lS-12.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



91 



Table Ceonliniiedj. 



PROFESSOR HOSKING'S LECTURES ON THE PRINCIPLES .\ND 

 PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE. KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON. 



Intbodcctory Lectvbe, January 24tb, 1842. 



In the remarks with which I introduced my course on the Arts of Con- 

 STRiCTioN, last year, I intimated how much more extensively the term archi- 

 tecture applies, and how much more is embraced in the complete practice of 

 architecture than is generally inferred from it, or understood from its appli- 

 cation. I considered my duties then to he restricted to the consideration of 

 the technical combinations of matter to form constructions, hut I have now 

 to treat of the mental skill and the regulated taste which direct the employ- 

 ment of the arts of construction, and of the means of acquiring such skill 

 and taste, and of applying them in practice. These, together, — the mental 

 skill to arrange and adapt, the technical knowledge to construct, and the 

 regulated taste to dispose and decorate, — form the architect, and the result 

 of tiie combinatiou in his productions is architecture. The best constructions 

 applied unaptly, or incongruously disposed, the most skilful arrangements for 

 use, unsymmetrically disposed, or inconsistently decorated, or the most clas- 

 sically disposed and chastely decorated exterior to an ill-contrived plan, are 

 alike imworthy the name of architecture and the reputation of an architect. 

 I nle>s ihe arrangements for service and use are the best that the case admits 

 u{. unless the constructions arc perfect in themselves and in their combi- 

 nation, he the materials what they may, and unless the dispositions for de- 

 coration, and the decorations themselves, be well |iroportioncd and consistent, 

 a work is undeserving to be distinguished as architecture. There must be 

 excellence in letter an<l in spirit, in form and in substance, to constitute an 

 excellent work of architecture, and it is only those who combine in them- 

 selves the skilful arranger, the tasteful disposer, and the sound and econo- 

 mical constrictor, who can claim the character of architect. 



The general acceptation of the term architecture is in its most restricted 

 •ensc, the decorative di9|>osition of buildings, or that which I refer to the 

 regulated taste of the architect ; but this is to take the chased and enamelled 

 case for the watcli, or the setting for the jewel. A ijuaint and often (|uated 

 writer of the I'lh century it- '■■■i. tint "the cud of architecture is to 

 build well," and that •• well ih three conditions, commodity, firm- 



ness, and delight." All the- -, i have alrcaily said, must be fulfilled 



(0 constitute architecture, and more muat be andentood by them thin the 



mere words in which they arc expressed would appear to convey, but not 

 more than they really imply. All the operations, of wliatever kind ihey may 

 be, necessarv' to the (lerfect ful6lment of those conditions, arc includeil in 

 the system of architecture, and consequently fall within the province of the 

 architect to originate and direct. 



I endeavoured, on the former occasion to which I have alluded, tu indicate 

 the line that might he drawn lietween the architect, couiniuiily so called, and 

 the civil engineer, constituting the latter the hydraulic architect ; hut the 

 first step the architect finds hiiuself called upon to take, the first eiiliject that 

 claims his consideration in any work that he may he employed upon, ii 

 strictly within the practice of hydraulic architecture, so that if the architect 

 be not also, not merely inlorincd, hut skilled in tiiat branch of practice, he is 

 unlit to take the first step, to undertake Ihe consiileration of the first subject 

 that presents itself in commencing the process of buihUng well. .Vn archi- 

 tect may he called upon — and who so competent as a thoroughly accomplished 

 architect .' — to choose or select a site for a town — or more comiuoiily intrin- 

 sic circumstances, some peculiar advantage or advantages it may posse-ss, in a 

 commercial point of view or otherwise, dictate the site, and it dcvulvcs uixm 

 the architect to fit the site for the purpose to wliich it it devoted. Euy 

 access by roads, which roads must be laid out and set out with prop'.r incli- 

 nations, and with bridges and cidvcrts to carry them over streams and 

 gullies, and they must he cut, formed, drained, ballasted, and metalled, or 

 otherwise paved ; quays to the river or the harbour must be arranged anil 

 formed or embanked, and constructed, encroaching upon the tideway or 

 widening the watenvay, as the ease may require ; or, in the absence of natu- 

 ral facilities for navigation, it is a question for consideration and determi- 

 nation — can arlilicial navigation be obtained, and how and in what manner 

 shall the site be best disposed of to take advantage of it ? The site of the 

 town must be drained, and the soil drainage taken otf, roads as streets and 

 open places within and about the town, must be laid out and disposed in such 

 manner as to be best adapteil for the buildings to be erected in and akout 

 them, and generally as to light, aspect, and ventilation; water must be led 

 to, or raised by artifice within the site of, a town, and accumulate in reservoir*, 

 from which it may he distributed for use and enjoyment. Many of tbcae 

 things may, indeed, be referred to the engineer or other extraneous prac- 

 titioner, but most of them arc generally left to chance, or to ha created or 

 corrected when the hard teacher Experience has pointed out what ought to 

 be, or to have been, done. It may nut happen, indeed, to very many to have 

 towns to originate and design, but, almost everv- building or cluster 

 of buildings — a nobleman's mansion or an estabUshment for manufacluriug or 

 other commercial purposes — a plain country house or a county asylum — a 

 church or a palace — all make some demand, greater or less according to situ- 

 ation and circumstances, upon the skill of the architect in hydraulic works 

 and constructions, and consequently demand, of every one professing himself 

 an architect, perfect competence to originate and execute them. \Mth refe- 

 rence to these considerations I may remark, too, that the widely evtcnded 

 and daily extending and improving colonics of this cmi>ire present a wide 

 field of emplov-mcnt to the architect and engineer, and where every thing 

 will be required of the pr.ictitiouer single banded, or rather where be will be 

 well and beneficially employed only if he can turn his hand to every thing — 

 to drain a marsh as well as to raise a column, to build a church or a town- 

 hall as well as to make a railway or to form a canal. 



It is not often, perhaps, that the civil architect will have occasion for a 

 knowledge of military engineering, but it is very desirable that he should be 

 able to work with the niiJitary engineer, or rather, with reference to what the 

 military engineer would deem nece.ssary for the defence or protcctiuii of a 

 town, whether from external force or from internal commotion, and to know 

 how to make his arrangements accordingly. Gates and guard-houses are 

 not of common occurrence amongst lis at home, truly and happily, but such 

 works are not the less in demand in some places, and the arciiitcct who 

 might be called upon to assist the military engineer with the constructions 

 that he may not he architect enough to design and direct, or to act in the 

 absence of an cthcient officer of that class, would be most unfitly prepared 

 for the varied duties of active professional Ufe, if he were then and in cither 

 case founil wholly wanting. 



An architect should, then, have an eye to defences and defensive erections 

 in laying out towns of certain kinds and under certain circuinstiuccs ; he 

 would act unwisely to place a n liarf or a landing-pier or jetty in that part of 

 a harbour where a battery may be essential for its protection, or to raise 

 buildings tlint woiilil intercept the fire of a fort whose guns should range 

 across their site. 



The architect will be called upon for the exercise of skill and taste, guided 

 by a thorough knowledge of the peculiar rei|uireinrnls of everv- class of a 

 community, and of the coinmnnity as smb. in Ihe distribution of the parts of 

 a town, anil of the various public and private errcticins and estahlishnients 

 that every civilized comniiinily requires, and ei|>ccially with reference to Ihe 

 peculiar circumstaneci of the particular town and community. There must 

 be public places, as open markets or otherwise, in or u|K>n which some of the 

 requisite public buiMings may open and di.^play llicm>rlvei, and where foun- 

 tains form oninmciital and appropriate objects, an ' ' ' ' ' , .irul 

 gardens for exercise and recreation, sites for pi il,,- 

 varieties of private 'l^.^li"--. -1 iJ I'l-i'- i.ir iii:i , .,1 

 hiiililings anil esi i-. 

 These are all to lie I i i.- 

 general convenience and witaittagci «ud lu»aid> cllecUug lliu, the irlalivo 



