WINCHESTER'S OPPORTUNITY.
War legislation has pressed hard on many callings, and on none more than that of the architect. But the embargo has been lifted; the ancient art is coming to its own again, and it is of happy omen that the new President of the Royal Academy has been chosen from the architects. In this context we welcome the stimulating article in a recent issue of The Times à propos of the Winchester War Memorial. "Are we never," asks the writer, "to take risks in our architecture?" and his answer, briefly summed up, is "Perish the thought. De l'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace." It is, of course, a pity that the Winchester War Memorial scheme has not met with the unanimous approval of Wykehamists. Possibly they have reason, for while adding a new cloister, a new gateway and a new hall to the existing school buildings, it involves the pulling down of the Quingentenary Memorial Building, erected some twenty years ago, and of some old houses in Kingsgate Street. Some consider such a drastic destruction to be unfortunate, but, says The Times, it is "necessary if any scheme worthy of the occasion is to be carried out." Moreover it is proposed to re-erect the Quingentenary Memorial on a new site, "where it will certainly look as well as ever."
The greatest event in our history, as the writer finely observes, cannot be worthily commemorated by any timid compromise. Winchester has set a splendid example, but it is perhaps too much to expect that it will be followed by London, owing to the inevitable clash of conflicting interests in our unwieldy metropolis. The erection of a new Pantheon on the site of St. Paul's and the removal of WREN'S massive but démodé structure to Hampstead Heath, where it would certainly look as well as ever, is, we fear, however much The Times may desire it, beyond the range of practical politics. But example is infectious, and if only the Winchester authorities would expand their scheme and carry it out with Dantonesque audacity to its full logical conclusion, other towns and cities might ultimately fall into line.
Winchester Cathedral, as we need hardly remind our readers, has only been rescued from subsidence and collapse at an immense cost by a lavish use of the resources of modern engineering. The building itself is not without merits, but its site is inconspicuous and the swampy nature of the soil is a constant menace to its durability. The scheme which we venture with all humility to suggest is that it should be removed and re-erected, in the same spirit though in the architectural language of our own day, on the summit of St. Catherine's Hill, where it would look better than ever, and be connected by a scenic neo-Gothic railway with Meads. This would not only add to the amenities of the landscape, but enable the present cathedral site to be utilized for a purpose more in consonance with the needs of the age. We do not presume to dictate, but may point out that if the deanery and the canons' houses were pulled down and re-erected on the golf-links, where they would look better than ever, space would be available for a majestic aerodrome, or, better still, an experimental water-stadium for submarines, in memory of KING ALFRED, the founder of our Fleet.
Into the question of details, design and cost it is not for us to enter. We confine ourselves to appealing with all the force at our command to Winchester, fortunate, as The Times reminds us, in the choice of an architect of genius and ingenuity, to persevere, to rise to the occasion, to cast compromise to the winds and above all to remember that the greatest compliment which can be paid to the architects of the past is to remove their buildings to sites where they look better than ever and do not suffer from the immediate neighbourhood of the masterpieces of their successors. Architecture has been defined as "frozen music." But on great occasions such as this it needs to be taken out of its cold-storage and judiciously thawed.
