THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



330 



itself Good composition does not admit at the utmost of above two tiers 

 of windows in the intercolumns, and even then it is better if the second 

 ran^e of them are either mezzanine ones, or very little more in height. 

 The'refore, if two stories are required above the ground-fioor, the latter 

 must be treated as basement, and the order be elevated upon '<-•'"' 

 course which Barry was forced to adopt in altering the Board of Trade. 

 That done, «u additional range of windows can be obtained only m the 

 form of an attic story, because to put a second order over one which com- 

 prises more than a single floor, and therefore ought, exclusive of other 

 superstructure than a mere attic, to complete the elevation, is beginning 

 again, and piling up one building on the top of another. L.lher there 

 ou"ht to be a separate order to every separate floor-no matter how many, 

 -or if the composition be not regulated that way, there ought to be no 

 more lines of windows than will properly come in within a single order. 

 As far indeed, as precedent to the contrary avails anything, it may 

 easily be found, as it raav for a great many other faults of composition, 

 and we have now got precedent for;;«?i/-/e«cs(ra(mH-so to describe it-in 

 coninnction with an order, where three tiers are inserted into the inter- 

 columns, such being the design of the front of the Royal Institution in 

 Albemarlestreel, and the wings of the British Museum. In one respect, 

 perhaps, such disposition seems to suit colmumniation exceedingly well, 

 because the intercolumns are kept narrower ; yet that single advanlage is 

 considerably outweighed by several inconveniences. While, on the one 

 band, fenestration preponderates too much in the general composition, 

 owing to the multiplicity of windows ; so, on the other, does columniation 

 (columns or pilasters, as may be the case,) make the windows appear com- 

 paratively insignificant features ; nor is it the columns alone that do so, 

 for they being nearly as much in diameter as the width of the windows, 

 the entablature, proportioned to them, seems quite disproporlioned to the 

 height of the floors. The consequence is, the order and the building itself 

 are upon difterent scales ; the former has the look of having been origin- 

 ally intended to form an open colonnade, whose intercolumns have been 

 afterwards built up and filled in with windows, as was actually the case 

 with the Temple of Antoninus, at Rome, which Bernini (if we mistake 

 not) converted by such process into the Dogana or Custom-house. Thus the 

 temple and house-front characters, irreconcileable and repugnant to each 

 other as they are, are brought inlo immediate contact with each other. 

 The Albemarle-stieet building is evidently after the Roman one, and the 

 Museum wings are not much Wiind: all that is not column is window, 

 and vke-versi. If, however, such mode has nothing to recommend it 

 ssthetically, it has the merit of being au exceedingly simple one, and of 

 evading a great deal of trouble. 



[Nov. 



RUSTIC MASONRY. 



We have been compelled by the more immediate urgency of other sub- 

 jects to defer till now the reply to the paper on Rustication, by Candidus, 

 which appeared in our August number. Free discussion respecting the 

 principles of architecture is by no means to be discouraged, for during the 

 last three centuries mere conventionalism has so completely usurped the 

 place of true art, that we may easily foresee the long and obstinate contest 

 which prejudice will wage against the resumption of correct principles. 

 Still the discussion, however necessary it is for ultimate success, must be 

 restrained within certain limits ; and we therefore feel entitled to protest 

 a^rainst the controversial tone assumed by our opponent. The paper to 

 w^hichwe are about to reply, commences with the assumption that our 

 profession of willingness "to be set right," was insincere; and though 

 there has been no hesitation in bringing this charge of disingenuousness, 

 not the least attempt is made to support it. Bare assertion can only be 

 met by counter-assertion, and it therefore seems sufficient to assure Candi- 

 dus that our declaration of readiness to listen to temperate reasoning was 

 made in perfectly good faith, and that we see no reason to repent of having 



made it. ,. .i. u- r 



These preliminary remarks seem the more necessary because the chief 

 object of the present paper will be not so much to defend our original argu- 

 ments as to show that the purport of them has been generally misunder- 

 stood in the subsequent paper. Passing over, therefore, the first paragraph, 

 in which the writer states, with singular modesty, his intention of exposing 

 the "futility and one-sidedness" of our objections, we come to the first 

 argument properly so called :-it is, that as this country possesses neither 



the marble nor the climate of Greece, our masonry will not retain perfect 

 uniformity of tint and surface, and that it is an advanlage to obtain a dif- 

 ferent species of regularity by the means of rustication. This, like most 

 apologetic argument, proves too much ; for the direct conclusion from it 13 

 that rustication should be employed in this country-not occasionally— but 

 always The rule would stand thus that in Greece and all " sunny 

 cliraeV" rustication should never be adopted, but that in all northern or 

 humid countries, the joints of masonry ought on all occasions to be bevilled 

 in order to palliate the efl-ect of diversity of " tint and surface." In ihis case 

 then, unfluted columns, such as those of the portico of the Royal Exchange, 

 should be marked by a series of horizontal annuli at the junction of the 

 blocks composing each shaft. The same argument would apply to Me- 

 dieval architecture also, and we must conclude that the walls of our ca- 

 thedrals would be improved in appearance if covered with a rectangular 

 mesh-work of horizontal and vertical lines. 



The nest paragraph attributes to us a condemnation of all that has beCQ 

 added to or engrafted upon Grecian architecture— a condemnation of Roman 

 and Italian architecture. This statement is inaccurate— we would indeed 

 reject the combination of the principles of Greek architecture with other 

 discordant principles, and readily avow that many (not all) of the innova- 

 tions of the Roman and Italian styles were inharmonious. This however 

 does not amount to a total condemnation of those stjies, and we have else- 

 where attempted to point out in the paper on " Trabeatio.i and Arcuation," 

 the true method of discrimination. We may here notice, out of its course, 

 an assertion in another part of the paper now under discussion, 'o wl''c'> 

 we are accused of " fairly damning modern architecture altogether. The 

 charge is as unfair as it is unfounded; if the object of it be to enlist the 

 prejudices of the reader against our arguments, it signally fails of its elfect, 

 for we have never condemned any modern building in which the canon of 

 architectural faithfulness is tolerably well observed. We have frequently 

 spoken of the superiority of modern architecture to that of the last age, and 

 have occasionally done even some violence to our opinions, by speaking lu 

 terms of partial admiration of buildings which exhibit little regard for 

 principles of constructive decoration. 



The objection that our views respecting rustic masonry ought for con- 

 sistency to be extended to the fluting of columns seems pur. ly factious, 

 since it is obvious that parallel lines of fluting contribute to the principal 

 esthetic idea of columns-their verticality ; whereas our main argument 

 against scoring masonry all over with a vast number of lines running both 

 perpendicularly and horizontally was that they distracted the eye and sug- 

 gested no esthetic idea whatever. The remarks respecting the Madeleine, 

 must have been written in total misapprehension of our meaning or else 

 are the result of a hasty and careless inspection of that bnildiog-if indeed 

 there be not an attempt on the part of the writer to criticise the architec- 

 ture without having seen it. We will venture to say that no competent ob 

 server, who has actually inspected the Madeleine, will contradict our as- 

 sertion that the horizontal channels indented in the walls of the cella greatly 

 injure the etfect of the periplery. The columns do not stand out with that 

 bold relief, which they would have, were the background left plain, and 

 their vertical character is greatly injured by the horizontal lines running 

 behind them and apparently meeting them at right angles. This is so no- 

 toriously a matter of fact-of common observation, that it has never yet 

 been disputed by those who have seen the building. However we may 

 perhaps facilitate the proper conception of the argumert by referring to 

 analogous instances nearer home. If Candidus will examine the two last 

 plates in this Journal, representing the Board of Trade as it was, and as it 

 is he will find in both facades a number of horizontal lines extending the 

 wiiole length of them, which distract the eye and almost destroy the verti- 

 cal character of the columns. In the later edition of the government 

 offices the rustic lines are not continued quite up to the columns, but stop 

 ■igainst a plain panel ; still the defect is but little palliated by this contri- 

 vance-the mental eye continues the lines, and the naiural eye is conse- 

 quently offended by the incongruity and confusion. The same remark ap- 

 plies to the windows between the columns: the mouldings ot the sills and 

 architraves range in horizontal lines, and the eflect is nearly the same as if 

 those lines were continued to meet the columns. This seems .he true rea- 

 son for the axiom laid down by many architectural writers that two range, 

 or stories of windows ought not to be included within one order of coluinns 

 and also for the objection laid down in the article on Fenestration (p. 271), 

 that where windows are introduced between a colonnade '-the columns 

 seem as much to encumber as to adorn the front behind them, certainly not 

 "to belong to it by growing out of the general organization. f he bor.zou- 



