296 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECrS JOURNAL. [September, 



1 suppose its novelty is considered as not its least merit,) serves as a 

 test for enlarging on the demerits of almost every tiling in tlie way of 

 architecture that has been done of late vears, in the metropolis at least, 

 and of underrating Grecian architecture in particular, as if it were 

 Tesponsible for all the abuses of mere builders, decorators, would-be 

 architects, and, it cannot be denied, of some from w^hom, as architects 

 of hit'h standing, we might have expected better things ; and I can 

 only account for Ihiir failure bv supposing them deficient in that 

 natural taste and feeling for the art which is indispensable to a 

 successful exercise of the profession. 



I must, however, beg to diff'r entirely as to the facilities which 

 "Stuart's Athens" in particular affords for producing Grecian designs, 

 as I do not see how this publication can supersede or render unnecessary 

 study and invention, more than publications in any other style ; and I 

 think it may be found that Mr. B-.rry himself, who deservedly stands 

 pre-eminent as an architect, has his book of reference, too, and that 

 the most prominent features of detail in his best designs might there 

 be found delineated. It is not, then, the use of this or that style, 

 this or that order, moulding, or ornament, which constitutes a good or 

 bad design, but the spirit and mode in which they are applied and 

 dealt with; and there can be no more good reason for rejecting any 

 of the materials of design which former ages have produced, especially 

 -when of acknowledged beaut v, than of sliunning the letters of a lan- 

 guage because tbev have been used over and over again, and for the 

 commonest purposes. There clearlv, then, must be materials to work 

 with ; but I think it cannot be doubted that to natural taste alone, 

 which can neither he learnt nor unlearnt, is owing those superior 

 productions in architecture, which so few can boast of the opportunity 

 of displaying. To afford the facilities for embodying and bringing 

 before others, those treasures of the mind which one individual pos- 

 sesses over another, a suitable education is, however, necessary ; and 

 'tis impossible (I think) to conceive it can be carried to excess. 



The orders of architecture, as found in OJreece, (not Rome,) are 

 indeed beautiful, but they will not bear being trifled with; he, there- 

 fore, displays most taste and judgment who, instead of endeavouring 

 to drag them in on all occasions, rejects them altogether, unless he 

 can place them in a situation belitting their high rank : fur we can 

 well perceive, by the ancient examjiles, how much sublimity and 

 grandeur they are capable of producing, not, however, by the Italian 

 method of first degrading them in detail, and then forming separate 

 pieces of columnar design, for mere ornament, to doors or windows, 

 as exemplified at, the Travellers' and Reform Clubhouses, but by 

 making them primary and useful parts of an edifice. 



The remarks in the second article, headed "Spirit of Architecture, ' 

 are, some of them, so extraordinary, that I am rather doubtful whether 

 to treat them seriously or not. The London architects will, I am sure, 

 have no reason to be proud of some of them, and if any, or even the 

 majority, are deserving of them, 'tis hardly fair to include the whole; 

 it would be much fairer to allude to the particular parties, or at least 

 their respective works. There are architects, however, elsewhere 

 than in London; and I think I could point out some examples of 

 desien in distant parts of England by native architects, that would 

 induce even the severe author of " Spirit of Architecture" to pause 

 in his denouncements, especially when contrasted almost side by side 

 (as in some places they may be) with such productions of eminent 

 London architects as alone can justify that author's severities. 



I never before heard of architects altogether disregarding public 

 opinion, when not expressed in such absurdities as whited towers and 

 churches, roughcast sculpture, and reddened plaster fronts. Indeed, 

 to show that discretion requires to be used in yielding to public 

 opinion, I myself have heard one of that public (and one, too, who 

 had travelled) seriouslv suggest as an improvement that a certain 

 public building should" be painted red, and scored in imitation of 

 bricks ; and yet the paper quoted seems to say that the umultund 

 mind is not only a more fitting judge of architecture, but would make 

 a better architect than such as have spent a life in its study and 

 exercise. Such remarks, however, are innocent enough, inasmuch as 

 they overshoot the mark ; but, for the same reason, they must fail of 

 doing good, which should be the object of all criticism. 



hSw an architect can be too architectural, or too strictly educated, 

 I really cannot conceive ; 'tis, I fear, far too likely, in most instances, 

 that the fault is that of deficiency ; although, as I said before, educa- 

 tiun can neither bestow nor take away that natural taste and talent 

 which enables an architect to excel : and to these gifts of Nature was 

 perhaps owing that eminence in their day of those interlopers, as they 

 are called, Michael Angelo and Sir Christopher Wren; to neither of 

 whom, however, are parties agreed now-a-days in attributing the highest 

 excellence as architects. The praise, too, bestowed on the latter in 

 the "Spirit of Architecture" stands in rather awkward juxtaposition 

 ■with the observation iu the former article, where, in alluding to the 



ugly churches of London, it does not except " the more admired than 

 admirable ones by Sir Christopher Wren." 



If architects' duties really are passing away from them to civil 

 engineers and decorators, that surely must be the fault of the employer, 

 not the employed; and it would be a slur indeed on public taste and 

 discernment to imagine for a moment that, until they have searched 

 Great Britain to every corner, they should have recourse to civil 

 engineers or builders, the former being almost proverbially incapable 

 of strictly architectural productions ; while, on the contrary, architects, 

 if educated as they ought to be, must be equal to all an engineer's 

 duties, which they do and will perforin, when prejudice does not 

 prevent their being called on. From builders no one, I believe, ever 

 expects anything like architecture ; and those who do permit them to 

 unite the offices of architect and builder too not only show themselves 

 careless of the merits of the production as a work of art, but must 

 find, too late, that they thereby deprive themselves of that salutary 

 check on the builder, which it is part of the architect's office to afford. 

 And as fur decorators, my liltle experience teaches me that they have 

 happily much less controul than formerly. The Reform Clubhouse is 

 not the only nor the most decided instance on which I found this 

 observation"; and, depend upon it, it is almost invariably the employ- 

 er's fault, either through ignorance or custom, if ever the decorator, 

 or any other pretender, is allowed to interfere with any part of a 

 building which has to do with its effect in the minutest particular. 

 Much more might be said on these subjects, but I leave it to more able 

 although not more zealous friends to architecture, and merely state, in 

 conclusion, that, instead of issuing such sweeping denunciations, it 

 would, I think, be a far more useful plan to bring forward, analyze, and 

 compare the several examples of architecture separately, with a view 

 to ascertain their merits and demerits, as such. 



Aus- 11, 1842. 



An Admirer of Architecture. 



[W> are at a loss to understand wherein lies the iniquity of contrasting 

 the Threadneedle Street structure with other London buildings, and indeed 

 we do not very well see by what means ils relative merit could have been 

 estimated, but for some such species of comparison. We have never held 

 Grecian architecture ansu'erable for the faults ot those i»ho occasionally mis- 

 apply it, nor is it the use but the abuse of Stuart's Athens we have ventured 

 to reprehend. Such works we admit may, perhaps, be perused as diligenCy 

 by Mr. Barry and other men of merited celebrity as by the most notable im- 

 becile of the confecliunary faction ; bat we suspect that in the one case the 

 designs are received merely as suggestions, in the other as the responses of 

 an oracle ; and it is scarcely necessary lo remark, that it is the latter species 

 of appropriation we have alone reprobated. 



We pass over several of our correspondent's observations, and hasten to 

 state that we have never maintained mental cultivalion to be unfavouvable or 

 even unimportant to architectural proficiency, provided the cultivation be o/tlie 

 right descri;,iio„. but that there is a species of cultivation productive only of 

 weeds, and fatal to every germ of genius, nature may have implanted, it is 

 a familiar enough remark that wherever schools of art flourish, the arts 

 themselves decline; and if it be the property of the prevailing system of 

 architectural instruction to discourage the growth of the natural emotions 

 and create others that are peculiar and artificial-to superinduce an irrita- 

 bility of taste respecting petty observances, and a disrelish of the ordinary 

 beauties of ordinary minds-lo quench all namral sensibibty of heart, and 

 impose upon the judgment by the authority of a senseless jargon-to eradi- 

 cate notbingbut taste, imagination, and genius. and ioster nothing but man- 

 nerism aflectation, and formality ; if this, and more than this, be the 

 general tendency and general effect, too, of the existing modes of education 

 —and all because they are t.io technical, stringent, and specific— if is easy to 

 understand how the education of an architect may be too architectural and • 

 his taste less true than tastes less systematically perverted. Education can 

 never create taste, but may ennoble or debase it according as the education is 

 in a right or wrong direction ; and the prevalent direction in the case of 

 archileciure is, we'conceive, such as to be generally productive of unfavour- 

 able inlluences. From such induences the architects of ancient Greece were 

 in a great measure exempt ; they girded on their armour and went forth with 

 theirlcllow citizens to the battle— they listened to the discourses of the phi- 

 losophers, and mingled in the assemblies of the people, and shared in the 

 anxieties of the cnmmonwealth, and partook of the responsibilities of the 

 administration ; ihey felt not as architects merely but as men— their asso- 

 ciations were not the associations of a sect or individual, but of the com- 

 munity, and their beauties derived not from Egypt nor Phojnicia but from 

 Nature Had they, like us. been content to be servile copyists of exotic con- 

 structions or podantic relailcrs of authoritative dogmas— had they, like us, 

 assumed that another people had, by some happy intuition, found out the 

 only forms in which beauty could be embodied, and that nothing was left tor 

 them but to multiply and combine those mysterious proportions— they woud 

 never have risen b.-vond the limits of mediocrity, andlthe world would have 



