DOI Heft:
Division I: Great Britain
DOI Artikel:Quennell, Charles Henry Bourne: English domestic architexture
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.37422#0028
ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
19th century he spent most of his time in trying to invent
machines that would do the work for him. A good deal of the
confusion of type and form arose through this endeavour. Centuries
of time went in the production of the forms of the hand-tools with
which, for one instance, Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton
made their wonderful furniture, and the cunning craftsmen of these
periods had corresponding centuries of time behind their hands in
the traditional use of these same tools. To have attempted in a
decade to reproduce this work by machinery was but to court
disaster, and so one finds that type after type was taken up, and as
speedily dropped when it was found that the machine was, as a rule,
much more interesting than its product. The machine became
master and drove the men, and the struggle seems still in progress,
excepting that for steam we have substituted electricity.
The economist tells us that from the point of view of the
progress of civilisation it is necessary to our comfort that we should
have these dreadful products of machinery mainly because they are
cheap ; the economist does not reckon beauty as an asset and so can
hardly have weight in a question of taste ; but architecture, and
certainly that building which is concerned with our houses, must
depend for a large measure of its success on beautiful materials and
workmanship, so that this question of the importance of craftsman-
ship is well worth consideration, and will be noted later in its
bearing on present-day building.
To revert for the moment to the styles of the 19th century, the
early decades were notable for the Greek Revival. Eighteenth-
century dilettantism had been interested by the publication, in
1762, of Stuart’s “ Antiquities of Athens,” and as by that time the
current versions of Palladio had begun to pall, it was thought new
life could be given to the Renaissance if ancient Hellenic artists
were followed, instead of the 16th-century Italian. The result was
the work done by Soane at the Bank of England, by Smirke, Wilkins,
Decimus Burton, Cockerell, and Elmes ; and one noticeable fact
about the Greek work done in the first half of the 19th century
is, that if the client happened to prefer 19th-century Gothic, he
had but to say the word and he could have it.
The Greek work of Burton and Cockerell was exquisitely
refined, and their genius somewhat helped matters, but when Nash
initiated the Age of Stucco, in his work at Regent’s Park and
Regent Street and the Quadrant, which he designed in 1813, the
Greek revival was for all honest purposes dead. It says little for the
perception of these men that they should have been so slightly
influenced by the wondrous marbles of Greece, seen, as they most ot
10
19th century he spent most of his time in trying to invent
machines that would do the work for him. A good deal of the
confusion of type and form arose through this endeavour. Centuries
of time went in the production of the forms of the hand-tools with
which, for one instance, Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton
made their wonderful furniture, and the cunning craftsmen of these
periods had corresponding centuries of time behind their hands in
the traditional use of these same tools. To have attempted in a
decade to reproduce this work by machinery was but to court
disaster, and so one finds that type after type was taken up, and as
speedily dropped when it was found that the machine was, as a rule,
much more interesting than its product. The machine became
master and drove the men, and the struggle seems still in progress,
excepting that for steam we have substituted electricity.
The economist tells us that from the point of view of the
progress of civilisation it is necessary to our comfort that we should
have these dreadful products of machinery mainly because they are
cheap ; the economist does not reckon beauty as an asset and so can
hardly have weight in a question of taste ; but architecture, and
certainly that building which is concerned with our houses, must
depend for a large measure of its success on beautiful materials and
workmanship, so that this question of the importance of craftsman-
ship is well worth consideration, and will be noted later in its
bearing on present-day building.
To revert for the moment to the styles of the 19th century, the
early decades were notable for the Greek Revival. Eighteenth-
century dilettantism had been interested by the publication, in
1762, of Stuart’s “ Antiquities of Athens,” and as by that time the
current versions of Palladio had begun to pall, it was thought new
life could be given to the Renaissance if ancient Hellenic artists
were followed, instead of the 16th-century Italian. The result was
the work done by Soane at the Bank of England, by Smirke, Wilkins,
Decimus Burton, Cockerell, and Elmes ; and one noticeable fact
about the Greek work done in the first half of the 19th century
is, that if the client happened to prefer 19th-century Gothic, he
had but to say the word and he could have it.
The Greek work of Burton and Cockerell was exquisitely
refined, and their genius somewhat helped matters, but when Nash
initiated the Age of Stucco, in his work at Regent’s Park and
Regent Street and the Quadrant, which he designed in 1813, the
Greek revival was for all honest purposes dead. It says little for the
perception of these men that they should have been so slightly
influenced by the wondrous marbles of Greece, seen, as they most ot
10