ART.

THE NEW LAW COURTS' DESIGNS.

This is by far the most important single prize offered to an Eng- lish architect since the competition for the Houses of Parliament in 1835. The field of competitors was, however, here limited to a select number. The eleven chosen included most of our best known Gothic architects, except Mr. Butterfield. Several of the designs are inferior in taste and effect; yet, on the whole, we think it undeniable that the general character of the exhibition in Lincoln's Inn Fields is very creditable to the profession, and that even the least satisfactory of these attempts to solve a very difficult problem displays a great advance in mastery over the Gothic, made during' the thirty years since the adoption of that prettiest, cheapest, and, most practically manageable of all styles, for English public buildings, was settled by Sir Charles Barry's success ; for we decline to hold the heavy mass in Downing Street more than an aberration, due to the old-fashioned taste of Lord Palmerston.

A full and careful specification of what was required in the

way of number of Courts, attendance-rooms of .all kinds, and muniment chambers for wills and other records, was supplied by the Law Committee to the architects, who may be presumed to have endeavoured to meet these practical re- quisitions to the best of their power. But this branch of the matter, though by far the most important part of it, is the one with which the general public has little to do. It is for the COM- mittee to decide on the practical question ; all we shall attempt, is to describe the effect of the designs to the eye, with reference to their architectural taste and ability, and to the common sense and obvious requirements of such a structure, in the site allotted to it

north-west of Temple Bar. • Those designs which we have alluded to as inferior in taste and effect we will first briefly notice, premising only that a large mass of three-storied building, broken up more or less into internal Courts, with several towers, and often one or more cemtrak halls, is the general type which the whole series naturally takes.

Mr. Lockwood's towers, especially in their upper stories, show much grace and originality ; and he has followed therein, almost. alone of the eleven, the highly developed Gothic of France during' the thirteenth century. But his design, on the whole, when one looks into it, strikes us as rather poor. The two prevalent 'faults- -mechanical repetition of identical forms and a too great reliance- on mere surface ornament are, of course, the natural points of weakness which the treatment of so vast a mass has rendered, snares common to all the competitors.

Mr. Seddon's general mass has a good picturesque effect from the main, or Strand, front. But the enormous tower on which he has concentrated his effect is uncouth and one-sided ; here, again,. is a mechanical repetition of parts, together with a lack of unity in design. The decorations of the refreshment-room are also taste- less, and do not promise well for the interior. We observe that other details which Mr. Seddon gives are repeated from a very cleverly designed hotel which he has, lately built at Aberystwith.

Mr. Abraham and Mr. E. Barry may be grouped together; from the tame and uninteresting character which detracts from the merit of their facades. Both deserve credit for attempting e Gothic dome, that most splendid of all possible architectural

forms, had it ever been properly carried out. Mr. Barry's is the more ambitious and tasteful of the domes, but its central position would render it less effective from the street. His aide octagonS are rather lean and poor. Mr. Abraham's Strand facade is low r. and though this may often be an element of beauty, yet it is not suitable for a civic building, and requires a grace and picturesque- ness of handling which are here absent.

Mr. Scott's design will disappoint those who remember his earlier and less ambitious efforts. It is rather put together with cleverness, than a design imagined as an organic whole ;;__ one part is taken from Venice, another from England ; the central mass towards the Strand does not express its function, and the towers flanking it are crowned by singularly weak open octagons, like some of the poor pieces of modern Gothic in France. The upper windows in the north-east view are graceful.. We prefer Mr. Scott's " alternative " central hall to his dome, which internally would have little effect in proportion to its. amazing expense. This leads us to what we must consider the

fatal element in Mr. Scott's scheme. His architectural features- share in the unimaginative tameness and mechanical air which we- have noticed in Mr. Abraham and Mr. E. Barry, and he attempts- to relieve them by a profusion of sculpture. This we hold the- most (unintentionally) deceptive form of design which, an arclii-

tect can adopt. Drop the figures, and the building will be un- accentuated, monotonous, and insipid ; add them in the " decora- tive " style of the Houses or of the new India Office, and their absolute want of life, truth, and invention will make every one of them an additional point of failure to the eye. It should never be forgotten that sculpture being a highly intellectual art, allows little between good and bad, success or failure. We look to a figure for the highest thought, the central interest of a building ; if it be merely decorative, it not only does not do its work, but it exactly contradicts what it ought to do ; an appeal has been made to the mind, and it is answered only by a series of insipid lines and unexpressive • features ; it is not a blank, but a blot. In a word, it is a rigorous law, never departed from but with ruinous effect,—whatever sculpture you have, let it be first-rate. Sit ut ars, act non sit.

We have gone into a little detail on this point, because the love of decoration now prevalent has obscured the higher taste which formerly existed in regard to architectural sculpture. But only a few words are required to show why the profusion of carving on which Mr. Scott (and in a lesser degree Messrs. Brandon and Burges) have relied cannot possibly be executed in the style with- out which it will only be executed to worse than no purpose. Good sculpture is of all arts the most laborious as well as the rarest. Europe altogether would not furnish men enough to do what Mr. Scott proposes to lay upon them, far less England ; and they could only do it at an expense which would at least double his estimate, which, even as it is, excludes the sculpture.

Mr. Garling is noticeable as the single architect who has fur- nished a round-arched scheme, and this is only as an "alternative." The Gothic design shows a monotonous series of similar windows, but has a well managed gateway towards the Strand.

On the whole,—recalling here our remark that all the designs exhibit a marked advance over mastery in Gothic as the architect's medium for expressing himself, and adding that none have worked carelessly or at random, or are without commendable points,—we are constrained to think that no one of the six hitherto noticed would be a desirable addition to the public buildings of London. None of them give promise of dignity. None of them prove that the designer possesses decided original power, or imagination adequate to embody worthily the great idea of an English Palace of Justice. The "root of the matter" is not in them. Setting these, then, aside, we propose next to consider the drawings which appear entitled to more serious examination, on the ground of taste and effectiveness.

Mr. Deane's design (besides the merit of being offered, at least, for less than most of the others) shows a good deal of the elegance which gives the charm to his new building at Oxford. Like that, however, his Courts appear to us to want dignity. There is a grace and a life here which few of the drawings hitherto noticed exhibit; on the other hand, the building is scattered and deficient in the air of mass and wholeness.

Somewhat the same criticism may be made on Mr. Street's very interesting elevations. The parts are often charming ; we feel at once, when we compare his work with that of Scott or Barry, that we have not clever building, but real architecture, before us. Mr.

Street's designs have also more sobriety than most of his com- petitors', and his great tower would, doubtless, display that look of vastness in which he has, more or less, discovered the secret of the ancient masters. We do not know whether Mr. Street would regard it as a compliment that his style verges on the ecclesiastical. His whole design too much resembles a monastery on a vast scale —a set of buildings grouped together round a chapel, rather than a single pile for a modern and a secular purpose.

Mr. Brandon's work shows even more of the ecclesiastical character. The principal mass to the south-west is like an enlarged Ste. Chapelle, with a pair of lofty spires added, but to these two rather heavy and ungraceful square towers are prefixed. Here, again, is far too much sculpture, although the superiority of the designing would not render its omission so fatal as in the case of others that we have noticed. Mr. Brandon's style has much affinity with the great French Gothic of the fifty years before the time favoured by Mr. Lockwood. He shows a large drawing of some windows and porches, extremely elegant in their detail, and with a sufficient look of solidity.

Had Mr. Binges confined himself more within the pecuniary limits prescribed, and been able to emancipate his style more fully from ecclesiastical precedents, his extremely careful and able design might have run very near the prize. Although rather scattered and unbalanced in its scheme, it is fairly bound together by the fine treatment of the arcaded sides presented towards the streets. The management of the window openings in these is very beautiful, and appears to us to hit a just medium between monotony and fancifulness. The severe windows of the main front might dispense with the excess of sculpture in- dicated. Mr. Burges seems to us less happy in his tower designs, of which there are not less than eight. Sonic have a castellated character, which, again, adds to the too mediteval look of the whole.

To this latter point we would direct attention. Holding Gothic to be by very far the best and most practicable style which is open to Englishmen for employment, it must be equally insisted on that the Gothic of the Middle Ages, with all its wonders of beauty and of convenience, presents only the rudi- ments or first stage of a style which is not only capable of a much more complete elaboration, but must be frankly so elaborated, if it is to be of national service to us. It must incorporate our physical science ; it must answer to our civilized ideas ; it must be defeudalized and demonasticized. All our really gifted architects have worked, consciously or not, in this direction; but the acci- dent that the second Gothic movement began with ecclesi- astical structures has naturally given them a bias towards the mediteval manner, from which it is, no doubt, difficult to escape. A modern church is much nearer an ancient church in its pur- pose and its sentiment than a modern house or public building. This want of modernism is that which makes so many people of the world, especially those who were trained in the pre-Goalie period, feel a distaste for the style. And it is unfortunate that almost all our really best men, having worked first or most at church or college designing, do not more completely or overtly throw themselves into nineteenth-century views and feelings, and import a little too much (we venture to think) of the great, though no longer adequate, models they justly admire, into their secular designing.

We do not think Mr. Waterhouse's design superior in in- ventive elegance of detail to two or three of those already noticed. Perhaps he does not as yet quite equal some of his elder contemporaries in poetical refinement and delicate elabora- tion. But on the point just spoken of his design appears to us demonstrably the best exhibited. It shows a mastery of Gothic, whether in its principal lines or its subordinate working out ; and it has also an appropriateness for its purpose and for the ways of our own time which appears to us an almost equal recommendation. As a genuine civilized and civic Gothic, we think it meets at once the demands of taste and of common sense. The Strand facade is very varied and effective, yet shows sufficient unity ; the gallery round the upper story is here employed to the same good results as Mr. Burges'; the central mass is original and appropriate, telling its story without parade, yet of sufficient prominence and beauty. Mr. Waterhouse has, again, con- siderable merit in severity. (See the detail of the Strand front, No. XIX.) He is strong enough to be able to rely upon his architecture, and introduces ornament and sculpture with com- mendable sobriety. He has also hit the balance between the mass and the towers very happily ; but we think that more ele- gance might be given to the latter, especially in the upper stories. The interior designs are also picturesque and original, and with the exception we shall now notice appear to promise well. Mr. Waterhouse has had the courage to try an iron roof of the most modern fashion for his central hall. This is a laudable, but a difficult attempt ; and it hence presents some points which we think might be retouched advantageously. The sunk story of the buildings which edge the hall, and the balconies and projecting pieces, give it too much the look of an arcade glazed over. The circular form is also allowed to appear too freely. These, however, are details which might easily be rectified.

Let us add a final word on behalf of Temple Bar, which, as a civic monument, ought to be preserved where it is. It might easily form one-half of the bridge which must be carried over the Strand, and what would hence be lost in uniformity of style, would be much more than compensated by the great historical and literary interest of this relic of an older London.