424 THE BUILDING NEWS. May 2471872... SS ee TO CORRESPONDENTS. [We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions of our correspondents. The Editor respectfully requests that all communications should be drawn up as briefly as possible, as there are many claimants upon the space allotted to correspondence.) To Our READERS.—We shall feel obliged to any of our readers who will favour us with brief notes of works con- templated or in progress in the provinces, Letters relating to advertisements and the ordinary business of the Paper should be addressed to the EDITOR, 31, TAVISTOCK-STREET, COVENT-GARDEN, W.C. Advertisements for the current week must reach the office not later than 5 p.m, on Thursday.
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REceEIvep.—J. C, J.—C. L. E—W. B.—T. L. W.—R. M.— H. E. H.—A. Z—C. H. B.—A Competitor.—H. R.— J. H. T.—J. B.—R. P.—W. & Co.—H. S.—W. C.—0. G. Moore.—P. H. W.—J. B. & Sons.—G. R. R.—J. M. W. R. WALLIS.—We should have no objeation to give the ground plans only of what you call “the alphabetical list,” and which the arbitrators considered “worthy ot praise,” but the plans are returned. If each competitor would copy his ground plan as it appeared in his original drawing, we would reproduce it. F, J. W.—Respectfully declined. J. HAMILTON.—We don't know the address. A. N. (Bromley).— Please send drawing of Tournay Cathedral. HAmMpPpEN WM. PRAttr.—The sketches of towers, &., to hand, and will appear. S& D.—62, Duke-street, Liverpool. J, F. T.—Your reply contains no new fact or argument; and, though you complain of a loss of temper elsewhere, forget you have partially lost your own. R. MAwnHo00p.—Drawing returned. ——_—>—___ Correspondence, ——-—__. ASSISTANTS AND OFFICE MANAGEMENT. To the Editor of the Burcp1ne News. Srtr,—In your leading article of last issue you comment upon the shortcomings of architectural assistants; as a member of that class I take the liberty of replying. Admitting that there are a great many assistants totally unfit for the duties required of them, I would ask, Who are in many cases responsible for their in- capacity? I answer, without the slightest hesitation, architects themselves. Before showing how, let me ask how it is that any assistant can be called in question for such a thing as his spelling? Is the answer not to be found in many of the advertise- ments that appear in professional and public journals, such as, “ Wanted by an architect, an office lad”—to do what? Why, run messages, deliver letters, clean the office, light his principal’s fire, and trace when necessary. Apart from that class of young men who have barely received the rudiments of an English education, and who are greatly to be pitied, there are two classes who enter the profession—or trade—which is it? I begin to be somewhat doubtful. Trirst, a class who are favoured with a fair proportion of this world’s gear, and who simply become architects’ pupils because they and their parents consider it a gentlemanly and easy (?) profession. They generally very soon become dis- gusted withthe so-called routine of the office, vote architecture a bore, work as little as possible during the period of their probation, and atthe end of it, either leave it for some more congenial pursuit, or— wonderful to relate—become full-fledged architects, with a brass plate 12in. x Gin., and everything complete, not by virtue of their ability, but solely because of the coin in their papas’ pockets, and the troop of friends at their back—but enough of them. The second class become students of architecture for the simple, but satisfactory reason, that they are endowed with love for art, and so they duly become articled to the eminent Mr. A. or Mr. Bi, paying him a heavy premium for the care, attention, and teaching he is expected to bestow upon them, and they labour under the idea that they are to be taught, at least, the rudiments of the art and its manifold accompaniments. ‘This, very often, alas! proves, like first love, to be but a youthful impres- sion, and they very soon find out that Mr. A. is too big and busy a man by half to attend to their in- fantile teaching, and they are left to struggle through the architectural alphabet as best they may; and is it any wonder that without a guiding hand they very often read it upside down? Thus, at the end of four or five years, those young men, who are now expected to earn their own bread, find them- selves—what? Why, may be, neat enough draughts- men and tracers, and—bitter gazers on the far-off “tree of the knowledge of architecture.” During the whole of their apprenticeship they have done little else than trace, trace, trace, copy, copy, copy; the life they led was solely mechanical, and instead of their mental powers being opened up and fostered by judicious advice and training, they, left to themselves in a very sea of doubt, have become dulled and blunted. Very often they did not see their busy superior and supposed teacher for days together, and when they did, and had “screwed their courage to the sticking point” to ask some question anent their profession, they have been snubbed or sent away with a lame and unsatisfactory reply.
- Arrived at this Promising stage of their profes-
sional existence, these young men say, ‘ What now?” They are bitterly alive to the stern truth that they know but little of their art, but, alas! they are but mortals, and mortals must eat; conse- quently they advertise for employment, and after, in many instances, long weary months of wait- ing, and bitter reflections that, in a pecuniary sense at least, they would have been better at the back of a grocer’s counter or engaged in the intellectual pursuit of measuring out a yard of ribbon, they find it in the shape of £40 or £50 per annum, and are expected to give in return for such a generous salary their whole exis- tence to their master, to know everything pertaining to their work, and to show experience beyond their years ; but still they find that as pupils or draughtsmen their life is purely mechanical, and that they have not the very ghost of a chance of showing or using any artistic ability they may possess, and that business-like word “clerk” embodies the Alpha and Omega of their existence. In the office they have as little to do with art as any outsider; the archi- tects are so fond of the ‘pretty bits” themselves, and, the public say, pay so little attention to aught else, that there is nothing left for the assistants but “drains and foundations.” These, I would have thought the very portions the master-mind itself should work out ; for is this not an age of utility ? are not the words “sanitary” and “ ventilation” being eternally dinned into an architects ears? Much more might be said to exonerate, ina great measure, assistants from the blame laid upon them, but I have already intruded too much on your space, and will shortly say, in conclusion, that when we have more of the studio and less of the office; that when all our architects do (as I grant some do) their duty by the young men who enter their offices as pupils, and admit them to familiar conversation, even though it be on the footstool at their feet, and to that relationship which doubtless existed between Brunel- leschi and his pupil Alberti, and Cimabue with Arnolfo, and treat them as those who will occupy their place when that place knows them no more, and on whom depend the architecture of the future, then and not till then will our architects find assis- tants capable of doing their duty.—I am, &c., Docenpo Discus.
POPULAR ART CRITICISM.. Sirn,—The writer of the recent article in the Quarterly Review has given the public the benefit of his views upon Medieval and modern architecture, and has referred the comparative excellence of the former to the different position occupied by the architect, or, perhaps I should say, to there being no architects at all, but he does not condescend to say from what source he derives his information. Possibly, he may have abundant proofs for all he has asserted, but it would have been an important addi- tion to his paper if he had placed us in possession of them, and it appears to me quite time enough to consider his argument after he has established his premises, In the course of my reading the other day, I came across the following passages, which, as they bear directly on the point at issue, and as there is no higher authority than M. Viollet le Duc, I recom- mend to the attention of your readers. In the article ‘‘ Architecte,” in his splendid “ Dictionnaire,” he treats of the position assumed by Mediwval architects, and admits that it is a question involved in some obscurity. From one of the earliest documents relating to the subject he extracts the following infor- mation :—‘“ The Chapter of the Cathedral of Gérone decided, in 1312, to replace the old Romanesque church by a new one, larger and more worthy. . . . In February, 1320, appears on the capitulary register an architect named Henri de Narbonne. Henri dies, and his place is filled by another architect, his
countryman, Jacques de Favariis, who is engaged to come from Narbonne six times a year, &c. Here, then,” says Viollet le Due, ‘is a counsel of adminis- tration probably charged with payments, then a foreign architect, called, not to follow the execution each day and oversee the workmen, but only to draw the plans, to give the details, and to observe from time to time that they are conformed to.” I quote again, further on: ‘ At Notre Dame, at Strasbourg, can still be seen a portion of the drawings on vellum which have served for the execution of the doorway of the cathedral, the tower, the fléche, the north porch, the pulpit, the organ case, &e. Of these draw- ings, which date from the later years of the thirteenth century, some are plans (projets) which have not been executed, while others are evidently details prepared for drawing the diagrams full size (en grand) upon the floor. Amongst these we remark plans of the different stages of the tower and the fléche. These drawings date from the fourteenth century, and we must say they are executed with a knowledge of ‘trait’ (untranslateable), with a precision and a mastery of projection, which gives a high idea of the science of the architect who has drawn them.” In justice to the Quarterly reviewer, it may be remarked that the system he advocates does seem to have pre- vailed at a later period, but with somewhat different results to those he represents. I quote again: “During the fifteenth century this high position occupied by the architects of the thirteenth and fourteenth century is lowered bit by bit; thus the constructions lose this great character of unity which they had pre- served during the finest periods. One perceives that each body of tradesmen works without a general direction. This fact may be remarked in the numerous documents which remain to us from the end of the fifteenth century. The bishops, chapters, and lords, when théy wished to build, called in master masons, carpenters, sculptors, carvers of images, locksmiths, plumbers, &c., and each worked his device in his own way ; as for architect, there is no question of him, each body works out its own idea. Accordingly, the monuments of this period present faults of pro- portion and harmony, which have justly caused the architects of the Renaissance to thrust out this con- fused mass of buildings.” Viollet le Duc then proceeds to instance ‘the Chapter of Rheims, who, after the fire which destroyed all the woodwork and a portion of the upper masonry, wishes to repair this disaster. He calls before him each body of men, masons, carpenters, plumbers, smiths, &e., asks of each their advice, and adopts each plan separately. We see to-day the monstrous results of this disorder. These restorations, badly done, without connection and out of proportion, have destroyed the fine harmony of this admirable church, and compromised its durability. The carpenter was preoccupied with the idea of making some masterpiece; he cared little whether his work was in accordance with the masonry on which it was planted,” &c. These extracts are enough to show that the architects of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries furnished plans and detailed drawings with ‘‘ occasional personal superintendence ” just as they do at present. Also that very elaborate and careful working drawings of these dates still exist, . It is extremely improbable, if not impossible, that the whole of the drawings required even for one large cathedral (and we know that some architects produced several) could be the work of one hand; so that we are forced to admit the existence of offices of draughtsmen even in the finest period of Medieval art. I am afraid that the writer of the article I have referred to would make but a poor architect if he did not provide for his buildings more substantial founda- tions than he has for his arguments. I should be glad to hear, however, from any of your archeological correspondents whether there is any further evidence either on one side or another.—I am, &c., Peter Corse.
PLUMBING. Sir,—Articles on plumbing, or any other branch of the art of building, must find their chief, if not only, value in practical instruction to those who have now or may hereafter have to do the work; there- fore, the instruction they convey should be in accordance with sound and well-recognised scientific principles, as well as with the latest and best ap- proved methods of construction. Will you, there- fore, allow me to call attention to certain defects in the instruction intended to be conveyed in your article No. 10 on this subject, which treats chiefly of soil-pipes of water-closets and their ventilation. The chief defect in the methods suggested is that the ventilating pipes are too small; the diameter of the ventilating pipe is in every instance less than that of the pipe it is intended to ventilate, and this is directly contrary to scientific principles, | and, if carried out, will not answer the purpose intended.
