FIG. 216.—ASSIZE COURTS, MANCHESTER. DETAIL.
THE VICTORIAN GOTHIC. Between 1850 and 1870 the striving after archæological correctness gave place to the more rational effort to adapt Gothic principles to modern requirements, instead of merely copying extinct styles. This effort, prosecuted by a number of architects of great intelligence, culture, and earnestness (Sir Gilbert Scott, George Edmund Street, William Burges, and others), resulted in a number of extremely interesting buildings. Chief among these in size and cost stand the Parliament Houses at Westminster, by Sir Charles Barry (begun 1839), in the Perpendicular style. This immense structure (Fig. 215), imposing in its simple masses and refined in its carefully studied detail, is the most successful monument of the Victorian Gothic style. It suffers, however, from the want of proper relation of scale between its decorative elements and the vast proportions of the edifice, which belittle its component elements. It cannot, on the whole, be claimed as a successful vindication of the claims of the promoters of the style as to the adaptability of Gothic forms to structures planned and built after the modern fashion. The Assize Courts at Manchester (Fig. 216), the New Museum at Oxford, the gorgeous Albert Memorial at London, by Scott, and the New Law Courts at London, by Street, are all conspicuous illustrations of the same truth. They are conscientious, carefully studied designs in good taste, and yet wholly unsuited in style to their purpose. They are like labored and scholarly verse in a foreign tongue, correct in form and language, but lacking the naturalness and charm of true and unfettered inspiration. A later essay of the same sort in a slightly different field is the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, by Waterhouse (1879), an imposing building in a modified Romanesque style (Fig. 217).
FIG. 217.—NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON.
OTHER WORKS. The Victorian Gothic style responded to no deep and general movement of the popular taste, and, like the Anglo-Greek style, was doomed to failure from the inherent incongruity between modern needs and mediæval forms. Within the last twenty years there has been a quite general return to Renaissance principles, and the result is seen in a large number of town-halls, exchanges, museums, and colleges, in which Renaissance forms, with and without the orders, have been treated with increasing freedom and skilful adaptation to the materials and special requirements of each case. The Albert Memorial Hall (1863, by General Scott) may be taken as an early instance of this movement, and the Imperial Institute (Colonial offices), by Collcutt, and Oxford Town Hall, by Aston Webb, as among its latest manifestations. In domestic architecture the so-called Queen Anne style has been much in vogue, as practised by Norman Shaw, Ernest George, and others. It is really a modern style, originating in the imitation of the modified Palladian style as used in the brick architecture of Queen Anne’s time, but freely and often artistically altered to meet modern tastes and needs.
In its emancipation from the mistaken principles of archæological revivals, and in its evidences of improved taste and awakened originality, contemporary British architecture shows promise of good things to come. It is still inferior to the French in the monumental quality, in technical resource and refinement of decorative detail.
ELSEWHERE IN EUROPE. In other European countries recent architecture shows in general increasing freedom and improved good taste, but both its opportunities and its performance have been nowhere else as conspicuous as in France, Germany, and England. The costly Bourse and the vast but overloaded Palais de Justice at Brussels, by Polaert, are neither of them conspicuous for refined and cultivated taste. A few buildings of note in Switzerland, Russia, and Greece might find mention in a more extended review of architecture, but cannot here even be enumerated. In Italy, especially at Rome, Milan, Naples, and Turin, there has been a great activity in building since 1870, but with the exception of the Monument to Victor Emmanuel and the National Museum at Rome, monumental arcades and passages at Milan and Naples, and Campi Santi or monumental cemeteries at Bologna, Genoa, and one or two other places, there has been almost nothing of real importance built in Italy of late years.
[26.] See [Appendix D].