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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[April, 



merits of modern buildings are accused of forminK their judgment on cir- 

 cumstances peculiar to each individual case, and not on broad general 

 rules. The criterion however which we here advocate, that of faithfulness 

 is certainly suHiciently general and definile. It were difficult to overrate 

 the advance which modern architecture might make, were the necessity of 

 using forms and materials faithfully once fully established in the minds of 

 architects and critics. Even if such an obvious truth as this could be once 

 firmly established— that a col.imn when not used as a support, is simply a 

 deformity— that the hoisting of a column on the first floor of a building, or 

 the slicking it against the face of a wall, where instea.l of supporting the 

 building it is supported by it-if only such plain lessons as these could be 

 learned°we should have made a bold step towards the attainment of purity 



of taste. , , .. J 



Those who really love the art, and feel a generous zeal for its advance- 

 ment, should devote their best energies to the development, and establish- 

 ment of philosophical principles in it. It is a painful but unavoidable re- 

 flection that while in most other professions the ability of the practitioner 

 outrunsthe desires of the people, modern architecture scarcely ever satisfies 

 their expectations. There is no difficulty however in assigning a sufhcient 

 reason for these deficiencies. Almost all other branches of modern skill ex- 

 hibit a spirit of a philosophical accuracy which exactly accords with the 

 intellectual genius of the age ; iu architecture alone we are still tramrnelled 

 by obsolete forms, and instead of adopting the principles and emulating 

 the excellence of the purest ancient architecture, continually reproduce the 

 barbarous incongruities invented by our more immediate ancestors. 



CHURCH ARCHITECTURE, AND CHRIST CHURCH, 

 PLYMOUTH. 



Only by the encounter of opinion with opinion is it that prejudice can be 

 overcome, and truth elicited in matters of opinion, criticism and taste. 

 Such encounter, however, cannot take place unless contrary, and conflicting 

 opinions are brought forward in the same quarter, so that the same 

 ,Tad rs may learn vvhat is said on both sides of the question ; otherwise 

 hevTet on y one-perhaps the weaker half of the argument, "I'-b passes 

 for being uuLswerable, merely because it is unanswered, or -t allow d 

 be answered, all that would make against the side which has been 

 taken up, being studiously suppressed. Such conventent -e-sidede 

 generally takes the plausible name of consistency, and it certainly flatters 

 the indolence of those who having made up their minds upon any subject 

 „f inquiry, once for all, do not like to be disturbed and put to the 

 troubk of reconsidering what they would fain believe to be incontro- 

 vertible Yet even sound opinions are apt to grow rusty by tune, and the 

 advocacy of them to degenerate into mere dogmatism, if they be not oc- 

 casonaly stirred up and turned over afresh. This has been decidedly 

 the case w ith regard to architectural opinion and criticism, in which brow- 

 beating assertion founded chiefly upon previous autborat.ve dicta, has been 

 substituted for convincenient, whether in confirmation of o, in opposition 

 ,0 such authorities ; for nearly the same superstitious reverence (or precedent 

 „hich prevails in regard to architectural styles, prevails also in regard to 

 Trchitectural doctrines. Nevertheless, even doctrines that are sound in 

 the ml n, require sometimes to be further explained, to be illustrated by 

 posi v -nV.-dtobeset in a fuller and clearer igt ; and ,t is 

 owTngtothisact being done, that so far from being able to defend the 

 uTdifional opinions and arguments which they have adopted at the outset 

 'their studies, people feel bewildered when they find them impugned 

 ind unable to defend them, though they may be obstinately determined not 

 to irive them up, or even admit any qualification of them. 



Wherefore should not architectural criticism, instead of being confined to 

 the narrow and beaten track in which it is now made to move-or raUier 

 hobble along just at the heels of precedeut-a sort of lu^uais de paceio it, 

 and sometime a Will-o-.the.Wisp,-why, I ask, should it not be allowed to 

 IgeTre y and exercise itself as it lists 1 It is time for us now to turn 

 our atte ntion to something more than the consideration of styles alone and 

 2 mere settling ofdates and matters of that kind, to which the study of 

 *e"t as a branch of literature and criticism has hitherto been almost 

 delusively limited, the merely historical and antiquarian quite over- 

 ZlLnX.sthetic; whereby such study has been rendered one Uiat 

 chiefly exercises the faculty of memory, leaving that of taste inactive, and 



inert. If in addition to the historical and non-architectural we obtain 

 tolerably full matter-of-fact description, it is nearly the utmost that we 

 ever do. Take our English Cathedrals — for they have been more 

 frequently and more minutely spoken of than any other structures of the 

 tint ; which among them all has been made the subject of a complete 

 critical and rtsthetic examination, noticing every peculiarity in it? In 

 other words, have we any urtiftical descriptions of them ?— that sort of 

 description which not only illustrates but illuminates, kindling up into 

 beauty, irradiating and making clearly perceptible what is also hardly 

 discernible to ordinary eyes ? 



No wonder, therefore, that persons in general hold architecture to be a 

 dry study, and find it to be a distasteful one, encumbered with grave and 

 learned pedantry on the oue hand, and a dully plodding, and mere 

 mechanical pursuit on the other ; while as to the vaunted mystic excellence 

 of 'proportions,' thanks to those who have systematized them, they are to 

 be got at ready-made— for the matter of that so is criticism too, and the 

 essence of it consists not in judging of buildings according to their in- 

 trinsic and individual merit as productions of architecture, but in prejudging 

 them according to certain conventionalities, and wherever those are broken 

 through, in condemning without further inquiry. Nearly the same one- 

 sidedness which once scouted Gothic architecture tl ogether, as barbarous, 

 prevails now, the difference being that it is in contrary direction, pushing 

 veneration for it'to superstition. 



Cumbersome tediousness, amounting to nothing as architectural inform- 

 ation, and bewildering unreadableness are the prevailing faults of most of 

 the recent publications which profess to speak at length of our ancient 

 architecture as exemplified in particular buildings. As to modern churches, 

 though they obtain more frequent and a far greater share of notice than almost 

 all the other classes of buildings put together, they are criticised only £«- 

 cletiologicalhj, or else cried up as wonders in newspaper paragraphs that 

 read very much like paid-for newspaper puff's. Mr.Wightwick may, there- 

 fore, consider himself singularly fortunate, and his Christ Church at Ply- 

 mouth especially favoured by the latter having been made the subject of 

 remarks partaking of controversy ; and as I myself think think it has been 

 captiously censured for what I am inclined to look upon as an improve- 

 ment rather than the contrary, in modern church architecture, — at least 

 where galleries are introduced, I avail myself of the opportunity arising 

 out of what has been said to offer some further observations. Besides 

 that, I honour Mr. AVightwick for being one of the fevr of the profession 

 who think for themselves, without waiting to be prompted by precedent 

 on everv occasion. Caadidus owes him some reparation for having pub- 

 lished, sometime ago, a paper in one of the leading periodicals, entitled 

 "Wightwickism," intended to be commendatory, but which some dull 

 matter-of-fact blockhead in a Plymouth newspaper pronounced to be 

 nothing less than a complete cut-up !— whereas, had that been my object, 

 I should have exhibited my ability in cutting-up after a very difl"erent 

 fashion. Perhaps, for the benefit of the country gentlemen, that is, country 

 newspaper editors, I ought to give warning that I am not going to cut-up 

 Wightwick now; tout au contr aire, to give him my good word— and it 

 may go for just as much as that of many others. 



In his reply to the strictures upon his church at Plymouth, Mr. Wight- 

 wick asks if it be "quite fair to call the only front that shows a j/tow 

 front." Most certainly not, if that terra is to be;taken, as was evidently meant 

 in an injurious and reproachful sense ; and if not so intended, it is only an 

 Anglicised version of the Italian 'fnciuta,' and our naturalized Anglo-Italian 

 word '/«(adc.' As a term of a reproach in contradistinction to ' facade,' 

 that [of ' show-front' applies only where the other sides of a building are 

 seen, yet are quite out of keeping with the display affected in the principal 

 one. The British Museum, for instance, will have a veritable show-front, 

 and even that front will be in some measure disfigured by the paltry 

 buildings which are allowed to come into sight between the main body of 

 the edifice and the west wing. It will be said by some that a church ought 

 to stand quite apart from other buildings, so as to show more than a 

 mere fafade towards the street : yet such 'ought' is not very evident, it 

 depending in a great measure upon circumstances, and even where there 

 is nothing to prevent a church from being quite insulated; that may be 

 rather a disadvantage than not in regard to architectural design, because 

 if the funds are limited, either architectural finish will be contioed almost 

 exclusively to the west or entrance end of the building, which therefore 

 becomes a mere show-front, or such inconsistency is avoided only by im- 

 poverishing that and making the whole exterior equally poor and insipid 

 throughout. One or other of these flagrant defects is exemplified in most 

 I of our modern structures, whatever merit some of them may possess in 



