Modern Architecture. By H. Heathcote Statham. (Chapman and Hall. 10s.
6d.)—The author, who is the editor of the Builder,
calls this "a book for architects and the public." Certainly his wise criticisms of modern building and general principles might be studied with profit by all who wish their buildings to be some- thing more than a collection of building materials. Mr. Statham divides his book into chapters dealing with Church, State, Domestic, and Street Architecture, and has interesting things to say about each division. In the chapter on State Architecture the author has a good deal to say about the Office of Works. According to him, Government buildings in London are usually produced by the surveyor of the department on purely utilitarian lines, and then more or less inappropriate decoration is stuck on to the plan by a professional designer of so-called ornament. We have no means of knowing whether this is the case, but the result seems to point in this direction. The reason why the new buildings at Scotland Yard are good is owing to a lucky accident. Mr. Mathews. the then Home Secretary, being enlightened, called in a first-rate architect, and did not allow the building to be turned out of the official mill. The system of the author is to take plans and elevations —which he gives—of recent buildings, English and foreign, and pull them to pieces. When writing of large modern country houses Mr. Statham points out with great truth how hopelessly without dignity and grandeur these build- ings generally are. A very interesting comparison is made between Mr. Norman Shaw's big house. Cragside, and Van- brugh's, Seaton Delaval. We may think a temple-like roof and pediment to be inappropriate in an English country house, and rusticated columns may have no charm for us; nevertheless, there is a feeling that the mind that planned Seaton Delays' possessed a certain dignity of ordered thought which the modern has not. Instead of one dominating idea expressed with force, we have a congregation of picturesque buildings. The taste of this assemblage is excellent throughout, and there is nothing pre- tentious; but there is no grandeur. Architects now seem to run into the glorified cottage or else a Renaissance style for their large houses. Surely the Elizabethan buildings of the first class might be developed with advantage. Hatfield, for instance, has plenty of dignity, without in the least being stiff and unhome- like. In the chapter on church architecture, Mr. Statham gives designs for the new Cathedral at Berlin, which is also to be the Hohenzollern mausoleum. Though the ground-plan is in- teresting, nothing can exceed the ugliness of the elevation ; it is, indeed, the complete misunderstanding of the later Renaissance. For the designer of this dome Michelangelo has lived in vain. The German Emperor himself chose the architect. Did this universal amateur also spoil the plan ?
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