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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



Dioclesian at Spalatro. That emperor, like our own George IV., was 

 a patron of tlie arts, and immense sums were lavished both at Rome 

 and Spalatro, at London and Brighton ; but architecture is not much 

 indebted to the florid taste of either. 



The innovations of Dioclesian's time are so striking as to merit his 

 name being given to the style ; and as the term Gothic was applied 

 by Sir C. Wren and others to the pointed style, may we not call the 

 Palladian modification of the Dioclesian by the name of Vandal. 



The term Gothic, as a name of contempt, is now felt not to be 

 deserved by the beautiful pointed style, which although charged with 

 meretricious ornament without limit, regardless of all order, trifling 

 and weak in detail, is yet magnificent and beautiful in the aggregate. 



The Vandal is chargeable with all the defects, which are not re- 

 deemed by any of the beauties of the Gothic. But to proceed with 

 the list. 



Columns on stilts. — These may be seen at Spalatro, though not in 

 the same perfection as on the front of Trinity College, or the con- 

 tinuous stilt or too lofty stylobate of the College of Surgeons in 

 Stephen's-green. We also find it in the portico of a temple in 

 Urabria, which Palladio says was the only instance of the kind he had 

 seen. He seems, however, to have been enamoured with the inven- 

 tion, for it enters largely into many of its structures. At best it is a 

 shabby expedient to save the expense of larger columns, which would 

 be required to give the height of these smaller ones and their stilts. 

 1 ask, what is the use of columns in any case, unless it be for efi^ect ? 

 And if that be the object, is it not defeated by placing them above the 

 range of vision ? Wherever the columnar ordinance is used, columns 

 must be principals ; and is it proper to place principals above the 

 range of the eye. 



Colmn7is placed one above the oilier. — We have no very striking ex- 

 ample ofthis in Dublin; but we find it in the west front of St. Paul's 

 and many other buildings in London ; and Palladio says the Tuscan 

 should be placed underneath, then the Doric, then the Ionic, then the 

 Corinthian, and lastly, the Composite order — rules fit for the erection 

 of a tower of Babel. It must be granted that columns should harmo- 

 nize in apparent solidity with the weight of the superincumbent cor- 

 nice which they are to support. This effect will be destroyed, if one 

 or two other rows of columns and accessories are to be placed above. 

 The Greeks used the expedient to a certain extent, as in the example 

 before you ; but only as a choice of evils — for if the internal columns 

 of the cella had been large enough to reach the inclined roof, they 

 would not have harmonized with the other columns which they were 

 to be viewed in connection with; besides, they are of the same order, 

 and were placed almost out of view. 



Columns of different orders ranged in the same elevation. — A design 

 never can be chaste, if it contain more than one order ; and in this 

 respect, the west front of the Bank of Ireland, the old Parliament 

 House, is disfigured by the Ionic semi-columns in juxta-position with 

 the Roman Corinthian portico. The Bank is like a man wearing a 

 coat with one sleeve of a different colour, both from the other and the 

 body of the garment — a fashion not yet adopted in dress. This Co- 

 rinthian portico wants the elevation of a basement, and by giving it 

 that, it would be made to overtop the body of the edifice. I under- 

 stand that originally it had a basement, before the street was filled up 

 to its present level. In short, this deficiency is to be objected to 

 almost as much as the other extreme of having a too lofty stylobate . 

 and so sensible was the architect who erected it, of the injury it sus- 

 tained in being shorn of its fair proportions, that he never could bear 

 to pass through Westmoreland-street, after the operations of the Com- 

 missioners of Paving. 



Did time and place permit, the history of this portico would be as 

 instructive as the account given by an Irish historian, called Swift, or 

 some such name, of the violent contest between two powerful nations, 

 as to which end of the egg should be broken. Suffice it to say, that 

 our domestic struggle for prerogative coeval with that for the Bill of 

 Rights, terminated by the belligerents, the Lords and Commons, se- 

 lecting different orders of architecture for their respective entrances 

 to the same edifice — thus agreeing to differ, and furnishing most con- 



vincing arguments, which may be used (according to an ordinary for- 

 mula of our profession,) pro re nata, for or against a repeal of the 

 legislative union. 



It has been said that the Greeks, particularly with the Doric order, 

 placed columns without any base. They did no such thing ; you will 

 see, in the example before you, that the steps form an ample base- 

 ment. What would the finest statue that ever was made appear to 

 be, with its feet sunk in the ground or cut off? The eye of criticism, 

 and we are all critics in our way, dwells rather on defects than beau- 

 ties ; and one blemish more than counterbalances twenty excellencies. 



Engaged columns. — The too frequent use of this expedient is to be 

 condemned. The eflfect of columns in a composition arises not only 

 from their graceful forms and well adjnsted proportions, but from the 

 lights and shadows which play around them — the chiaro-oscuro of ar- 

 chitectural composition ; and this eflTect cannot be obtained by engaged 

 columns. Instances of this may be seen in the front of Trinity Col- 

 lege, and the College of Surgeons in Stephen's-green. In the example 

 before you, (the Maison Carroe) may be compared the engaged and 

 disengaged columns. We are not, however, to take the engaged 

 columns of the Bank of Ireland as the design of its architect, for they 

 originally formed an open piazza ; but for some wise reason, or per- 

 haps for no reason, they were subsequently built up as we find them 

 at present. 



But if we must have attached or engaged columns, I would suggest 

 that they should not be diminished at all, but carry the same diameter 

 from base to top. I never heard of any example of this — but on look- 

 ing at any of the Palladian Arches, as for instance, those in the prin- 

 cipal front of the Bank of Ireland, you will find that the back ground 

 (if I may so speak) to which the columns are affixed, appears like an 

 inverted pyramid, a figure which cannot have a pleasing effect. This 

 is not the case when the columns are detached, on account of the 

 depth of the shadow. 



Interspaces of cohmms. — In the Doric order, the rule is clear and 

 well defined — one triglyph over the centre of each column, and another 

 over the centre of each interspace. The spaces between these tri- 

 glyphs, called metopes, must be a square, the length of whose sides is 

 regulated by the diameter of the column at its base. These triglyphs 

 are supposed to represent the ends of the beams intended to form the 

 ceiling, and if too many of them be introduced, the architrave on which 

 they rest would be too weak, or what is the same thing, appear to be 

 too weak, to support the weight. I admit that there is an additional tri- 

 glyph introduced in the propylea on the Acropolis ; but it ought to be 

 considered as forming the exception — not the rule; and appears to 

 have been for the purpose of leaving a wider space for the entrance of 

 processions. Another instance occurs in the Doric Portico of Augustus, 

 but it is of Roman construction. This innovation has been extended 

 by Palladio and his modern followers ; and we find, in some instances, 

 six or more introduced, and in situations where they are not at all 

 requisite ; for instance, on the cornices of windows or door-ways. 

 Vv'liy should beams be placed there, or in the inside of buildings, as 

 we see in the chapel in Marlborough-street ? I am not aware of any 

 ancient example of this. The east portico of the chapel just alluded 

 to shows a great poverty of conception in the architect, who has 

 placed an additional triglyph between each column — indicating either 

 that the columns are too thin, the interspaces too wide, or the frieze 

 too low. At least a hundred instances of this bad taste occur in the 

 public and private edifices of this city, and scarcely an example of the 

 contrary. But compare the portico in Marlborough Street, notwith- 

 standing its defects, with the Vandal Doric one in the College Park, 

 the design, I believe, of Sir William Chambers, and you will perceive 

 its superiority. 



Tapering pilasters. — This extraordinary practice is of the Vandal 

 school. As the situation of these square columns or pilasters is at the 

 angles of the building, they cannot of course square with the wall 

 unless it were made pyramidal also — the absurdity of which is 

 obvious. 



You will find this in every building in Dublin where they are used, 

 except those of a late date — a departure from the Vandal school to 



