A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volume 1, 3rd ed. / From the Earliest Times to the Present Day

by James Fergusson

On the other hand, the revival of the Gothic style fifty years ago enlisted the sympathy of the clergy, not only in England, but on the continent of Europe, when they arrived at the conclusion that the Gothic style was the one most suited for church-building purposes; and attempted to establish a point that no deviation from Gothic models should be tolerated.

Beyond these there was another class of men who had but little sympathy with Greece or Rome, and still less with mediæval monasticism or feudalism, but who in their own strong sense were inclined to take a more reasonable view of the matter, and these men have for years been erecting in London, Manchester, Leeds, and in other cities of England a series of warehouses and other buildings designed wholly with reference to their uses, and ornamented only in their construction, and which consequently are—as far as their utilitarian purposes will allow—as satisfactory as anything of former days.

In addition to these, and within the last fifteen to twenty years, a very great progress has taken place in domestic architecture, not only in London and its suburbs, but throughout England, where buildings have been erected of a new and an original type, peculiarly applicable to the requirements of English domestic life, and of great variety and picturesque design; and these remarks apply not only to mansions, but to the residences of a much humbler and more simple kind.

In civil engineering, the lowest and most prosaic branch of architectural art, our progress has been brilliant and rapid. Of this no better example can be given than the four great bridges erected over the Thames. The old bridges of Westminster and Blackfriars, and those of Waterloo and London, were erected at nearly equal intervals during one century, and the steady progress which they exhibit is greater than that of almost any similar branch of art during any equal period of time.

In this department our progress is so undeniable that we saw old London Bridge removed without regret, though it was a work of the same age and of the same men who built all our greatest and best cathedrals, and in its own line was quite as perfect and as beautiful as they. But it had outlived its age, and we knew we could replace it by a better—so its destruction was inevitable; and if we had made the same progress in the higher that we have in the lower branches of the building art, we should see a Gothic cathedral pulled down with the same indifference, content to know that we could easily replace it by one far nobler and more worthy of our age and intelligence. No architect during the Middle Ages ever hesitated to pull down any part of a cathedral that was old and going to decay, and to replace it with something in the style of the day, however incongruous that might be; and if we were progressing as they were, we should have as little compunction in following the same course.

In the confusion of ideas and of styles which now prevails, it is satisfactory to be able to contemplate, in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, at least one great building carried out wholly on the principles of Gothic or of any true style of art. No material is used in it which is not the best for its purpose, no constructive expedient employed which was not absolutely essential, and it depends wholly for its effect on the arrangement of its parts and the display of its construction. So essentially is its principle the same which, as we have seen, animated Gothic architecture, that we hardly know even now how much of the design belongs to Sir Joseph Paxton, how much to the contractors, or how much to the subordinate officers employed by the Company. Here, as in a cathedral, every man was set to work in that department which it was supposed he was best qualified to superintend. There was room for every art and for every intellect, and clashing and interference were impossible. This, however, was only the second of the series. The third was entrusted to an Engineer officer, who had no architectural education, and who had never thought twice on the subject before he was set to carry out his very inchoate design for the 1862 Exhibition. He failed of course, for architecture is not a Phonetic art depending on inspiration, but a technic art based on experience. As re-erected on Muswell Hill the building was immensely improved, and far superior to its predecessor, but was burnt down before the public had time to realise its form. As being rebuilt, it probably will be still one step further in advance, and if the series were carried to a hundred, with more leisure and a higher aim, we might perhaps learn to despise many things we now so servilely copy, and might create a style surpassing anything that ever went before. We have certainly more wealth, more constructive skill, and more knowledge than our forefathers; and, living in the same climate and being of the same race, there seems no insuperable difficulty in our doing at least as much if not more than they accomplished.

Art, however, will not be regenerated by buildings so ephemeral as Crystal Palaces or so prosaic as Manchester warehouses, nor by anything so essentially utilitarian as the works of our engineers. The one hope is that having commenced at the bottom, the true system may extend upwards, and come at last to be applied to our palaces and even to churches, and that the whole nation may lend its aid to work out the great problem. The prospect of this being done may seem distant, but as soon as the general significance of the problem is fully appreciated by the public, the result seems inevitable; and with the means of diffusing knowledge which we now possess, we may perhaps be permitted to fancy that the dawn is at hand, and that after our long wanderings in the dark, daylight may again enlighten our path and gladden our hearts with the vision of brighter and better things in art than a false system has hitherto enabled us to attain.

These remarks might easily be extended to any desired length, and in fact this part of the work ought to be enlarged till it equalled the narrative part, if it had any pretension to be a complete treatise on the Art of Architecture. In that case, the static or descriptive part of a treatise on any art is equally important with the dynamic or narrative part. In most instances more so; but in this respect architecture is exceptional, and the narrative form is by far the more important of the two divisions into which the subject naturally divides itself.

If, for instance, any one were writing a treatise on Naval Architecture, it is more than probable that he would not allude to any vessel not afloat at the time of his writing. If he mentioned the triremes of the Romans or the galleys of the Venetians, it would be in an introductory chapter intended for the amusement, not the instruction, of his readers. In like manner, if an engineer undertakes to write on the art of bridge-building, harbour-making, or on roads or canals, he is only careful to cite the best existing examples in use, and would be considered pedantic if he wasted his time, or that of his readers, in recounting what was done in these departments by the Romans or the Chinese. If the fine art architecture was with us as well up to the mark of the intelligence of the day as these more utilitarian branches of the profession, the same course would be the proper one to pursue in writing with regard to it. Unfortunately, however, we have no architecture of our own, and it is impossible to make the various styles in practice either intelligible or interesting, except by tracing them back to their origin, and explaining the steps by which they reached perfection.

If architecture was practised by us on the same principles that guided either the Classic or Gothic architects in their designs, a static treatise on it would not only be the most instructive but the most pleasing form of teaching its elements. Owing, however, to the system of copying which is now the basis of all designs, this is no longer the case, and the consequently abnormal position of the art renders the study of its principles almost impossible, and memory must supply the place of pure reason for their elucidation, thus giving to the narrative branch of the subject a somewhat exaggerated importance, even when looked at from a merely technic point of view.