196 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
PUBLIC GARDENS AND SQUARES. 
In a lecture on the above subject given in London 
by Mr. Reginald Blomfield on “Public Gardens and 
Squares,” and which we take from The Builder, the 
author said: 
The point of view from which he wished to deal with 
the subject was not that of the technical designer; he 
wished to deal with it on a wider basis, taking it for 
granted that the designing of streets and public spaces 
was one branch of the family of art — not to be treated 
as a side issue, but rather as the last touch of civic ar- 
chitecture, as a problem that called for the patient 
thought that was necessary to any other expression of 
the human intelligence. The lecturer then gave a brief 
historical survey of the treatment of towns, considering 
the Greek and Roman cities, and specially referring to 
the broad and comprehensive scheme on which the Ro- 
mans laid out their cities, after which he dealt with towns 
in the Middle Ages and at the time of the Renaissance. 
In regard to W ren’s scheme for rebuilding London, he 
said that the fire was Wren’s great opportunity, for the 
city was a ruinous heap. Had the scheme, which was 
worthy of such a genius, been carried out, the City of 
London would have been one of the most beautiful in 
the world, for Wren’s fine intelligence grasped the full 
architectural possibilities of vistas of broad straight 
streets linked together by groups of public buildings, 
the importance of a commanding site for these build- 
ings, and the absolute necessity of a complete and con- 
secutive scheme to the dignity of a great city. Wren saw 
that patching was worse than futile, and that it was a 
question of a large idea or nothing. Other schemes 
which had been proposed from time to time had lacked 
comprehensiveness. As compared with the ancients, 
and the great masters of modern art, we had dropped 
far behind in our treatment of public spaces; so much 
so, in fact, that we seemed to have lost sight of the sig- 
nificance of this problem, of its extreme importance in 
the work of making our cities beautiful. What was the 
source of our failure? It was, he considered, to be found 
in the absence of any principle; in our incapacity to ar- 
rive at any dominant idea which would introduce logic 
and system into our chaotic practice. Wren had kept 
two main objects in view — firstly, to make the most of 
his buildings architecturally, and to provide fine vistas 
leading up to definite objects; and, secondly, to provide 
the most direct and ample thoroughfares to the chief 
places of public resort. The first of these principles 
had been overlooked by us, and the second, though rec- 
ognized in theory, had, as a rule, been subordinated to 
other considerations. New streets had been planned 
with regard to convenience of building sites, to get over 
the difficulty of some obstinate tenure, and to avoid the 
heavy outlay involved in a clean sweep. Individual ar- 
chitecture was beyond control, but the laying out of 
streets was on a different footing, and if the authorities 
could make up their minds to some definite and con- 
secutive idea in this matter, something could be done to 
redeem the streets from their prevailing significance. If, 
for instance, streets were laid out solely with regard to 
convenience of traffic, we should at least have the em- 
bodiment of an idea; there would be something that ap- 
pealed to the imagination in the consciousness of a 
principle of some kind manifest in every detail. The 
railway terminus would be the point of departure, and 
instead of the mean approaches which lead into some 
of our great railway stations, wide open spaces would 
be reserved in front of them. Perhaps the sanest 
method of dealing with a great city would be to deter- 
mine on the buildings which were of absorbing interest 
and public importance, and, taking these as data, 
so to lay out all future streets and public spaces as to 
make these buildings central features, and to bring 
them into relation with each other. By this means one 
building would help another, and instead of the series 
of abrupt shocks to our aesthetic sense, which was all 
that our cities provided for us, some continuous impres- 
sion would be possible of a great and beautiful city. 
* * * The design of streets and public places was 
undoubtedly a matter of intricate difficulty, but in the 
case of public gardens or parks, where there were no 
vested interests to deal with, no questions of traffic to 
meet, we were hardly more successful, and recent work 
was inferior to that of thirty or forty years ago. The 
most distressing features about our public gardens were 
the cast iron seats, the fountains, bandstands and re- 
freshment places. If the necessary money for this work 
were not forthcoming at once, it would always be better 
to wait until it should be, rather than to attempt to turn 
out a park ready made. Really good work of this kind 
would be a lasting pleasure to every one, and as we had 
in England to-day sculptors for whom little work was 
to be found, surely it would be a wise use of public 
money to employ such men to beautify our parks and 
avenues, instead of wasting it on merely commercial 
fittings. Our cities were deficient in sculpture; we put 
up statues in fits and starts to our great soldiers and 
statesmen, but we nearly always put them in the wrong 
places. The right place for a statue was in some place 
of rest and quiet, where its immobility was not outraged 
by the rush of modern life, and parks and public gar- 
dens could offer them this decent refuge. The most ad- 
vanced thought in this matter was that which puts it- 
self back. We had lost our sense of proportion, we had 
less understanding of the grace of life than our fore- 
fathers, less knowledge of how to make our surround- 
ings comely and reasonable, and we should not find the 
way to this by despeiate attempts at making our art 
and our language modern. In so doing we only made 
it vulgar. We shouli have to search again for tradition 
to recover that fine selection, that subtle sense of pro- 
portion which were the first elements of style, for the 
power of rejecting the irrelevant and unessential, until 
we had arrived at an understanding of what art is, and 
what it may do for us in our lives; the art that could 
bring order, and thereby dignity, in the countless ag- 
gregate of buildings which help to make up a city. 
The largest building stones are those used in the 
cyclopean walls of Baalbee, in Syria, some of which 
measure sixty-three feet in length by twenty-six in 
breadth, and are of unknown depth. 
