ARCHITECTURE
597
architecture. Among buildings of an educational class, of the building. One- recent hospital, however, that at the move in technical education has led to the erection of Birmingham, by Mr Henman, combines architectural efiect with the latest hygienic improvements, and is the first large hospital in Great Britain in which the system of mechanical ventilation has been completely and consistently carried out. In theatre building there has been an immense improvement in regard to planning, ventilation, and fire-proof construction, but little to note in an architectural sense, since theatres in England are never designed by eminent architects, the financial and practical aspects being alone considered. In domestic architecture the tendency has been to quit picturesque irregularity for a more formal and more dignified treatment. Such a house as Mr Norman Shaw’s “ Cragside,” built in the earlier part of our period (Fig. 18), however its picturesque treatment may still be admired, would hardly be built now on a large scale ; its architect himself has of late years shown a preference for a symmetrical and regular treatment of house architecture, sometimes to the extent of making the mansion look too like a barrack. In street architecture, however, the tendency has been towards a more characteristic and more picturesque treatment ; nor is there any class of building in which the improvement in English architecture during the last quarter of a century has been more marked and more unquestionable. Many of the new residential streets in the west end of London present a really picturesque ensemble, and many shops and other commercial street buildings have been erected with admirable fronts from the designs of some of the best architects of the day. Mr Norman Shaw’s building at the corner of St James’s Street and Pall Mall was one of the first, and is still one of the best examples of modern street architecture. As later examples may be cited Mr Collcutt’s City Bank in Ludgate Hill (Fig. 19), and Mr R. Blomfield’s narrow house-front in Buckingham Gate (Fig. 20). The introduction of sculpture in street fronts is also beginning to receive attention; and a simple house-front recently erected in a London street, from the design of Mr Beresford Pite (Fig. 21, see Plate), is an excellent example of the use of sculpture in connexion with ordinary street architecture. It is significant of the increased attention accorded to street architecture, that the most important architectural event in England at the very close of the 19th century, was Fig. 20. House, Buckingham Gate. the outiay 0f £2000 by the London County Council, in a good many large polytechnic and similar institutions, which in many cases have been well treated architecturally; the Northampton Institute at Clerkenwell (Fig. 17), by Mr Mountford, being perhaps one of the boldest and most effective of recent public buildings. In the building of hospitals and asylums much has been done, and great progress made in the direction of hygienic and practical planning and construction, but the tendency has been (perhaps rightly) towards making this practical efficiency the main consideration, and reducing architectural treatment to the simplest character. The well-known St Thomas’s Hospital, at Lambeth, exemplifies the treatment of hospital architecture at the commencement of our period; the separate pavilion system had been already orl-Worl on practical grounds, frrrmnrle W 22,-Plan ofD,Hotel de Chamber; Ville, Paris.E, A, SalleStaircase; des FetesF,; B, manger; C G,Salons de adopted, DUt flip tne Fig. Reception; Council Grand SalleSalle desk Cartatides; General building is treated in a sumptuous archiSecretary; H, Prefect; K, Committee Rooms; L, Public Works; M, Corridor; N, President , i as it representing so many of Council; O, Library; P, Refreshment Room. tectural? style, detached mansions; a treatment which would now be | fees to eight architects for designs for the front of a deprecated as an expenditure foreign to the main purpose I proposed new street.
