1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



245 



THE THREADNEEDLE STREET STRUCTURE. 



Public attention has been excited in a very unusual degree by this 

 building. And no wonder : for, in the first place, the character of the 

 design is in many respects not a little striking in itself; in the next, 

 people were quite taken by surprise when, the scaffolding or screen 

 before it being removed, they beheld what, for this country, may be 

 termed an almost unprecedented display of sculpture; and, in the 

 third, their curiosity is the more excited, because no one as yet 

 positively knows for what definite purpose the edifice is intended. 

 To these circumstances maybe added one wliich nowise tends to 

 diminish public astonishment and admiration, namely, that the building 

 is altogether the enterprise of a private individual (Mr. Moxhay), 

 who has shown in it a degree of taste and liberality quite exemplary; 

 certainly an example that we trust will be followed, and, moreover, 

 one that reproaches not a few of our recent structures, both on account 

 of their insignificant character, and the paltry economy manifested in 

 them. With the exception of the uisuia or group of architecture 

 formed by the Athensum, Travellers', and Reform Clubhouses, the 

 other buildings about town, even of that class, from the " City Club" 

 in Broad-street to the sulky "Oriental" in Hanover-square, are, 

 whatever they may be in regard to internal accommodation, more or 

 less poor and abortive in point of design— the works of mere builders, 

 not of architects. The same remark applies to the offices belonging 

 to many assurance and other public companies. If not the buildings 

 themselves, the designs are for the most part propped up entirely by 

 columns or pilasters, for there is generally nothing else architectural 

 about them ; and those might very well be spared altogether, as being 

 not only useless in themselves, but because they become ridiculous 

 affectations when mixed up, as is usually the case, with mean and in- 

 significant features, which are thereby made to look some degrees 

 more mean and trivial than they otherwise would. We have heard 

 it urged as an excuse, that in most cases all the money which can be 

 allowed, or that people choose to allow, for external decoration is 

 swallowed up by columns, so that the rest must be put off with what 

 is more expressively than elegantly termed "a lick and a promise," 

 with a few streakings after "scored pork" fashion for rustication, 

 and a few meagre mouldings to doors and windows. If absurdity be 

 an excuse, the excuse just alluded to is valid enougli, of aU reason; 

 for why should columns be introduced at all for mere decoration, if 

 for the sake of having them every other part must be deprived of due 

 embellishment, and the whole consequently rendered a maimed, incon- 

 sistent, butched-up attair, a ridiculous mixture of the would-be fine 

 and the must-be paltry ? We had hoped that the examples of the 

 Travellers' and Reform Clubhouses (more especially, as the former 

 has been published as a study for architects,) would at once have 

 clapped an extinguisher upon the miserable " pseudo-classical" system, 

 of which the only recommendation is that it requires no study or 

 invention whatever, but merely iwin enough to be able to copy coluunis 

 and antcE from Stuart's Athens, or other publications of the kind. 

 Tims one man's Grecian is just as good as another's; and, with hardly 

 an exception, the mark of the Beast is upon that of them all. Whether 

 Mr. Moxhay's building — which we ourselves have here almost turned 

 our backs upon — will have the effect of now spiriting up others, both 

 professional men and their employers, to emulate his example, is what 

 time must show. In itself it certainly is a very superior specimen, 

 and a far greater public ornament than many of what are called public 

 edifices; which is no great compliment, by the bye, some of the latter 

 being little better than so many public deformities. Perhaps it is well, 

 therefore, for them that it is neither next door or opposite neighbour 

 to any one of them ; for even now it puts us quite out of conceit with 

 some of the newly-erected buildings in its vicinity — with the two 

 fire offices at the corner of Bartholomew-lane, and the Wesleyan 

 Missionary Hall in Bishopsgate-street ; although if columns — no matter 

 how they mav be introduced — are sufficient to constitute grandeur or 

 beauty, the buildings just mentioned possess a decided advantage 

 over the one in Threadneedle-street. The facade of this last is 

 No. v.— Vol. 59.— August, 1842. 



exceedingly simple in composition, for it consists of no more than a 

 door and two windows on each side of it, between which and the 

 entablature is a deep panel extending nearly the entire width of front, 

 and filled with a relief, the figures of which are little less than the 

 size of life, and not being placed at such a distance above the eye 

 as sculptural decoration of the kind usually is, wherever applied at 

 all, thev possess a degree of importance in the design that would be 

 lost were they elevated fifteen or twenty feet higher. Hitherto, 

 wherever sculpture has been introduced at all in the front of a build- 

 ing, it has been either in little bits and patches, or else placed where 

 it cannot be properly seen as a work of art, but merely as ornament 

 and accessory embellishment, valuelessandunmeaninginitself,altliough 

 it may serve to give an air of richness to the architecture. We perceive 

 that there are panels with reliefs in the attic of the front of Bucking- 

 ham Palace, and that is all that can be seen or understood of them. 

 In such cases there is no situation from which the sculpture can be 

 properly seen, for the nearer we approach the building in order to 

 obtain a distinct view of it, the more are the figures foreshortened, and 

 so far distorted ; and almost any scratches and scrawls would there- 

 fore answer the purpose as well, either for a near or distant view. 



Though the building in Threadneedle-street owes its character 

 chiefly to Mr. L. M. Watson's labours — the author of the noble and 

 poetically-conceived and tastefully-executed piece of sculpture which 

 is now attracting so much attention — it is not without more than 

 usual degree of embellishment in other respects, having a carved frieze 

 and rich cornicione. The former, indeed, is not altogether so satis- 

 factory as could be wished, for the rabtsco or foliage is too stiff and 

 formal in contour ; and it is also to be regretted that a little more 

 embellishment was not bestowed upon the door and windows, which 

 now look too plain for the upper part of the front. Still, taking it 

 altogether, this facade is incontestibly one of the most striking, 

 original, and artistical pieces of architecture in the whole metropolis ; 

 beyond all comparison superior to those masses of collective littleness 

 or of spun-out common-place, and frigid dulness and meaimess which, 

 because they are great, are looked upon as being also dignified and 

 grand. 



While the patrician and aristocratic patrons or would-be patrons of 

 art and pretenders to taste do not care to exhibit other architectural 

 taste ^ro lo«o//(i6/ico than what may be seen in such spruce specimens of 

 it as Staftbrd House, and the very iicai yet certainly very piddling and 

 anything but dignified mansion of the "Great Duke," or as the brick 

 wall in Duchess-street, which looks like the entrance to a manufactory, 

 or brewery; — while such, we observe, are the architectural specimens 

 exhibited to us by the opulent and the great, a comparatively humble 

 individual — and what is worse, a man in the "city " — one, therefore, 

 in whom it is little less than insolence to pretend to taste at all — has 

 shown a degree of spirit, liberality, and taste, infinitely more credit- 

 able to himself and advantageous to the sculptor who has bad the 

 opportunity of displaying his talents upon such a scale, than it is likely 

 to prove at all favourable to many other buildings, which now look 

 more paltrv than ever, when contrasted with Mr. Moxhay's. 



Not the least curious part of the matter is that on this occasion 

 there has been none of that fussiness — generally "much ado about 

 nothing" fussiness — which so frequently takes place ; as, for instance, 

 in the remarkably silly business of the Nelson Monument, when, after 

 two humbugging competitions, nothing better could or was allowed to 

 be chosen than an overgrown nonsensical column, for which no design 

 whatever was required beyond the mere working drawings. We are 

 afraid, too, it will be found after all that the very best choice of all 

 has not been made in regard to the Royal Exchange,^- although the 



'■' Even were that part of the adopted design very much superior in point 

 of design to nlial it is— at least, if \reinay judt'e from tlie views published 

 of it— the idea uf making the Kxchangc itsch— the area where tlio meielianis 

 will assemble and transact business— a mere open court, is so truly prtpos- 

 tcrous— sucli a practical absurdity— tlint w? trust it will never be carried into 

 (xe.utiui. The cili;:cns must be drea<lfully alraid indeed of jmuMmi.'/oH, if 

 aiipiclicnsive of being sniotlieredtw mujsi'.were the Kxcliange to be covered in. 

 Me wonder lliey do nut feel similar alarm at their (niildhail bampiets, and 

 instead of talking of a new ruof for lliat structure, do not propose that it 



2 M 



