JunE 28, 1872.
THE BUILDING NEWS. 529
COMMENTS ON THE CONFERENCE. PROFESSIONAL UNANIMITY. apoo loud professions of unanimity are in general somewhat to be distrusted. They remind one too much of proclama- tions of peace where there is no peace, and such talk, as ‘‘ E. W. G.” puts it, is but pre- sumption. Yet the architectural profession is too roundly abused for wanting a degree of unanimity which is not attained by any other community or section of community at the present time. Even if attainable, the ques- tion remains whether it would be desirable that all should think or actalike. In politics the very wish to effect such an end has died out of all but, perhaps, a small majority of the most despotically-ruled States. The Roman Catholic Church, shorn of its former engines for enforcing unity and goodwill, such as the Inquisition and kindred institu- tions, appears powerless now to secure unity of opinion even within itself, and the latest decisions of the English Church all tend to the widening of its borders so as to include diversi- ties of practice. The flourish of trumpets over the harmony that attended the recent congress of architects summoned by the Institute, in reality, therefore, may be taken as notifying that its proceedings were not quite as lively and as edifying as might have been wished. The truth is, that the happy family in Con- duit-street is just now uncommonly har- monious, not because the lions and the lambs have yet taken to lying down together, nor from every sharp tooth having been drawn, and all claws pared, but because those mem- bers who are so fond of likening themselves to the lambs have been left to themselves, and are in no danger for the nonce, except of dying from the extreme dulness of their own society. The Conference commenced by a most liberal distribution of honours to whomsoever honours could be due, and foreign and Eng- lish recipients alike testified to their exceed- ing gratification therewith, and it ended by mutual post-prandial laudations and compli- ments equally delightful and well deserved. Nevertheless, it was impossible altogether to ignore the fact that the assembly at the In- stitute, numerous as it was, did by no means fully represent the profession, and that the apparent cordiality of its proceedings could not be taken as an earnest that all was well below as above the surface. An uneasy feel- ing pervaded the President’s inaugural address, and continually cropped up in the speeches of those that followed him. In point of fact, the greater portion of the time occupied by the former was a sort of special pleading for unanimity, on the ground of its non-existence, and for toleration because of the intolerance of certain members of the profession and of writers who had recently attacked the system that exists. The gibes of one correspondent to the architectural journals had ruffled the would-be serene spirit of the President, and he strove to argue that the example of American energy and celerity in the dispatch of business that had been so held up for commen- dation and imitation, was unworthy of either, and the fact that our cousins across the Atlantic were not free them- selves from jobbery and its unpleasant concomitants was referred to with a sort of satisfaction, as palliating what could not be denied—that such evils haye not yet been banished from among ourselves. But the critic most severely criticised in this in- auguratory jeremiad was that excessively naughty one who, in the Quarterly Review, bad dared to vilify the present system and modern style of architecture, and sought to degrade its professors to the rank of mere devks of works, and make them don again, as, rightly or wrongly, it was affirmed they had donned of yore, the paper caps and leather aprons of their subordinates. Such a vision had, with reason, acted like a night- mare to one to whom an aristocratic connec- tion rather than devotion to art appeared the object of a professional career, and in a tone of sadness bordering upon the sublime he asked, ‘‘ Why at this particular moment should such a storm have burst over our heads?” and continuing the plaint till it trenched upon the comic, he inquired, ‘‘ Why should the works of British architects, which certainly are not thus discreditably esteemed upon the Continent, be so abused in England?” Now, whether the Quarterly reviewer was right or wrong in the remedy he chose to propose for the present state of things, or whether he had decorously and pleasantly or otherwise enwrapped his pill, or had criminally failed to gild it, it is foolish to refuse to recognise that his diagnosis of the disease which lies like acanker at the root of most of our work was tolerably just if somewhat severe. The cause of this, undoubtedly, is not altogether to be charged to the discredit of the pro- fession, but also greatly to the ignorance and indifference of the public. If, however, as may fairly be allowed, there be yet much salt of good savour, which tends to preserve some sweetness in the character of our architectural works in foreign estimation, or, what is much more to the purpose, in our own wholesome self-consciousness, the Presi- dent, the Institute, and the Conference were taking somewhat too much upon themselves in assuming that it was their own lights, set on the Conduit-street Hill, to which the credit was mainly due. ‘There are many other lamps, which they would think quite hidden amidst bushels, which burn more steadily and to better purpose, and that have had quite as much to do with raising modern English architecture to the condition of which it need not altogether be ashamed. The President had hoped, he further averred, that the war between the adherents of the Gothicand Classic styles had ceased, and the millennium in consequence commenced, and no doubt his own elevation to the dis- tinguished position he now occupies has contributed to that belief, seeing the diffi- culty there is in pronouncing to which party he might claim to belong. The President deceives himself if he really imagines the struggle to be over. Others more earnest than himself are less content. The leaven has by no means yet sufficiently pervaded the lump. Perhaps a calm merely precedes a storm. If not, it is much to be feared that a stagnant condition of the atmo- sphere in Conduit-street will not prove per- manently wholesome to its inmates. When we would simmer down to their net results the actual proceedings of the Con- ference and of the preparatory labours of the several committees laid before it, it must be owned that it might have been possible, if somewhat injudicious, to have transacted the business as expeditiously as it was effected in America. To have left the ‘‘ Paper of Pro- fessional Charges” much as it was was a fortuitous but not highly laborious task. To have proposed no unnecessary alteration of a document that has worked so satisfactorily would have been still wiser. That the modi- fications suggested by the Committee were but very little ones was their highest recom- mendation to consideration, and less, under the circumstances, than agreeing to some of them could hardly have been expected. To have tentatively touched upon the vexed question of competitions, and framed a series of reso- lutions of little practical import, unbacked as they are by any obligation to adhere to them on the part of even members of the Institute, is hardly a transaction worthy of the machinery employed. It has simply endorsed, to the eyes of the public, a miserable system by which the profession is continually sacrificed. ‘The only other prac- ticalresult of the Conference—claimed under a somewhat ambitious heading—is ‘“ Fireproof Building.” But this, upon investigation, turns out to be but a confirmation of the assurances given at the last Conference, that we know but little about the matter. It is
true that that judgment is now founded upon larger experience, since Chicago and Paris have by their ruins contributed to that un- satisfactory solution of the problem. ‘The time lost in the discussion was not, however, lost, and we doubt not that our provincial brethren have returned to their homes in many ways edified as well as pleased by their trip. Work without play is terse as well as dull, and all that can be objected to is the ignoring the sports while taking credit for good conduct at lessons. Ueki. THE ARCHITECTURAL CONFERENCE AND ART WRITING, T must surely be a matter of no small singularity that the architectural world has not up to this date, as it would seem, come to any certain notion as to the real nature of architecture as a fine art, and as to the way—the proper and legitimate way—in which it is to be, or can be, brought into being. Why is this? Why is architecture so different from other arts that we should be in doubt as to the way in which it is to be produced, and as to the men who are to do the work? Mr. President Wyatt’s address would seem to be intended to bring this subject into more formal and prominent view, and the remarks he has made about it at the recent Architectural ‘“‘ Conference” are most surely well worth a little careful thought and a few passing words. We live in the present, not in the past, or in the future, so that all that can well be done, if we are not quite satisfied with that present, is to dream of the past, and to hope for a better future. That art and architecture were at one time better than they now are is quite certain, and so Mr. Wyatt thinks, for do we not, as a rule, and always, in fact, where it can be done, simply copy it, as far as that difficult feat is possible ? As artists we in reality do nothing ; we reproduce by mechanical agents, as far as we can, the dead past, and so fairly acknow- ledge it to be better—almost infinitely better —than anything that we can now invent. So much for the past art. The future, who can well speak of it ? for who can speculate for a moment as to what turn art and architecture will take in a generation or two hence ? when no President will need, it is to be hoped, to ask What is art? orto speculate as to the status architects are to hold in modern life. This great question being, then, of such infinite importance to all in any way con- nected with art, it is, we think, not a little to be regretted that Mr. Wyatt did not go a little deeper into the matter, and say some few positive words on this great subject. But little is to be got by a mere succession of negatives. May we try to add a little to Mr, Wyatt’s talk, and to try to show what it is that architecture now needs? A little thought about it is surely better than nothing, and may help to make things a little plainer than they now seem to be. Let us put the whole case in the simplest possible point of view, and yet follow Mr. Wyatt’s arrangement as far as we can. If we had broadly and generally to analyse archi- tecture, and the practice of it, and to state in simple words what it is that makes the difference between the past and the present of architecture, we should say that the past, taking any date or country, had in active practice but one style, and one workman designer in each case, while the present day has all styles under the sun, and whole armies of workmen designers. Let the reader ponder upon this. Mr. Wyatt says, somewhat thoughtlessly, we think, that we seem about to have revived a sort of ‘ battle of the styles,” a feud, he says, which ‘I, at least, had hoped was buried with that of the gauges.” Why, is not this to drop nearly the whole question, everything included, for how can the ‘war of styles’ be over while they continue to be practised? A little town rises up on some new railway—what happens? A number of little houses spring up, made
