DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1311#0266
OF THE WORLD'S INDUSTRY. 225
the alpha and the omega of science; the retired merchant must spend his surplus in
Chinese follies and pagodas. And, to wind up the list of these melancholy reproductions,
I will cite the worst I ever saw, though, fortunately, not an English one. In the case
of a client, who, requiring a steam-engine for the purpose of irrigation for his garden,
caused his architect to build an engine-house in fac-simile of one of the beautiful mosque-
tombs of the caliphs of Cairo, The minaret was the chimney-shaft. Nothing was omitted;
even the beautiful galleries, which you all know were used for the purpose of calling the
Moslem to his prayers, here surrounded a chimney without a means of access.
" I again repeat, the fault lies with the public ; an ignorant public will make com-
plaisant and indolent architects. Manufacturers, again, will always tell you, in answer to
a reproach for the bad designs they produce, that they are only what the public require,
and will have: let us trust that this excuse will no longer avail them. The Great
Exhibition has opened the eyes of the British public to our deficiencies in art; although
they were unable to suggest better things, they were found quite able to appreciate
them when put before them. There must be on the part of manufacturers, architects,
artists, and all who in any way minister to the wants and luxuries of life, a long pull
and a strong pull, and a pull altogether; they have one and all, like dramatic authors,
written down to the taste of the audience, instead of trying to elevate it. The public, on
the other hand, must do their part, and exercise a little pressure from without.
" I know that I shall be told that the production of a new style of architecture is
not so easy a matter; that it has never been the work of any man, or set of men, but
rather something in the like of a revelation; for which, probably, we may be told to wait.
Some will say architecture is a thing of five orders, discovered and perfected once for all,
beyond which we cannot go, and all that is left us is an adaptation of it to our own
wants; others will tell you that a Christian people should have no other than Christian
architecture, and will tell us to go back to the thirteenth century in search of architecture,
and that beyond this there is no salvation; but I answer, that this architecture is dead
and gone; it has passed through its several periods of faith, prosperity, and decay; and
had it not been so, the Reformation, which separated the only tie which ever existed
between religion and art, gave to Christian architecture its death-blow."
We will at present, however, detain our readers no longer than to quote the farewell
words of our lecturer, delivered at a time when the destruction of the Great Building
in Hyde Park was talked of.
Decidedly in favour of its preservation, for the new Crystal Palace at Sydenham
was not then contemplated,—" There is no doubt whatever," says he, " that the free
mixing of the several classes which took place in the Great Exhibition has produced a
feeling of higher appreciation of each other, both with the great and the humble; the
great have a higher respect for the humble, the humble look with much less of envy on
the great. Were the opportunity for this continued, the impression would become per-
manent instead of being transitory, or worse. This civilising influence, I say, would result
from the empty building; but when we imagine, in addition, its vast nave, adorned with
a complete history of civilisation recorded in sculpture from the earliest times to the
present, with casts of the statues of our great men which now adorn our squares and
public places, invisible from London smoke;—when we imagine the plants of every region,
however distant, climbing each column, and spanning each girder;—the sides of the
building set apart for the formation of collections, recording man's conquests over
nature, where hundreds daily may be taught to see, with the mind as well as the eye, an
education as necessary to the governors as to the governed; were such a scheme carried
out nobly and lovingly, the success of the Great Exhibition would be, in comparison,
failure itself. To effect this, and in further developing the movement in favour of
VOL. II. 3 M
the alpha and the omega of science; the retired merchant must spend his surplus in
Chinese follies and pagodas. And, to wind up the list of these melancholy reproductions,
I will cite the worst I ever saw, though, fortunately, not an English one. In the case
of a client, who, requiring a steam-engine for the purpose of irrigation for his garden,
caused his architect to build an engine-house in fac-simile of one of the beautiful mosque-
tombs of the caliphs of Cairo, The minaret was the chimney-shaft. Nothing was omitted;
even the beautiful galleries, which you all know were used for the purpose of calling the
Moslem to his prayers, here surrounded a chimney without a means of access.
" I again repeat, the fault lies with the public ; an ignorant public will make com-
plaisant and indolent architects. Manufacturers, again, will always tell you, in answer to
a reproach for the bad designs they produce, that they are only what the public require,
and will have: let us trust that this excuse will no longer avail them. The Great
Exhibition has opened the eyes of the British public to our deficiencies in art; although
they were unable to suggest better things, they were found quite able to appreciate
them when put before them. There must be on the part of manufacturers, architects,
artists, and all who in any way minister to the wants and luxuries of life, a long pull
and a strong pull, and a pull altogether; they have one and all, like dramatic authors,
written down to the taste of the audience, instead of trying to elevate it. The public, on
the other hand, must do their part, and exercise a little pressure from without.
" I know that I shall be told that the production of a new style of architecture is
not so easy a matter; that it has never been the work of any man, or set of men, but
rather something in the like of a revelation; for which, probably, we may be told to wait.
Some will say architecture is a thing of five orders, discovered and perfected once for all,
beyond which we cannot go, and all that is left us is an adaptation of it to our own
wants; others will tell you that a Christian people should have no other than Christian
architecture, and will tell us to go back to the thirteenth century in search of architecture,
and that beyond this there is no salvation; but I answer, that this architecture is dead
and gone; it has passed through its several periods of faith, prosperity, and decay; and
had it not been so, the Reformation, which separated the only tie which ever existed
between religion and art, gave to Christian architecture its death-blow."
We will at present, however, detain our readers no longer than to quote the farewell
words of our lecturer, delivered at a time when the destruction of the Great Building
in Hyde Park was talked of.
Decidedly in favour of its preservation, for the new Crystal Palace at Sydenham
was not then contemplated,—" There is no doubt whatever," says he, " that the free
mixing of the several classes which took place in the Great Exhibition has produced a
feeling of higher appreciation of each other, both with the great and the humble; the
great have a higher respect for the humble, the humble look with much less of envy on
the great. Were the opportunity for this continued, the impression would become per-
manent instead of being transitory, or worse. This civilising influence, I say, would result
from the empty building; but when we imagine, in addition, its vast nave, adorned with
a complete history of civilisation recorded in sculpture from the earliest times to the
present, with casts of the statues of our great men which now adorn our squares and
public places, invisible from London smoke;—when we imagine the plants of every region,
however distant, climbing each column, and spanning each girder;—the sides of the
building set apart for the formation of collections, recording man's conquests over
nature, where hundreds daily may be taught to see, with the mind as well as the eye, an
education as necessary to the governors as to the governed; were such a scheme carried
out nobly and lovingly, the success of the Great Exhibition would be, in comparison,
failure itself. To effect this, and in further developing the movement in favour of
VOL. II. 3 M