1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



451 



» present amount to about eighty, or half the number proposed, are 

 1 uniform in size, and in the Hermes fashion; and in regard to them 

 e mav here endeavour to meet an objection likely to be made. That 

 there should be no statues, but only busts, may at first strike as rather a 

 strange circumstance, inasmuch as the latter maybe thought somewhat 

 insignificant, and merely accessory objects in comparison with the 

 sple"ndid building in which they are deposited. No doubt they are so, 

 if considered individually, but certainly not, when considered collect- 

 ively, for then they make a prodigious sum total, and their importance 

 and interest become in keeping with the architecture around them. 

 Certain it is that not one half of the same number of statues could have 

 been properly arranged within the same space, and what is not least 

 of all deserving consideration is, that by busts being adopted, one ex- 

 ceedingly great difficulty has been entirely got over, we mean that of 

 costume. In this respect, some of the earlier figures might have 

 proved suitable enough for sculpture, but then the later ones would 

 have contrasted very disagreeably, not to say ridiculously, with them. 

 So represented, would Mozart and Goethe have seemed to have been 

 of the same race, of the Germanic stock, as Otto der Grosse, and 

 Friedrich der Rothbart? The sculptors employed upon the former 

 would consequently have worked at a very great disadvantage com- 

 pared with those who were favoured by the costume of the other 

 figures, which, besides being more picturesque in itself, admits of being 

 treated more freely. However skillfully managed, Goethe's coat 

 would have been in our eyes, merely the very prosaic outside of a 

 great poetical intellect. In most, if not all of the modern statues there 

 would have been too much of the tailor and frizeur, unless they bad 

 been put into "night-gown and slippers" deshabille. The Gordian 

 knot which has hitherto caused so much perplexity, and given rise to 

 such very opposite opinions in regard to the adoption of modern cos- 

 tume and sculpture, has therefore been on this occasion, if not un- 

 ravelled, dexterously cut through. 



Another knotty point, however, there still remains, — at least, what 

 has been made such by those who object to the Walhalla, — that its 

 architectural character — noble as it is in itself— is quite at variance 

 with the name and purpose of the building. These, they say, lead us 

 to look for a monument in a very different style of the art — not Gre- 

 cian, but Germanic. And as far as names and their influence go, this 

 sounds, well ; hut then if the objection is a natural one, it is so much so 

 that it seems to have been adopted at once, without a second consider- 

 ation beirg bestowed upon it, and as if it could not possibly be met by 

 any counter-objection. It may fairly be questioned whether anything 

 nearly equally satisfactory would have been produced in the Gothic 

 style; for that is one in which the Germans of the present day have 

 not been eminently successful. Besides which, not only would a 

 Gothic structure upon the same scale, have appeared comparatively 

 small and deficient in bulk and majesty, but would, in all probability, 

 have borne too close a resemblance to a church, and have looked more 

 like a building dedicated to religion, than to art. The applying any 

 such form for a secular purpose, might therefore, have been construed 

 into a desecration of it; whereas that of a Greek temple is not asso- 

 ciated, in our minds, with any ideas of particular sanctity, nor does it 

 excite other feelings of veneration than of those for art. Admitting 

 that the Walhalla — that is, its exterior, is scarcely more than a repe- 

 tition of the Parthenon, it is also the only one — that which alone of all 

 the things pretending to be 'after' the Parthenon, convevs an ade- 

 quate impression of what the original was in its pristine state. Were 

 the Athenian structure still perfect, it might have been a question if it 

 was worth while to erect a duplicate of it elsewhere, and for a very 

 different purpi.se. Yet such is not the case; neither is the Walhalla 

 a mere copy of it, and no more; because while it is so far a truthful 

 copy of it as to exhibit the grandeur derived from loftiness of site, 

 this last circumstance is here treated more architecturally, the ascent 

 up to the building being immediately combined with it, and made a 

 very principal and striking portion ol the entire composition. 



We have now dwelt so long upon the subject of the Walhalla, 

 nevertheless passing over much which we could have introduced into 

 what we have said, that we have left ourselves no space for noticing 

 other productions of German architecture, although some of them 

 would furnish equal matter for remark, for description perhaps still 

 more. Among them is the Resident at Munich, a vast pile, forming 

 not only a pa Lice, but almost a cluster of palaces, comprising as it 

 does the Konigebau, the FestLau (with a facade nearly SOU feet in 

 extent), the jillerhedigen-Cajielle, &c. Much, very much more, also, 

 could we say on the subject of the Encyclopaedia were we not here 

 obliged to ecu elude. Which being the case, greatly as he dislikes 

 German architecture, Mr. Gwilt has, upon this occasion, some reason 

 to be satisfied with it, inasmuch as the notice we have bestowed upon 

 it has diverted our attention from his own work. As it is, what we 

 have said will at least serve to show what sort of matter and infor- 



mation he has thought fit to pass over, and likewise to prove that 

 much as he may affect to despise " anonymous critics," and all who 

 w rite for periodical publications, some of them are quite as much, if 

 not more an courant da jour than himself, and certainly understand 

 equally well what is now likely to be expected, both by the public and 

 the profession, from a work styling itself "An Encyclopedia of 

 Architecture." 



OBSERVATIONS ON ARCHITECTS AND ARCHITECTURE 



By Henry Fulton, M.D. 



No. 4. 



CONCILIATION HALL, PUBLIN. 



Scale 10 feet to the inch. 



1st Clown. — Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright or a car- 

 penter ? 



2nd Clown. — Marry now I cannot tell. 



1st Clown.- — Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will 

 not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, 

 say a grave maker, for the houses that he makes last till doomsday. 



Hamlet. 



It is not to a grave maker that the inhabitants of Dublin are in- 

 debted for the design of the Conciliation Hall (intended as the place 

 of meeting for the Repeal Parliament), else doubtless it would have 

 been erected with more durable materials than brick and plaster, yet 

 from certain curly-cues on the summit, such as frequently ornament 

 the last portable receptacle of frail humanity, we may form a tolerably 

 correct notion of the enterprising undertaker of the design. But far 

 be it from me to insinuate that any calling or profession should debar 

 a man from studying the noble science of architecture, I only impeach 

 the judgment of those committees of selection who do not cause to- 

 be produced something more worthy their country and their age. It 

 matters not to the public by whom produced, or whether the artist has 

 or has not half the alphabet as a sequence to his name, provided the 

 design does credit to his taste and to the discernment of his em- 

 ployers. 



The architect has given us a pleasing variety of the emblems of 

 war and peace in military cocked and opera hats above the windows, 

 the warlike being in proportion to the peaceful as three is to two, and 

 thus following the example of the facade of Antrim House in Meirion 

 Square, erected for the late President of the late Royal Institute of 

 the Architects of Ireland, Then we have a sham pediment, which 

 does not mark the outline of the gable, but defines just nothing at all, 

 as the ridge of the roof is on a level with the top moulding of the 



