building towards the quadrangle, is 200 ft. in extent, being much more than the length that towards the Strand; the style, however, of its decoration is correspor.dent with it, t principal variation being in the use of pilasters instead of columns, and in the doors a windows. The front next the Thames is ornamented in a similar manner to that alrea described. It was originally intended that the extent of the terrace should have be 1.100 ft. This last is supported by a lofty arcade, decorated towards the ends with coupl Tuscan columns, whose cornice is continued along the whole terrace. The edifice was the time the subject of much severe criticism, and particularly from the pen of a silly e graver of the name of Williams, under the name of Antony Pasquin; but the censures passed on it, the author being as innocent of the slightest knowledge of the art as most the writing architectural critics of the present day, were without foundation, and have lo since been forgotten. At the time, however, they received a judicious reply from the n Fig. 223. ENTRANCE VESTIBULE, SOMERSET HOUSE. of the late Mr. Jol B. Papworth, whic deservedly found place in our editio of the work by S W. Chambers, yet be noticed. 520. Malton, his London and Wes minster, fol. 1792gives several cart fully drawn views. this noble edific the design of whic he describes as be ing at that tim (1796), "far from complete, and littl progress has bee made in the build ing since the com mencement of tl. present war; th exigencies of go vernment having di verted to other use the sum of 25,000 which for sercra years had been an nually voted for its continuance." Since that period the river frontage has been completed at the east end, by the additions in 1831, under Sir R. Smirke for King's College: while new offices were skilfully added on the western side, during the years 1852-56, by James Pennethorne. 521. In the year 1759, Sir W. Chambers published a Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture, in folio; a second edition appeared in 1768; and a third, with some ad ditional plates, in 1791. Two others have since been published, in 1825. This work, as far as it goes, still continues to be a sort of text-book for the student; and much of it has been adopted for that portion of this volume. entitled "Practice of Architecture" Chambers held the office of surveyor-general in the Board of Works, and to him much is owing for the assistance he rendered in establishing the Royal Academy of Arts, in 1768, to which institution he was treasurer. He died in 1796. He had many pupils, several of whom we shall name. 522. Robert Mylne, the descendant of a race of master masons and architects in Scotland, designed Blackfriars Bridge, having been the successful competitor, a preference he obtained while yet unknown and abroad. It was built between the years 1760 and 1768 at an expense of 152,840., a sum which was said to be somewhat less than his estimate He was voted an annual salary of 3001 and a percentage on the money laid out; but to obtain his commission of 5 per cent he had a long struggle with the city authorities, his claims not being allowed until 1776. This bridge was pulled down in 1865. At the time when the designs were under consideration, a long controversy arose on the questions of the taste exhibited, and safety in employing elliptic, in place of semicircular, arches, which had been up to that time used in England for bridges. He was surveyor to the dean and chapter of St. Paul's, London, and is said to have placed in that building, over the entrance to the choir, the memorial tablet with the celebrated inscription (par. 482) to the memory of Wren. lately removed. He was appointed, in 1762, engineer to the New River Company; and dying in 1811, was buried in the crypt of the cathedral, near to the grave of Sir C. Wren. 523. George Dance, being nominated. in 1733, by the corporation of the city of London, to the office of clerk of the City Works, and appointed thereto in December 1735, designed St. Luke's Church, Old-Street: St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, a bold example of the Doric order; and the Mansion House, or official residence of the Lord Mayor for the time being, during the years 1739-53, at a cost of about 42,6391. This edifice has received many alterations, including the removal of the lofty attics in front and rear, which has tended much to deprive the structure of a large share of dignity. Its confined and low situation gives the building an appearance of heaviness, it would be free from this, if placed on an elevated spot, or in an area proportionate to its magnitude. It is substantially built of Portland stone, the material used in most of the erections of this period. The finely designed sculpture in the pediment, above the six columns of the Corinthian order, was well executed by Mr., afterwards Sir Robert, Taylor. Many other buildings in and about the city are attributed to Dance, who died in 1768, and was succeeded in office by his son He George Dance, another of the first four architect members of the Royal Academy designed Newgate prison, with the Sessions House, &c. It was completed in 1778, at a cost of upwards of 130,000Z.; besides being subsequen ly repaired under his directions, after the riots of 1780, when it suffered greatly from fire. This edifice (fig. 224.) has become a chief example of the theory of the observation to "apply to every object a chaacter suitable to the purposes of its destination" (page 224.). The walls, which are constructed of Portland stone, without apertures. or any other ornaments than rough rustic work and niches, are 50 ft in height. The principal front is 300 ft. in length. Dance also designed St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, built in the years 1782-1784, at a cost of about 40,000l. It is of brick, with a few plain stone dressings, three stories in height; the spaces between the centre and ends are formed into long galleries-for the females on the western side, for the males on the eastern. The simple grandeur of the design of the façade, the length of which is 493 ft., produces a very agreeable effect of propriety upon the mind. He rearranged the south front of Guildhall in a style of architecture neither Gothic nor Grecian, the capabilities of which his pupil, John, afterwards Sir John, Soane. largely availed himself in after life. He also designed the elegant council chamber attached; together with many country residences for the wealthy citizens and others; and dying in 1825, was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's. Upon the resignation by him of his city appointment in 1816, he was succeeded therein by his other pupil, William Mountague. 524. Henry Holland, in 1763, designed Claremont House, near Esher, for Lord Clive; formed, 1788-90, Carlton House into a palace for the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.; designed, in 1791, Drury Lane Theatre; the façade of the East India House, Leadenhall Street; the original Pavilion at Brighton, about 1800; improvements at Woburn Abbey for the Duke of Bedford; and 1785, the vestibule, with its charming portico in the Grecian style, to Melbourne, now Dover House, Whitehall, for the Duke of York. The fig. 225 is from Malton's work already mentioned, and is given not only for the intrinsic merit of the design, but because little else now remains, with Claremont, to demonstrate the talents of this fashionable architect of his day. He was the chief introducer of the so-called Greco-Roman style. Holland died in 1806. 525. With these architects should be mentioned Isaac Ware. " of His Majesty's Board of Works," who published, besides other works, a Complete Body of Architecture, folio. 1756. This volume, relating to Italian design only, contains much sound information, and is more complete than Sir W. Chambers's publication, but it is not treated so artistically. He designed Chesterfield House, May Fair. Willey Reveley, a pupil of Chambers, followed the steps of Stuart, and visited Athens and the Levant. He was the editor of the third volume of the Antiquities of Athens, and died prematurely in 1799. He built the new church at Southampton, and offered some beautiful designs for the new baths at Bath, which, however, were not adopted. Joseph Bonomi, a native of Rome, an associate of the Royal Academy, amongst many large structures composed chiefly in the Grecian style, designed the gallery at Townley Hall, Lancashire, for the collection now in the British Museum; 1790. a small church at Packington, Warwickshire, solidly vaulted throughout; Eastwell Ho Kent; the mausoleum in Blickling Park, Norfolk, to the memory of John, second Ear Buckingham; Longford Hall, Shropshire, exhibiting perhaps the earliest adaptation c Fig. 225. portico projecting sufficiently to admit carriages; additi MELBOURNE, NOW DOVER HOUSE, WHITEHALL. Th circular court at each end, from one of which a subterraneous passage led to the sea. name of Bonomi appears in the best novels of his period as the architect consulted i matters concerning a country residence. He died in 1808. 526. Of this period also are the works of James Gandon, a pupil of Sir W. Chambers. His name was first brought before the public, by the publication with John Wolfe of a continuation of Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus, 2 vols fol. 1767 and 1771. The design, by him, for the county-hall and prison at Nottingham, is contained therein. He carried off the first gold medal given for architecture by the Royal Academy, at its foundation in 1768. In 1769 he obtained the third premium for a design for the R yal Exchange in Dublin; and in 1776 one of the premiums for the new Bethlehem Hospital, London; both in competition. At the instance of Lord Carlow, afterwards Lord Portarlington, he made plans for the new docks, stores, and Custom-House, at Dublin, and proceeded there in 1781 to carry out the works. This building was not completed until 1791; it has a front of 375 ft. in length, extending along the quay of the river Liffey, and is 209 ft. in depth. Standing in a fine open place, its admirable design and good execution cause it to rank as equal to other works of a like nature, and to be esteemed as a noble pile that would do credit to any city in the world. He was well assisted in the decorative works by a young sculptor named Edward Smith. The great difficulties he experienced during its erection, both from the nature of the soil, as well as from the work people, is well described in the memoir of him mons' House. VIEW OF ROSENEATH, DUMBARTONSHIRE. prepared by his son, and published by the late T. J. Mulvany, in 1946. To the Houses of Parliament in Dublin he added the side or east portico, with an entrance for the Lords, who agreed to Gandon's desire to have Corinthian columns to this portico, the additional proportion in height of which was to make up for the great fall in the ground from the front, where the Ionic is used. This portico entrance he joined with the front by a circular wall without columns, so that the two orders should not clash; the present three-quarter Ionic columns to this circular wall on the one side, and those to the archway on the other side, are the additions by a later hand when the building was adapted for the Bank of Ireland, which has possessed it since 1802. Gandon subsequently added the western portico for the ComA much larger work by him was the edifice for the Four (Law) Courts. The foundation stone was laid March 3, 1786, and was first used at the end of 1796, but the whole was not completed until 1802. The frontage extends along the river quay, and includes, on the east side, the Offices of Records, designed in 1776 by Thomas Cooley, whom Gandon succeeded. The whole extent of grouud was but 432 ft, 294 ft. of which being occupied by the offices, left but 140 ft. square for the plan of the Courts, and this had subsequently to be lessened in depth by the portico being set back, to appease the ire Right Honourable gentleman whose opinion had been overlooked. This centre building consists of a moderate-sized central hall, 64 ft. in diameter, with a dome which forms exteriorly a marked feature of the design, and one of the most conspicuous objects in the city. This central hall gives access to the four courts. For the same city, he designed Carlisle Bridge and the Inns of Court, but resigned the control over the latter edifice to his pupil, H. A. Baker. He retired in 1808 to his country house near Lucan, and died there as late as 1823, in the eighty-second year of his age. of a was 527. James Wyatt, born about 1743 or 1746, accompanied, at an early age, Lord Bagot to Rome, and applied himself to the study of the ancient monuments in that city and at Venice. After an absence of six years, returning to London, he was employed to design the Pantheon Theatre in Oxford Street, consisting of rooms for public assemblies, &c. This was opened in January 1772, and its completion (fig. 228, which shows the interior as arranged for the Handel festival, in May 1784), spreading his fame both far and wide, he seagerly sought after to superintend numerous public and private buildings in Great Britain and Ireland. Walpole, writing to Mann, in 1771, says of it: "The new winter Ranelagh in Oxford Road is almost finished. It amazed me, myself. Imagine Balbec in all its glory! The pillars are of artificial giallo antico. The ceilings, even of the passages, are of the most beautiful stuccos in the best taste of grotesque. The ceilings of the ball rooms and the panels painted like Raphael's loggias in the Vatican. A dome like the Pantheon glazed. It is to cost fifty thousand pounds." Part only of the Oxford Street front, with the side entrance in Poland Street, now exist of this work, for the interior was gutted by fire soon after its erection. Fig. 730 shows the framing of a dome nearly the same as that for this edifice. The drawings he brought home, the knowledge he possessed of the arts in general, and his polished manners, secured for him a host of patrons, and he became the chief architect of the day. Those critics, amateur or otherwise, who do not choose to ma allowances for the state of the knowledge of the arts at the period under notice, hold Wya up to the execration of the present generation, for his alterations and restorations of o ancient buildings. Ye for King George II. he restored parts Windsor Castle, to tl entire satisfaction of a the connoisseurs of h day, keeping to the or ginal style of the edi fice, or as nearly so a the few studies of th style permitted. Hi Gothic palace at Kev has been pulled down and the western from of the Houses of Par liament was burni down; both unregret. ted. But his houses, villas, and mansions, are amongst the most convenient and tasteful in the country; his own residence in Portland Place, near Langham Church, is a good type. Elmes has elaborately commented upon the peculiarities of Ardbraccan House, near Navan, in Ireland, designed for the Bishop of Meath, as affording the moderate accommodation for a small family, or all the requirements of an Irish ordination, where hospitality has to be afforded to all comers. Fig. 228. INTERIOR OF THE PANTHEON, LONDON. 528. James Wyatt was among the earliest architects to employ every style of architecture in his designs, yielding all individuality to the passing whims of clients. Among his other buildings usually noticed are Lee Priory, Kent; and Castle Coote, in Ireland, for Viscount Belmont, which for grandeur of effect and judicious arrangement, deserves much commen h Fig. 229. a T d m PLAN OF BOWDEN PARK, dation. The apartments are upon a moderate scale and well disposed, and the whole designed after a Greek model, in which style he also designed Bowden Park. Wiltshire, for Barnard Dickenson, Esq. (figs. 229 and 230). Another of his large works is Ashridge, situ- and Hertford, for highly decorated ELEVATION OF BOWDEN PARK. mansion designed Fig. 230. the overturning of his chariot near Marlborough. |
