now, nor 

 would Mr. Sydney Smirke have thought of bringing forward Sansovino in 

 the days of architectural purity, innocence, and water gruel. Sir Robert's 

 work will, of course, be very shortly expunged ; not so, however, that of 

 Soane in the adjoining ducal residence, unless his Grace of Buckingham 

 should now be spirited up into contributing his share towards the architec- 

 tural eclat of PuU-.Mall, by giving his mansion a new fa9ade in aristocratic 

 palazzo costume, to which latter it makes no pretensions at all at present, 

 although when first erected it was perhaps considered both ducal and dignified 

 enough. Whether that be ever done or no, the ducal Buckingham-house in 

 Pall-Mall will be less shamed by comparison with the new Carlton, notwith- 

 standing that it is in immediate juxtaposition with it, than the royal Buck- 

 ingham-palace in the Park, the building added to the latter being a con- 

 temporary work. Sansovino was surely wanted there,— at least might have 

 been consulted on that occasion. 



With regard to what Mr. S. Smirke is doing in Pall-Mall, we could wish 

 that as the design is so notoriously a copy, he had adhered more strictly to 

 the original in one or two particulars wherein he has now deviated from it, 

 not at all for the better. Some, indeed, there are which called for correction, 

 — the balustrading in particular, for it is not of the best proportions ; and 

 the balusters themselves are, at least in our eyes, decidedly ugly, and seem 

 designed rather for wood. work than stone. But the omitting the moulded 

 archivolts to the arches within the lower order is assuredly no improvement, 

 because it does away with that attention to keeping and consistency of 

 character with which Sansovino treated both his orders in that composition, 

 assimilating them as to general style. The Doric is of professedly ornate, 

 or we may say florid, desciption. It does not even so much as pretend to 

 Doricism, except normally and nominally, by having the usual indicial marks 

 appropriated by custom to that order. Quite as much do we regret the 

 omission of sculpture in the metopes of the frieze, and regret it all the more 

 because such embellishment would have been a very great novelty here, 

 there being, as far as we are aware, not a single example in all the country 

 of a Doric entablature so enriched — not even among those ultra-Greek 

 porticos which modestly call themselves " after the Parthenon." The only 

 excuse that might else have been alleged for the omission— and a most 

 provoking one it is— is taken away by the building itself, which totally 

 forbids the supposition that the retrenchment of such decoration, which 

 contributes so much to the unity of ensemble in the original structure, was 

 occasioned by any mere money-sparing considerations. If the tone of deco- 

 ration was to be at all moderated, it ought to have been done more uni- 

 formly, so as to preserve keeping. Happily, it is still in time to amend the 

 error in some degree ; wherefore we would advise, that in the centre part of 

 the composition the Doric frieze should have its metopes sculptured. Such 

 variation there from the rest of that entablature, while it would give us a 

 very desirable specimen of such embellishment, would be a difference con- 

 ferring no more than a very allowable kind of distinction on the central 

 portion of the facade. At any rate, we would not only recommend, but 

 earnestly entreat Mr. Smirke to re-consider, ere it be altogether too late, his 

 entrance porch and the door within it. How, with Sansovino before his 

 eyes, he could have conceived the idea of such a porch is to us incompre- 

 hensible, — a small loggia of that kind, with an entablature whose architrave 

 is supported on columns alone, being quite at variance with the mode so 

 systematically observed for the rest of the fafade. Why not fill up the front 

 of the porch with an open arcade similar to those of the ground-floor in the 

 original building? Besides keeping up consistency of design, it would 

 give the expression of compactness to that projecting feature, and boldness 

 of effect in regard to light and shade. It would produce greater richness 

 also, as the arch would, almost as matter of course, have arcbivolt mould- 

 ings, as ought also to have the window on each side of the porch in that 

 division of the front ; not forgetting sculpture in the spandrels of the arches 



40 



