The New Temple of Industry. 213 



schools of design. This is not an organization to be treated 

 tenderly because of its weakness or retiring disposition, and 

 what it builds must be taken as the realization of what it 

 teaches. The structure prepared for the forthcoming Inter- 

 national Exhibition is not so much the production of one man 

 as of a clique, a school, and a system ; and it affords us but a 

 poor prospect of getting educational value for our money. 



The first view of the building, approaching it from the 

 Brompton Boad, is disappointing and depressing. Never, per- 

 haps, was so much thoroughly commonplace bulk put upon a 

 given quantity of earth at one time. The factory-looking cle- 

 restory windows of the eastern transepts have an appearance 

 of unutterable meanness ; the long, dull line of the Cromwell 

 Road, or southern front, overshadowed as it is by a row of 

 unlet stuccoed mansions, looks like an ordinary carriage 

 repository. The eastern dome, the first object prominently seen 

 from this point, looks like a huge balloon that has fallen amongst 

 the trees of the ' ' Boiler " gardens ; and the entrance under 

 this disproportionate cupola is built much in the bygone bare 

 style of a country dissenting chapel. A whole chapter might 

 be written about these huge, misplaced domes, which have 

 sucked up sixty thousand pounds sterling, or nearly one-third 

 of the money guaranteed at the outset for the cost of the 

 building. The fines of the sash-bars do not correspond in their 

 curves with the iron ribs, and the result is that the panes of 

 glass appear to be broken through by the iron- work towards 

 the apex. The domes, though built of the lightest material, 

 have a solid, earthy, heavy effect, because of their size and the 

 lowness of their elevation. They are the largest structures of 

 the kind ever executed, being one hundred and sixty feet in 

 external diameter. The dome of St. Peter's is one hundred 

 and fifty-seven feet and a half in diameter, and that of St. 

 Paul's one hundred and twelve feet; so that, putting it arith- 

 metically, Captain Fowke is a greater architect than either 

 Bramanti, Michael Angelo, or Wren. Fortunately for the re- 

 putation of the old designers, the cross of St. Peter's stands 

 four hundred and thirty-four feet, and that of St Paul's three 

 hundred and forty feet above the pavement ; while the gilded 

 finials of Captain Fowke's structure are only two hundred and 

 sixty feet above the ground. The domes of the two great ca- 

 thedrals press upon buildings whose proportions are able to 

 bear them without apparent effort; but Captain Fowke's swollen 

 cupolas seem to crush the slight wooden framework on which 

 they appear to stand. The South Kensington architect has 

 certainly broken the flat monotony of his eastern and western 

 fronts by these hollow mockeries, but at a cost of life and money 

 far beyond what the effect is worth. The southern front gets 

 vol. t. — NO. Til. Q 



