262 



THE CIVIL KXGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[Sept. 



half the diameter of the columns. And the panels thus formed, appear very 

 much to assist the expression of verticality, which we have pointed out. We 

 hardly need call attention to the development which Mr. Barry has given to 

 his attic, — rendering it not a mere addition or excresence to the order, but 

 identifying it with the latter in point of Inxuriant richness, and thereby ren- 

 dering those portions of the design crowning ones in it, — parts which are to 

 the general mass — what its capital is to a column, or its cornice to an entire 

 order. The example of an attic,whichhe has here given us, is compared with 

 the things of the kind we are accustomed to, what the comicione in his Club- 

 houses is to the meagre shelf-like cornices in that lean starvation style which 

 so long prevailed in every style we affected. Barry will have given embon- 

 point to our architecture. 



Leaving our readers to note for themselves minor specialities of design, 

 which if their attention has been at all excited by what we have said, they 

 will no doubt do, we will merely add that the north pavilion (the one shown 

 in the engraving, and which is for the Home Office), together with the two 

 adjoining compartments, has yet to be built, and will, we understand be 

 commenced almost forthwith. When the entire front is completed, it will 

 extend 29G feet, and be 56J feet in its general height, and 67^ at its ex- 

 tremities.* 



The structure is not only admirably finished up, hnt all of a piece through- 

 out, every part that is at all visible, being strictly in accordance with what 

 is completely seen. Thus the West side 'of the attic of the South or Down- 

 ing-street pavilion, is finished-up like the others, although seen only partially 

 above the adjoining buildings ; for Barry does not countenance that misera- 

 ble system oi pinafore design, which leaves the end of a building — that is, as 

 much of such end as really shows itself — whether intended to do so or not — 

 quite bare and unfinished ; as is the case with Inigo Jones' Banquetting 

 House, just by, which as there is no probability of its unsightly ends being 

 shut out from view by other buildings erected against them, ought to be 

 completed externally. Unless that be nowdone, it will cut but a poor figure 

 in comparison with Mr. Barry's new work on the opposite side of the street. 

 The South-east view of the latter presents a striking contrast to the South- 

 west view of the other, whose South end is a mere brick wall ; whereas the 

 South end or elevation of the Downing-street pavilion (the Council Office), 

 is precisely similar to the East one (therefore to the one shown in our en- 

 graving), with the slight dillerence, that there are five windows to the ground 

 floor, there being no entrance on that side. 



If there be much to excite admiration in the building, there is also some- 

 thing to excite surprise, for surprising it is or would seem to be, that so 

 superior a piece of architecture should have risen up almost all at once with- 

 out any flourish at all of newspaper trumpetings, while the most vulgar non- 

 sensical fuss is made about the most trumpery buildings imaginable, merely 

 because somebodj or other who is a somebody, performs the farcical cere- 

 mony of " laying the first stone," as it is called, to the great edification of all 

 the nobodies who assist on the important occasion. 



Fig. l.-Plnn of First Floor, Windous and Columns. 





Fig. 2.— PIftn of Ground Floor Windows and Balustrade. 



* Height from pavement to bases of coltimna 19ft. Oiii. 



Height ol'culunios .. .. ., '^ia ^ 



„ entaMafjre .. .. .. 7 rt 



„ balustrade .. .. .. 4 6 



,. altic .. .. .. 11 



Entire height . 



f,- 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS LXX. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withal, as large a charter as the winds, 

 To blow on whom I please." 



I. As Wigbtwick vows to go, D.V., to Naples and eat macaroni there, 

 it is to be hoped that he will not forget to bring back with him some pen- 

 and-ink sketchings — and if he like, some pencil sketches, too, of the recent 

 architecture of that city. There is suflicient ^aiu/um of that kind for his 

 pen, — the church, for, inslance, by that unl^'agkrized uobody, Bianchi. 

 And let him portray ihat aud whatever other buildings he speaks of, archi- 

 tecturally, so that we may be able to make out a tolerably distinct image 

 of it, not a mere forndess, shapeless Ossianic spectre. Let him take a 

 lesson from the novelists : — they after all are the people for exact and con- 

 scientious description ; they are content with nothing less than that of giv- 

 ing us a complete inventory of a heroine's "personals," noting every item 

 separately, — though with all their exactitude they uever inform us of her 

 exact weight — the weight of a mortal "sylph." As to Vesuvius, we can 

 very well dispense with any remarks on that from ^V'ightwick ; so let him 

 eschew speaking of its crater — that bore of tremendous calibre, — or we 

 shall wish that he had fairly Jumped into it, and like Empedocles, distin- 

 guished by extinguishing himself within it. 



II. It is curious that we should be indebted to a Cookery book for a 

 detailed plan of the kitchen offices in the Keform Club-house. Al. Soyer 

 has supplied a leaf that was very much wanted in architectural lore, for 

 those who have published plans of town mansions, have never revealed t 

 us the complex arcana of their below-ground territories, but have literally 

 passed over them, as matters altogether beneath them, — low, vulgar, and 

 infra dig. Yet the arrangement of the numerous separate rooms requisite 

 for an extensive domestic establishment, vvithiu the basement of a town 

 residence, calls fur the exertion of more than ordinary ingenuity and con- 

 trivance. A collection of a dozen basement plans, minutely detailed and 

 explained, would form a series of valuable and useful lessons. There 

 then, is an idea at once for a publication of entirely new character. So 

 let some one now take it up. But no, — nothing will take or go down with 

 the profession or the public, that does not address itself to and flatter the 

 present church-mania, and the passion fur studying Roman Catholic "rub- 

 bish," What with churches, church furniture, and church upholstery, on 

 the one band, and with railways on the other, the demand for architectural 

 publications of any other kind, seems to have ceased. Archaeology is all 

 very well io its place, as the handmaid to architecture, but it has of late 

 given itself such airs, and domineered at such rate, that it is time for it tu 

 be taken down a peg, and not be suBered to keep poking all sorts of paltry 

 old trumpery in our faces, and insist upon our admiring batched-faced 

 saints, and angels with dislocated limbs. — Let us escape to the kitchen. 



III. Talking of escaping to the kitchen, reminds me that the kitchen it- 

 self has completely escaped the attention of that great architectural ency- 

 clopasdist, Gwilt. Even so ; his fat FalstaS" tome contaius nothing what- 

 ever on the subject of kitchens and their accessories, and the multifarious 

 apparatus belonging to them ; an omission the more remarkable consider- 

 ing how much stufl' — stuffing I mean — he has crammed into bis book, that 

 one would never think of looking for in it. He has indeed given the word 

 " kitchen," a place in his Glossary, — and very properly, it being so strictly 

 technical a term, as to render explanation of its meaning, indispensable,— 

 indispensable at least for the information of those over-and-above genteel 

 young ladies in middling life who are presumed never to have entered a 

 kitchen, or to know what sort of operations are carried on in one. It is 

 only thus that the insertion of such a word can be accounted for, while so 

 many strictly architectural terms which are not to be found in general dic- 

 tionaries, or even in encycloptedias, are omitted. Nor are ouiissionsof the 

 last-mentioned kind the most remarkable of all in Gwilt's book, because 

 he has chosen to omit Kickman's well known work in the list which he 

 gives of publications on Gothic architecture. I say " chosen" to omit, be- 

 cause it is not for a moment to be supposed that he was ignorant of the 

 existence of a work which besides being exceedingly useful as a synopsis 

 or catalogue of English structurei in that style, is continually referred to 

 as an authority. There are besides what look very much like instances 

 of intentional forgetfulness, in regard to other publications, which though 

 not mentioned by him were as well or better entitled to such distinction as 

 very many of those which obtained it. That on Barry's Travellers' Club- 

 house, is of sufficient merit if only on account of the examples of Italian 



