Gr. H. F. Nutt all 115 
toning down there—until the result satisfies his fancy. In any building the 
fenestration is a very powerful factor in the design. 
“The buildings used by scientists for their highly technical operations 
present certain difficulties to their architect when designing the exterior: for 
example, it not infrequently happens that adjacent rooms on the same front 
demand entirely different conditions as to the size, number and arrangement 
of the windows, etc. It is such difficulties as these which make the planning 
of laboratories an extremely interesting problem in design. Furthermore, a 
building should not only be true to itself but should harmonize with its 
environment. It has a duty to its immediate neighbours, especially if these 
are buildings of a University. 
“The above considerations had weight in the designing of the Molteno 
Institute. The architect was influenced by the expressed desire to build in 
brick of a certain colour and texture and to avoid the use of an undue amount 
of stone dressings. Moreover, the roof had to be flat, in order to admit of its 
being used in connection with certain work in the laboratories. 
“The accompanying plans show that, broadly speaking, there are two types 
of room: a series of research laboratories, with one side of each consisting almost 
entirely of windows glazed with large sheets of plate glass; the other type a 
series of rooms Vhere large windows were unnecessary and undesirable. In 
the midst of this series is a large library, and the top floor is, for all practical 
purposes, an enormous room—the Research Museum. How to combine these 
elements into a composition in which the large glass area of the research room 
windows should not throw the remainder out of scale, nor the numerous smaller 
windows fritter away the wall space—how they should be arranged in some 
rhythmical way—that was the problem of the elevations. 
“It seemed best to group the research rooms together on the two floors and 
to combine the two storeys into one ‘order’ by treating the piers between 
the windows as pilasters, the intervening wall-surface being kept low in tone; 
by this means the dark masses of the large windows do not unduly assert 
themselves but are kept in a relatively subservient position in the strong 
vertical emphasis of the pilaster groups. The regular series of four-light windows 
on the top storey are intended to indicate the existence of one large room; 
whilst the treatment of the south front with its smaller windows with leaded 
panes and the brick piers, qua pilasters, between is intended to present a 
kindly front to the green Court of Downing College. 
“The colour scheme of the exterior has received some consideration: it is 
quiet and subdued and somewhat low in tone. The brick walls are in broken 
tints varying from purple-brown to brownish-grey; the copings, cornices and 
pilasters are grey-white; the woodwork (all of teak) is fast approaching a 
similar tone. 
“This simple building, standing four-square against a pleasant background 
of old trees, is an attempt to house a modern scientific department in a manner 
not unsuited to its needs and the ‘atmosphere* of its environment. ’ 
8—2 
