I BELIEVE it to be broadly true that Oxford invented the cloistered, and Cambridge the open quadrangle. Both were highly important pioneering ventures in architectural history, and I cannot presume to decide which is the more worthy of admiration. In the cloistered quad of New I will stoutly maintain that nothing more perfectly consonant to the pursuit of learning, no more superb setting for the countries of the mind is to be found in the length and breadth of Europe. But if one stands in the first quad of All Souls', one feels a little guilty concerning one's earlier enthusiasm. Surely this is the perfect thing, the home of scholarship par excellence. Surely, if Cambridge gave us the open quadrangle, of which this at All Souls' is 80 exquisite an example, then Cambridge has not existed in vain; Cambridge has done in the past even mightier things than play games and solve equations. For in the first quad of All Souls' beauty and utility have met together; and therein lies the essence of architectural quality. The pedants argue wordily and with much brandishing of arms and excited palaver concerning the precise meaning of architecVOL. CCXXIV. NO. MCCCLVI.

ture, its boundaries and limitations, its various manifestations of style, and so forth. We inherit from Ruskin a sort of mystical idea concerning architecture, as though the whole matter were an affair of specialists, and as though no man might have an opinion on the merits and demerits of any particular building until he had spent years of study in the comparative history of architecture. Yet, when all is said and done, there is a very simple test of architectural quality. One tests the convenience of a dining-room by eating in it, of a bathroom by having a bath in it, of a college by studying in it, of a church by worshipping in it. But one tests the architectural quality of each by looking at it. Thus the great architect is the man who never forgets that the house he is building will be looked at as well as lived in, who so combines in his design the twin elements of beauty and utility that they become indistinguishable, each fulfilling the other and serving the other. For structural beauty is in the last resort utilitarian in effect, if not in purpose; the beauty of vault and window in the cathedral, of battlement and latticed window in the college

T2

quadrangle, contribute to the purpose of the building, and render easier and more delightful the tasks or recreations which men wish to perform in it.

It has been observed, indeed, that one may find an index to a man's philosophy in two things-his views on education and his taste in architecture. The former criterion, I think, goes very deep indeed; and although the latter is perhaps more open to question, it is by no means to be lightly dismissed. At first sight it would appear a manifest absurdity to pretend to judge a man by his taste in architecture. For instance, some individual or other has just built himself an enormous factory in a prominent part of London. With the possible exceptions of Barcelona Cathedral and the Chelsea Barracks, it is probably the ugliest building in Europe, vulgar and offensive to the last degree, a howling affront to the eyes of all who have the misfortune to pass it. Is this person to be ipso facto condemned as an outsider and a Philistine? I think not. For all we know, he may be a sidesman at his local church; he is probably kind to animals, and may even collect old china. It is clear that if we started forming our opinions about such people on the strength of their taste in architecture, and on nothing else, we should find ourselves committed to some very stern judgments, many of which, I am sure, would be unwarrantably harsh. We may deplore

vulgarity and ostentation; we may lament the desecration of our urban landscapes by these screaming monstrosities; but we cannot place the whole thing upon an ethical basis, nor confuse æsthetic with moral indignation.

But, it will be urged, this line of argument is very trivial and superficial. One must be prepared to take an altogether wider view. A single building will not reflect upon the moral character of its architect; but architectural construction will very intimately reflect the philosophy of the age in which it appears. It will be the expression in stone of that philosophy, for no architecture is philosophically expressionless. Nor, again, is an architectural style developed deliberately by specialists; it is essentially spontaneous, and springs from the social consciousness of its time. It cannot, so to say, help itself. The Albert Memorial-that life-size statue of the Victorian compromise is so exact an expression of a particular philosophy that one cannot conceive of its having been put up at any other time in history; it would be no less difficult to imagine Bush House erected in the thirteenth century or Westminster Abbey standing next door to the Sakkara Pyramid.

At this point, however, one may leap to a conclusion, an easy generalisation which I believe to be erroneous. Standing in the first quad of All Souls', this oasis of quiet and peaceful beauty, peaceful in texture yet vibrant with intellectual energy, quiet only as a man working at the pitch of concentration is quiet-standing thus in All Souls', one is led to marvel at the sheer skill of those old architects of the past, and to contrast the graciousness and finish of their work with the massive, slapdash ugliness of our own. We build many schools and colleges nowadays, but we do not build them like All Souls'; we build many churches, but our Liverpool Cathedral is a glorious exception in the dead level of dull mediocrity. When we are not insipid, it is only to burst into an energetic ugliness; when we attempt to adorn and to embellish, we become merely ostentatious.

Are such generalisations as these accurate? For the most part, unquestionably yes. But I am inclined to think them a little sweeping. Qualifications must be introduced. We must not be like the mighty Mustapha in 'Alf's Button,' whose besetting fault, it will be remembered, was that of being too "wholesale." Still less must we lay ourselves open to the charge of being like

The idiot who praises in enthusiastic

tone

Every century but this and every country but his own.

Personally I consider the view from the gallery of the Radder to be one of the most beautiful architectural things in Europe, whilst I am always

ready to join in the most stentorian denunciations of the atrocities which our business men so constantly see fit to perpetrate. But chastisement, to be effective, must be well merited and accurately inflicted in the proper place. It is easy enough to make a great pother and hullaballoo about nothing in particular; but an ounce of reasoned incisive criticism is worth a ton of mere tubthumping. Fortified by these lofty moral sentiments, let us resume.

It must be conceded that comparatively few buildings that are put up nowadays are worth more than a passing glance; whilst there are a certain number that ought to be blown up as offences against public decency. But no wholesale condemnation of modern architecture can be justified unless the word is used in a restricted and entirely anachronistic sense. If architecture means building in stone, then assuredly modern architecture is in a sorry plight. But to limit its meaning in this manner is to ignore a vast field in which architectural quality may be displayed in quite as definite a fashion as any other-a field of which our forefathers never dreamt, and which we ourselves have by no means fully explored. I refer to that huge territory which is covered by the modern sciences of structural and mechanical design. Who would dream of denying the architectural quality of the Forth Bridge or the Ouse Valley Viaduct? Our anxiety a few months ago that Waterloo Bridge should be saved was not based upon any conviction as to its superior efficiency over other London bridges. Indeed, we know that it was sagging in the middle, and would have to be elaborately underpinned and generally propped up. With almost the same kind of alarm we heard of the sinking of the foundations beneath the dome of St Paul's. Instinctively we considered the two structures as falling within the same general category; and the reason is sufficiently clear. Waterloo Bridge possesses a certain architectural quality that makes it more than a mere glorified plank over a stream.

Bridge-building is included within the dictionary's definition of architecture, mechanical design is not. Yet it may be argued that a locomotive may as definitely possess architectural quality as a building or a bridge, and it may be suggested that the peculiar triumph of British design has consisted in the demonstration of the fact. A Continental or American locomotive has as great tractive capacity and can travel as fast as any British engine. But where is the symmetry, the dignity that you find in the King Arthur" locomotives of the Southern or the "Knights" of the Great Western? A locomotive is not necessarily a beautiful or even an impressive spectacle; it

has been the achievement of the British engineer to show that it may be both. A foreign locomotive often suggests nothing more than a rather untidy and ill-kept ironmonger's store -a confused agglomeration of steam-cocks and taps, greasy bearings and leaky valves, with a dome that looks like an upturned coal scuttle and a funnel like a casual section of drain piping, the whole being painted a dingy black, which is going rust-coloured in patches and covered with coal dust. But substitute for the dull and impersonal number some splendid name that rings with fine memories and the pageant of the past - "Knight of the Thistle " or "Lord Nelson"; let there be no superfluous trappings to blur the main lines of the design; let it be demonstrated in a thousand and one points of construction that the designer is proud of his work, and intends that it should be looked at; let a gleaming livery of green and gold replace the miserable black coating-then you will have a locomotive worthy of the name. When you hear a man declaiming against the wholesale rottenness of modern architecture, you cannot do better than advise him to go and watch the "Southern Belle" leave Victoria.

The ground upon which the second quad of All Souls' now stands was originally occupied as to its south-west corner by a little cloistered quad, somewhat in the manner of that at