music as will enable him to judge of the nature of sounds, their accords and discords, and their affinity of notes, with a true knowledge of harmonic proportion when called upon to design buildings of consequence, such as assembly-rooms and theatres, in which places vocal and instrumental sounds are more immediately concerned. That the human inind cannot be expected to arrive at perfection in so many different and difficult parts of knowledge is admitted. Vitruvius says it is even rare in the course of a century to find a man superlatively excellent in any profession. Why then, it may be asked, is it expected that an architect should be equal to Phidias in sculpture, Apelles in painting, Orpheus in music, Galen in anatomy, or Hippocrates in medicine?

Many seemingly opposite qualities must then be the attainments of him who aspires to excel in a profession so variously directed. Architecture, says Monsieur Laugier, treating of the subject, is of all necessary arts that which requires the most distinguished talents; there is perhaps as much, or more, genius, good sense, and taste requisite to constitute a great architect as there is to form an historical painter, or poet of the first class. It would be a strange error to suppose it merely operative, and confined to laying foundations, or the building of walls, the art of which requires little more than forming, laying, and binding one stone solidly upon another, and that of mechanically framing the roof. In contemplating the builder's art, all indeed that strikes a vulgar observer are stages of scaffolding, confused heaps of collected materials, and working machines; but these are only as it were the outside of the art, the ingenious mysteries of which, though only discoverable to few observers, excite the admiration of all who comprehend them. We perceive in public edifices inventions of which the boldness implies a genius at once fertile and comprehensive; proportions of which the justness announces a severe and systematic precision; classical ornaments, of which their appropriateness and excellence discover judgment, and an exquisite and delicate feeling and taste. Now, whoever is qualified with a refined mind to appreciate so many real beauties, will, I am certain, be far from attempting to confound architecture with the inferior arts, but, on the contrary, feel strongly inclined to rank it amongst those that are the most exalted.

Every scientific art, it must be remembered, consists of two parts, the theory and the practice, the latter of which appertains peculiarly to its professors, while the former is known to the mechanical philosopher. The architect should be acquainted with the technical terms used by workmen, concerned in the construction of public and private edifices, and be a good practical geometrician; to be enabled to give that instruction to the operative superintending workmen concerned in each department of the building business, which is required while the fabric is erecting. The architect ought also to be acquainted with all the mechanical arts employed in the construction of an edifice, as well as be enabled to lay down by the most intelligible plans, elevations, and detailed working drawings of the different parts of the building, showing how each of the separate parts should be joined together or carried into execution. The architect must also be so much a master of the component parts of his composition, and the necessary forms and dimensions of each, that, as those of the profession term it, he may be able to dissect and develope the whole design, and from thence estimate from the same, giving the total amount or cost of the building before a single article is prepared, so that the employer may not be misled. This was an ancient and wise practice, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?”

* St. Luke, xiv. 28. It was a law among the Romans in the reign of Augustus, that if an architect misled an employer by a false estimate, he was obliged to make up the deficiency from his own private purse. Hence none but those of some considerable fortune were able to follow the profession. (Vitruvius, Hist.) What would many of our young architects of the present day think of this, were they bound by the same law ?—(A.)

The great masters of Italy-such as Palladio, Leone, Baptiste, and since them Piranese, -after the revival of the liberal arts, were indefatigable in their researches into the architectural monuments of antiquity, and their discoveries have now been published. It is requisite therefore that we should study from those authors as fountains of knowledge, for it is from them, as well as from the ancient edifices, that we must learn the necessity of a long, clear, and extensive application to the subject, and the impossibility that any man can arrive at a tolerable knowledge, much more the perfection of architecture, without having been previously trained to the arts even from his earliest infancy, and nursed as it were in the cradle of science. As it is now evident that a classical knowledge of the Greek and Roman structures, and a thorough acquaintance with the theory and practice of architecture, are by no means easily and readily acquired, gentlemen following other pursuits will do well to pause before they decide in any summary way by engaging a builder to act in a twofold capacity,* or allowing him to follow his own superficial or heterogeneous ideas; seeing that a noble mansion, chaste in the design, beautiful and harmonious in all its parts, can only be produced by sound judgment and intense application to study, and that by an architect who possesses a fine genius, and follows his profession entirely as a liberal art. But more particularly is an architect required for the manor-house, the country mansion, and the elegant seat, as such edifices always stand detached and surrounded with their local scenery, and are buildings on which great sums of money must necessarily be expended.

Further, let it be borne in mind that the want of chasteness and narmony in such buildings, either in the external part of the fronts, or taken as a whole mass, when observed by a man of taste, will ever detract from, or be a disgrace to, the judgment of the owner. And as to the interior, whether by an improper mixture of styles or distribution of the rooms, or their disproportion, or the want of conveniences, and bad principle of construction, those are often serious in their nature, and not unfrequently expensive in their results where necessary alterations must follow in consequence. Therefore in the end it will always prove a saving rather than an expense to employ a professed and experienced architect. But we again repeat, that he must possess taste as well as practical judgment, or his buildings will prove but monuments of disgrace and deformity, instead of chaste, beautiful, and attractive objects.

Lastly, gentlemen will always be sure to have a more splendid and elegant rural residence, and the expense in building will be greatly diminished by superior science, in proportioning the materials to their exact ratio; and this saving is at all times to be kept in view, though contrary to the expression of the old adage, “ A little stronger than strong enough." Nevertheless, a maxim among the profession must also be borne in mind, that it is better for the architect to play with the purse of his employer than with his own reputation, by too far lessening the substances of the materials; however, on the other hand, we may observe, that a house apparently very solid, is often weakened by the very load of unnecessary and misplaced materials, for beyond a certain ratio, the very materials are a load to themselves.

* It must not be understood that any reflection is here intended to be cast on the builders as a body; those mechanics are most useful and respectable, and will act with the greatest integrity when engaged under an architect.—(B.)

73

ON THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGNING PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

"The ancients must furnish examples and the component parts; modern art is to select, modify, arrange, and combine." Essay on Design.

The splendour of a city in its municipal or public edifices, consists in their magnitude, greatness of architecture, and classical or appropriate embellishments.* In private dwelling-houses bad taste may pass uncensured, since the proprietor alone is responsible, and at liberty to employ the operative carpenter or mason to form his plans, or indulge his own fancy; but in public buildings the good sense and taste of the community are deeply concerned, as well as their degree of civilization and refinement displayed and estimated. Those edifices by belonging to the public are also open to public criticism, and very justly, as absurdities in their composition might otherwise mislead the student, often being referred to as examples, and looked upon as perfect models of architecture.† Now as to public buildings, from the fact of each of them being appropriated to some particular purpose, so they should differ from each other in the style of their architecture. To do this their character must be definite, appropriate, and well studied, the architecture chaste, and the ornaments bold, varied, and in accordance. Thus whatever enrichments are introduced, they should be identified with the building. Hence the Guildhall must vary in its ornaments from those of the theatre, and the court of justice from the exchange; and again, the ornaments on the principal front should be considered as guides to determine the intended use of the building, all of which depends on a knowledge of history.‡

In public buildings it is reasonable to expect that good taste should always prevail, and that every such edifice should exhibit some characteristic in the design and architecture, as well as proportion to the classic models of the ancients; but by a strange fatality, a few years since some of the architects in the metropolis, like those of the Goths, appear to have conceived an antipathy to imitating them, and in order to avoid every appearance of it, had studiously deviated into the fanciful, whimsical, and absurd.§ How far the moderns have profited by abandoning the fashions of antiquity in their dress and customs, we shall not stop to inquire; but we may venture to affirm with regard to architecture, that in proportion as we deviate from the principles of the ancients, and abandon the imitation of their models, we depart in the same ratio from the path that

"To the sublime in building, greatness of dimensions seems requisite, for on a few parts, and those small, the imagination cannot rise to any idea of infinity. No greatness in the manner can effectually compensate for the want of proper dimensions. There is no danger of drawing men into extravagance of design by this rule; it carries its own caution along with it; because too great a length in buildings destroys the purpose of greatness which it was intended to promote. The perspective will lessen it in height as it gains in length, and will bring it at last to a point, turning the whole figure into a sort of triangle, the poorest in its effect of almost any figure that can be represented to the eye."-(Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful.) + All public edifices should be so well constructed as to endure for ages, and should serve as ornaments to the town where they are erected, for they convey either a public honour or disgrace on the citizens, according to the taste displayed in their architecture, and wherever built cannot fail to be objects of attraction to the inhabitants as well as to the visitor; they also, if chastely designed, generally lead to further improvements in the city or town.-(Architectus.)

I observed while at Paris, that the French have attended to this rule, so that the foreigner has no occasion to ask the bystander what building it is which presents itself before him.—(R. B.)

§ We have in England at this time many such ridiculous buildings, decorated with toys like a twelfth-cake, raised at an enormous expense, and designed as if for eternal monuments of the opulence and of the bad taste of the British nation. But it appears as if man was doomed in departing from one absurdity to fall into another, for in some of our provincial cities we have lately seen erected the most barbarous and debased Italian structures, composed of prison-like block rusticated columns, and rusticated angles ad infinitum. Now instead of allowing architects to pursue novelty at the expense of good taste, and seek for reputation by adopting pretended improvements of their own; if directors, when concerned in the erection of public buildings, were to oblige the architect to adhere strictly to the ancients, and adopt their forms, proportions, and details, England would then soon become adorned with the noblest edifices of Greece and Rome.—(A.)

τ

leads to perfection; and that every attempt to innovate, has always terminated with disgrace to the architect and to the country; for though their incongruous designs may satisfy the vulgar and tasteless, yet the sight of such buildings will always be offensive to the man of correct judgment and classical

attainments.

In the composition of all municipal or public buildings, the front elevation, like the human figure, should be uniform, and have its principal entrance in the centre of the front. The flanks or sides must vary in design from that of the front elevation, but be uniform and correspondent with each other; while the postern elevation must again differ from the front and sides.*

In public buildings of great extent, there should always be a principal and important mass in the centre, with subordinate ones at or near the ends, and these projections at each end of the front may break forward; and in the centre of the front a portico may be erected, of four, six, or eight columns, crowned with a triangular pediment decorated with sculpture.+ The end projections may have pilasters of a correspondent order with that of the portico; but it must be remembered, as we have already stated, that the order and architecture should always be in character with the building itself, some being for solemn purposes, others for gay ones. The Corinthian order, for example, being rich in ornament, is in consequence most appropriate for a palace. The Ionic, being playful, is suitable to a theatre; while the Doric is grave and sublime, and consequently most adapted for sacred edifices. The Tuscan is more applicable to market-places. But to acquire a true taste for composing or designing public buildings, and decorating the same appropriately, it is necessary to be well acquainted not only with classical architecture, but also with the heathen mythology, and to have previously inspected the antique monuments of Greece and Rome: if not the real buildings themselves, then by good prints, and to have compared them with the more modern works of the Italian architects, as Michael Angelo, Bramante, Baptiste, Palladio, as well as the French artists Desgodetz, Piranese, and Mansard—the latter in his palace at Versailles, erected in the reign of Louis XIV., and to have remarked which of these buildings are most agreeable to the rules of art, or that edifice which most affects our passions in the review; for the mighty masses and harmonious proportions of architecture always fill the mind with awe or delight as they recall the majesty or grace of the material world.§ Hence the works of those great masters are well worthy of our choice, to which we

* "In architecture," says Sir Henry Wotton," there may seem to be opposite affectations, uniformitie, and varietie, which yet may very well suffer a good reconcilement, as we may see in the great pattern of nature, for surely there can be no structure more uniform than our bodies in the whole figuration, each side agreeing with the other both in the number, in the qualities, and in the manner of the parts; and yet some are round, as the arms; some flat, as the hands; some prominent and some more retired; so as upon the matter we see that diversitie doth not destroy uniformitie, and that the limbs of a noble fabric may be correspondent enough though they be various, provided always that we do not run into certain extravagant inventions. We ought likewise to avoid enormous heights of four, six, or more stories, as well as irregular forms; and the contrary fault of low distended fronts is as unseemly; or again, when the face of the building is narrow and the flank deep, to all which extremes some particular nations are subject; and so much for the general figuration or aspect of the building."-(Sir Henry Wotton's Elements of Architecture, published A.D. 1624.)

+ Many of our young architects suppose that the grandeur of an edifice depends entirely on a portico, and therefore introduce one upon all occasions, as if a building which was required to be noble could not be designed without it. I would refer such to Henry Salt's Views made in India to illustrate the travels of Lord Valentia, where the sublimity of the public edifices will be seen chiefly to arise from the magnitude and masses, more than from their columnar architecture. (A.)

Sculpture and painting (the joint efforts of both may be required on the exterior and in the interior of a public building) propose to themselves the imitation not only of the forms of nature, but the character and passions of the human soul. In these sublime arts the dexterity of the hand is of little avail, unless it is animated by fancy, and guided by the most correct taste and observation.-(Gibbon.)

§ As examples of the powers of the mind, and the readiness with which the principles of the ancient art of the Greeks and Romans have been made to apply to other and widely different purposes, the works of the Italian architects are eminently encouraging. In the noble and splendid buildings of Italy they may be unquestionably traced, and each is amenable to the test of similar criticism, as all afford proper subjects for the contemplation of the student. In its unques

must add the works of the Athenian Stuart and Rivet,* and Messrs. Wilkins and Cockerell our countrymen, whose publications have been the constant storehouse of our lovers of Grecian architecture-a fact of which we are convinced on the inspection of the different edifices they have erected. Thus, witness

"Our towns and cities of illustrious name,

Their costly labour and stupendous frame."-Dryden.

In attending to the first principles of designing, the judicious architect has many difficulties to meet and combat, and many obstacles to encounter and overcome in the art of composition, and even in the contour, the massing, and proportioning the different parts so essential in the larger buildings; and this is not all, there is the assemblage, and the application of those proportions, that are also required to be justly appropriated to the intended fabric.† The orders of architecture are only the dress or embellishments of a building, though they must appear to form an integral part; the composition and distribution of the masses, and the proportioning of the component parts, being the principal, as well as applying those proportions to the proper objects, which is the most noble, the most extensive, and difficult branch of the art of composition. The portico, and the appropriateness of the orders with the embellishments, require skill in their disposition, situation, and arrangements, and a good genius to dispose them, so that they may be said to have neither meagreness nor redundancy. Neither should any part of a building be over-dressed, or left anywhere wholly bare. The first betrays a lavishness of fancy, the latter a meanness of taste; which lavishness may be compared to the headdress of a fine lady crowded and overcharged with lace, ornamental flowers, and feathers.

An elegant writer§ speaking of public buildings, says such edifices require greatness of architecture, which greatness, he considers, relates to the body and bulk of the structure, or to the manner in which it is built. Now if we are to consider greatness of manner in architecture which has much force upon the imagination, we shall find that a small building where that appears, gives to the mind nobler ideas than one of twenty times the bulk where the manner is ordinary or little. Thus, perhaps, a man would have been more astonished with the majestic air that appeared in one of Lysippus's statues of Alexander, though no bigger than the life, than he might have been with mount Athos, had it been cut into the figure of that hero, according to the proposal of Phidias, with a river in one hand and a city in the other. In confirmation of the above hypothesis, says a French writer,|| I have observed a thing which in my opinion is really wonderful, and demands our serious tionable unity will be found the source of dignity in the palace, notwithstanding the variety of its form. Its continued terraces provide a secure and extended base, from which, like the columns of the Greek or Roman temples, its arcades, pillars, and towers, are bound together by its architrave and cornices, above which the sky is met in parts of less magnitude, but equally enriching, formed by its domes, turrets, balustrades, vases, and figures, altogether combined in the greatness of relative proportions of simplicity and ornament, rendered the more striking by its well-disposed light and shadow, and the brilliancy of the material of which the edifice is constructed.

Thus in works that could not have been accomplished by mere imitation, we recognise the principle of ancient art in their designs even at a distance, in which form and contour are only discernible. These works are not copies; they merit the reputation of originality; for although in fact they are the offspring of the same art and governed by similar laws of design, the Grecian temple and the Italian palace are as unlike to each other as are the Greek and Roman temples themselves to their Egyptian and Assyrian precursors, and from which their origin may probably be traced, and even beyond them to the rude excavations of yet earlier times.-(Papworth's Essay.)

Stuart's Athens, a work of surprising exactness, presents to the eye in vast groups a collection of the noblest specimens of Grecian art and of Attic taste now existing.—(A.)

+ Many of our architects of the second and third order have wrong conceptions; they return out of Greece and Italy with their heads full of ancient temples, forgetting that those models of symmetry and grace were never intended for the assembling of multitudes, and that when once their forms and proportions are violated, decorations become as preposterous as a court-dress upon the back of a clown.-(Dr. Whitaker.)

See Pope's Essay on Taste.

§ Addison on the Works of Imagination.

li Monsieur Freart, in his Parallel of Ancient Architecture.