Correspondence
The British School at Rome
(We have received copies of the following correspondence.—Ed.)
28 October, 1927.
My Dear Simpson,
The Council of the Royal Institute have just held their first meeting since the recess and have had an opportunity of considering your letter of August 13 and they have, by a unanimous vote, passed the following resolution which they have directed me to transmit to you :—
The Council of the Royal Institute express their profound regret at the unfortunate situation which has arisen with Sir John Simpson in connection with the representation of the R.I.B.A. on the Council of the British School at Rome.
The Council wish to assure Sir John that there never has been in the minds of their members the slightest intention of acting with discourtesy towards him, especially in view of his position as a Past-President, of the great services which he has rendered to the profession and to the Royal Institute, and of the interest he has always taken in the work of architectural education.
The Council, of which Sir John was for so long a distinguished member, whole-heartedly regret that their action has led to such feeling as he has thought it necessary to express, and appeal to him with confidence to reconsider his decision and to permit them to retain his name among their list of members where it has stood for the past forty-five years.
May I hope to have the pleasure of hearing from you that you feel yourself able to respond to their appeal ?
Believe me, yours very truly,
(Signed) Ian MacAlister,
Secretary. 3 Verulam Buildings,
Gray’s Inn, W.C.
November 3, 1927.
Ian MacAlister, Esq., Secretary,
The Royal Institute of British Architects,
9 Conduit Street, W.l. My Dear MacAlister,
It would, I feel, be ungenerous not to accept the expressions of unanimous regret conveyed to me by your letter of the 28th ult. I therefore withdraw my resignation in response to the appeal of the Council.
Yours truly,
(Signed) John W. Simpson.
Re School Competitions
To the Editor of The Architect and Building News.
Sir,—It has been of great interest to hear the views of other architects on the above subject, prompted by my letter in your issue of the 7th ult.
In detail it would appear that I overstepped the mark a little in suggesting that a competing assessor (were such a thing possible) would choose his own design. This, I admit, is an exaggeration, even if it is only because such a state of things is impossible. The exaggeration was intentional, but I think it illustrated well the point I had in mind.
The main criticism appears to be that the jury is over-weighted by laymen. In numbers this is so, but the obvious reason why there should be two members of each branch is to neutralise partially any prejudice. In fairness to myself, however, I must inform Mr. Dawbarn that I do not suggest that each member of the jury should have “ equal powers in marking.” I should suggest, in fact, that the possible total of
the architect’s marking should approximate fifty per cent, of the complete possible total.
Having dealt with detail, we now come to the general principle—that of a jury of assessors. I think we may rightly say that, from the views expressed in your journal, everybody is in agreement that such a method is preferable to the present way of judging competitions. In view of this, it would indeed be a great pity to let the matter rest, and I suggest that as a first step the opinions of the R.I.B.A. and the new Incorporated Association be obtained through the medium of your journal.—Yours faithfully,
Bernard Widdows. St. James Chambers, Derby.
The Doric CoIoiumi
To the Editor of The Architect and Building News.
Sir,—I have been much interested in the correspondence started by “ Student ” on the merits of the Doric Order. I wonder what school “ Student ’.’ is working at, for it seems to me incredibly tdeux jeu to hold up the Doric Order as a model of proportion. In some schools, indeed, the Orders are still served on the young men, partly as a test of accuracy in drawing, but more as a sort of inoeculation when young. Very efficacious it is too;-only in patients of the most confirmed classic tendencies has a love of Greek orders been known to survive. The truth perhaps is that all pedagogy must systematise beauty; and because the Parthenon is one of those things which infallibly strike the traveller dumb with its august beauty, the schoolmaster tapes and measures it, and concocts a theory of proportion. In a recent number of a contemporary review, there is a drawing by Professor Plubert Worthington of a Doric column at Pcestum, which shows in a flash the clumsy halfdigested form lit and transfigured by the delicacy and verve of the surface stone-cutting. A model for future proportion1? No, but a standing memory of what an artist of such calibre can make out of the merest tent on posts—a miracle! A hundred years later, the fire was gone. The Greeks themselves abandoned the Order as not suited to mass production for colonnades. It was left for the Romans and their imitators to produce, a rehash of the Doric Order in which the old difficulties were burked, not solved. Each Doric temple of the prime is as standardised, and yet as individual as a sonnet, as different from its neighbour as faces in an assembly of poets. So the Dutch to-day study the idiosyncrasies of. Cambodia and form a caucus of taste which are different indeed from those laid down in “ Architectural Style.” So, too, the City Hall at Stockholm is one of those buildings which take by storm the imagination of the beholder: each detail is individual even when most rooted to the Scandinavian past. I have met no one who has seen the City Hall who has criticised the columns, which, just as they are, fit perfectly into the whole scheme of the front. Bases would have made of them a unit by themselves, not a living piece of the fagade: but it is absurd to argue, because one likes the building, that columns should not have bases, or that towers must have entagro, or pantiles be used without a gutter!
No, if one must work out universal principles, one must not deduce them from one’s favourite highly individualised period of building. One can only try to get free from all associations back to the most primitive of forms—till, like Mr. Roger Fry, one rejoices to see art.
Charing Cross Railway Bridge is but an arrangement of cylinders and beams. Buildings of the past and the future must be studies in their lowest career and denomination, as the crudest of shaped masses or bounded lumps of space. This study can be best conducted in a modern theatre where the properties are
(Concluded on page 761)
The British School at Rome
(We have received copies of the following correspondence.—Ed.)
28 October, 1927.
My Dear Simpson,
The Council of the Royal Institute have just held their first meeting since the recess and have had an opportunity of considering your letter of August 13 and they have, by a unanimous vote, passed the following resolution which they have directed me to transmit to you :—
The Council of the Royal Institute express their profound regret at the unfortunate situation which has arisen with Sir John Simpson in connection with the representation of the R.I.B.A. on the Council of the British School at Rome.
The Council wish to assure Sir John that there never has been in the minds of their members the slightest intention of acting with discourtesy towards him, especially in view of his position as a Past-President, of the great services which he has rendered to the profession and to the Royal Institute, and of the interest he has always taken in the work of architectural education.
The Council, of which Sir John was for so long a distinguished member, whole-heartedly regret that their action has led to such feeling as he has thought it necessary to express, and appeal to him with confidence to reconsider his decision and to permit them to retain his name among their list of members where it has stood for the past forty-five years.
May I hope to have the pleasure of hearing from you that you feel yourself able to respond to their appeal ?
Believe me, yours very truly,
(Signed) Ian MacAlister,
Secretary. 3 Verulam Buildings,
Gray’s Inn, W.C.
November 3, 1927.
Ian MacAlister, Esq., Secretary,
The Royal Institute of British Architects,
9 Conduit Street, W.l. My Dear MacAlister,
It would, I feel, be ungenerous not to accept the expressions of unanimous regret conveyed to me by your letter of the 28th ult. I therefore withdraw my resignation in response to the appeal of the Council.
Yours truly,
(Signed) John W. Simpson.
Re School Competitions
To the Editor of The Architect and Building News.
Sir,—It has been of great interest to hear the views of other architects on the above subject, prompted by my letter in your issue of the 7th ult.
In detail it would appear that I overstepped the mark a little in suggesting that a competing assessor (were such a thing possible) would choose his own design. This, I admit, is an exaggeration, even if it is only because such a state of things is impossible. The exaggeration was intentional, but I think it illustrated well the point I had in mind.
The main criticism appears to be that the jury is over-weighted by laymen. In numbers this is so, but the obvious reason why there should be two members of each branch is to neutralise partially any prejudice. In fairness to myself, however, I must inform Mr. Dawbarn that I do not suggest that each member of the jury should have “ equal powers in marking.” I should suggest, in fact, that the possible total of
the architect’s marking should approximate fifty per cent, of the complete possible total.
Having dealt with detail, we now come to the general principle—that of a jury of assessors. I think we may rightly say that, from the views expressed in your journal, everybody is in agreement that such a method is preferable to the present way of judging competitions. In view of this, it would indeed be a great pity to let the matter rest, and I suggest that as a first step the opinions of the R.I.B.A. and the new Incorporated Association be obtained through the medium of your journal.—Yours faithfully,
Bernard Widdows. St. James Chambers, Derby.
The Doric CoIoiumi
To the Editor of The Architect and Building News.
Sir,—I have been much interested in the correspondence started by “ Student ” on the merits of the Doric Order. I wonder what school “ Student ’.’ is working at, for it seems to me incredibly tdeux jeu to hold up the Doric Order as a model of proportion. In some schools, indeed, the Orders are still served on the young men, partly as a test of accuracy in drawing, but more as a sort of inoeculation when young. Very efficacious it is too;-only in patients of the most confirmed classic tendencies has a love of Greek orders been known to survive. The truth perhaps is that all pedagogy must systematise beauty; and because the Parthenon is one of those things which infallibly strike the traveller dumb with its august beauty, the schoolmaster tapes and measures it, and concocts a theory of proportion. In a recent number of a contemporary review, there is a drawing by Professor Plubert Worthington of a Doric column at Pcestum, which shows in a flash the clumsy halfdigested form lit and transfigured by the delicacy and verve of the surface stone-cutting. A model for future proportion1? No, but a standing memory of what an artist of such calibre can make out of the merest tent on posts—a miracle! A hundred years later, the fire was gone. The Greeks themselves abandoned the Order as not suited to mass production for colonnades. It was left for the Romans and their imitators to produce, a rehash of the Doric Order in which the old difficulties were burked, not solved. Each Doric temple of the prime is as standardised, and yet as individual as a sonnet, as different from its neighbour as faces in an assembly of poets. So the Dutch to-day study the idiosyncrasies of. Cambodia and form a caucus of taste which are different indeed from those laid down in “ Architectural Style.” So, too, the City Hall at Stockholm is one of those buildings which take by storm the imagination of the beholder: each detail is individual even when most rooted to the Scandinavian past. I have met no one who has seen the City Hall who has criticised the columns, which, just as they are, fit perfectly into the whole scheme of the front. Bases would have made of them a unit by themselves, not a living piece of the fagade: but it is absurd to argue, because one likes the building, that columns should not have bases, or that towers must have entagro, or pantiles be used without a gutter!
No, if one must work out universal principles, one must not deduce them from one’s favourite highly individualised period of building. One can only try to get free from all associations back to the most primitive of forms—till, like Mr. Roger Fry, one rejoices to see art.
Charing Cross Railway Bridge is but an arrangement of cylinders and beams. Buildings of the past and the future must be studies in their lowest career and denomination, as the crudest of shaped masses or bounded lumps of space. This study can be best conducted in a modern theatre where the properties are
(Concluded on page 761)