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June 7, 1872.
ANOTHER SCHOOL-BOARD COMPETITION. FORTNIGHT ago we noticed the de- signs submitted in limited competition for six new schools to be built by the London Board: we have now to observe the result of an open competition for the seventh. Like open competitions in general, it is anything but a success. The Board, it is true, have three times as many plans to choose from as in the previous case ; but if they have gained in quantity they have lost in quality. With one or two exceptions, the drawings for the School at Old Ford, with which we are now concerned, make a very poor show, and prove, if it needed proving, that few archi- tects of ability or experience care to waste their time and thought on the remote chance of obtaining a commission for a very mode- rate-sized building. Mr. Pritchard, in this case, is one of the few, and his design shall have our first attention. It is based on the principle of getting air and light from both sides of the school-rooms, and has a simple and convenient arrangement. It’ consists of a long, narrow block of building parallel with the frontage, with a projection at each end. ‘The centre of the main block is occu- pied by staircases and masters’ and mistresses’ rooms: the sides of it by boys’ and girls’ schools respectively ; while the projections before-named are each divided into a couple of class-rooms. These are three stories in height—the ground floor containing boys’ and girls’ schools for infants; the first floor for juniors, and the second floor for seniors. Mr. Pritchard recommends fireproof flooring on Dennett’s system; ventilation by means of iron flues and sunburners; and the ad- mission of fresh air warmed by passing behind the back of the grates in the fire- places. Externally, the building is to be im red brick: it is very simple in character, but bears looking at, and improves by acquaint- ance. The estimate, including boundaries, drains, and fireproof floors, is £9,400. Passing on, we come to a set of drawings by Messrs. Kennard & Buck. These gentlemen propose a ---shaped building, two stories high. The arrangement is not one of the worst for air and light, though these important objects have not been attained so completely as we should desire. Most of the school-rooms have windows on two, at least, of their sides; but the infants’ school and juniors’ school are exceptions to this com- mendable practice. The staircase to the juniors’ school is an awkward one ; and the drawing school, though it easily might have been, yet does not appear to be, sufficiently lighted. The elevations are of brick, with weak-looking piers dividing the windows, with a superabundance of gablets, and with seyeral of those nondescript objects which look as if the architect could not make up his mind about the way of finishing the roof. We refer, of course, to those compro- mises between hips and gables which seem to be patronised in certain quarters as supplying a short and easy road to pictur- esqueness. What a village carpenter some- times had to do when walling materials ran - short has come, by a curious process of imitation, to be ‘‘ designed” and deliberately arranged for by city architects; and the expedient which was meant to save a few shillings in some Berkshire barn or Essex cowshed is carefully copied in the public buildings of our largest towns. Mr. L. De Ville adopts a plan not very unlike Mr. Pritchard’s, and yet with a totally different result. Starting with a system which might almost seem to necessitate an abundance of air and light—the system, that is, of putting the schools end to end in a long and shallow block, he has gone out of his way to destroy its advantages. The whole of the front wall is blocked up with class-rooms, and passages, and teachers’ rooms : the back wall alone is left for windows, and so the thorough change of air that is so THE BUILDING NEWS. | essential cannot be obtained either in school hours or out of them. Externally, the only architectural symptom is a fringe of steps, like what haberdashers call, or used to call a ‘gimp edging,” applied with great impartiality to every gable and lean-to and coping about the place. The next design on our list bears the motto ‘‘ Concentration,” which, in the case of London schools, is apt to be too closely connected with ‘‘ suffo- cation.” The rooms here are for the most part too short and wide, and too closely crowded, to the detriment, in most cases of their ventilation, and in many cases even of their lighting. ‘The exterior is not without merit, though it would be better suited, perhaps, to a country village than to an east- end street. Messrs. Clarkson stand alone in adopting what may possibly be intended for the ‘“*Queen Anne” style, and exhibit an elevation which strongly recalls that of one of the metropolitan breweries. Their plan hag some advantages, purchased at a need- lessly dear rate; much room is lost in passages, and the school-rooms are so shaped as by no means to give the maximum of accommodation for their area. Messrs. Ald- winckle & Wilson send a design which is chiefly remarkable for the lavish use of moveable partitions or sliding shutters be- tween class-rooms and schools. The constant trouble and disturbance of using these appliances is, we think, too high a price to pay for the little saving in original outlay ; it would be cheaper in the end to build the school-rooms of the size they are wanted. Mr. Keith Young’s plan has merits as to light and air, with the questionable arrange- ment of cutting up the whole of his schools into two detached blocks. Part of the infants, for instance, are in one building, and partin another, and so of the girls and boys. The exterior is sombre and forbidding. Mr. Hewitt has an exceedingly straggling plan, with the school-rooms divided from the class- rooms, and the latter from each other, by moveable partitions of some kind. This, of course, is contrary to the rules of the Committee of Council on Education, which prescribe a lath-and-plaster partition or a wall. The school-rooms are only lighted from the ends. Mr. Buckeridge makes his infants’ school a detached block of build- ing, and in the main block puts the boys on the ground floor and the girls above. Besides the school-rooms, he also introduces four ‘general assembly rooms” whose pur- pose, in the absence of an explanatory report, is not altogether clear. There are windows in the larger apartments at both side and end. The lighting in the class-rooms is chiefly from the side, but sometimes from the right hand and sometimes from the left. We come upon one other set of drawings, dis- tinguished by a motto, ‘‘ Ne cedat utile pulchro,” admirably calculated to win the heart of an East London vestryman. It is only to be feared that the want of a transla- tion may destroy its effect on the very class it was meant to conciliate, which would be a pity, considering how successfully it has been acted on. The useful certainly does not give place to the beautiful in this design ; but this result is brought about, not by the troublesome means of increasing the former quality, but by the very much simpler method of diminishing the latter. We have left the most promising design inj the room to the last. Messrs. Ladds & Powell have combined a good plan with asimpleand yet very effective exterior. They, like one or two other competitors, make the infants’ school a detached block, connected by a covered way with the main structure. The latter has the junior boys and girls on the two wings of the ground floor, the senior on those of the first | floor, and the drawing school on the upper story of the central portion. There is little room wasted, and the building is, in the best sense, compact, and yet capable of being aired | by a thorough draft whenever this is desired. It is a great thing to get a current of air |
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across every room : if not while the rooms are occupied, at least the moment they are empty, and it is also a great thing to have an abundance of light. If Messrs. Ladds & Powell have combined these merits with picturesque and unpretending architecture, we hope this fact will not tell against them. The interest of the competition seems to divide itself between them and Mr. Pritchard ; hardly any other design submitted would re- pay as much time in examination as we have taken to describe it. ad THE COMING CONFERENCE. Ne week will see gathered together one of those meetings which have become more and more the fashion of late years, made up of no inconsiderable representation of the architectural profession in Great Britain. Many a busy professional man will practically give up a week, and spend a trifle of ready cash besides, in order to attend the meetings about to take place, and not a few who, amid the multifarious calls upon time and brain made by the press of London practice, hardly know what a leisure moment means, have been freely devoting their energies and their days to prepare for next week’s engagements. Tt is not unnatural for us to ask to what end is all this labour and trouble. Perhaps the real end of the Conference is not so much to confer as to meet. If five hundred architects come together from all parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and spend a pleasant week together, they cannot separate without more feeling of good fellowship than they had when they came together. But that lies a little beside the present question; the ostensible business of the meeting is to confer, and the subjects for conference are professional practice, con- struction, and fine art. Of these matters one, and only one, can be essentially aided and advanced, or seriously injured and re- tarded, by the results of any conference, be it well or ill managed. Say what we may, the art of architecture and the science of build- ing will be pretty much the same thing the week after next that they are to-day and have been for centuries. It is not quite so, however, the Conference notwithstanding, with professional practice. The single blunder of one meddlesome man may inflict great injury on the careers of hundreds of better men than himself. The courage and wisdom of one clear-headed upright man may, on the other hand, confer advantage upon himself and his brethren for a long time to come. We do, therefore, in their own interests, invite the best attention of members to the proceedings of the business days of the meet- ing, and we venture to remind them that it will be wise to take up such matters as pro- fessional practice, professional charges, the employment of surveyors, and the regulation of competitions, with a feeling that these, at least, are not subjects to squabble over with impunity in the manner which amateur archi- tects and dilettanti allow themselves to adopt, eyen when such a topic as the decoration of our finest Protestant Cathedral, or the erection of the most important secular building in Europe, is under discussion. The art of architecture, it must be ad- mitted, has been a good deal dragged through the mire of late, and to some extent by its own professors. Next week there will be an opportunity of doing something to make it / respectable in the eyes of those who practise it, and at least reputable in those of the general public. The least which can be done is to adopt, with a hearty unanimity, and for the whole country, the scale of professional charges, and rules of professional conduct which have for years past been recognised by Members of the Royal Institute of British Architects. ‘There is some doubt whether this ever will be accomplished without some difficulty. The alterations which have been proposed in order to bring the scale into harmony with the results of ten years’
