IS 16.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



271 



only it was made out after all that every tiling in it which had leen espe- 

 cially admired just before, was naught, and that the uesign would have heen 

 infiuitely better, were it almost the reverse of what it is ; wherefore we may 

 consider is fortunate for us that what we had said was not formally contra- 

 dicted and cut up. Tardy as it is, this explanation is due both to ourselves 

 and to the Journal,*— for the latter not undesirable, since it exculpates it 

 from what must have looked like inconsistency. 



We are very far from wishing — to say the truth, have more conceit of our- 

 selves than to desire that opinions which militate against our own should be 

 suppressed ; and we only claim in return that ours be not suppressed, be- 

 cause they happen not to accord with those of other persons. Differ we 

 most assuredly do very strongly, both from the author of the article " On 

 the Employment of Columns and Pediments as Window Mouldings,"— 

 (mouldings seems a terra very oddly applied to columns), — and from Dr. 

 Fulton, — who has mistaken a ludicrously droll and whimsical comparison for 

 argument ad alsurdmn against window pediments, and has flourished it 

 about accordingly for the purpose of intimidating those who allow themselves 

 to be scared by words and nicknames. But before we begin to speak of 

 windows themselves, it may be as well to say something on "Fenestration" 

 generally, — its influence on design and composition, and the characteristic 

 physiognomy occasioned by it. Rather strange to say, it is one of those 

 subjects which so far from being taken up are scarcely even approximated to 

 in architectural " treatises," and didactic writings of that kind ; and when it 

 has been touched upon elsewhere, it has been only aslant, and to fly ofi" from 

 it again in a tangent. While of speaking of columns there has been no end, 

 hardly a word has been uttered as to the essentials and conditions of Columni- 

 alion ; and in like manner, instruction with regard to windows is confined 

 to a few ordinary matter-of-fact rules — without anything being said of Fene- 

 stration as a system. Nevertheless that and Columniation are two such de- 

 cidedly distinct systems, that buildings now classed together as belonging to 

 one general style might properly enough be further distinguished accordingly 

 as they belong to, or most partake of the one or the other of the two diff'e- 

 rent modes. Neither are the two systems merely different forms, but hostile 

 and repugnant to, and almost incompatible with each other. They conflict 

 so obstinately — what is required by the one is so strongly opposed to what 

 is demanded by the other, that scarcely any treatment, however dexterous, 

 can efl^ectually reconcile them, or effect more than a tolerable compromise. 



That windows are totally at variance with the effect attending genuine 

 antique columniation, whose columns are backed by a continuous surface of 

 wall, unbroken by openings for admission of light, is indisputable. If not 

 destructive of beauty, they are destructive of the effect — associated with 

 ideas of classical taste — which results from their absence. Wherefore it 

 generally happens that the more ambitiously and rigorously classical purity 

 of style is aimed at in all other respects, columniation included, the more 

 offensive and incongruous does fenestration show itself. It avails not to say 

 that it is matter of sheer necessity, — that windows there must be, unless the 

 building — however else it may be divided within — has no division of floors, 

 in which case it may be best of all lighted through ceilings and roof. If such 

 unavoidable necessity sufliciently excuses the fenestration, it at the same time 

 condemns the practice of mixing up that and columniation for the nonce, when 

 it is, or to be, known beforehand how greatly the effect of the latter must be 

 impaired by the former. That very necessity which is pleaded by way of 

 apology, ought to be sufficient argument against a style which, however 

 scrupulously copied in regard to matters of mere detail and mechanical ex- 

 ecution, must be violated altogether in what constitutes its genuine and pe- 

 culiar physiognomy. The necessity for numerous apertures in the walls for 

 windows proves thatapjwcGreekstyle is not the one for us at the present day, 

 it being only in very rare cases, and under peculiar circumstances that it can 

 be adhered to with tolerable fidelity and consistency. Quite idle is it to 

 point out to ns the Parthenon as if it were a model expressly fitted for mo- 

 dern purposes. At any rate it ought at the same time to be pointed out also 

 that the sine qua non condition of being faithful to its Doric idiom, as well 

 as to individual forms of detail, should be observed and attended to. 



In such modern structures as the Walhalla near Regensburg, and the Ma- 

 eleine at Paris, which being lighted within entirely from above, could there- 

 fore be made peristylar externally, without any intermixture of windows, 



• There was a signature attached to the second article on the Fitxwlltiam Museum, 

 which would plainly have distinguished it, as coming from another writer, but it hap- 

 pened, moat uofortunately, to be omitted hy the printer.— £d. C. E. and A. Jommal, 



the simple dignity of columniation and the repose which ought to accompany 

 it, can easily enough be kept up. So also is it when columniation in the 

 form of portico or colonnade is employed for embellishing that side of a 

 building, where windows can be dispensed with, as is the case with the fa9ade 

 of the Berlin Museum, the Filzwilliam Museum, and the East or principal 

 front of St. George's Hall, Liverpool. 



Fenestration and Columniation are two modes of architectural composition, 

 requiring such very different treatment, and productive of such opposite 

 character, that they mutually neutralize the good eft'ect which e.ich might be 

 made to ensure separately. What would be well proportioned and dignified 

 as an astylar front, becomes almost inevitably more or less discordant, and 

 out of character as the background to any colonnade whose pillars are erected 

 in advance of it. Either the colonnade itself has the lock of being an after- 

 thought, an addition — whether made for convenience sake, or for mere 

 ostentation, — to what was or ought to have been complete without it. On 

 the other hand, the main structure itself looks as if it had been erected be- 

 hind a previously existing range of columns, originally belonging to an edifice 

 very differently constituted. While the columns seem as much to encumber 

 as to adorn the front behind them, certainly not to belong to it by evidently 

 growing out of the general organization, the windows — be they ever so un- 

 exceptionable in themselves, become blemishes, inasmuch as they cut up the 

 general composition, nay, the graceful simplicity of a colonnade, and contra- 

 dict the would-be-classical taste which is affected by merely sticking up a 

 few classical columns. Many preposterous instances of the kind are to be 

 met with in the buildings erected some few years ago when we were in the 

 heyday of our Greekomania. Of such examples we might mention scores, 

 but will content ourselves with one — nor is it by any means the worst, viz., 

 the Law Institution in Chancery Lane, which exhibits the front of a Greek 

 Ionic tetrastyle in antis temple, stuck up before one that is totally different 

 in costume, filled in with windows— it being bouselike, and therefore posi- 

 tively undignified, intimately associated as it is with what reproaches it for 

 being homely and dowdy. Well is it, perhaps, therefore that columns can- 

 not kick, or they would frequently be tempted to kick down what stands just 

 behind them. 



In fact so far from being at all fit to become yoke-mates, Fenestration and 

 Columniation pull in such contrary directions as to leave only a choice of in- 

 conveniences. One of them may be good, or the other may be good, but 

 hardly can both be rendered so or if it be attempted, the result is likely to 

 be that both the one and the other, will prove on a par by being equally un- 

 satisfactory. While good Fenestration requires wide spacing, good Columnia- 

 tion requires just the reverse, otherwise it is attended with a look of meagre- 

 ness and meanness — the very same defects that are- produced by close spacing 

 or joycnos/y/e disposition of the piers between the windows in Fenestration. 

 If there are windows in a wall behind a range of columns, corresponding 

 with the intercolumns, harmony requires that those openings should par- 

 take of the proportions of the intercolumns themselves, that is, be very nar- 

 row and lofty, and even then such openings will appear crowded together 

 and be destructive of all breadth of surface and repose behind the 

 columns, they being confined to the alternate intercolumns, as is the case in 

 the portico of the Chambre des Deputes at Paiis, which consists of twelve 

 columns in front, consequently eleven intercolumns, but has only five aper- 

 tures (doors) in its background. Therefore in that example — and we are 

 not aware of any similar one, the two different systems are admirably re- 

 conciled, and for each the particular mode of spacing which it demands, it 

 duly observed : — a merit which, remarkable as it is, has never before been 

 pointed out by any of those who have spoken of that facade, — not even by 

 Woods himself. 



In some cases the Gordian knot has been attempted to be cut by putting 

 the columns in pairs, thereby obtaining great width for the intercolumns, 

 and the breadth of two columns and a half between them. Yet although 

 this obviates the inconvenience of thick set windows and narrow piers, it ij 

 objected to as an impropriety — by architectural puritans at least, who will 

 have it to be a downright solecism, because not sanctioned by classical /jrc- 

 cedent ; which is surely being over scrupulous and hypercritical, for where can 

 they find precedent for windows at all within a Greek or Roman colonnade ? 

 If they can tolerate the one innovation, they have no right to be very much 

 scandalized at the other. 



One not unusual mode of getting over the difficulty — at least so it seems 

 to be thought — and obtaining sufficiently narrow iutercoiumuiation, at the 



35* 



