1842.1 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



411 



THE PROFESSORS OF ARCHITECTURE. 



1. Iiitrodiictonj Lecture at King's College. By William Hoskino, 

 F. S. A. ; Architect and Civil Engineer, Professor of the Principles 

 and Practice of Architecture, and of Engineering Constructions. 

 London: Weale, 1842. 



2. Preliminary Discourse at Universily College. By Thomas Lever- 

 ton Donaldson-, Vice Pres. R. Inst. B. A. &c. ; Professor of Archi- 

 tecture. London : Taylor & Walton, 1842. 



It would be unfair, at the present moment, to compare the Pro- 

 fessors at the two rival colleges, particularly as one is but on the 

 threshold of his career; we shall therefore consider separately, as far 

 as we can, the discourses by which each opens the present session, 

 giving precedence by seniority to that of Mr. Hosking. The ground- 

 work of this is in the usual introductory lecture style, but the author 

 has managed to introduce his favourite theories. Here he repeats 

 Ids definition of a civil engineer, that he is only an hydraulic architect, 

 and defines the duties of an architect as those of a civil engineer. Of 

 the propriety of such doctrines we have before intimated our dissent, 

 and also of Mr. Hosking's implied definition, that an architect is not 

 an artist. The architect and the civil engineer have one study in 

 common, that of construction, but they are no more identical on that 

 ground than any two substances are identical, each of which contains 

 an element in common. The design of a civil engineer, and conse- 

 quently his career, is as distinct from that of an architect as light 

 from dark. St. Peter's and the Birmingham Railway have masonry 

 in common, and they have arches, yet few but Professor Hosking 

 ■would propose to interchange Bramante and Stephenson. Again, we 

 cannot but note the contemptuous terms in which Mr. Hosking speaks 

 of the artist and of the arts. 



"The qualifications of an architect — place him as far beyond the 

 mere artist as the artist is beyond the artisan." 



" Architecture and architects sufter together from their association 

 in the public mind with the imitative arts and with mere artists." 



"Artists being not unfrequently linked in the same category with 

 players, fiddlers, and dancers." 



Judges are linked in the same category with pettifoggers, physi- 

 cians with quacks, and clergymen with itinerant fanatics, yet we never 

 lieard the respectability of law, medicine, or divinity impugned, or 

 that of their professors, and we can conceive no disgrace to a man 

 from being put in the same class with Michael Angelo, Raphael, and 

 Rubens. Mr. Hosking, however, seems determined to treat both ar- 

 chitecture and engineering as mere building. Another of Mr. Hos- 

 king's peculiarities is about the gentility of architects, and that at 

 present it is scarcely a profession for a gentleman. How this may be 

 we do not know, but we fear that at present neither lawyers, physi- 

 cians, nor architects, are employed for the length of their pedigrees, 

 the number of their quarterings, or the purity of their descent, but on 

 account of their ability, and that their gentility is in virtue of the 

 liberal nature of their professions. We think it much better that 

 architects should stick to the arts instead of the Herald's College, for 

 the present generation of architects surely cannot be accused of the 

 sin of too much artistical feeling, which is just the quality most de- 

 ficient. Public opinion and competition are especial bugbears to the 

 Professor, and he recommends his pupils to set both at defiance. We 

 are only fearful that if they do, they will find themselves equally 

 wanting of reputation and employment. The present is not the 

 period'either to hold public opinion as naught, or to run counter to it; 

 there are too many educated critics and amateurs, there is too much 

 intelligence in the press, for the old mysterymen to hold their ground, 

 architects must be prepared to account for the faith within them, to 

 defend their errors as well as their merits, and to do as every other 

 art and profession must do, look to the public voice for direction and 

 reward. It is too late to stem the current. As to his depreciating 

 opinion of Vitruvius, Mr. Hosking defends it, and repeats his well 

 known assertion, that " a student would acquire as correct a knowledge 

 of history and of geography from the ' Seven Champions of Christen- 

 dom' and 'GiulUver's Travels,' as of architecture from Vitruvius." 

 We are not surprised at hearing this, for we know a similar diversity 

 of opinion prevails among lawyers as to the adoption or rejection of 

 "Coke upon Littleton" as the foundation of legal studies. In both 

 cases, however, we consider that the class book is to be esteeined as 

 indispensable, not on account of its positive instruction (which in both 

 cases is of little value), but as the instrument by which the minds of 

 the profession have been moulded, and so, essential to the new student. 

 Mr. Hosking's remarks on competition we must pass over, as also his 

 plan, for they are so foreign to the present state of public feeling, as 

 to be entirely futile. As to the assertion that no competition should 



take place between architects, because none exists among lawyers and 

 medical men, it is quite unsupported, for a lawyer or a medical man 

 may have a thousand cases or more in the course of a year, but few 

 architects have half a score buildings to erect in the same period. 



Mr. Donaldson begins by recognizing the importance which archi- 

 tecture, within the last twenty years, has assumed in this country, and 

 the deep interest which all classes have taken in its progress, as 

 evinced by the attention paid to it by the public press. He then 

 takes an extensive view of the artistical triumphs of architecture, and 

 concludes by sketching out the main features of his two courses, the 

 artistical and the constructive. The composition is brilliant, and the 

 range of investigation wide, perhaps in some cases too wide, but 

 giving good earnest of the extent of the author's acquirements. We 

 note an opinion as to the merits of Vitruvius, opposite from that we 

 have alluded to in the case of Mr. Hosking. 



The following extract of that portion of the Lecture in which the 

 Professor takes a rapid glance of the various styles of architecture, 

 will exhibit to our readers, particularly students, those high attain- 

 ments, which so well qualify Mr. Donaldson for the responsible office 

 he has undertaken. 



Follow me up the Nile which winds its sinuous course through 1000 miles 

 of country, from 10° within the tropic of Cancer to the Mediterranean, pre- 

 senting a line of abundance and verdure through an expanse of desert. The 

 attention is first attracted bv the Pyramids within wlsose dark recesses may 

 still lie hidden all the secrets, that have hitherto eluded research, to make 

 us acquainted with the arts, the manufactures and the science of the dynasty 

 of the Pharaohs. Memphis and Thebes, Phyle and Abussambul offer their 

 monolithic tombs, their immense excavations, their gorgeous temples, and 

 superb palaces, enveloped in hieroglyphic inscriptions, which still elude our 

 research or ill repay the indefatigable zeal, the unwearied patience and the 

 vast stores of erudition brought to the task of decyphering them ; for in- 

 stead of being pictures of thought they contain the bare records of names. 



The contemplation of these masses makes the mind of the traveller revert 

 to the period of Egypt's ancient greatness, when she was the cradle of 

 science to the whole 'world, and by her progress in the arts and letters in- 

 fluenced the rising genius of Greece. The intelligent observer gives order to 

 the confused piles which lie around him, and fills up the void space from the 

 writings of Dionysius the Ilalicarnanian and of Strabo. We shall attempt 

 to describe one of the Egyptian fanes. 



An Egyptian temple appears to have been one of the most imposing as- 

 semblage' of buildings, that can be well conceived. Avenues lined with 

 hundreds of sphinxes on each side, led the worshipper to the sacred 

 precinct for the distance of thousands of feet ; and thus the mind, even 

 when remote from the vicinity of the Temple, received an impression cal- 

 culated to excite veneration. This avenue was terminated by a stupendous 

 mass of pyramidal form, above 200 ft. wide and about 80 ft. high, whose 

 enormous proportion was naught diminished by the vastness of the plan m 

 which it stands, nor bv contrast with the mountains that overhung it. Itt 

 the centre of this propvleura is a door, flanked in advance by iin obelisk on 

 each side, about 90 ft .'high, and beside which are figures of colossal di- 

 mensions, 45 ft. high, sitting as guardians of the sacred portal. The eftect 

 of the whole is gigantic and calculated to impress the coming worshipper 

 with the fullest notions of his insignificance in the scale of material nature. 

 The triumphal gateway being passed, a magnificent court meets the eyes of 

 the beholder, having on each side a colonnade; and this court led to a 

 densely columned hall or veatible, under the shades of which the crowds of 

 Egypt's sons and daughters reposed to recover from the exhaustion and fa- 

 tigue caused bv their journey under a burning sun to the fane of their crea- 

 ture god. Anil here tlie mind also dwelt awhile on the first impressions 

 produced by the contemplation of the overpowering majesty of the gorgeous 

 mass. For the huge popylea, which enclosed either end of the court, and 

 the hall with its forest of clustered columns, which the eve could not 

 number, and the playful varietv and copiousness of channelled hieroglyphics 

 which left not a space uncovered, and the brilliancy of the pigment which 

 gave an endless variety to the shafts and capHals of the columns, to the 

 beams, the walls and ceilings, bewildered the attention, and left not a mo- 

 ment of repose to the wondering stranger. A lofty central avenue of co- 

 lumns, above 60 ft. high, forming as it were a triumphal way, leads under a 

 third portal, of dimensions by no means inferior to the others just men- 

 tioned, and marked with what care and with what sanctity the priests 

 guarded every approach to the inner parts of the temple. But this gateway 

 passed and a'scene the most sublime burst upon the view. An ample peris- 

 tvle, much larger than the one already passed, presented itself to the eye, 

 probably planted with trees, cio\vdcd with metaphoric statues; on either 

 hand a double avenue of columns less for convenience than dignity of effect. 

 In the centre uprose the portico of the mass of building, which formed tlie 

 Temple itself— the columns in dimension more' ofty, in decoration more 

 rich, in proportion more graceful than those of the courts. The dynasties, 

 that had ruled over the country up to the period of the erection of this 

 temple, have their histories graven on the walls and on the columns— the 

 same pyramidal form gives an appearance of endless durability to the mass, 

 which is surmounted liy an immense hollowed cavetto having the centre oc- 

 cupied by the sculptured form of the agatho demon, or winged globe and 



