MR. DAY'S ARCHITECTURAL MODELS.
THESE are not only very neat and beautiful specimens of modelling in plaster, upon a small scale, but the ingenious artist has rendered them additionally interesting, by making some of them the medium for giving to the world his designs for new public edifices, and in particular, his plan for covering the vacant and as yet unappropriated space of ground opposite Charing Cross. His plan is certainly an improvement upon that proposed by Mr. Nast ; who projected an Academy of Arts to be erected with its front facing the west, thus leaving a large space of waste ground both before and behind. Mr. DAY'S plan is to erect a line of Galleries of Art upon the site of the King's Mews, and to place the Royal Academy with its front looking towards Charing Cross ; and this appropriation of the ground is worthy of attention from the authorities. With regard to the designs, as Mr. DAY exhibits them as specimens of his skill in modelling, and not in an architectural point of view, we need only say that they are extremely beautiful and minutely accurate. We have ad- miredldr. DronToses elaborate architectural models in pasteboard, but the plaster seems preferable, not only from its solidity, but its susceptibility of minute ornamental details, and also from the advantages which it offers in allowing of casts being taken and thus multiplying the model at a moderate expense. The utility of models is so great, that it amounts to a necessity in all cases of public buildings. Had a model of Mr. NAsit's design for Bucking. ham Palace been constructed, the architect would never have made that in. conceivable mistake which cost the country 70,000/. ; nor would the Com- mittee of Taste have adopted so monstrous an architectural abortion, which is a costly libel on the national taste. Mr. DAY proposes a series of models in plaster, of the principal monuments
of Grecian and Gothic architecture, of a size suitable for ornamenting the library or cabinet ; and the idea is one which is worthy of encouragement. If our architects had models of the grand edifices of antiquity before their
eyes, we should think they would be less liable to violate taste and fit- ness by contriving such unmeaning, unsightly structures, as our modern churches. Let them look at the beautiful structure of St Martin's, as shown in Mr. DAY'S admirable model, by the side of one of their contrivances, and blush at the comparison. The place selected by Mr. DAY for exhibiting his models, directly op- posite the new College of Physicians, in Pall Mall East, is particularly well adapted for explaining his plan of improvements at Charing Cross ; as you may step out 'of the room into the balcony, and have the spot under your eye.
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