DOI Heft:
No. 86 (April, 1904)
DOI Artikel:Vallance, Aymer: Some recent work by Mr. C. F. A. Voysey
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26964#0209
C. /A
ROOM IN A HOUSE AT BIRKENHEAD
C. F. A. VOYSEY, ARCHITECT
shows a tile-roofed building of red brick, with white
stone string-courses and dressings. The character-
istic feature is the brickwork, which Mr. Voysey
proposed to carry out in bricks of narrow calibre,
giving six courses to the foot, instead of the
modern standard size bricks of four courses.
Mr. Voysey contends, and rightly of course, that
if one wants a building to have the character of old
work, one must, as nearly as may be, build it in the
same manner and with the same standard of pro-
portions as those adopted by the old builders. It
is because we do not attend to these and such like
elementary matters that we go astray; or, if we do
chance to remark them in ancient work, in the
blindness that we Batter ourselves is knowledge, we
misunderstand them and attribute to them some
preposterously far-fetched symbolic or mystical sig-
nification, of which the single-hearted masons of
old were as innocent and as unconscious as we
ourselves have hitherto been of the existence of
radium. A vivid apprehension of scale, and of the
right relation of parts; a commonsense use of
material; a practical though, belike, unformulated
observance 01 acoustic and dynamic laws—these
were the factors which primarily contributed to
make the buildings our fathers built what -they are.
And it is because we violate these Brst principles
in our productions of the present day, that we have
made ourselves unfit to replace a single stone of
their venerable handiwork. If ever (which God
forbid !) Westminster Abbey were to disappear by
any such accident as that which destroyed the
neighbouring Houses of Parliament, not all the
boasted wealth of the British Empire, nor the
united wealth and skill of the whole world, could
avail to rebuild it again as it was before.
An antique-looking design on paper may give a
highly satisfactory impression, and architects have
a trick of manipulating and colouring their
drawings so as not to fail in conveying the desired
impression ; but when the actual building comes to
be finished, with modern appliances and mathemati-
cally uniform blocks and courses—even if free
from the contemptible artifice of sham joints or
sham construction—the result has a mechanical,
cast-iron effect that the cultivated sense abhors.
The monstrous Tower Bridge, with its iron frame-
work belied by a superficial mask of stone, is a
131
ROOM IN A HOUSE AT BIRKENHEAD
C. F. A. VOYSEY, ARCHITECT
shows a tile-roofed building of red brick, with white
stone string-courses and dressings. The character-
istic feature is the brickwork, which Mr. Voysey
proposed to carry out in bricks of narrow calibre,
giving six courses to the foot, instead of the
modern standard size bricks of four courses.
Mr. Voysey contends, and rightly of course, that
if one wants a building to have the character of old
work, one must, as nearly as may be, build it in the
same manner and with the same standard of pro-
portions as those adopted by the old builders. It
is because we do not attend to these and such like
elementary matters that we go astray; or, if we do
chance to remark them in ancient work, in the
blindness that we Batter ourselves is knowledge, we
misunderstand them and attribute to them some
preposterously far-fetched symbolic or mystical sig-
nification, of which the single-hearted masons of
old were as innocent and as unconscious as we
ourselves have hitherto been of the existence of
radium. A vivid apprehension of scale, and of the
right relation of parts; a commonsense use of
material; a practical though, belike, unformulated
observance 01 acoustic and dynamic laws—these
were the factors which primarily contributed to
make the buildings our fathers built what -they are.
And it is because we violate these Brst principles
in our productions of the present day, that we have
made ourselves unfit to replace a single stone of
their venerable handiwork. If ever (which God
forbid !) Westminster Abbey were to disappear by
any such accident as that which destroyed the
neighbouring Houses of Parliament, not all the
boasted wealth of the British Empire, nor the
united wealth and skill of the whole world, could
avail to rebuild it again as it was before.
An antique-looking design on paper may give a
highly satisfactory impression, and architects have
a trick of manipulating and colouring their
drawings so as not to fail in conveying the desired
impression ; but when the actual building comes to
be finished, with modern appliances and mathemati-
cally uniform blocks and courses—even if free
from the contemptible artifice of sham joints or
sham construction—the result has a mechanical,
cast-iron effect that the cultivated sense abhors.
The monstrous Tower Bridge, with its iron frame-
work belied by a superficial mask of stone, is a
131