PART II. On the Detail of CONSTRUCTION, and on EXECUTION. THE noblest design, badly executed, is disagreeable to the view, and ruinous to the proprietor of the edifice. Bad foundations and roofs, improper materials, materials of different degrees of durability piled incongruously together, and bad workmanship, form the elements of bad execution. In no country are materials and labour obtained in greater perfection than in England; and in all regular works, coming under the architect or engineer, we generally find little to condemn, and much to admire in the execution of the work'. Hothouses, how+ 1 Take the grand lock at the western junction of the Caledonian Canal with the ocean, by. Mr. Telford, and the Strand Bridge by Mr. Rennie, as examples in Britain, and the cones of Cherburg, and the Pont des Arts, in France. In general, however, execution on the continent is far inferior, though the designs in respect to an accurate adjustment of the means to the end in the engineering art, and of classic taste in architecture, are often superior, to those of Bri tish artists. In Russia and Poland the noblest buildings are frequently rendered contemptible by the clumsiness of the labour, and the discordancy of the materials. In one of the finest efforts of the celebrated Imperial architect the Chevalier de Quaringhi, l'Hopital de Chérémétow in Moscow, which is built of brick and stuccoed, and is on the whole one of the best executed edifices in the empire, the finishing balustrade is of timber, each baluster a thin board, coloured and shaded to imitate stone. To commemorate the spot at Kiow where Vladimir em braced the Christian religion, and threw his idols into the Dnieper, the present Emperor erected a magnificent column in 1802. The situation both by nature and association of ideas is grand; and in design the monument corresponds; but executed in brick and timber plastered and painted, it fails to communicate the leading idea of a monument, durability; and in fact in 1814 was literally tumbling to pieces. Hothouses in these countries are sometimes grand. in design, but always ephemeral in duration. ever, and garden buildings in general, are in some degree an anomalous class, and more the subject of chance or caprice in design, and of local convenience in execution, than those of any department of rural architecture. The subject till very lately has not been deemed of sufficient importance to render it worth an architect's time to make himself master of the first step towards improvement in every art, the knowledge of what has already been done by others; and on this account the amount of some recent attempts has not exceeded local variation of form. Scientific gardeners are certainly the best judges, and ought to be the best designers of hothouses; though their other avocations, and their localization, too often prevent them from attending to the whole subject scientifically. Each may develop new practices within his own sphere of action; but it requires time, and much general observation, to embody so many scattered hints in a general system of improved construction. Hence that variety of plans which are observable in different gardens, and the number of patents and published designs which have from time to time attracted public attention. It is true, as Mr. Knight observes, that this variety is a proof of the infancy of art; but still it evinces at the same time a strong tendency to perfection. The leading features of all the modern improvements will be noticed in the following remarks, in which I shall chiefly study brevity, convinced from experience that more may be done in a subject of this nature by manufacturing establishments, in which improvements may be at once embodied, and exposed for public sale; than by any didactic work, however perfect or minute. An arrangement of this de scription will shortly be put in activity in London, in which every improvement hinted at in this work, and all future improvements as they may come into notice, will constantly be attended to; and when of due value rendered available to the public as articles of trade. The remarks submitted, are in the order following; viz. SITUATION, DESIGN, MODE OF HEATING, MODE OF VENTILATING, and EXECUTION. The obvious and customary SITUATION for culinary hothouses is in the kitchen garden; for greenhouses or conservatories, in the parterre or shrubbery, or attached to the mansion. But modern taste has in some instances judiciously disposed the whole in one magnificent range en suite with the principal apartments of the house, and this is perhaps one of the greatest luxuries of a modern country residence. When subsequent improvements in communicating heat, and in ventilation, shall have rendered the artificial climates produced, equal or superior to those which they imitate, then will such an appendage to a family seat be not less useful in a medical point of view, than elegant and luxurious as a lounge for exercise or entertainment in inclement weather. Perhaps the time may arrive when such artificial climates will not only be stocked with appropriate birds, fishes, and harmless animals, but with examples of the human species from the different countries imitated, habited in their particular costumes, and who may serve as gardeners or curators of the different productions. But this subject is too new and strange to admit of discussion, without incurring the ridicule of general readers. The most extensive range of glass houses attached to a mansion which I have any where seen (and as glass houses are almost entirely confined to Britain and the north of Europe, I may say I have seen every hothouse of any consequence in the world,) is at Gorinka, the magnificent domain of Count Razumówski, near Moscow. The house is in the centre, and the glass forms two wings fronting the lawn, the whole composing an immense semicircle terminating in one extremity in a building dedicated to natural history, and containing an extensive collection under the superintendance of an eminent professor (Fischer). The other ending in a theatre, capable like that at Versailles of being arranged as a ball-room, concert-room, tennis-court, or riding-house, in a few hours'. 1 Independently of this range, there are at Gorinka nearly thirty detached houses in the botanic garden, there being in all above three English acres covered with glass. For how much H In England there are several magnificent orangeries attached to mansions, but few instances of all the glass being in one range and en suite. In general, where there is the greatest number of houses, as in the Royal gardens, Woodlands, St. Fagons, &c. they are scattered and disconnected in such a way as to produce no effect. To be under the necessity of walking some distance from the mansion before you enter the conservatory, and then to be exposed to the open air between the inspection of each of the remaining glass houses, appears to me mal-adroit and insalutary. The DESIGN or plan to be adopted depends on the combined considerations arising from the situation and the object in view. Where a range, or a single house, is to be attached to a mansion, study elegance; but where the kitchen garden is selected as the place of erection, study utility and œconomy. As in the present mode of con struction in timber, perpendicular front glass of two or three feet in height, and a sloping roof placed to an angle of forty or forty-five degrees, have been long found to answer most purposes, at least for vines, greenhouses, and botanic stoves; so, as a general design for corresponding objects, and adapted for iron astragals, I propose that of which Figs. 1, 2, and 3, PL.V. are delineations. For peach-houses for a general crop, the same form may be adopted, with the glass in three or more parts, to be raised as in Fig. 4, PL. V. For fruiting pineries, I have no hesitation in saying that the section in PL. V. Fig. 7, though inconvenient as to keeping the plants perpendicular in the bark pit, yet is in principle far superior to any in common use, and, if steam were substituted for bark, would in theory be as perfect in respect to the slope of the glass and pit as the nature of the subject admits. The earliest mankind depend on this elegant material produced from seemingly the most useless of the débris of our globe, see a most eloquent paper by Professor Cuvier, in the Magasin Encyclopédique for 1816, entitled Réflexions sur la Marche actuelle des Sciences, et sur leurs Rapports avec la Société. See also A didactic Epistle to General Showalow on the Utility of Glass: Petersburg 1760, by the celebrated Russian poet and philosopher Lomonosow. description of forcing-houses, whether for grapes or peaches, will be inost advantageously arranged after the manner of Fig. 6, PL. 1, with the improvements and variations of which that plan is susceptible. As leading general data on this subject I submit the following, viz. 1. That where the glass is to be fixed', the roof should be formed of astragals alone. See PL. V. Figs. 1, 2, and 3, and the explanation to these figures. 2. That in almost every case curved cast iron rafters, proceeding at once from the front to the back wall, will be preferable to having upright front glass, as affording much more light, admitting the improved method of giving air shown in PL. VII., as well as being more elegant and less expensive. See Fig. 4, PLATE V. 3. An outer or inner curtain will be found of great service in every case; and it has this peculiar property, that, if it does no good, it cannot possibly do harm. 4. Wherever a number of houses are together, and placed under 5. In addition to every house, there ought to be in the back shed 7. In remote parts of the country, on a small scale, and under 'Air admitted from the front wall and back wall, it would appear, is found sufficient in the case of vines; at least judging from Mr. Knight's experience, which, as a German critic judiciously observes, is particularly important, and has occasioned considerable improvement in England in this branch. "Die erfahrungen des Hern Knight ueber diesen gegenstand sind besonders wichtig, und wir empfehlen sie vorzüglich dem Deutschen leser, da man in diesen anlegen weit fortschritte in England gemacht hat." Göttengische Gelehrte Anziegen, Jan. 1817, p. 146. |