Architecture and Building.

Progress, Volume VI, Issue 4, 1 February 1911, Page 550

Architecture and Building.

Our Beautiful World. Man’s Work in the Making and Marring of it. A Lecture delivered to the Christchurch Beautifying Association, by S. Hurst Seager, F.R.1.8.A. (Continued.) The English cottage homes erected in the first five centuries of English life were always the natural expression of the wants of the people, so that whatever county Ave pass through we find the local material built into the homes, full of simple character, and thus becoming objects of beauty always. What can be more beautiful than the simple, half-timbered, thatched cottages of Anne Hathaway at Stratford-upon-Avon, or the cottages at Upton Gray in Hampshire. These are only some of thousands which embellish the natural beauties of the Old World, and in a collection of cottages, forming the village

streets, how simple they are, yet together they produce varied and picturesque effects. Think of the delightful village streets in Warwick and in all parts of England. Among the cottages there are shops and stores, yet nowhere is there a note of disfigurement to mar their simple beauty. . This is typical of village streets built in the earlier days throughout the whole of England. There is unity in variety, for the character of them varies according to the local material of which the houses are built. These are the works and form the homes of the simple and unaffected country folk. When we turn to the homes and stores of the merchant princes of London, and the shops and homes of its wealthy burghers, we find this simple work giving place to work equally artistic, but of a far higher standard. Look at Ludgate Hill, as it appeared towards the close of the fifteenth century, that is to say, about four hundred years after the welding together of the Norman and Saxon elements, which form the English nation. The beauties

of Nature have here wholly disappeared, but in their places these London burghers erected works of the greatest beauty; with such surroundings the artistic fountains and monuments they erected were highly appropriate, and gave dignity and beauty to the scene. Although there is individual expression in each building, all are in one style of work, and in perfect harmony, and the signs upon them giving the names and occupations of the different owners are all in themselves objects of great beauty. This, then, is the result of five centuries of man's work in accordance with the laws of Nature and thus in harmony with her. Those works still left to us which were erected at that time give the greatest pleasure to the beholder, arousing in him emotions and feelings akin to those which would have been aroused by the natural beauties the city has displaced. This, then, should be our aim: always so to create our homes and our cities that what we take from Nature we give back in art. But is this the trend of modern thought and feeling? I think not, for with all the noble work of the past which forms the valued inheritance of the present, we are wilfully erecting works which can neither now nor hereafter give a spark of pleasure, and we are disfiguring our towns with ugly and useless announcements. : In this competitive age, it is, of course, absolutely necessary that tradesmen should be diligent in making their wares known, but competition in olden times was the competition in the excellence of the goods offered, while competition nowadays is competition in the loudness with, which these goods are declared, and this loudness of acclaim not only absolutely ruins all chance of beauty in the city where it is made, but imposes a heavy tax indeed upon all who purchase the wares. Advertising is necessary, but it can be done artistically, and every one of us should resent very strongly indeed the disfigurement of our towns by ugly and unnecessary signs. Architecture cannot be phonetic; it can only become so by the aid of sculpture, pictures, or writing. In this way many of the old mediaeval cathedrals told nearly the whole of the Bible story, yet they remain works of the greatest beauty, and all the Mohammedan mosques and monuments are covered with extracts from the Koran, adding to the beauty rather than detracting from the excellence of the work. But if our civic fathers want to tell you their office closes at 4 p.m., they put a placard on their wrought iron plates, to the great disfigurement of their building, so that whatever interest the gates have as works of art—and I can assure you the skilful craftsman who made them put his best work into them wholly destroyed. The example set by our civic, fathers is naturally followed by other citizens, for it is in accord with the commercial spirit of the age in all parts of the world. It has come to be considered a necessity that if you have anything to say

to the public about goods for sale or about anything else, you must say it crudely and even rudely, and however much thought is expended on the erection'of a building, not one iota of thought is expended in making it phonetic;, 1 that is, making it convey to the mind of the beholder the reason and purpose of its erection. The exceptions, unfortunately, are few, but examples can be found showing that large buildings can be covered from top to bottom, with announcements of the purpose of their erection without one disfiguring note. In these, all the writing is kept within the architectural lines of the building, and adds to, rather than destroys,

Fifteenth century, showing the homes of the Merchant-princes and their artistic signs. the decorative effect of the whole. It is astounding to think that when it is so easy to do right, the great majority of citizens all the world over should do wrong: so wrong indeed that in every part of the world now you will find that Beautifying Associations, under various names, are striving to bring their fellows back to a right , way of thinking and acting. The strangest part of all is that many of those who are most guilty of disfiguring the towns and countrysides with irritating signs, are men of taste, who provide for themselves homes of beauty. A striking example of the way in which the world is being disfigured is to be found

Showing what wc shall arrive at unless the placarding mania is checked. at Venice. If there was one view which could be said to be more entrancing than another, it must have been the perfectly unique approach to V enice as seen by Turner and Ruskin in the early forties. TTvrirn Ilia ' till 111 loTwirl A-nrvwowv»A.rt Tr^-.-. uxigravuigo JUU iUIUW it to have been beautiful in the extreme. When I visited it I found that just where we expected to get our first glimpse of the poetic city, we had nothing but huge signs on both sides of the railway line, completely shutting out the glorious view.

No words in polite language can adequately express the righteous indignation which every lover of Nature must feel on seeing such wanton desecration, yet while England, France, Germany, and America, are passing laws and striving to kill the monster of disfigurement which is ruining their cities, so apathetic are the Italians, so little do they value their glorious inheritance, that as yet no steps have been taken to prevent the disfigurement of their beautiful and romantic land. The Work of American Societies. It is pleasing to find that America., with which we are unfortunately often compelled to associate all that is worst in modern commercialism, has among its citizens an ardent band of workers striving to prevent the further disfigurement of their towns and rural scenery. There the task is extremely difficult, as the Bill Board interest is so strong, and makes ample use of its funds to procure the defeat of every restraint. The results of the efforts of an American society taken from illustrations in one of their journals are most satisfactory. A beautiful view of the capitol of Nebraska was shut out by a 12ft. high bill board which has now been removed. A fine view was opened up on the railway by the removal of high bill boards which had previously hidden it. A simple covered bridge standing in beautiful scenery was disfigured by signs nailed to its entrance. They were removed, and the perfectly satisfactory effect of the simple, unadorned bridge without

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Showing the picturesquenoss of 15th century Village architecture. the advertisement was immediately apparent. All these disfigurements were removed as the result of earnest endeavours on the part of individual members of the Association, showing that improvement in our surroundings is within the power of everyone to effect. Great efforts are made to remove advertisements from the plain walls of buildings, for a plain brick or stone wall in itself is perfectly neutral; ■it is only when placarded with signs that it becomes a dominant discordant note in the landscape. An illustration is given of a wayside cottage and boathouse, which was a perfect eyesore when covered with advertisements, but became at once a simple, pleasing feature when they were removed. The question of the neutral effect of a blank wall is an extremely important one, for avc find in every town a blank wall at the side of a building when covered with huge signs wholly destroying the effect which might be produced by the architectural features with which its front has been adorned. You get striking instances of this form of disfigurement down every one of our streets: several flagrant examples are to be seen of extremely welldesigned blocks of offices and shops ruined by this treatment of its end wall. One of the prettiest views on our Christchurch

river is that from Worcester street bridge, to by the erection of a fine pile of buildings for the Y.M.C.A., for which the pleasing effect of which has been added architects deserve full credit. From this point of view nothing can be desired. On the other side, because a blank wall on their older adjacent building exists, the Association have, in accordance with the usual practice, painted a huge sign with letters 10ft. high, and in glaring colours, which quite destroys the pleasing effects of one of the prettiest spots on the river, a spot which both our Association and the City Council have . spent money and thought in beautifying.

An object lesson is afforded by an exceedingly plain structure, which is the home of the Young Men's Christian Association in Illinois, which had before their occupation been decorated with posters. These they promptly removed, and the building became at once perfectly neutral and wholly inoffensive. But we had till lately a similar example; for close to our Cathedral, and quite destructive of the effect it might produce from the east, was a building which would otherwise have been wholly inoffensive made dominantly assertive by the unwholesome accumulation of ancient, and the irregular display of newly-posted bills. Most certainly our principal approach to the city from the east should not have been allowed to be thus disfigured.

Showing the pleasurable effect to be derived from a plain, simple building, and the irritating effect of placarding it with advertisements. Bill-posting may be Decorative. If bills are to be posted they can be placed in a decorative way by maintaining the lines of the heads and sills, of the windows and forming equal-sized panels of bills between them with a plain simple border. With harmonious colouring and judicious placing, a decorative effect could always be produced. But in order to effect any such change, the bill-posters themselves would have to be instructed in

the simple laws of colour and form, which govern the art of decoration. At present, the disgraceful accumulation of old bills and the haphazard placing of new ones destroys, as far as possible, what beauty there is in any part where their operations are carried on. That they have no regard for beauty is shown by the fact that a huge sign is shown in the illustrated journal of the English bill-posters as a desirable “method of beautifying” a village which the inhabitants had taken pains to improve by the laying of a green sward and the planting of trees. Unfortunately, we need not go far from home to find many equally glaring and destructive examples. In Auckland they have built an extremely fine church, spending thereon some £40,000. The design is by a celebrated English Church architect. But the environments are appalling. From the main street the fine tower can be seen only over a mass of glaring signs. Such an approach to Auckland’s finest church is scarcely calculated to put us in the right frame of mind for appreciating its beauties. Such a hideous display on the principal streets of the city is a striking illustration of the insidiousness with which the gradual disfigurement of our towns has ruined all sense of beauty in the inhabitants. If it were not so, they would demand, as with one voice, that the whole of it should be immediately cleared away, a simple plainly-coloured fence erected, the signs on the sides of the buildings painted out, and a neutral effect restored. In Wellington, too, with municipal pride, they have spent a large sum of money in the erection of their fine Town Hall, yet have taken no pains to free it from disfiguring surroundings. But the disfigurements existing in our own town show clearly that we, too, must be awakened from the fatal apathy into which we have fallen. We need to be roughly awakened to the fact that a high bill board does not ennoble the northern entrance to our town, but, on the contrary, it, together with other displeasing features along this route, causes a feeling of irritation in all those whose feelings are not deadened by constant sight of them. Unless we wake from our apathy and determine to do all in our power to stop this wide spreading disfigurement, we shall lose all sense of the beautiful, and become incapable of deriving any benefit from ennobling environments. That we have but little feeling even now for the fitness of things is shown by the fact that we have allowed, right in the heart of our cityin the Square— where stands the Cathedral, around which should cluster all that is best in our life and art, an exceedingly ugly group of discordant signs, and in another part monstrous ones, showing that the artistic feeling which governed the works of our ancestors is quite dead among us, that civic art and the amenities of our. cities are considered to be of no importance. . Disfigurement like a deathful parasitical growth is creeping over all our works, so that if not exterminated, our cities, as some portions of those in the Old World, will eventually become nothing but a gigantic bill board. This is what many parts of London have become; the glory of the ancient city has departed, and the climax reached in many parts, where we see the whole of the architecture enveloped

in a bewildering mass of signs waving high above us their coloured flags of victory for their conquest over art. Is this, then, to be our goal? Is this what you Avant your cities to become, or do you wish them to grow into things of —simple honest beauty—free from all pretence and affectation in their buildings, and reflecting their kindly honest commercial life to the people? Whatever may be our opinion of the commercial life of to-day, it cannot by any stretch of desire be regarded as kindly, and it is this

hitter effort to rise by the fall of others which the glaring and oft-repeated announcements indicate that makes them so extremely irritating. All this useless warfare, this battle of the placards, is carried on at the expense of every one of us, is ruining our cities, and is destructive of all the influence which might be felt from beautiful environments. It is in the power of each of ns to prevent it. All we have to do is to refuse to purchase goods from those persons or firms who have disfigured our towns. We must demand that in all cases announcements shall be made of reasonable size, and shall follow always the architectural

lines of the building, that none shall be allowed to dominate as they do now the whole district in which they are placed. Much more than this is required, if our cities are to become not only inoffensive, hut also beautiful. Sydney, London, Berlin, Paris, and Dresden, and other cities have at last awakened to the fact that cities can become neither convenient nor beautiful if left to the haphazard schemes of individual and clashing interests. In order that they may become beautiful, a

love of beauty must be created in us all, an ardent love for Nature and Art. "We must demand that our natural scenery shall be carefully preserved, and that all isolated buildings shall be erected in such a way that they will not mar the natural beauty of the scene; that in our towns there shall be such a blending of Art and Nature that the place where our life's work is done, the place in which Ave have to labour, shall be made as pleasing to us and to those who visit us in the years to come as were the cities of the past. If this is our aim, those German friends who come to us five hundred years hence will be able to say: "It is good to be here, for these people have lived in accord with the best traditions of their race"; but if we allow ourselves to fall away from these traditions, then will our future visitors exclaim: "Alas! the darkness of ugliness has fallen upon it. We have come five hundred years too late.