1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEEERAND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL 



129 



THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM. 



( With an Engraving, Plate VI.) 

 Possessing some points of resemblance, the fafade of the Fitzwilliam 

 and that of the British Museum are the antitheses of each other in regard 

 to architectural composition and taste. The Cambridge edifice was in- 

 finitely more fortunate than the metropolitan one will have been ; and per- 

 haps very much better than it might have been had there been no compe- 

 tition — no trial of skill, but had the building-trustees merely placed them- 

 seWes in the hands of some "crack name" in the profession. And what- 

 ever may be said against the littledirty jobbing that is so rife in the paltry 

 hole-and-corner competitions in which ten or twenty guineas are offered 

 for the successful design, — the Fitzwilliam Museum is a proof of the bene- 

 ficialness of Competition when conducted with good faith, and with the 

 sincere intention of obtaining a good design, no matter by whom it might 

 be. At that time hardly would the name of George Basevi have been any 

 recommendation, for he had given no great promise of particularly good 

 taste in any of his previous works, — to own the truth, we ourselves should 

 have felt more prejudiced against than prepossessed in favour of him. 

 However, when the opportunity for accomplishing something of note did 

 present itself, he responded to it worthily, and produced what is by far 

 the most elegant structure in the classic or modern style that Cambridge 

 can show, — beyond all comparison superior to the affected would-be Gre- 

 cian style, and miserable pedantic dulness of Downing College. Had not 

 the latter been so decided a failure, it is probable that its architect would 

 have been engaged to make designs for the Museum, yet we question 

 whether he would have produced anything so good by many degrees, for 

 Milkins was not at all gifted with imagination or invention : he had in him 

 more of the archaeologist than of the architect— that is, the artist;— he had 

 too much of the mere rust of antiquity, and too little of the sterling metal 

 of his art. 



Pre-eminent among all the buildings at Cambridge with which it at all 

 admits of comparison, the Fitzwilliam Museum, at least its fafade- is 

 hardly rivalled by any other of its time in this country, in point of novelty 

 and felicity of idea, and for equally captivating and striking effect. Or if 

 there be any other which has so much of picture, and of the poetry of the 

 style in it, we shall be glad to learn where it is to be found, in order that 

 we may honour it accordingly, and have something we yet wot not of, 

 upon which we can bestow our cordial admiration. 



Were it little remarkable in any other respect, the facade we are speak- 

 ing of, most strikingly exemplifies the possibility of obtaining decided 

 novelty of composition, and consequent originality of character, in perfect 

 accordance with the style followed. The idea here adopted is so exceed- 

 ingly natural, that our chief wonder is at its having been missed so long ; 

 and that it was, is to be accounted for only by that unlucky adherence 

 to routine, which apparently prevents architects from seizing hold of fresh 

 ideas, and new combinations. We do not say that all fresh ideas are to 

 be laid hold of indisoriniinately and actually adopted ; all we mean is that 

 those which can be made something of, and be satisfactorily matured, 

 ought to be brought forward whenever opportunity offers. Nevertheless 

 in regard to columnar composition architects seem to have voluntarily re- 

 nounced all originality of design. Modern porticoes— and their name is 

 " legion"— are almost one and all the most common-place affairs imagin- 

 able,— (he work of the stone-mason rather than of the architect, consisting 

 as they do only of so many columns in front- four, six, or eight, wrought 

 after some prescribed standard example. Dulness seems to have set "its 

 mark upon almost every thing of the kind, for out of some hundreds of 

 modern examples— or, we should say, instances— there are hardly half a 

 score which exhibit aught of design, or even study. Indeed, the majority 

 of them are no better than arrant " Brummagem,"— a few columns be- 

 neath a pediment tacked on to a front which in many cases would be a de- 

 gree less intolerable, certainly less paltrily vulgar without them. Among 

 the exceptions, the portico of the Fitzwilliam Museum deserves an honour- 

 able place : instead of being after some antique specimen, it has the better 

 merit of being be/ore almost all modern ones, in respect to beauty of ar- 

 rangement, in which respect it can be but imperfectly appreciated from the 

 elevation alone, much of the peculiar merit of the design arising from the 

 plans, and not to be understood, except in the building itself, where it is 

 plainly enough felt, without a drawing of the latter kind. The Fitzwilliam 

 Museum has in consequence been taken in the article " Portico" in the 

 Penny Cyclopajdia, as an example of peculiar arrangement, and we might 

 fairly call it one that at present constitutes a class by itself, or else the 

 No. 104.— Vol, LX,— May, 1846. 



model for a class that would afford scope for design. Confined as they 

 now are to mere columuiation in its simplest mode, porticoes are made 

 features stamped by most monotonous and wearisome sameness ; yet after 

 all that can be done, there must ever be enough of characteristic resem- 

 blance and conformity to the original type, llie frontispiece or external ele- 

 vation of the prostyle or portico division, invariably consisting of a line of 

 columns beneath a pediment. In that respect there is but one stereotype 

 idea to work upon, and all the Tariety that can be imparted to it amounts 

 to no more than minor differences as regards matters of detail and execu- 

 tion. Still it is this mere stereotype frontispiece that chiefly obtains notice, 

 and if that be but secundum artem, and upon a tolerably imposing scaled 

 the whole obtains credit for being a fine portico, let its other deficiencies' 

 and defects be what they may. Such is most assuredly the case with re- 

 gard to the extravagantly cried-up portico of St. Martin's, which is so far 

 from possessing any unity of design, that it rather exhibits two decidedly 

 opposite styles brought into violent contrast with each other, the inner ele- 

 vation* forming the back ground to the external one or Corinthian hexa- 

 style, being the very reverse of the latter in character and taste— positively 

 barbarous in comparison with it. To say the truth, as usually treated, a 

 portico is little more than an arrant plagiarism, and as frequently as not 

 betrays equal sterility of imagination and vulgarity of taste, there being 

 nothing at all in common between such pretentious feature and the building 

 to which it is applied, but to which it does not seem at all to belong. 

 Thanks, however, perhaps to the intense vulgarity and dulness together of 

 many things of the kind, the portico-mania which prevailed some yean 

 ago, has latterly subsided. Nothing could be more desperately dull and 

 dowdy than the majority of the things of that kind which were then perpe- 

 trated, when in order to provide for what after all looked no better thau 

 an excrescence, if not actually an encumbrance, all the rest was left 

 quite bare or nearly so, instead of being decorated and finished up in 

 accordance with the other. Thus instead of encouraging architectural de- 

 sign, the application of ready-made porticoes became a substitute for it • 

 and instead of improving the appearance of the buildings themselves, they 

 were actually the cause of their being left more bare and poverty-stricken 

 than they else might have been without at all greater cost being incurred. 

 A portico is so decidedly a feature of parade, and such a direct avowal 

 of pretension to classical dignity of manner that unless the latter can be 

 fully maintained, it is what had better not be attempted; and in regard to 

 convenience such architectural appendages are in general so exceedingly 

 deficient in depth that so far from affording adequate shelter at the entrance 

 to a building, they rather express the want of it, by making it too evident 

 that what seems to be thought requisite is not obtained. In order to be 

 effective a portico demands depth and spaciousness of plan ; yet it is very 

 rarely indeed that they can be— at least, are afforded, which becomes an 

 additional reason wherefore things of the kind should be reserved for suit- 

 able occasions —for those rare opportunities when they can be treated with 

 gusto, and made to partake of the poetry of the art. 



The facade of the Fitzwilliam Museum answers truly to the latter cha- 

 racter, nor is there aught of the ordinary and prosaic to disturb the im- 

 pression produced by the general composition. As the front or external 

 line of the plan, it consists almost entirely of columuiation, regularly dis- 

 posed (all the intercolumns being equal throughout), yet so as to combine 

 play and variety with continuousness, in which respect we consider this de- 

 sign to be an improvement upon Schinkel's fafade of the Berlin Museum, 

 —we know not if Basevi took a hint from it,— which is too much of a mere 

 colonnade (eighteen columns in antis), and would be rather tame and mo- 

 notonous were not some effect thrown into it by the disposition and decora- 

 tion of its background and interior. In the Cambridge edifice the projecting 

 octastyle and its pediment are now so well proportioned to the rest, and 

 maintain such superiority in the composition that more prol)ably would 

 have been lost than gained had the extent of front been greater, unless the 

 whole could at the same lime have been on an enlarged scale, so as to ob- 

 tain increase of height as well as of length. For although extent of fafarle 

 is generally held to be a positive merit, it may be carried to excess; and 

 when it exceeds a certain ratio as compared with height, instead of at all 

 conducing to grandeur, is rather apt to induce littleness of manner, as may 

 be seen by the facade of ti.e unlucky National Gallery, where in order to 

 give due importance to the portico as the main division, the architect broke 

 up the rest into insignificant parts ; besiiies which, its length— or, speaking 



* It is to be wished tliat this inner front wall were refaceil and subjected to such " re 

 facciamento" as would bring it into something like keeping with the character indicaterf 

 by the order of the portico : the central duornay which although arched, is not loftier 

 than the others, looks quite depressed in consequence, as compared with them and aim 

 gether evidences most vile and barbarous taste. ' 



17 



