DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0025
PREFACE.
xxi
architectural design. As, however, I can adduce in favour of my
views 3000 years of perfect success in all countries and under all
circumstances, against 300 years of absolute failure in consequence
of the copying systern, though under circumstances the most favour-
able to success in other respects, there seems at least an a priori
probability that I may be right and that the copyists may be
mistaken.
I may be cleceiving myself, but I cannot help fancying that I per-
ceive signs of a reaction. Some men are becoming aware of the fact
that “ archseology is not architecture,” and would willingly see some-
thing done more reasonable than an attempt to reproduce the Middle
Ages. The misfortune is, that their enlightenment is more apt to lead
to desponclency than to hope. “ If,” they ask, “ we cannot find what
we are looking for in our own national style, where are we to look
for it 1 ” The obvious answer, that it is to be found in the exercise
of common sense, where all the rest of the worlcl have found it, seems
to them besicle the mark. Architecture with most people is a mystery
—something different from all other arts ; and they do not see that it
is and must be subject to the same rules as they all are, ancl must be
practised in the same manner, if it is to be successful.
Whether the nation will or will not soon awaken to the im-
portance of this prosaic anti-climax, one thing at least seems certain
and most hopeful. Men are not satisfied with what is doing; a rest-
less, inquiring spirit is abroad, and if people can only be induced to
think seriously about it, I feel convincecl that they will be as much
astonished at their present admiration of Gothic town-halls and
Hyde Park Albert Memorials, as we are now at the Gothic fancies
of Horace Walpole and the men of his day.
xxi
architectural design. As, however, I can adduce in favour of my
views 3000 years of perfect success in all countries and under all
circumstances, against 300 years of absolute failure in consequence
of the copying systern, though under circumstances the most favour-
able to success in other respects, there seems at least an a priori
probability that I may be right and that the copyists may be
mistaken.
I may be cleceiving myself, but I cannot help fancying that I per-
ceive signs of a reaction. Some men are becoming aware of the fact
that “ archseology is not architecture,” and would willingly see some-
thing done more reasonable than an attempt to reproduce the Middle
Ages. The misfortune is, that their enlightenment is more apt to lead
to desponclency than to hope. “ If,” they ask, “ we cannot find what
we are looking for in our own national style, where are we to look
for it 1 ” The obvious answer, that it is to be found in the exercise
of common sense, where all the rest of the worlcl have found it, seems
to them besicle the mark. Architecture with most people is a mystery
—something different from all other arts ; and they do not see that it
is and must be subject to the same rules as they all are, ancl must be
practised in the same manner, if it is to be successful.
Whether the nation will or will not soon awaken to the im-
portance of this prosaic anti-climax, one thing at least seems certain
and most hopeful. Men are not satisfied with what is doing; a rest-
less, inquiring spirit is abroad, and if people can only be induced to
think seriously about it, I feel convincecl that they will be as much
astonished at their present admiration of Gothic town-halls and
Hyde Park Albert Memorials, as we are now at the Gothic fancies
of Horace Walpole and the men of his day.