WREN A BAD BUILDER

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 49, 27 February 1923, Page 7

WREN A BAD BUILDER

THE CONSTRUCTION OF ST. PAUL'S.

It -will come as a Ecrjrise to many people to learn that Sir Christopher Wren's building is not above criticism, says the "Daily Telegraph." Indeed, Mr. Laurance A. Turner holds the view that ho was a bad builder, and told the members of the British Architectural Association so recently, when he was their guest at dinner at Bedford square. Mr. Turner strongly recommended that a lad who was to become an architect should spend the first two years with a good country builder, so that he might get an all-round knowledge of how to build. Only in this way could he know how joinery was conducted, by working at it himself. In the same way he would gain practical knowledge of masonry and brickwork and get first-hand information from the plasterer and painter. Unless the architect had a thorough knowledge, of the materials he was handling and the right form of construction applicable to those materials he could not be expected to get a right sense of fitness of design. The great architect the bi-centenary of whose death they were about to commemorate would have saved those who came after him much anxiety and money if he had had a more thorough knowledge of building. Even Sir Christopher Wren, with all nis glory and sound theory for construction, was u bad builder, or he would never have allowed a Norman method of building a wall to be applied to a classic building. If he really knew it was unsound it only made matters worse. They knew he was put into a difficulty for want of stone, so he sanctioned the building of an ashlar wall with a rubble filling, but he could not have realised how wrong it was or he would never have permitted it. Within thirty years of its composition St. Paul's Cathedral had to be closed for repairs, which, again, were disgracefully badly done. Incidentally, Mr. Turner mentioned that some Portland stone would not stand the London atmosphere for five years. "The tendency nowadays," he concluded, "is to specialise in everything, with the result that the good all-roimd craftsman is becoming more and more difficult to find. The men I like to get hold of are those who have been brought up in workshops in BmaJl country towns where they have to apply themselves to all sorts iind conditions of work. These men are invaluable, and during the war tlfcir worth was realised. Large contractors are an evil —possibly a necessary one—because all the men they employ are specialised. I would implore you to patronise as far as is hi your power the small builder or contractor, so that Englishmen may not lose the character of being handy men, as they hove been for centuries. Trade unions, I know, have not helped matters in this respect, but the large manufacturer has been the most deadly weapon whom the enemy to good English craftsmanship has ever had." Mr. Turner subsequently mentioned that the three west doors of St. Paul's Cathedral were really marble, though they were hardly distinguishable from Portland stone. Soot, he said, protected the stone work of the cathedral from wind and rain.