1S41.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL 



119 



to such excess as rather to occasion monotony than to contribute to 

 variety of design ; for if the general character of Greek temples was 

 invariably uniform, presenting in the exterior merely lines of columns, 

 the amphitheatres and similar works of the Romans consisted only of 

 continuous tiers of arches, which constituted their more strongly 

 marked features, the columns placed against their tiers lieing merely 

 ornamental accessories, and coni))aratively of little effect, and even 

 that not of the very best kind. In either case — the Roman or the 

 Greek — a single compartment of an edifice, whether arcaded or colon- 

 naded, serves as a pattern for the whole ; and although uniformity and 

 continuitv conduce to grandeur, yet if precisely the same kind of uni- 

 formity recurs in every building of the same class, it becomes weari- 

 some. 



We now come to consider a practice eventually adopted, by means 

 cf which the arch and column became amalgamated as integral parts 

 of the same ordinance, viz. that of supporting arches upon colunms, 

 making them spring either directly from their capitals or from an 

 entablature-shaped block over them. We are aware that this practice 

 is almost uniformly condemned as barbarous and absurd; yet in our 

 opinion somewhat too hastily, and with more of prejudice than of fair 

 examination. That it was introduced during the decline of the art, 

 and that it was an innovation subversive of former principles, is not 

 to be denied. Yet if it must be reprobated, it ought to be so for its 

 own demerits, not as an innovation ; for all invention is such. It ap- 

 pears a very poor argument against it, to say that columns were origi- 

 nally designed to support horizontal architraves ; we do not see how 

 that circumstance, of necessity, renders everv other application inad- 

 missible. At that rate we must censure as vicious a great deal of 

 both Roman and modern architecture, where attached columns are 

 employed merely as ornaments, vet, as frequently as not, in such, man- 

 ner as to produce a character of littleness and poverty, they being so 

 small in proportion to the rest as to appear insignificant, and at such 

 intervals from each other that all the beauty and harmony of a colum- 

 nar ordinance is lost. Where columns are employed to support, it 

 certainly cannot be alleged that they are idle unmeaning expletives : 

 nor that they are mutilated by being apparently partly embedded in 

 the wall behind them, "A pier," it has been remarked by an intelli- 

 gent waiter, "is but a differently sliaped and more massive column; " 

 w iiich being granted, what impropriety can there be in employing the 

 latter as a substitute for the other, provided it be done with judgment 

 and discretion, and where, upon the whole, it will prove an advan- 

 tageous mode of treatment ! It certainly is a barbarous mode to turn 

 small arches upon colunms, which are not more than between two and 

 three diameters apart, of which we have examples in the basilica of 

 S. Paolo, and .Santa Agnese fuor delle Mura, at Rome. The inter- 

 columns are such that they might easily have been closed horizontally; 

 indeed the openings between the columns have scarcely the appear- 

 ance of being arches ; but the whole looks as if the wall resting upon 

 the columns was scooped out into diminutive arches over the inter- 

 columns. In those instances, too, the arches tliemselves are quite 

 plain, without archivolt or mouldings of anv kind, and consequently all 

 keeping is destroyed : the architectural embellishment terminates with 

 the capitals of the colnmrs, and so far the elfect is similar to what 

 would be produced by placing a plain horizontal mass upon a range of 

 columns, instead of a moulded entablature. Although one of an oppo- 

 site kind, it is equally a fault to make the arches spring not imme- 

 diately from the capitals of the columns, but from square fragments of 

 entablature over them (as, for example, in the interior of St. Martin's, 

 Loudon) not only because such fragments are unmeaning in themselves, 

 and suggest the idea of the columns having been found too short for 

 their intended purpose, but because they remind us quite unnecessarily 

 of the original application of the column to the horizontal entablature. 

 If entablature be admissible at all, it is when the columns are coupled, 

 as in the church of Costanzu already noticed ; for then some kind of 

 architrave at least becomes requisite, in order to connect the two ca- 

 pitals, as it were, together. One very great advantage attending the 

 combination of the arch with the column as its support, is, that it 

 allows the openings to be considerably wider than they otherwise 

 could be, because such intervals as would produce a poor and strag- 

 gling effect in a colonnade, become well proportioned and agreeable 

 V. hen spanned by arches. Such columujr arcades liave frequently 

 been employed by the Italians with happy effect in coriili and places 

 cf that kind, where piers of the usual kind would obstruct the view- 

 too much, and where intercolumns of the same proportions, between 

 j'illars supporting a horizontal entablature, would have a poor and 

 disagreeable effect, particularly if, as is generally the case, other stories 

 of the building rested upon the porticoes below. In fact, ordinances 

 composed of arches and pillars constitute the best specimens of Italian 

 columniated architecture. That in the cortile of the Palazzo Piccolo- 

 mini at Siena, the work of Francesco di Giorgio, is singularly beauti- 



ful in its distribution, remarkable for the richness of its details, and 

 also for the variety which it presents in perspective, as may be judged 

 from the view of it given in Grandjean and Famin's " Architecture 

 Toscane." We have already mentioned the interior of St. Martin's 

 as containing an example of arches upon columns, and that of St. 

 Bride's, London, furnishes another, but neither is a favourable one. 

 A more satisfactory example may be found within llie loggia of the 

 Strand portion of Somerset House, where, though the arches spring 

 from entablatures over the columns, yet as the latter are placed in 

 pairs, those horizontal parts are more than mere upright blocks over 

 the capitals. The quadrangle of the late Royal Exchange, London, 

 had arches springing immediately from the capitals of the columns, 

 but their breadth was excessive in proportion to the height of the 

 latter, and their elliptical form was a great defect, and certainly did 

 not at all contribute to beauty. All that we contend for is the principle 

 on which the practice is founded ; for as to the merits of the butldings 

 in which it is adopted, that must, like every thing else in architecture, 

 depend upon the taste shown in the particular application of it, which 

 may be exceedingly good or altogether the reverse. Hungerford 

 i Market affords a good example of an ordinance composed of columns 

 1 and arches, and also an idea of the general character of a basilica, 

 though of course somewhat modified, and without any sort of archi- 

 tectural luxury. 



ARCHITECTURE OF LIVERPOOL. 



KOKTH AND SOUTH WALES BANK. 



In an article in thy Journal headed the Architecture of Liverpool, 

 signed H., occurs the following sentence. "This is an example of the 

 eftijits of modern com])etition, where the successful architect, having 

 liad his design adopted in consequence, it is said, of his private inte- 

 rest in the committee of management, lias not only the advantage, as 

 was understood at the time of examining those of bis competitors, 

 during the six weeks which elapsed between the decision of the com- 

 mittee and the return of the designs to their respective authors, but 

 is permitted to expend about twice the amount to which they were in 

 the first instance limited ;" w hich under the mean mark of, " it is said," 

 hides four distinct assertions meant to reflect discredit un the commit- 

 tee of management and on myself, — all four are thoroughly untrue. In 

 the first place I, the architect, had my design chosen unanimously by the 

 committee, without the interference of any private interest. Secondly, 

 I did not either at the time of the designs being before the committee, 

 or any other time see, or have opportunity to see any one of them, 

 (excepting only the one considered second best, sent by Mr. Leigh 

 Hall, of Manchester, and to see which, I went to his office by his own 

 invitation some months afterwards.) On the contrary, the manager of the 

 bank carefully kept them unseen after the decision, until at various times 

 they were sent for by their owners' — ^considering it his duty to the un- 

 successful architects ; and certainly I should not have been mean enough 

 so to examine them, or under the shuffling cloak of the words " under- 

 stood at the time," to assert and publish anonymously that any other 

 person diil so, unless I had known it of my own knowledge. Thirdly, 

 The time the plans were in the directors hands was four, and not six 

 weeks, and during all that time I was engaged in a tour in the west of 

 Scotland and the north of England. And fourthly, no amount w hatever 

 was named to limit the architect, and the sum expended is not greater 

 than was anticiijated, and shown by tlie architect, except such part of 

 it as is due to the fact of the foundations having to be taken down 27 

 feet below the surface, in cousequence of the discovery of the site 

 being partly that of the old castle ditch of Liverpool, and which part 

 of the cost is w'ell invested by the building in that depth, strung and 

 valuable bonding vaults. I send a ground plan by which you will see 

 that H. contradicts himself, by stating that the obtuseness of the angle 

 is rendered " most painfully obvious," by my having placed the line of 

 wall " at right angles to the long side, and therefore not parallel to its 

 own line of front f it is parallel to its own line of front, and therefore 

 is (ii feet in 3o more obtuse than a right angle ; surely the writer must 

 have distorted vision who could not see the aifference between an angle 

 of llil degrees and a right angle, even when it was rendered "most 

 painfully obvious," the fact shows that the obtuseness of this angle 

 was a "difficulty" so "overcome," as to baffle his discernment. That 

 I have taken away by my, pilasters two feet in width, and by the en- 

 trance five feet in lengtli, is untrue ; the bases are allowed by the town's 

 authorities to project beyond the building line, and the space from the 

 front of the pilaster to the inside of the stone work of wall is just two 

 feet, so my judicious and veracious friend H. would leave nothing for 

 the thickness of the wall; this blunder arises no doubt from the com- 

 mon practice of making pilasters merely accessory ; in my building 



