96 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[March, 



SCHOOL OF DESIGN, LEICESTER SQUARE. 



O.v Monday the 15th ult., a lecture on the application of perspective, being 

 part of a course, was delivered by Oeorgc Foggo, Esq., at tlie School of the 

 Society for Promoting Practical IJesigni, Saville House, Leicester Square, 

 before a numerous and respectable audience of members of the society, 

 artists, students, &c. 



The lecturer commenced by urging the necessity of a knowledge of per- 

 spective in ornamental design ; observing that however the students in that 

 class might be inclined to undervalue such an acquirement, they could not 

 aor did not make a drawing without availing themselves of it. So accus- 

 tomed are we to see objects in perspective, that we are perpetually putting 

 objects in jierspective without being aware of it. The child newly born is 

 destitute of this knowledge, but we cannot pass through life without acquir- 

 ing it — we must perforce obtain a knowledge of the distance of objects, their 

 relative positions, their size, their colour. There is not a human being who 

 does not learn this — not an animal — we could not go through life without it. 

 Whether in historical composition, or whether in architectural design, we are 

 obliged to have recourse to perspective. The architect, after making his 

 design, may think he has nothing to do with this science, but if he do not 

 attend to it, he will soon find himself in serious difficulties. Suppose, for 

 instance, he has 'designed a frieze ; although it may look very well upon 

 paper, yet, when it comes to be placed high up, and lighted in a particular 

 way, he may find the effect very different from what he iutended. From 

 want of knowledge of this kind, lamentable errors occur ; in buildings re- 

 cently erected, ornaments are hghted with windows in such a way as to lose 

 their effects ; a delicate scroll is placed at such a distance as not to be seen, 

 and bold ornaments brought too near. 1 am anxious, said the lecturer, that 

 sin drawing ornament we should not <lraw it as if it were a mere dead inani- 

 mate object, but should remember that taste is required for designing pure 

 ornament. This may not suit those who are contented with copying, and 

 think that they have done enough when they have reproduced a design from 

 the French, or the German, or the Italian, or the Greek ; but it is the right 

 course — copying we always find limited, nature ever varying. We have 

 heard much lately about copyright of all kinds, but I think a great deal more 

 has been said than has been necessary ; I am by no means disposed to admit 

 that copyright can be derived from the mere act of copying the design of 

 another, whether that design be French or Greek, one year old or a thousand. 

 Copyright should have no right for merely copying others, but for original 

 adaptations of natural objects. Composition requires originality and power 

 of mind, without which the name is idle. The architect has irregular ma- 

 terials to bring into regular proportions ; the designer of artistical compo- 

 sitions has the opposite course, to take fixed objects, and to place them in 

 every allowable variety of attitude that is to be found in nature. Some 

 imagine that great diversity of power is required for these two objects, that it 

 takes very httle power to make an architectural design, and much to produce 

 a picture. I am not inclined, however, to allow this. Want of reference to 

 nature is, in my opinion, the principal defect of our architects, the result of 

 which is the greatest inconsistency. Tlius, if we want a church, the archi- 

 tect will, without regard to propriety, take a Greek temple for his model, 

 and so in an edifice where no sacrifice is allowed, devoted to a religion by 

 which it is abolished, we shall find the sacrificial ornaments of another creed, 

 if we are to have a theatre, the same temple is referred to, and then we get 

 the sacrificial emblems again. There is no thought of propriety, though a 

 building should be appropriate in its character to the object to which it is 

 devoted, and mark the circumstances which have influenced its erection. 

 The architect having to do principally w ith straight lines in composition, has 

 of necessity much difficulty to contend with, but he has other and greater 

 difficulties ; the want of having men of taste to judge of his productions 

 causes inactivity on the part of the architect, and the result is that he con- 

 tents himself with making a flaming copy from some antique building of 

 reputation, which pleases the committee because it saves them the trouble 

 of judging. His rival, with less knowledge of the world, labours hard to 

 produce a good plan and an original elevation ; his plan is never looked at, 

 because it is not understood, and bis elevation being placed by the side of 

 those of his competitors, is outstared by them, and so he is discarded. By 

 and bye the favoured design is carried into execution, and then, to the gene- 

 ral disappointment, it is quite inapplicable. (The lecturer here proceeded 

 to sketch the gromid plan of a building, and show the modifications which 

 would be required in the external effect by difl^rent arrangements of the 

 interior.) When an architect has got over the impediments thrown in his 

 way by the ground plan, he will, without a knowledge of perspective, find 

 himself in serious difficulties in making his elevation. There will be a want 

 of important parts, broken lines, intricacies in the external arrangements, so 

 that the eye can never repose satisfactorily. Still a good plan is a great 

 thing, and it is of much importance that the public should know what plans 

 are, for every one may now be on a committee some day, and it is very 

 essential that this point should be understood. The elevation may mislead, 

 while the plan is the first thing, and when we have provided for the useful, 

 we can afterwards see what sort of a fine frontage can be applied. Some of 

 the cabinet-makers and upholsterers studying here must very frequently be 

 applied to with regard to furniture, when they first send in a drawing of 

 what is imperatively necessary, and then do what they can to ornament it 

 afterwards. Sometimes, however, the contrary occurs ; a pretty drawing is 

 made, and when the article comes to be put up, it is found clumsy and use- 



less. Nor do I hold that it requires much less talent to design furniture 

 properly than to design a building — and, indeed, in many of our recently 

 erected club-houses, the architects have themselves designed the furniture, 

 ])late, &e. Unfortunately, however, architects have little studied this de- 

 partment, and if they attempt it, there is a baldness in their works far from 

 pleasing. 



Architects have not often, more particularly in crowded cities, the choice 

 of sit\iation, but still it is in their own power to do something more than 

 they do. There was, for instance, no necessity in Pall Mall to swamp the 

 Travellers' Club by rearing next to it the Reform ; had this been done by 

 others, Barry would most probably have been offended, but people are not 

 so offended at their own deeds as at those of their neighbours. Here, how- 

 ever, the example is given, and so, perhaps, some day we may have another 

 larger, and the Reform Club itself overshadowed. The back of the Travel- 

 ler's Club is not the less admirable, and it is much to be regretted that the 

 architect had not combined the two buildings in one design. It is, in fact, 

 a duty of arcliitects to avail themselves of the position in which their build- 

 ing is to be placed; if, for instance, the space were next to a church, then, 

 by making the new buildings, though not uniform, yet in some degree, cor- 

 respond with those on the other side, the church might be brought into the 

 composition, and so a better effect produced. Regular composition in archi- 

 tecture requires a centre and two wings ; so if we see a bridge with four 

 arches, the efiect is unpleasant, though this is sometimes avoided by making 

 the piers more prominent, but this again leads to another impropriety. The 

 bridge, to be effective, must have three or five arches. The building, too, 

 requires good thick flanks ; this Wilkins forgot, and thus, in the National 

 Ciallery, we have the flanks getting thinner and thinner till they come to 

 almost nothing. Solidity of effect is a thing imperative — the human mind 

 requires bulk — it does not consider surface sufficient ; if we see a surface, we 

 like to know what is behind it, and particularly with regard to stone, for we 

 always imagine the other front must be something similar. I may be re- 

 minded that, in the Gothic, there are exceptions and most beautiful ones, 

 butjthese are exceptions only as between the uninstructed and the instructed — 

 the instructed will see where strength is, and so be better satisfied with the 

 effect produced. It is our duty to make our building as vast as possible with 

 the materials we possess ; if we do something great with small materials, 

 money is saved ; if great materials are frittered away in petty details, we 

 have spent a vast deal to produce a little effect. It may be thought much 

 better not done at all, unless the effect be produced at Uttle expense. Two 

 instances have been greatly extolled by our travellers ; St. Peter's, at Rome, 

 say they, is so vast and so beautifully proportioned, that we do not perceive 

 its grandeur, and it is only when we come to examine some of the parts, that 

 at last we are convinced. Another instance is the column in the Place Ven- 

 dome, at Paris, which is made after a barbarous Roman model — a column in 

 Grecian proportion, is covered with a thick coat of bronze, and made gouty, 

 just like the Duke of York's column in the Park. If the Napoleon coliunn 

 appears 80 feet high instead of 150, it certainly appears to me much better 

 to have spent half the money to have produced a column which should have 

 appeared 150 feet high. It is travellers only who see things of this kind, who 

 stand openmouthed with astonishment that much money should be tlvrown 

 away to produce nothing. 



Architects very frequently complain of want of money, but with injus- 

 tice, for it is by no means the amount of money, nor the vastness of the 

 material at their disposal, on which the affair depends, particularly if money 

 be exhausted on a number of small parts. No error is greater than to divide 

 a thing into a number of small parts; if we want to know the effect, let us 

 go into a mountainous country, and we shall go on from one mountain to 

 another, and always find the object in the distance of the same comparative 

 smallness. We see the distant peak with clouds lying about the sides, di- 

 viding it, and some covering it, some lying in streaks across if, but it does 

 not appear high. We get to the top of another mountain, but a deep valley 

 lies between, and it stiU does not appear high ; we climb from crag to crag, 

 and when we have got to the top we have an unboimded view, but we do 

 not appreciate the immensity of the elevation, we feel rather deUght than 

 surprise. Had we seen a precipice, instead of 15 or 20,000, a thousand feet 

 high, the eftect woiJd have been different. Many instances might be mentioned, 

 but there is one place in the United States where the view is so terrific, that 

 no coiu-age can encounter it twice. Persons who wish to see this place go 

 provided with guides, and secured with cords, and after looking down be- 

 come senseless, and when asked always refuse to try it again. So different 

 is it to see a suiiple elevation, or to see a thing frittered away bit by bit. 

 This is not without its lesson in architecture ; the Gothic architects knew it 

 and profited by it. We see it if we look at the Gotliic spires and towers 

 with their tops wreathed with ornament ; such compositions show that our 

 ancestors understood this effect perfectly. Let us sketch a tower : we have 

 here a great height, but in proportion to the bulk is the apparent elevation 

 reduced ; to remedy this, we must do as Barry is going to do at the New 

 Houses of Parliament, we place simple turrets at the corners, sometimes of 

 unequal size to produce picturesque effect. Looking up, the eye runs along 

 this narrow line, and appreciates the full height of the object, at the same 

 time that the bulk is also felt by this combination of parts. The composition 

 of Gothic buildings requires great consideration, both of perspective and 

 composition, as well as of appropriateness of character. If we construct a 

 residence for a clergyman, we must make it comfortable, but at the same 

 time we must give it a certain clerical character ; but if we make a hotise 



