Board of Trade at Whitehall. He had to deal with a building, which had long been before the public eye in a prominent position, and which was not without many points of architectural excellence. But the altered building seemed to take the public by surprise; it was practically new in design and spirit, and, though exposed to much censure from one class of critics, it commanded general admiration. The comparison of the two woodcuts, which show its present and its former condition, will easily explain the vividness of effect produced, and will show (what is elsewhere noticed) the growing taste for richness and vigour of effect visible in Mr. Barry’s later Italian style,[53] and in this case remarkably contrasted with the strict classicism of the original.
Yet the conversion was carried out under conditions which might have seemed hopeless shackles on his genius. Not only was it necessary to preserve all the levels of the floors and the position of the openings, but he was obliged also to keep and work in the Corinthian order of the original building, in spite of his objection to engaged columns. The original design, with many points of excellence, yet seemed to him to want symmetry, force, and grandeur. To remedy these defects, he raised the order on a basement story, did away with the superstructure, which seemed to oppress it, and, removing the colonnades, which by their shadows and projection cut up the wings, he gave the great flanking masses their full effect.
The question next arose, whether the entablature should be broken or not. Mr. Barry’s objection to engaged columns has already been mentioned. Here, however, such an arrangement was forced upon him, and the question was, how the impropriety could be best alleviated. He had begun to think of breaking entablatures (which in days of classical purism would have shocked him), partly from the example of Inigo Jones’s Banqueting-house, partly from his Gothic studies, and the tendency to vertical lines which they fostered. He conceived that, when this step was taken, the engaged column changed its character; it no longer affected to support the entablature, but became avowedly an adjunct. This feeling, joined to the desire of greater variety and richness, carried the day, and, in this case and others, the entablatures were broken. In looking at his own work he felt that, from the necessary position of the columns, the breaks were somewhat over-crowded; and he rather regretted that he had not carried out an idea, which had occurred to him in studying his design, of crowning the principal windows with pediments to relieve the appearance of squareness. Otherwise he was contented and pleased with his work, which has been acknowledged as having given one more striking building to London. He long hoped that the façade would have been extended along Downing Street, and have terminated in a mass corresponding to those which now flank the elevation. His ideas indeed went beyond this: far larger schemes of extension were conceived by him in connection with the designs for the Government Offices. But
