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honoured ruling of Mr Lancelot Brown that 'knowledge hampers originality,' they start bravely on their architectural careers, unimpeded by the knowledge of the past. Mr Robertson's reference to the work of that past is exiguous and somewhat uncritical. He mentions as prominent examples of Renaissance houses, Castle Howard (Vanbrugh), Kedleston (Pain and R. Adam), Coleshill (Inigo Jones), Stowe (Kent), and Spencer House (Vardy). These houses are not variations on one theme, but so different in intention as to be almost different in kind. One might as well give as typical products of the Reformation, Martin Luther, Tate and Brady, and Dr Pusey. Mr Robertson describes the Four Courts and the Custom House at Dublin as 'excellent examples of the Wren School,' but that is exactly what they are not. If Mr Robertson refers to any competent history of 17th- and 18th-century architecture, he will find that Wren's manner was the result of hints from late Jacobean, Inigo Jones and the architects of Louis XIV, fused by his own incomparable genius into a manner peculiar to himself; that towards the end of his life he went quite out of fashion, left in the cold by what I have called elsewhere the conspiracy of silence of Lord Burlington's clique, Colin Campbell, Kent, and the Palladians; that Chambers, who succeeded them, was an out-and-out Palladian, and that Gandon, the architect of the Dublin buildings, who was a pupil of Chambers, adhered strictly to the tradition of Chambers, and was quite uninfluenced by Wren's cheerful and most attractive manner. The whole cast of Wren's temperament, his traditions and associations, were entirely different from those of Chambers and Gandon, but our young heroes regard the work of the 18th century as vieux jeu, fit only to be lumped together and cast out on the rubbish heap. They must find the results somewhat embarrassing. The fashionable idea just now of a great commercial building is that of a gigantic cube in which holes are punched at regular intervals for doors and windows. Composition, silhouette, and proportion are disregarded. The great masters of the past felt that something more than this was required of them. Mr Robertson has, therefore, to go to Tibet to find a justification for the latest exploits of the new architecture,

and he finds it in the Potala at Lhassa. The Potala is a vast monastery, admirably adapted for its site, on an isolated rocky hill. The building starts low down on the hillside, and towers up above its summit, and though not exactly symmetrical, it is sufficiently so to make a fine composition; and one is grateful to Mr Robertson for calling attention to this impressive building, but what sort of analogy has it to the vast business premises now being built in London? The Potala stands gaunt and austere on a hill apparently some hundreds of feet high in a desolate mountainous country. It is more remote from adjoining buildings than the Acropolis at Athens, and its purpose is to house some extraordinary monks. Our 'new architecture' buildings are erected for purposes of trade and business, the space in front of them, except in squares and opposite the river, is restricted, and they are wedged in among innumerable other buildings. One might as well justify the skyscrapers of New York by the towers of S. Gemignano. If efficiency is one of the tests of the new architecture, the 'new' architects must look elsewhere than at Lhassa to justify their prodigious structures. In point of fact they seem to have drawn their inspiration from the creations of contemporary German and Austrian architects. Whatever merits they may have they are alien to the English tradition and temperament.

The fact is that the 'new architecture' is advancing in a circle. Some of its newest ideas were commonplaces before the war. 6 Efficiency' was run to a standstill at the Art Workers' Guild thirty years ago. Mr Robertson writes well on colour and texture, but I can recollect a brilliant paper on texture read by Prof. Prior in the 'nineties, and of course Norman Shaw showed long ago what can be done in architecture by the considered use of material. So, too, on the question of professionalism, Mr Robertson points out that the architect must definitely elect whether he is going to be a professional man and nothing else or an artist. Mr Robertson, who rightly elects for the latter, seems to be unaware that nearly forty years ago the issue 'Architecture a profession or an art' was definitely raised against the Institute of Architects by some of us younger men, led by Shaw and Jackson. But what happened before the war is to the

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new men a hinterland unexplored and in their opinion not worth exploring.

I have discussed Mr Robertson's book at length because in spite of its friendliness of manner and good sense in matters of detail, it is, I believe, fundamentally wrong in principle. It assumes that there is, or can be, a new architecture-that is, an architecture which cuts right adrift from the past. The idea is about as valuable as that of Esperanto. We cannot dissociate ourselves from the past, whether we want to or not, and the results of the attempt to do so are seen in the idiotic failures which are now held up to us as masterpieces of modern art and letters. What impresses one most in these struggles for something new, is not their originality but their immodesty, the folly of thinking that it is worth while to leave the beaten track and stand on one's head in the ditch in order to attract attention.

The fact is that in the best of our contemporary architecture any one with the requisite knowledge can detect the various strains assimilated from the past. Mr Marriott in his useful account of Modern English Architecture' says, 'With the whole history of architecture behind it modern English architecture may be looked upon as the immediate product of the Greek and Gothic revivals.' If this were really so, the result could only be a hopeless jumble of incongruous and indeed antagonistic elements. These revivals have passed like other revivals, and the best modern English architecture has Inigo Jones and Wren, Gibbs, Hawksmoor, Chambers, and Adam behind it, and a great deal more as well. The elements are there for any one to read. The real difficulty of criticism comes in with the personal equation. English art is essentially individualistic, and it is the personal and individual factor that gives to English architecture an interest rarely to be found in the architecture of any other country. Mr Marriott is aware of this, but he scarcely does justice to the pioneers of an older generation than that of any architect now living-Decimus Burton, the architect of the Athenæum, Cockerell, and Barry, on the one hand, Devey, Shaw, Nesfield, Philip Webb, and Bodley on the other. The work of these men seems to be forgotten by the younger generation, but it was owing to Burton, and in a less

degree to Cockerell, that it was possible for architecture to be academic and yet alive, and it was Norman Shaw who first caught up again the joyous spirit of the 16th century and realised it in terms of modern domestic architecture. Mr Marriott points out the importance of Shaw's work at Bedford Park forty years ago, the real forerunner of the garden city, but he scarcely does justice to the immense influence that Shaw had on the younger men of his time, and through them on the younger men of ours. Shaw was not a scholar, but he was a great architect, a man of fascinating personality, and the fortunate possessor of an extremely subtle and penetrating mind. As Ephraim Mackellar said of a very different person, the Master of Ballantrae, 'He was on the whole the most capable man that I ever knew.' Philip Webb in quite another way was scarcely less remarkable. His sincere enthusiasm for his art, the austere reticence of his design, and his complete and splendid unworldliness, gave him an influence on the younger men of his time second only to that of Shaw. It led to the establishment of the Arts and Crafts Society and the Art Workers' Guild, two institutions which have had a much greater influence on modern English art than our critics seem to be aware of. Mr Marriott, by the way, is not quite accurate when he says that Sir Aston Webb, the late Ernest Newton, and I became responsible for the design' of the new quadrant. Shaw's design was carried out in the Piccadilly Hotel, but it was found impossible to carry it out in the rest of the Quadrant, and I was consulted by the Woods and Forests. At my request, Sir Aston Webb and Ernest Newton were associated with me to consider the problem, but in point of fact all the designs and drawings for the completion of the Quadrant façades, though approved by my colleagues, were prepared by me.

In their discourses on 'The Pleasures of Architecture,' Mr and Mrs Williams-Ellis do justice to Philip Webb, but their reference to Norman Shaw is wholly inadequate; indeed, it is little more than an introduction to a panegyric, as exuberant as it is uncritical, of a well-known living architect. The writers seem so much impressed with the value and importance of

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contemporary work that they have rather neglected the study of the past, and their pages suggest an absence of that knowledge of antiquity which all architects in the past were supposed to possess, and without which the criticism of architecture is worthless, because it means that the critic has no standard of values. 'Soanian Greek,' for example, as a description of Soane's manner of design, is about as wide of the mark as it is possible for a description to be. Jules Hardouin Mansart did not come into contact with Bernini. He was an obscure and quite unknown young man aged nineteen when the great Italian paid his memorable and ill-starred visit to France. The writers couple Selinus with Pergamon as typical of Hellenistic art. It is true that M. Hulot once drew out a characteristic French reconstruction of Selinus as a fully organised town, but the glory of Selinus was not this, but its seven Doric temples built some two to three hundred years before the great altar of Pergamon. Again, it is a mistake to suppose, as the writers do, that the French architects of the 18th century saw nothing to admire in Gothic. They admired it a great deal and said so. Daviler in 1670, the Academy of Architecture in 1708, and Boffrand, rather later, all paid their tribute to French Gothic; but having an excellent manner of their own, which they understood perfectly well, they had the good sense to adhere to it. The younger Blondel, the protagonist of orthodox classic, said specifically, 'Il y a nombre d'Édifices Gothiques où il regne une délicatesse singulière dans la bâtisse et que les meilleurs constructeurs de nos jours seraient fort embarassés d'imiter.' The man of the 18th century in France was far too clearheaded to be under any illusion as to Gothic architecture. He admired it greatly, but had not the slightest intention of attempting to reproduce it. The writers do not seem to be familiar with the practice of architects in the 17th century. In view of existing and authentic working drawings by Inigo Jones and Wren, it is absurd to say that those architects were able to build without anything that could be called a detailed plan.' Wren actually reminded Evelyn that architects were most particular as to these matters. Architecture is difficult enough in any case, but it would be reduced to absolute chaos if sketchiness, plus the 'inspiration' of the

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