02 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



levels of the lowest floor of the buiUUiigs to the drainage level, together with 

 the requisite provision for general ventilation, should all be settled, so that 

 it he not left to chance or to the ignorance or caprice of individuals in build- 

 ing in detail, whether the town shall be pleasant and wholesome, or be the 

 seat of discomfort and disease. 



Operating in detail, tlie architect will have to study closely the means of 

 securing what must be deemed essentials to every building. There must be 

 convenience and facility of access to the building itself; — relief from water 

 must be secured in everj' direction, and in whatever form water can present 

 itself, from the earth or from the skies, by the foundations or by the roofs, 

 and with this the relief of every building in which such can arise, of soilage, 

 must be fully provided for ; the admission of air is to be regulated and 

 brought under control, to ventilate without establishing injurious draughts ; 

 and light is to be admitted and diffused so that cverj- part of an interior may 

 be appropriately and sufficiently lighted, and lighted from a general cource 

 directly, or with as little recourse to borrowed ami artificial lights as pos- 

 sible ; equable temperature throughout the varying seasons is to be main- 

 tained by the exclusion of excess of heat at one season, and by the promotion 

 and ditTnsion of heat to warm at another ; and perfect facility of intercom- 

 munication to the fullest extent that intercommunication may, in each par- 

 ticidar case, be desirable, between the parts of an interior, whatever may be 

 the relative levels of the parts, or at whatever distance they may be from one 

 another. 



Next to the general essentials, which are as much so to a Peniten- 

 tiary or to an Hospital as to a Palace, are the particular arrangement and 

 distribution of each peculiar class of buildings. This does not admit of 

 general definition, but to take one and a large class of buildings — dwelling- 

 houses, — and their congeners, buildings which include offices for state, as pa- 

 laces and other official residences, and houses which include offices for ser- 

 vice, as professional, mercantile, and commercial houses, as well as domiciles : — 

 every building of this class may be resolved into three departments — the public 

 and the familiar or social, — the private, — and the domestic oreconomic ; all being 

 alike severed and connected by means of halls, vestibules, courts, corridors, 

 passages, and staircases, and so that every apartment may be at once secluded 

 and accessible, and without destroying the power of secluding or of making 

 accessible every other whose use demands one or both of these qualities. 



The economical composition of a building, with reference to the materials 

 to be employed, in drains, foundations, walls, partitions, floors, roofs, ceilings, 

 stairs, doors, windows, chimnies, and all other essential and accessorial de- 

 tails, with the details of their construction and combination as to quantity 

 and quality of material, and the ])roportion of each jiarticular kind, and the 

 nature, quality, and extent of work or labour required, or to be employed in 

 constructing and combining the materials, is an important part of the study 

 of the architect. The basis of this study — the arts of construction — I treat 

 of in another course addressed to both architects and engineers, but in the 

 practice of the architect the economical composition of materials involves 

 the application of the arts of construction with a nmltiplicity of detail un- 

 known in the ordinary practice of the engineer or hydraulic architect. There 

 is not only the formation, construction, and faU of drains, but their ramified 

 distribution to take off both water and soil drainage, and to make the water 

 act upon the soil to scour it away ; supphing water, too, sufficient to effect 

 this from some certain source, trapping them in such manner as to cut off 

 and prevent the return of offensive smells, arranging so as to render them 

 easily accessible for repairs, and in arranging to avoid running them through 

 the bases of the superstructions ; — all form essential studies for the architect. 

 In like manner with the various kinds of materials in parallel constructions, 

 and having irregular or unequal tendencies to settle, as brick or stone walls 

 and partitions, and partitions of timber, — brick walls and stone stairs set in them ; 

 —these, and numberless other things in the ordinary practice of the architect, 

 call for the exercise of much forethought and consideration in the economical 

 composition and combination of materials, where the unpractised observer 

 would not discern a necessity for either,until the effects resulting from the want 

 of lioth.and of sound practical knowledge to guide them, are displayed in bulged 

 walls, cracked ceilings, rounded floors and doors, sashes and shutters that 

 will not shut when opened, nor open when shut. 



The particular arrangement and distribution of buildings according to the 

 purposes for which they are respectively required or intended, to adapt every 

 kind of building to its special use, demand tliet the architect be of ready 

 apprehension, and that he possess ingenuity in devising, combined with skill 

 in constructing ; for practice will more frequently require him to make his 

 plan to fit the place than supply a place to receive the building as be might 

 prefer to plan it, and he will thus be called upon to invent arrangements in 

 almost every particular case, to secure what is required in the manner best 

 adapted to the circumstances of the case. The uses of buildings are, indeed, 

 so various, and the requirements of each particular use so dift'ercnt from those 

 of every other, in all the classes of buildings, — every individual building of a 

 class requiring or possessing peculiarities in site or other circumstances, and 

 thus presenting in every case a new study, — that an architect cannot stereotype 

 the drawings and specification of a design for any particular class of building, 

 though rendered as perfect as the most careful study with the most intimate 

 knowledge of his subject can make it, any more than the lawyer can stereo- 

 type bis brief, or tlie physician bis prescription, unless, indeed, the architect 

 be, — what the ))hysician who did so would be called — a (juack. Every case 

 brings to the lawyer its own circumstances, — in which be finds it to differ from 

 every other, though the name of the process be the same; the physician finds 

 every new patient to present something different, though suft'ering from the ' 



same disease ; and the architect finds the data upon which he has to work, — 

 be the subject a church or a college, — a mansion or a cottage, — to differ for 

 every church, college, mansion or cottage, to which his attention may be 

 directed. The usual premises are the subject, the site, the kind and the eatent 

 of accommodation required, and the money to he expended. Instead of this 

 last premiss, it would be more proper to give the kinds and qualities of tua- 

 terials to be adopted, and the quality of work required, as to finish and deco- 

 ration, though it is too frequently expected that these shall be of the more, 

 if not the most, expensive, while the outlay is limited, and the architect has, 

 not only the task of adapting the subject to the site — frequently no easy task — 

 but thefurther complex Procrustean operation involved in fulfilling the other con- 

 ditions, which — it maynot be wondered at — architects seldom succeed in doing 

 peifectly. In the first jdace, and indejiendefitly of site or other circumstances, 

 and irrespective of cost, the various subjects present themselves to the archi- 

 tect with their varying general characteristics, and, as I have said, the con- 

 sideration of these alone will show that the requirements of the classes of 

 buildings are neither few nor easy of fulfilment, without perfect possession by 

 the architect of all the technical knowledge and skill already indicated, and 

 of science to guide and regulate the process ; nor, indeed, with all these un- 

 less he have acquired haljits of observation and possess ingenuity in the ap- 

 plication of what he may know and observe, together with facility of ifiven- 

 tion and power of adaptation, even in the arrangement and distribution of 

 buildings with reference to their uses only, and without any reference to 

 decorative disposition, which last may be said to form almost a separate 

 study. 



Taking the rarious sulijects or classes of buildings which form the common 

 range of architectural practice, it will be seen how they justify these obser- 

 vations. And first as to Churches. This important class of buildings de- 

 mands an arrangement which will give peculiar prominence to one person — 

 the fuinister — who must be brought within the eye and ear of every individual 

 of a congregation, and enable the congregation to unite with the minister in 

 public worship, and that without confusion from imperfect means of com- 

 munication ; whilst, at the same time, the largest number of persons must 

 be brouglit within the smallest space consistently with the comfortable 

 accommodation, in the varying attitudes of sitting, standing, and kneeling, 

 of every person provided for ; together with freedom and ease of access and 

 egress to and from every jiart with the least possible display. In Courts, 

 H.iLLS, or Chambers for DELtBERATivE Assemblies, it is required that 

 every individual congregated shall [he alike visibly and audibly prominent. 

 Courts of Law, and for the administration of justice, demand prominence 

 to be given to particular persons, as the judge or the magistrate, the accuser 

 and the accused or their counsel, the witnesses and the jury, and so that 

 each and every one may see and be seen, hear and be heard by all the rest ; 

 whilst a continually changing auditory must be provided for, and in such 

 manner that the movements of unoccupied persons may not disturb or de- 

 range the business of the tribunal. Town and Guild Halls combine many 

 of the requisites of both chambers for deliberative assemblies and courts for 

 the administration of justice, on a smaller scale, hut their compound charac- 

 ter demands for them, nevertheless, a particular study. Theatres, as usually 

 understood, for the exhibition of dramatic performances, require the peifect 

 exposition for both sight and hearing of one part to the occupiers of all the 

 rest of their interior, with separation of the occupiers or auditors amongst 

 themselves into classes, and some of the classes again into secluded parties, 

 giving to all classes separate means of ingress and egress, and at all times 

 without disturbance or confusion. Oth'er than dramatic theatres require 

 their own particular objects to be provided for, and all but theatres for dra- 

 matic exhibition and performance require the admission and difi'usion of the 

 light of day as well as provision for artificial lighting, which latter alone is 

 supplied to dramatic theatres, and constitutes them singular in that important 

 particular. Exchanges, or Markets without the presence of the commodities 

 to he bought and sold, require accommodation for large concourses, and in 

 such manner that people may move about singly or in groups, and thus inter- 

 communicate without confusion. Markets, for the exposure and sale and 

 purchase of goods. These are real and substantial Exchanges, and they may 

 be general or special, and according as the market is devoted to one par- 

 ticular purpose, — when the aiTangements must be specially adapted to the 

 conservation of the jjarticular article, as well as to its exposition for sale, — or 

 the market being general, it must possess in different parts the peculiarities 

 necessary for diff"erent articles ; — whilst, in all, every facihty is to be provided 

 for freedom and ease of passage to the public in every direction, and all con- 

 venience of exposition for sale must be made subservient to facilitate the 

 examination and selection of articles by buyers. Baths, though not so 

 much called for, indeed, in this country, as public establishments, as they 

 may and ought to be, require much skill and tact to arrange and distribute 

 them without loss of space, and to effect the separation and seclusion of one 

 part from another, and to provide for the combined publicity and privacy 

 vihich the use of swimming-baths — the best sort of bath — compels and de- 

 mands. It would, however, be endless to rehearse in detail the requirements 

 of every particular class of buildings, and the recital of their designations 

 will convey a sufficient idea, for my present purpose, of their varieties, and 

 of the demand made therefrom upon the architect for ready apprehension of 

 the peculiar requirements of each jjarticular class of buildings, and for intelli- 

 gence and ingenuity in siip])lying and producing what may be required. There 

 are buildings for fiscal and admin isTRATivEpiu-poses in almost endless vari- 

 eties :— Public— as Custom Houses, Excise Offices, Jlints, Stamp Offices, Post 

 Offices, Offices and chambers for the departments of Stale, Treasury adminis- 



