Chapter XXII: Act 1898: the official principal of the archbishop is required to (11)

It was in Egypt that the minaret received its highest development. The
earliest example is that of the mosque of Tulun, which is of unusual
shape, and has winding round it an inclined plane or staircase of easy
ascent which can be made on horseback. The original design of this
scheme was probably derived from the mosque of Samara, a town 60 m.
north of Bagdad, where the minaret built c. 850 has a spiral ascent
round it, recalling that of the Assyrian ziggurat as at Khorsabad. The
general design of the Cairo minarets would seem to have been
universally adhered to from the 12th century onwards, but the upper
storeys are all varied in detail, there being virtually no two alike.
As a rule the lower portion of the minaret forms part of the main wall
of the mosque, and was carried up square a few feet above the
cresting. It then became octagonal on plan, the sides decorated with
niches or geometrical ornaments in bold relief. This, the first
independent storey, was crowned by a stalactite cornice carrying the
balcony (fig. 59), from which the _muezzin_ (call-to-prayer) was
chanted. In the early and fine examples the balustrade round it
consisted of vertical posts with panels between, pierced with
geometric ornaments, and all in stone. The second storey, also
octagonal, was set back sufficiently to allow a passage round, and
this was crowned by a similar stalactite cornice and balustrade. A
third storey, sometimes circular on plan, completed the tower, which
was crowned with a bulbous terminal. In one of the mosques, that of El
Azhar, the first storey is square on plan, and the second storey has
twin towers with lofty bulbous finials. The elaboration of the carved
ornament on the various storeys of the minarets is of considerable
beauty. Among the most remarkable, other than those already referred
to, are the minarets of the mosque of al-Bordeni, of Kalaun, al-Nazir,
Mu'ayyad (built on the semicircular bastion wall of the Zuwela Gate),
Sultan Barkuk (1348), and numerous other mosques or tombs outside
Cairo.

The earlier domes were quite plain, hemispherical, with buttresses
round the base, similar to those of St Sophia at Constantinople. In
the later domes it was found that by raising the upper portion so as
to take the form in section of a pointed arch, they could be built in
horizontal courses of masonry up to about two-thirds of their height,
the upper portion forming a lid without any thrust. It is probably
owing to this method of construction that they still exist in such
large numbers. The outer surfaces are decorated in various ways with
geometrical designs, star patterns, chevrons, diapers, &c. Domes built
in brick were covered with stucco and divided up into godroons.

We have already referred to the lofty portal of the mosque of Sultan
Hasan; portals of smaller dimensions form the principal entrance to
all the mosques and private houses. The recessed portion rises to
twice or three times the height of the door, and its pointed or cusped
head is always filled by a rich stalactite vault.

The descriptions of the disposition of plan, and the principles which
have governed the plans of the Cairene mosques, apply equally to those
in Syria, so that it now only remains necessary to quote the chief
examples. Of these the earliest is the Dome of the Rock, incorrectly
called the mosque of Omar, which was built by Abdalmalik in 691,
partly with materials taken from the buildings destroyed by Chosroes.
At first it consisted of a central area enclosing the sacred rock,
covered with a dome and with aisles round carried on columns and
piers, and like the smaller Dome of the Chain open all round, but the
climate of Syria is very different from that in Egypt, and
consequently at a later period (813-833) the sultan Mamun built the
walls which now enclose the whole structure. Many restorations have
taken place since, and the dome with its rich internal decoration is
attributed to Saladin (1189). The magnificent Persian tiles which
encase the walls, the marble casing of some of the piers, and the
stained glass, form part of the works of Suleiman (1520-1560).

The great mosque of Damascus occupied the site of an ancient church
dedicated to St John the Baptist, which for a time was divided between
the Christians and the Mahommedans. But in 705 the caliph al-Walid
took possession of the whole church, which he rebuilt, retaining,
however, the whole of the south wall, portions of which belonged to a
Roman temple. This, which by chance happened to face south, became the
Mecca wall, the niche being sunk in one of the doorways of the
original temple. Its plan, therefore, is a variation of those we have
already described. It consists of a transept with dome over the
centre, three aisles of equal width, running both east and west, and a
great court on the north side surrounded by arcades. The great
transept is virtually the prayer chamber. The new building was erected
by Byzantine masons sent from Constantinople, and decorated with
marbles and mosaic by Greek artists. The mosque was almost entirely
destroyed by fire in 1893, but has since been rebuilt.

The mosque of El Aksa in the sacred enclosure in Jerusalem, and south
of the Dome of the Rock, was commenced by Abdalmalik (691), who used
up materials taken from the church of St Mary, built by Justinian on
Mount Sion, which had been destroyed by Chosroes. There have been so
many restorations and rebuildings since, owing to destructive
earthquakes and other causes, that it is difficult to give the precise
dates of the various portions. The columns of the nave and aisles are
extremely stunted in proportion, and their capitals are of a very
debased type, copied by inferior artists from Byzantine models. They
carry immense wood beams cased, and above them a range of pointed
arches, among the earliest examples used throughout a mosque, and
probably dating from the rebuilding (774-785). The Crusaders made
various additions in the rear, but the great entrance porch is said to
have been added by Saladin, after 1187, and was built probably by
Christian masons who were allowed to remain in the country.

The numerous minarets at Jerusalem and Damascus in general design
follow those of Egypt, but instead of the incised work are generally
encased with marble in geometric patterns.

The great mosque at Mecca, from which it was thought at one time the
plan of the Egyptian and other mosques was taken, is necessarily
different from all others, because the Ka'ba or Holy Stone, towards
which all the niches in all other mosques turn, stood in its centre.
The arcades which surround the court were nearly all rebuilt in the
17th century, as the whole mosque was washed away by a torrent in
1626.

The mosque of Kairawan in Tunisia was built in 675. It occupies an
area of 427 ft. deep and 225 ft. wide, with a prayer chamber at the
Mecca end of 17 aisles and 11 bays deep, more than twice, therefore,
that of 'Amr in Old Cairo. The columns to the prayer chamber, all
taken from ancient buildings, are 22 ft. high in the central aisle and
15 ft. in all the others. They carry horse-shoe arches, which, as in
the mosque of 'Amr, are all tied together by wood beams inserted at
the springing of the arches.

The mosque of Cordova was built by Abdarrahman (Abd-ar-Rahman) in
786-789 in imitation of the mosque of Kairawan. There were eleven
aisles of twenty-one bays, the centre one slightly wider than the
other. The materials were taken from earlier buildings, and, as the
columns and caps were not considered high enough, above the horse-shoe
arches are built a second row of arches which carry the barrel vaults.
To this mosque Hakim added twelve more bays in depth at the Mecca end
(962), and in 985 Mansur added eight more aisles of thirty-three bays
on the east side. Part of the open court on the north side dates from
Abdarrahman's foundation (690) and part from Mansur.

In the mosque of Cordova we find the earliest example of the cusped
arch, in the additions made by Hakim in 961; in order to obtain a
greater height above the columns, it became necessary to employ the
expedient of raising arch above arch in order to obtain the height
they required for the ceilings; and as these arches formed purely
decorative features, which might otherwise have become monotonous,
variety was given by introducing the cusped form of arch and
interlacing them one within the other. It is probably this elaborate
design which suggested the plaster decorations of the screens above
the arches in the court of the Alhambra. Though commenced in 1245, the
existing palace of the Alhambra was built in the first half of the
14th century, at a time when the style was fully developed. There are
two great courts at right angles to one another, the most important of
which was the Court of the Lions, so called from the fountain in the
centre, with twelve conventional representations of that animal
carrying the basins. This court is surrounded by an arcade with
stilted arches carried on slender marble columns with extremely rich
decoration above, partly in stucco painted and gilt. The hall of the
Abencerrages (35 ft. square) has a polygonal dome covered with
arabesque (fig. 60). Two other halls are roofed with lofty stalactite
vaults of great intricacy, richly gilded and of remarkable effect
(fig. 61), but the employment of stucco instead of stone, as in Egypt,
has led to an abuse in the wealth of enrichment, which is only partly
redeemed by the plain masonry of the towers and walls enclosing the
palace. The Giralda at Seville is the only example of a tower, but it
does not seem to have served the purpose of a minaret.

With the exception of the tombs of Zobeide and Ezekiel near Bagdad,
and a hospital at Erzerum of the 12th century, built by the Seljukian
dynasty, the Mahommedan style in Persia dates from the 13th century, i
e. if Ghazan Khan built the mosque at Tabriz in 1294. The plan is that
of a Byzantine church with a central dome, aisles and sanctuary. The
portal consists of a lofty niche vaulted with semi-domes and
stalactite pendentives, similar in many respects to the well-known
example of Sultan Hasan in Cairo, built sixty years later. It is built
in brick and covered internally and externally with glazed bricks of
various colours, wrought into most intricate patterns with interlacing
ornament and with Cufic inscriptions. The dazzling and perfect beauty
in point of colour is not to be surpassed, but from the architectural
point of view it possesses the fatal sin of not showing its
construction. The bricks and tiles are only a veneer, and though in
certain features (such as the portal and the dome) the construction is
at least suggested, the tendency is to trust to decoration alone to
produce architectural effects. (But see TABRIZ.)

The great mosque at Isfahan (1585) is a good illustration of the
danger attending a too free use of surface decoration. Strip the walls
of their tiles, and nothing is left except square box-like forms with
pointed arched openings of different form. The interior, however,
owing to the variety of its features, and the varied play of light and
shade given in the hemispherical vaults of its transepts and niches
and the vaulted aisles, constitutes one of the most beautiful
monuments of Mahommedan art.

Apart from the great development of Mahommedan architecture in India
(see INDIAN ARCHITECTURE), there remains now to be described only one
other phase of the style, that found in Constantinople.

Prior to the conquest of Constantinople in 1445, two mosques were
built by the Turks at Brusa in Asia Minor. The plan of Ulu Jami, the
great mosque, follows the original courtyard type. Yeshil Jami, the
Green mosque (1430), built on the site of a Byzantine church, is
cruciform on plan. In both of them the Persian influence is shown, in
the magnificent towers with which they are covered, the marble casing
and the stalactite vaults.

After the conquest of Constantinople, the supreme beauty of St Sophia,
and the adaptability of its plan to the requirements of the Mahommedan
faith, caused it to be accepted as the model on which all the new
mosques were based. The first two erected were the Bayezid (1497-1515)
and the Selim mosques (1520-1526). In the former the dome and its
pendentives are carried on octagonal piers, and the dome, 108 ft. in
diameter, is greater than in any subsequent example. The finest
mosque, and the example in which we find the complete development of
the Turkish style, is that erected by Suleiman the Magnificent in
1550-1555. This mosque, designed by Sinan, an Armenian architect, is
still quite perfect. The plan follows very closely its model, St
Sophia, and consists of a central dome, 86 ft. in diameter and 156 ft.
high, carried on pendentives, resting on great arches which are
slightly pointed, with great apses on the east and west sides, and
three smaller apses in each, the arches of which ate all circular. The
principal change in design is that found in the north and south walls,
under the arches carrying the dome; in St Sophia they were subdivided
into two storeys with galleries overlooking the church, but in the
Suleimanic mosque the galleries are set back in the outer aisles, and
the screen walls consist of a wide central and two side pointed
arches, and voussoirs alternately of black and white marble. The
tympana above this is pierced with eighteen windows filled with
geometric tracery. Stalactite work is employed in the pendentive of
the smaller apses and in the capitals of the columns carrying the
pointed arches. The columns are of porphyry, the shafts, 28 ft. high,
being taken from the Hippodrome and probably brought originally from
Egypt. The walls are cased with marble up to the springing of the
dome, but the magnificent mosaics of St Sophia are here replaced by
vulgar colouring and plaster decoration of a rococo style, due
probably to recent restorations. The mosque is preceded by a
forecourt, surrounded by an arcade on all sides and containing a
fountain, and in the garden in the rear is the tomb of the founder and
his wife.

The Shah-Zadeh mosque, known as the prince's mosque, was also built by
Sultan Suleiman, from the designs of Sinan, the same Armenian
architect who built the Suleimanic mosque. Here, instead of confining
the great apses to the east and west sides, they are introduced on the
north and south sides in place of the screen, and produce a monotonous
and poor effect. The same design is found in the Ahmedin mosque, built
1608, and with the same result. Externally, however, they are both
fine, owing to the variety of domes, semi-domes and other curved forms
of roof.

The minarets of the Turkish mosques are very inferior to those of
Cairo. They are of great height, generally semicircular, with narrow
balconies round the upper part, and crowned with extinguisher roofs.
To a certain extent, however, they contrast very well with the domes
and semi-domes of St Sophia and those of the mosques built by the
Turks.

In the mosque of Osman, built 1748-1757, we find the first trace of
Western influence in its rococo design, but here, as in the mosque of
Mehemet Ali in Cairo, built in 1837, the scheme is so good that,
notwithstanding the great falling off in design, and, in the latter
mosque, the construction, the effect of the interior is very fine.

Amongst other architectural features, the fountains in the courtyards
of the mosques and those which decorate the public squares are
extremely pleasing in design. The latter are square on plan with
polygonal angles elaborate niches with stalactite heads, with
overhanging eaves on each side; the ornament is very varied and the
colour sometimes very attractive. The roofs have sometimes most
picturesque outlines. (R. P. S.)

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

The beginning of the 19th century may be considered to mark the beginning of the modern era in architecture. The 19th century is the period _par excellence_ of architectural "revivals." The great Renaissance movement in Italy already described was something more than a mere revival. It was a new spirit affecting the whole of art and literature and life, not an architectural movement only; and as far as architecture is concerned it was not a mere imitative revival. The great Italian architects of the Renaissance, as well as Wren, Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor in England, however they drew their inspiration from antique models, were for the most part original architects; they put the ancient materials to new uses of their own. The tendency of the 19th-century revivals, on the other hand, except in France, was distinctly imitative in a sense in which the architecture of the great Renaissance period was not. Correctness of imitation, in the English Gothic revival especially, was an avowed object; and conformity to precedent became, in fact, except with one or two individual architects, almost the admitted test of excellence.

Classical revival in British architecture.

The earliest classical London building of note in the 19th century is Soane's Bank of England, which as a matter of date belongs in fact to the end of the 18th century; but its architect lived well into the 19th century, and the bank may be classed with this section of the subject. Soane had to make something architectural out of the walls of a very extended building of only one storey, in which external windows were not admissible; and he did so by applying a classical columnar order to the walls and introducing sham window architraves. The latter are indefensible, and weaken the expression of the building; the columnar order was the received method at the time of making a building (as was supposed) "architectural," and the building has grace and dignity, and could hardly be taken for anything except a bank, although a more robust and massive treatment would have been more expressive of the function of the building, as a kind of fortress for the storage of money. It was only some years later that the Greek revival took some hold of English architects (the Bank of England is rather Roman than Greek); the impetus to it was probably given by the "Elgin marbles"; Stuart and Revett's great work on the _Antiquities of Athens_ had been issued a good while previously, the three first volumes being dated respectively 1762, 1787 and 1794; but the appearance of the fourth volume in 1816 was no doubt influenced by the transportation to London of the Elgin marbles, and the sensation created by them. One of the first architectural results was the erection, at an immense cost in comparison with its size, of the church of St Pancras in London (1819-1822), designed by Inwood, who published a fine and still valuable monograph on the Erechtheum, and showed his enthusiasm for Greek architecture by copying the Erechtheum order and doorways for his facade, and erecting over it a tower composed of the Temple of the Winds with an octagonal imitation of the monument of Lysicrates imposed above it. This use of Greek monuments was architecturally absurd, though at the time it was no doubt the offspring of a genuine enthusiasm.

A better use was made of the study of Greek architecture by William Wilkins (1778-1839), who was in his way a great architect, and whose University College (1827-1828), as designed by him, was a noble and dignified building, of which he only carried out the central block with the cupola and portico. The wings were somewhat altered from his design but not materially spoiled, but the university authorities permitted the vandalism of erecting a low building as a partial return of the quadrangle on the fourth side, for the purposes of a mechanical laboratory, which ruined the appearance of the building.[4] Wilkins's other well-known work is the National Gallery (1832-1838), which he was not allowed to carry out exactly as he wished, and in which the cupola and the "pepperpots" are exceedingly poor and weak. But his details, especially the profiles of his mouldings, are admirably refined, and show the influence of a close study of Greek work. Among other prominent English architects of the classic revival in England are Sir Robert Smirke and Decimus Burton (1800-1881). To Burton we owe the Constitution Hill arch and the Hyde Park screen. The latter is a very graceful erection of its kind; the arch has never been completed by the quadriga group which the architect intended as its crowning feature, though for many years it was allowed to be disfigured by the colossal equestrian statue of Wellington, completely out of scale and crushing the structure. Smirke is kept in memory by his fine facade of the British Museum, which has been much criticized for its "useless" colonnades and the wasted space under them. The criticism is hardly just; for classic colonnades have at least some affinity with the purposes of a museum of antique art, and it conveys the impression of being a frontispiece to a building containing something of permanent value and importance. The early classic revival set its mark also, in a very fine and unmistakable manner, on the capital of the sister island. Dublin is almost a museum of fine classic buildings of the period, among which the most remarkable is the present Bank of Ireland (fig. 85), originally begun as the Parliament House. The beginning of the building belongs to the 18th century, but it was not completed in its present form till 1805, and was the work of five successive architects, only one of them, James Gandon (1743-1823), a man of the first importance; but it was Gandon who in 1790 did most to give the building its effective outline on plan, by introducing one of the curved quadrant walls, the building being subsequently finished in accordance with this suggestion. It is a remarkable combination of symmetry and picturesqueness, and as a one-storey classic building is far superior to Soane's Bank of England, with which a comparison is naturally suggested. Gandon's custom house, with its fine central cupola, is another notable example. Edinburgh too can show examples of the classic revival, and bears the title of "modern Athens" as much from her architectural experiments as from her intellectual claims; she illustrates the application of Greek architecture to modern buildings in two really fine examples, the Royal Institution by W.H. Playfair (1780-1857), and the high school by Thomas Hamilton (1784-1858). It was a pity that she added to these the collection of curiosities on the Calton Hill.

But before we quit the classic revival in England, there are two architects to be named who came a little later in the day, living in fact into the time of the Gothic revival, who were superior to any of the earlier classic practitioners: Harvey Lonsdale Elmes and C.R. Cockerell. Elmes, who died very young, seems to have been as completely a born architectural genius as Wren, and his great work, St. George's Hall at Liverpool, has done more than any other building in the world to glorify the memory of the classic revival. Granting all that may be said as to the unsuitability of Greek architecture to the English climate, one can hardly complain of any movement in architecture which gave the opportunity for the production of so grand an architectural monument. It is true that it is badly planned and lighted, and the exterior and interior do not agree with each other (the exterior is Greek, and the great hall is Roman); but if from our present point of view it is a mistake, it is certainly one of the finest mistakes ever made in architecture. Cockerell, who completed the interior of the building after Elmes's death, was an architect permeated with the principles and feeling of Greek architecture, who brought to his work a refinement of taste and perception in regard to detail which has rarely been equalled and never surpassed. Perhaps the very best example of his scholarly taste in the application of classic architecture to modern uses is to be found in his facade to the branch Bank of England at Liverpool (fig. 86).

From a photo by W A Manseli & Co.]

From a photograph by W.A. Manseli & Co.]

FIG. 115.--PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, BUDAPEST. (STEINDL.)

_Photo, Seer._

FIG. 116.--PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, VIENNA. (HANSEN.)

_Photo, Lowy._

FIG. 117.--PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS, BERLIN. (WALLOT.)

_Photo, Linde._]

FIG. 118.--HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON. (BARRY.)

_Photo, F.G.O. Stuart._

FIG. 119.--SCOTLAND YARD, LONDON. (SHAW.)

_Photo, Emery Walker._]

Classical revival in Germany.

In Germany, and especially at Berlin and Munich, the Greek revival took hold of architecture in the early part of the century in a more decisive but also in a more academical spirit than in England. The movement is connected more especially with the name of one eminent architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who must have been a man of genius to have so impressed his taste on his generation as he did in Berlin, where he was regarded as the great and central power in the architecture of his day; yet his buildings are marked by learning and academical correctness rather than original genius. Elmes's St George's Hall, already referred to as one great English work of the classic revival, is by no means a mere piece of academical architecture; it exhibits in some of its details a great deal of originality, and in its general design a remarkably fine feeling for architectural grouping. In particular, the solid masses and the heavy square columns at the ends of his building, which seem like Greek architecture treated with Egyptian feeling, give support to, while they form a most effective contrast with, the richer and more delicate Corinthian order of the central portion. The only work of Schinkel's which shows something of the same feeling for contrast in architectural composition is one of his smaller buildings, the Konigswache or Royal Guard-house, in which a Doric colonnaded portico is effectively flanked and supported by two great masses of plain wall. But in general Schinkel does not seem to have known what to do with the angles of his buildings, or to have realized the value of mass as a support to his colonnades. This is strikingly exemplified in his museum at Berlin, where the tall narrow piers at the angles have a very weak effect, and are quite inadequate as a support to the long open colonnade. His Royal theatre also (fig. 87), though the central portico is fine, is monotonous and weak in its two-storeyed repetition of the small order in the wings, and it has also the fault (which it shares, no doubt, with a great many theatres, large and small) that its exterior design gives no hint of the theatre form; it might just as well be a museum. His. Nikolai Kirche (1830-1837) at Potsdam (fig. 88), which has considerable celebrity, though not so merely academical in character, and in fact possessed of a certain originality, has a fault of another kind, in its entire lack of architectural unity; the dome does not seem to belong to or to have any connexion with the substructure, while the portico is quite out of scale with the great block of building in its rear, and looks like a subsequent addition. The fault of the Schinkel school of architecture is an almost total want of what may be called architectural life; it is an artificial production of the studio. The same kind of cold classicism prevailed at Munich, where Leo von Klenze (1784-1864), though a lesser man than Schinkel, played somewhat the same part as the latter played at Berlin. His Propylaea (fig. 89), in which Greek and Egyptian influences are combined, is a characteristic example of his cold and scholastic style. His well known _Ruhmeshalle_, with its boldly projecting colonnaded wings and the colossal statue of Bavaria in front of it, is in its way a fine architectural conception--perhaps finer and more consistent in its kind than any one work of Schinkel, though he evidently did not exercise so wide an influence on the German art of his day. A third eminent name in the German classic revival is that of Gottfried Semper (1803-1879), somewhat later in date (Schinkel was born in 1781), but more or less of the same school. Semper practised successively at Dresden and at Zurich, but finally settled in Vienna, where, however, he did not live to see the execution of his two most important designs, the museum and the Hofburg theatre, which were carried out by Baron Karl von Hasenauer (1833-1894) from his designs, or approximately so. Semper's theatre at Dresden, however, shows that he could recognize the practical basis of architecture, as the expression of plan, in a way that Schinkel could not; for in that building he frankly adopted the curve of the auditorium as the _motif_ for his exterior design, thus producing a building which is obviously a theatre, and could not be taken for anything else, and putting some of that life into it which is so much wanting in Schinkel's rigid classicalities.

From a photograph by Ferd. Finsterlin.]

French Classicism.

In spite of the Romanizing influence of the First Empire, the classic revival did not leave by any means so academical a stamp on French as on German architecture of the early period of the century. French architects in the main have always had too much original genius to be entirely taken captive by a general movement of this kind. There is the weak classicism of Bernard Poyet's facade to the chamber of deputies, a very poor affair; and there are two important buildings in the guise of Roman peripteral temples, devoted respectively to business and to religion--the Bourse, by Alexandre Theodore Brongniart (1739-1813), and the Madeleine, begun under Napoleon, as a "Temple de la Gloire," by Pierre Vignon (1763-1828), and completed as a church in 1841 by Jean Jacques Huve (1783-1852). Both of these are very well carried out externally, and enable us to judge of what would be the effect of a Roman temple of the kind. It must be admitted that the plain oblong mass of the Bourse has really been very much improved by the recent addition of the two wings, carried out by Cavel, though there was a great deal of opposition at first to meddling with so celebrated a building. Unfortunately, the exterior of the Bourse is a mere piece of architectural scenery, quite unconnected with the internal object and arrangement of the building. The Madeleine is a really fine exterior in its way; if a modern church was to put on the guise of a pagan temple, the task could hardly have been better carried out; and the interior might have been as fine if properly treated, but it has little artistic relation with the noble exterior, and is spoiled by poor architectural treatment and bad ornament. The church of St Vincent de Paul, by Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792-1867), an architect who was one of the most learned students of Greek architecture of his day, is another important example of the French classical church of the period (Plate XII., fig. 125). In this the interior is more consistent with the exterior than is the case in the Madeleine; and by adding a tower at each angle of the facade, above the colonnaded portico, the architect gave it more the expression of a church, which the Madeleine wants. In the Arc de l'Etoile, by Jean Francois T. Chalgrin (1739-1811), we have a really great, even sublime work, which, though suggested by the Roman triumphal arches, is no mere copy, but bears the impress of the French genius in its details as well as in Francois Rude's grand sculptures on the east face, while its great scale places it above everything else of the kind in the world. It is only after ascending the interior and seeing the vaults carrying the roof that one fully realizes what a stupendous piece of work this is. Under Napoleon there was at least no jerry-building.[5]

Barry's "common-sense" style, in England.

Returning to the consideration of architecture in England, we come, at about the close of the classic revival, to the name of the man who was undoubtedly the most remarkable English architect since Wren, Sir Charles Barry. To class him, as some would do, with the classic revival, would be a misapprehension. Barry was no revivalist; he never attempted to recreate Greek architecture on English soil. He adopted for most of his works what has been called, for want of a better name, the Italian style, which may really rather be called the common-sense style of a civilized society. The two first works which brought him into notice, the Travellers' and Reform clubs in London, were no doubt based on special Italian models, the Pandolfini and Farnese palaces; but a consideration of his whole career shows that he was in fact anything but a copyist. The comparison of him with Wren is justified by the fact that he was, like Wren, a born architect, in the sense that he grasped every problem presented to him from the true architect's point of view; with both of them architecture was not the dressing up of an exterior, but the fashioning of a building as a conception based on plan and section as well as on the desire to secure a certain external appearance; and, like Wren, he never failed to grasp the true requirements of a site and to adapt his architectural conception to it; a power perfectly different from that of merely producing agreeable elevations in this or that adopted style. Though very careful of his detail, he did not rely on detail, but on the general conception of an architectural scheme. This power was never so remarkably shown as in his grand scheme, unhappily never carried out, for the concentration of all the British government offices in one great architectural _ensemble_, which was to extend, on the west of Parliament Street and Whitehall, from Great George Street nearly to Charing Cross, the whole of the buildings to be carried out as one design, distributed into quadrangles, each of which was to be connected with one department of the administration, while all would have internal communication. Had this great idea been carried out we might at the present day have found some of the detail of the building unsatisfying to our taste, as we often find the detail in some of Wren's buildings, but we should have had a grand architectural achievement which would have made London pre-eminent among the capitals of the world. Nothing so great had been proposed in England since Inigo Jones's plan for Whitehall Palace, which also survives only in drawings, except the one noble bit of classic architecture known as the Banqueting House (Plate VI., fig. 75). It was one of the greatest misfortunes to London as a capital city that the government of the day could not rise to the height of Barry's ambitious scheme, in which there was nothing financially insuperable, since it was all designed to be carried out by portions at a time, as funds could be spared; but each government office built would in that way have been one step towards the completion of a great central idea; whereas the nation now spends the same money in erecting detached government buildings which have no architectural connexion with each other.

Barry's two clubs before mentioned are almost ideals of club architecture--the architecture of a civilized society; his Bridge-water House is a building on a larger scale of the same type. That he had architectural ideas less staid and sober than these is shown, however, by the remarkable tower and spire of the Halifax Town Hall (fig. 90), his last work, which he did not live to see carried out, in which he contrived with remarkable success to give the Gothic spirit and multiplicity of effect to a tower which is nevertheless classic in detail. This tower is one of the most original and striking things in modern English architecture and shows how Barry's architectural ideas were developing up to the close of his life.

Barry's great building, the Houses of Parliament (Plate X., fig. 118),
with which his name will always be more especially associated, comes
accidentally, though not by natural development nor by his own choice,
under the head of the Gothic revival. The style of Tudor Gothic was
dictated to the competitors, apparently from a mistaken idea that the
building ought to "harmonize" with the architecture of Henry VII.'s
chapel adjacent to the site. Had Barry been left to himself, there is
no doubt that the Houses of Parliament, with the same main
characteristics of plan and grouping, would have been of a classic
type of detail, and would possibly have been a still finer building
than it is; and since the choice of the Gothic style in this case was
not a direct consequence of the Gothic revival movement, it may be
considered separately from that. The architectural greatness of the
building consists, in the first place, in the grand yet simple scheme
of Barry's plan, with the octagon hall in the centre, as the
meeting-point for the public, the two chambers to north and south, and
the access to the committee-rooms and other departments subordinate to
the chambers. The plan (fig. 91) in itself is a stroke of genius, and
has been more or less imitated in buildings for similar purposes all
over the world; the most important example, the Parliament House of
Budapest (Plate IX., fig. 115 and fig. 92), being almost a literal
copy of Barry's plan. Thus, as in all great architecture, the plan is
the basis of the whole scheme, and upon it is built up a most
picturesque and expressive grouping, arising directly out of the plan.
The two towers are most happily contrasted as expressive of their
differing purposes; the Victoria Tower is the symbol of the State
entrance, a piece of architectural display solely for the sake of a
grand effect; the Clock Tower is a utilitarian structure, a lofty
stalk to carry a great clock high in the air; the two are
differentiated accordingly, and the placing of them at opposite ends
of the structure has the fortunate effect of indicating, from a
distance, the extent of the plan. The graceful spire in the centre
offers an effective contrast to the masses of the two towers, while
forming the outward architectural expression of the octagon hall,
which is, as it were, the keystone of the plan.

The detail is another consideration. Barry, having had a style forced
upon him (most unwisely), which he had not studied much and with which
he was not much in sympathy, associated Pugin with him to design a
good deal of the detail; exactly how much is not certainly known;
probably Pugin was responsible for all the interior detail and
fittings; the exterior detail may have been only suggested or sketched
by him. On this ground absurd attempts have been made, by people who
do not seem to understand what architecture in the true sense means,
to claim for Pugin what they call the "artistic merit" of the Houses
of Parliament. The artistic merit consists in the whole plan,
conception and grouping, which are entirely Barry's, and which
represent something beyond Pugin's grasp; the detail is in fact the
weak element in the building. That Pugin's Gothic detail is better
than Barry's would have been is very likely the case; but had Barry
been left unfettered to work out the detail in his own school, the
result would probably have been still better. Even as it is, however,
the Houses of Parliament is one of the finest buildings in the world,
ancient or modern, and it is to be regretted that Englishmen generally
seem to be so little aware of this.

Plan of Principal Floor.

1. Reading Clerk.
2. Dressing Room.
3. Clerk of the Parliament.
4. Clerk Assistant's Dressing Room.
5. Clerk Assistant.
6. Clerk, House of Lords.
7. Messengers.
8. Waiting Room.
9. Lord Chancellor's Secretaries.
10. Lord Chancellor.
11. Lord Chancellor's Dressing Room.
12 Permanent Secretary.
13. Sergeant-at-Arms.
14. Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod.
15. Private Bill Office.
16. Chairman's Dressing
17. Chairman of Committees.
18. Clerk to Private Bill and Taxing Office.
19. Chairman of Committees Counsel.
20. Royal Staircase.
21. Clerk to Public Bills.
22. Minutes.
23. Peers' Staircase.
24. Inner Office.
25. Printed Papers Office.
26. Private Bills and Taxing Office.
27. Earl Marshal.
28. Strangers' and Reporters' Stairs.
29. Peers' Standing Order Committee Room.
30. The Thrones.
31. Bar of the House.
32. Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords.
33. Premier.
34. Telegraph.
35. Solicitor-General.
36. Attorney-General.
37. Lord Advocate.
38. Resident Superintendent.
39. Archbishops.
40. Principal Stairs.
41. Residence of the Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod.
42. Sitting Room.
43. Residence of the Clerk of Parliament.
44. Members' Entrance.
45. Dining Room of the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms.
46. Turret Room.
47. Private Stairs of the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms.
48. Journal Office Stores.
49. Police.
50. Ministers.
51. Opposition Ministers.
52. Members' Entrance Stairs.
53. Members' Conference Room.
54. Members' Private Secretaries
55. Members' Small Conference Room.
56. Votes and Proceedings.
57. Accountant and Chief Public Bill Office.
58. Old Treasury Stairs.
59. Post Master.
60. Strangers' Stairs.
61. Cistern Tower.
62. Irish Whips.
63 Government Whips.
64. Opposition Whips.
65. Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms.
66. Clerk to Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms.
67. Speaker's Counsel.
68. Speaker's Counsel's Clerk.
69. Vote Office.
70. Bar Lobby.
71. Speaker's Lobby.
72. Ministers.
73. Clerk Assistant.
74. Train Bearers.
75. Speaker's Retiring Room.
76. Old Prison Rooms Lobby.
77. Sergeant-at-Arms' Smoking Room.
78. Clock Weight Shaft.
79. Air Shaft.
80. Smoking Room Lobby.
81. Butler.
82. Speaker's Secretary.
83. Audience Room.
84. _Times_ Reporters.
85. Strangers' Gallery.
86. Waste Paper.
87. Mess.]

The Gothic Revival, England.

We may now turn to consider the Gothic Revival movement itself, of which Pugin was one of the most important pioneers. New ideas, however, as to the importance of Gothic architecture had been in the air before he came on the scene, and quite early in the century John Britten's _Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain_ and _Cathedral Antiquities_, with their beautiful steel engravings by Le Keux, had done much to call attention to the neglected beauty of English medieval churches; and Thomas Rickman's remarkable and (for its day) masterly analysis of the variations of style in Gothic architecture, which first appeared in 1817, and went through edition after edition in succeeding years, gave the first intelligent direction to the study of the subject. Pugin supplied to the movement not analysis, but passion. He had the merit of having perceived, when quite a youth, that one thing wanted was better craftsmanship, and that craftsmanship in the medieval period was something very different from what it was in the early Victorian period; he set up an atelier of craftsmen, and was the real pioneer of what may be called the Arts and Crafts movement in England. An enthusiast by nature, he flung his whole soul into the task of reviving, as he believed, the glory of English medieval architecture; nothing else in architecture was worth thinking of; Classic and Renaissance were only worth sarcasm. The result in his works was a curious inconsistency. Pugin was not in the true sense a great architect; his mind was not practical enough to grasp an architectural problem as a whole, plan and building combined; in fact, he was no master of plan, and does not seem to have troubled himself much about it. But he had a remarkable perception of interior effect; whenever you go into one of his churches you recognize the desire to realize the greatest effect of height, the most soaring effect of lines, possible within the actual vertical measurements. But in his passion for this soaring expression he seems to have entirely lost sight of the essential quality of solidity and genuineness of material in the medieval architecture which he was trying to emulate or to outvie. So long as he could get his effect of height, his poetic interior, he was content to have thin walls and plaster vaults and ornaments; or, in other words, he spent upon height what should first have been spent upon solid and monumental building. The result has been gently but effectively satirized by Browning in "Bishop Blougram's Apology":--

"It's different preaching in Basilicas
To doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart.
I doubt if they're half-baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
It's just like breathing in a limekiln, eh?"

It is too true; and there is something pathetic in Pugin's career, in this passionate and sincere pursuit after a revival of the medieval spirit in life and in architecture--a pursuit which towards the close of his life he himself evidently more than half suspected to have been a fallacy.

The full tide of the Gothic revival is connected more especially with the name of Sir Gilbert Scott. He was hardly a pure enthusiast like Pugin; he was a shrewd man of the world, the commencement of whose professional career coincided with the rising tide of ecclesiological reform, and he had the ability to make the best of the opportunity. He appears to have had, even as a child, an inborn interest in church architecture and in Gothic detail (witness the description, in his _Memoirs_, of his astonishment and interest, at the age of eleven, at the first sight of capitals of the Early English type), and he acquired by unremitting study a knowledge of English Gothic architecture in its every detail which few architects have ever equalled. His numerous churches were, intentionally and confessedly, as close reproductions as possible of medieval architecture, generally that of the Early Decorated period; and if it were desirable that modern church architecture should consist in the reproduction of medieval churches, the task could not have been carried out with more learning and exactitude than it was by him. It was this minute and accurate knowledge of medieval church architecture which made him such a power when the idea of restoring English cathedrals became popular. He had an acquired instinct in tracing out the existence of details which had been overlaid by modern repairs or plasterwork; in going over a cathedral to decide on a scheme of restoration he seemed to know it as an anatomist knows the suggestions of a fossil skeleton; and in the course of his restorations he unearthed many points in the architectural history of the buildings which but for him would never have been elucidated. We now recognize that much of this "restoration" was a mistake, which destroyed the real interest of the cathedrals; and it is unhappily a mistake which cannot be undone. But the violent reproaches which have been heaped upon Scott's memory on this account are rather unjust. It is forgotten that he was doing what at the time every one considered to be the right thing; cathedral bodies vied with each other in restoration, and were enthusiastic in the cause; there were few if any dissenting voices; and in regard to the interiors of the cathedrals which were in modern use as places of worship, much that he did really required to be done to put them into decent condition. His churches have ceased to be interesting now, as is usually the case with copied architecture; but when they were built they were exactly what every one wanted and was asking for. And he produced at all events one original work which is a great deal better than it is now the fashion to think--the Albert Memorial. It is injured by the statue, for which the commission went to the wrong sculptor; but Scott's idea of producing, as he phrased it, "a shrine on a great scale," was really a fine one, and finely carried out. The most important objection to it is one which popular criticism does not recognize, viz. that the vault is tied by concealed iron ties, and would hardly be safe without them. But apart from that it is a fine conception, and Scott was right in regarding it as his best work.

G.E. Street, who was a pupil of Scott, was a greater enthusiast for medieval architecture (which, with him, as with Pugin, included medieval religion) than even Scott, and an architect of greater force and individuality. He was especially devoted to the early Transitional type of Gothic, and in all his buildings there is apparent the feeling for the solidity and monumental character, and the reticence in the use of ornament, which is characteristic of the Transitional period. His churches are noteworthy for their monumental character; and he had a remarkable faculty for giving an appearance of scale and dignity to the interiors of comparatively small churches. Hence his modern-medieval churches retain their interest more than Scott's, but in respect of secular architecture his taste was hopelessly medievalized, and his great building, the law courts in London, can only be regarded as a costly failure; it is not even beautiful except in regard to some good detail; it is badly planned; and the one fine interior feature, the great vaulted hall, is rendered useless by not being on the same floor with the courts, so that instead of being a _salle des pas perdus_ it is a desert. Street's career is a warning how real architectural talent and vigour may be stultified by a sentimental adherence to a past phase of architecture. No modern architect had more fully penetrated the spirit of Gothic architecture, and his nave of Bristol cathedral is as good as genuine medieval work, and might pass for such when time-worn; but that is rather archaeology than architecture.

The competition for the law courts was one of the great architectural events of the middle of the century, and made or raised the reputation even of some of the unsuccessful competitors. Edward Barry (the son of Sir Charles) gained the first place for "plan," which the advisers of the government had foolishly separated from "design" (as if the plan of a building could be considered apart from the architectural conception!), giving first marks for plan, and second for design. E. Barry therefore had really gained the competition, "design," which was awarded to Street, counting second; but Street managed to push him out, and it is a nemesis on him for this by no means loyal proceeding that the building he contrived to get entirely into his own hands has served to injure rather than benefit his reputation. William Burges (1827-1881), an ardent devotee of French early Gothic, produced a design in that style, which, though quite unsuitable practically, is a greater evidence of architectural power than is furnished by any of his executed buildings. J.P. Seddon (1828-1906), an old adherent of Rossetti and the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, an architect of genius who never got his opportunity, produced a design which was wildly picturesque in appearance but in reality more practical than might be thought at first sight, and his proposal for a great Record tower for housing official records was a really fine and original idea.

Among the ecclesiastical buildings of the Gothic revival those of William Butterfield (1814-1900), much less numerous than those of Scott and Street, have a special interest as the work of a revival architect who was something more than a mere archaeologist. All Saints, Margaret Street (1859), is the production of an architectural artist using medieval materials to carry out a conception of his own, and hence, like Babbacombe church and others by the same hand, it has an interest for the present day which Scott's churches have not. His Keble College chapel rather failed from an exaggeration of the use of polychromatic materials, which in some of his other churches he had used with moderation and with good effect. J.L. Pearson was another distinguished architect of the later period of the Gothic revival who was able to put something of his own into modern Gothic churches. No one was more learned in medieval architecture than he was; and as of Street's nave of Bristol, so we may say of Pearson's nave of Truro, that it is as good as medieval Gothic; indeed Truro nave is finer in character than some of the ancient cathedral naves, and represents pure Gothic at its best. But in the exteriors of his churches, as at Truro and in the churches of Kilburn and Red Lion Square, Pearson evolved a Gothic of his own which is Pearsonesque and not merely archaeological. James Brooks (1825-1901) also deserves an honoured place in the chronicle of the Gothic revival for being the first to show how large town churches might be erected in brick (fig. 93), in which largeness of scale and a certain grandeur of effect could be obtained without extravagant cost, and in which it was practically demonstrated that architecture in the true Gothic spirit could be produced without depending on ornament.