A PAINTER ON MODERN ARCHITECTURE.* VERY disarmingly did Mr. Roger

Fry open a recent address to the Royal Institute of British Architects at their own headquarters :—

" I am come before you as a sheep to the slaughter, as a victim to the altar. If I am allowed to bleat for an hour or so before tho sacrifice is consummated, I know that to be part of the ritual, and that it will only defer for a time the moment when I shall be utterly devoured."

That said, he proceeded to give the architectural profession such a trouncing as was surely never before heard within the sheltering walls of its very citadel.

He condemned the modern architect and all his works; he pointed out his sins and the road to salvation, all with such spirit and so much wit and wisdom that his hearers ought surely to have been grateful for their castigation, however much it may have hurt.

Mr. Fry points a shrewd and discriminating finger at certain things that he regards as evil in current English architecture. His beliefs are neatly summarized in his " Ten Heresies " :- Heresy No. 1. We have substituted for the art of archi- tecture the art of dressing buildings according to the fashion.

Heresy No. 2. This phenomenon is more or less world-wide. In the false architecture of modern Europe which results the English is distinguished by its lack of the sense of scale. Heresy No. 3. It is sometimes distinguished also by its good taste. Good taste in this sense is a social rather than an aesthetic virtue.

Heresy No. 4. There are two possible kinds of beauty in s building : (1) What I call natural beauty, which is also the beauty of a locomotive or a panther, and this results from the clear expression of function. (2) Aesthetic beauty, which results from the clear expression of an idea. We have so arranged that neither of these beauties occurs in our buildings.

Heresy No. 5. Aesthetic beauty in a building is essentially the same as that of sculpture. It results from the expression of a plastic idea. There has hardly ever been an aesthetic architecture in England and there has been even less sculpture. Heresy No. 6. Our architecture does not express plastic ideas, but historico-social ideas.

Heresy No. 7. It is founded upon social snobbery. Heresy No. 8. The vices of modern English architecture have almost always been inherent in the architecture of England. Modern conditions have brought out the rash. Heresy No. 9. Modern conditions and modern science have put into the hands of architects the greatest opportunity in the history of the world. They have missed it completely. Heresy No. 10. To a great extent this is not their fault.

It is presumed that Mr. Fry was addressing himself to the " average " architect, and that he did not intend his indictment to apply universally. There are a few just architects, and if Mr. Fry has not yet had the good fortune to meet them, he will be surprised to find how just they are—that is, how very well they will agree with him.

He should, however, remember how much easier it is to be correct in one's theory than in one's practice. Mr. Fry is temptingly quotable. Of the English h3 says :— " First, as to the want of the sense of scale, Ruskin once wrote that the English had always built rather for rats and mice than for men. We seem incapable in our architecture of a free or generous gesture. We are meek, timid, and meticulous. We cramp and skimp and cower. We finish our tiny details with short-sighted, ant-like industry. We invented. alas I the " cosy corner," and the cosy corner in one form or another marks most of our building. In the realm of imaginative form we, this great imperial adventurous race, appear as burrowing, furtive, obliterated creatures."

Of the French: " On the other hand, they have , developed the cruel efficiency, the hard brittle chic of the Ecole des Beaux Arts ; an instrument perfectly adapted to replace inspiration and sensibility by brilliantly self-confident mediocrity.'

The following extracts will serve to illustrate further Mr. Fry's views and the clear and memorable way in which he states them :- "Look at the many ferro-concrete buildings one sees springing up. Let me admit here that there are signs of improvement, but still, as a rule, the essential logic of adaptation is fumbled and messed over with architectural features.' There is scarcely over a straightforward logical emphasis, but plenty of tasteful reminiscences of this, that or the other period towards which our incurable archaeological snobbery turns with abject reverence, until the word goes round that we are worshipping at yesterday's shrine, and ought to be hurrying on for fear we should be found on the wrong social landing.. . . The essence of Gothic architecture was the purely engineering discovery of how to build a stone

• Archiledure Heresies of a Painter. By Boger Fry. London: Glatt° and 'WIndus. 12s. net.] greenhouse. . . . Buildings which when they were just finished attracted by a certain air of piquant novelty become outmoded in a few years, and like clothes of last year, when they are dowdy they are done for. I am, alas ! old enough to remember when St. John's Wood Avenue seemed to be an epoch-making discovery—baronial splendour was at last compressed into the limits of suburban convenience. I can remember when the Wagner-operatic effects of Hans Place looked almost authentic, and hardly suggested carton pierre.' . . . I remember when a South African millionaire gave himself away by building a Perpendicular Gothic palace in Park Lane at a time when no one ` in the know ' would have tolerated anything but some form of Renaissance, preferably of French origin. Sham and very ornate Perpendicular long ago was modish, wont the round, and the last I saw of it was in shops in Bloomsbury which were socially negligible. I believe it is coming up again in some provincial war memorials with a vague idea, I suppose, of holiness and patriotism combined."

But every one intelligently interested in architecture is recom- mended to obey the impulse that the foregoing quotations will have aroused—and to read the pamphlet through.

Mr. Fry ends with a piece of fine philosophy that shows him to b ) no pessimist:—

"it is just the advantage of our highly self-conscious and critical age that wo can by a deliberate effort change our character. We can fix our minds on those defects which from long inherited custom have become not only traditional but instinctive, and by so fixing our minds we may ultimately correct them altogether. I ask you to believe that, because I am a victim of a perhaps quite absurd faith—the faith, namely, that the aesthetic pursuit is as important in the long run for mankind as the search for truth."

That is a faith that Mr. Fry does not hold alone, whilst the hopeful and happy band that believes in the mutability of human nature grows and grows apace.