1S41.J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



173 



BEVIE-WS. 



The Competition for the Kelson Monument critically examined. By 

 John' Goldici'tt. 



Thoughts on the ^/3 buses of lie Present System of Competition in Archi- 

 tecture, with em outline of a Plan for their Remedy; in a letter to 

 Earl de Grey. By Harry Austin. 



Perhaps no instance that has evei' occurred, has shown the utter 

 worthlessness of competition, under the present system, in so strong 

 a light as that for the Nelson monument. The usual cases of fraud 

 and imposition got up hy parish officers and attorneys to extract de- 

 signs from arcliitects witliout undergoing the ceremony of paying for 

 them, carry each its own stigma ; but here is a competition establislied 

 by a committee of men of unimpeachable integrity, with a sincere 

 desire to elicit a design worthy of the nation, and what is the result ? 

 According to the opinion of an honourable and influential member of 

 the committee. Lord Colborne, " there was not a single model or de- 

 sign that came up to what might have been reasonably anticipated, or 

 which would justify the committee in selecting it as a fit and proper 

 monument for so great a man as the hero whose achievements they 

 were anxious to celebrate." Rotten must be the system which could 

 produce such a result under such circumstances, if this judgment were 

 true, or which conld permit it, if untrue, to pass without general re- 

 probation : and be it remembered, that the censure includes the design 

 chosen, and now in progress of execution. 



It is impossible to deuy that the exhibition of the hundred designs 

 and upwards submitted to the committee, was any thing but credit- 

 able to the state of British art, and such will be the character of all 

 such exhibitions, as long as a system, or a want of system, is pursued 

 vhich tends lo keep every man who respects himself out of the field. 

 It is certain that a very small proportion indeed of the artists who 

 entered into the Nelson competition were of that class which the 

 committee intended to encourage, and who might have been success- 

 fully encouraged with very little trouble ; and of those few there is not 

 perhaps one who has not sighed over the loss of his time and labour, 

 which he might have assured himself before-hand vpould be thrown 

 away. Here is Jlr. Goldicutt, for exam]ile, who gives us a Jeremiad 

 on the injustice of the Nelson comi.ietition. The cjuestion is obvious, 

 nrhy had he any thing to do with it, and what did he expect ? Did he 

 shut his eyes, his ears, and his understanding to all that was going 

 forward long before the designs were received? Did nothing strike 

 him as deficient or coutrhJictory in the conditions and instructions put 

 forth by the committee, which might have led him to suspect they did 

 not quite understand their own meaning or know their own intentions: 

 or to doubt their competency for what they had undertaken ; or did it 

 BOt occur to him that they bad neglected' the most ordinary precau- 

 tions to assist their judgment and to secure fair play to the candidates ? 

 and did he make no inquiries to satisfy himself on these points? If 

 he did not, others did, who found their remonstrances and suggestions 

 rejected with the most self-suflicient obstinacy, tempered, it is but 

 just to add, by the utmost courtesy to all appficants on the part of 

 Mr. Scott. And then, why, in the name of common justice, were the 

 competitors encouraged to exercise their invention through every con- 

 ceivable modification of public memorial, from a simple statue to a full 

 grown terajjle of Victory, when it was as notorious as the sun at noon 

 day that nothing but a column had the remotest chance of acceptance. 

 Enough had been said at public meetings by the most iniluential pro- 

 moters of the scheme, to satisfy any one possessing an average share 

 of observation, that the current set" in that direction too strongly to be 

 turned. Why, therefore, did Mr. Goldicutt take the trouble to deliver 

 liiraself of what he might be very sure would be strangled for a mon- 

 ster in the Foundling Hospital to which it was to be consigned ? Upon 

 the taste or wisdom displayed by the committee in decidino- upon a 

 column in general, or on Mr. Railton's colunm in particular, or ou any 

 design at all if they were all so bad as Lord Colborne would persuade 

 us, there is no occasion to give an opinion. Whether we consider a 

 column the best of all possible monuments, and Mr. Railton's the best 

 of all possible columns, or maintain the very reverse, in no way affects 

 the conclusion— that gross mismanagement produced a result which 

 seems to have astonished the committee, though it could produce no 

 other, and that a great injustice was committed in not ascertaining 

 beforehand, what was perfectly notorious, that the accepted desi-'u 

 would be a column and nothing else, and issuing instructions accord- 

 ingly. Those who play so recklessly with the labours of architects 

 ought to consider that life is short and drawing paper dear. 



For the mischiefs which arise to the profession and the public from 

 the disgrac eful state of competition, Mr. Austin steps forth with a 



string of remedies, every one more futile and inefficient than another, 

 the grand nostrum being that the whole conduct of competitions should 

 be placed under the management of the Institute of British Architects 

 — a proposal very complimentary to the Institute, and one which they 

 would only be doing their duty aud carrying out their professions by 

 taking into consideration. But setting aside several objections which 

 occur, it is only necessary to mention one which Mr. Austin seems to 

 have overlooked, viz. that the plenary authority of the Institute must 

 be first recognized by all concerned, or likely to be concerned, and un- 

 luckily the parties most dipped in competition (may they speedily 

 have it all to themselves,) are precisely those wdio are most interested 

 in maintaining the status in quu. Besides, suppose the most satis- 

 factory arrangements to be established, no one %vould be bound to 

 abide by them, as Mr. Austin may see by reference to the Journal for 

 October last, when he will find Mr. Serjeant Talfourd's opinion on the 

 flagrant Bury St. Edmund's case. Nor is Mr. Austin more fortunate 

 in his proposal that the author of a successful design shall, in erery 

 case, be intrusted with the superintendence of the building. What is 

 to be done if a committee, acting horai Jide, should pitch upon the de- 

 sign of an apprentice, an amateur, or a drawing clerk, or of one of tliat 

 class of the profession (for, like the law, it is sorely infested with ver- 

 minjl who traffic in showy drawings and fraudulent estimates. And 

 the fact is, that the designs of these classes of competitors (we beg to 

 apologize to the three first for naming them with the last,) are pre- 

 cisely those best calculated to catch committees as they are for the 

 most part constituted. Mr. Austin, indeed, goes in the very teeth of 

 his own opinion in this proposal. "It is needless to say," he observes 

 in another place, '• that those who send in designs honourably exe- 

 cuted, alike fair to their brother competitors and to the committee, 

 which they conscientiously believe can be built for the amount stated, 

 are doomed to experience nothing but vexation and disappointment, 

 and that if they could catch a glimpse of the committee in the very 

 first hour of their sitting, they would most probably see them already 

 sorting tlieir modest designs from the showy and impossible draughts, 

 and laying them aside w ith the flattering epithet of ' rubbish ! ' " 

 This is perfectly true, and it is no less so that "the best chance of suc- 

 cess under the present system rests with these who, knowing full well 

 the utter ignorance of the men who are to decide ou the real merits of 

 the works laid before them, make this their stronghold and anchor of 

 hope. They prepare designs on a scale of great magnificence, which, 

 to carry out in their pristine grandeur, would cost twenty times the 

 stipulated amount. They will be at considerable pains to render pro- 

 minent the most striking portions of their designs, and to throw a veil 

 over their various defects. They will eniplov skilful artists to pre- 

 pare coloured showy elevations, and false perspective views of their 

 principal features, to catch the Committee's unpractised eye; and 

 knowing too well that these designs conld not possibly be executed 

 for any thing like the stated estimates, modestly assert, in their ac- 

 comp^inying remarks, that much of what they show, (though all iu all 

 to their designs, such as they are,.) might be omitted without the 

 slightest injury to them. And the committee believe it, because they 

 know no better." 



" Is it not wonderful," we still use the words of Mr. Austin, "that 

 so many should be found to engage in contests wliich experience 

 teaches them are certain to be unsatisfactory and unjustlv conducted." 

 It is quite as wonderful that with so just an appreciation of the real 

 state of competition, Mr. Austin should have gone so far wide of the 

 mark in devising remedies. 



Did the members of the profession never read the fable of Hercules 

 and the carman ? They are just now very much in the case of that 

 same carman, shouting for help with all their might, but with less wit 

 than the boor, for they do not know to whom they are shouting. We 

 are nevertheless competent to give thein the same advice that was de- 

 livered by the god — that each one should put his own shoulder to the 

 wheel. Very deep they are in the slough, it is true, aud a very filthy 

 slough it is — so filthy that from mere communication the whole pro- 

 fession smells of it. Let every one who has not a taste for abiding in 

 the dirt extricate his individual self, and keep cleaner ways for the 

 future. To drop the metaphor, let every member of the profession 

 who respects himself, resolve to enter into no more competitions, un- 

 less he is perfectly satisfied, after a strict examination, both with the 

 conditions, and the integrity and competency of those who propose 

 them, and let no one lose an opportunity of exposing in print every 

 case of fraud and falsehood which m.iy come to their knowledge. The 

 example has been set in the pages of this Journal — let it be followed — 

 and when the respectable classes of the profession are shamed out of 

 promiscuous competition, and the public are awakened to the cons«- 

 qnences, something mavbe eft'ected to place the system, which nobody 

 will deny to be thoroughly sound in its original principle, upon a satis- 

 lactory footing, — The fol'owing notice of a late trial will show how 



