How is it that there is no modern style of architecture? [1]

In our petition for incorporation we stated that our object was, “The advancement of the art and science of architecture,” &c., and the Government of our country, in closing with these proposals, committed to us specially the duty of watching over and developing the art within the bounds of this important district. But if we look into the matter seriously, we shall probably find that we have laid ourselves under obligations to an infinitely higher power. The laws of architecture do not consist in a series of arbitrary contrivances. They were not invented by man, but merely discovered by him. The process was one of slow degrees carried on in widely-separated quarters of the globe through a long succession of ages, here a little and there a little, sadly marred in many cases by crudity and error, in some radiant with Divine truth, yet all possessed of points of relationship showing a common origin. It is a most remarkable fact that architecture in its highest forms does not bear the least resemblance to anything in nature, that it is peculiarly and exclusively a human work; and yet, long before man came to need it, long before the foundation of the world, at the very beginning, in the councils of eternity, the laws which regulate this art were framed, and, gentlemen, it cannot be supposed that they have been drifting down the stream of time, unheeded by their Author. Emanating from such a source they cannot be trifled with blamelessly. I am inclined to think that they cannot be perverted with impunity. If we feel ourselves called on to administer these laws under the influence of those motives, I believe that the present state of things cannot continue much longer.

The question has often been asked, “How is it that there is no modern style of architecture?” This question has been so often put without receiving any answer, either by word or deed, that it has come to be considered a foolish question. But so persuaded am I of its propriety and so sure am I that it must, sooner or later, be taken up in earnest, that I shall continue to reiterate the obnoxious question as often as opportunity offers, and at the same time do what I can to demonstrate the reasonableness of the demand and the practicability of getting quit of the trammels that have so long prevented our enjoying the full privileges and honours to which our profession is justly entitled.

Every past period of civilisation had its architecture growing out of it as by a natural process, and exhibiting in a permanent form the more important features of its development. But with us architecture has all but ceased to be a living art, and the present age, so rich in achievement in other departments, is seen making the most ridiculous efforts to insinuate its overgrown person backwards into the empty shells of dead ages, which lie scattered about upon the old tide-marks of civilisation, rather than secrete or shell for itself according to the ordinary course of nature.

If we have no architectural style, it is not for lack of material, for we know nearly all that has ever been done.[2] It is not for lack of wealth, for our undertakings are most extensive, and exhibit a lavish expenditure of money. It is not for want of intellectual talent, for we have excelled all former ages in the number and grandeur of our discoveries. How is it, then, there is no modern style in architecture?

Some will answer that the field is exhausted; but genius and enterprise have converted many an exhausted field into a stage from which deeper and richer fields have been reached and wrought. I will not say that it is easy to rid ourselves of the odium that attaches to us in allowing or contributing to the continuance of this very unnatural and unsatisfactory state of things, but it is not difficult to point with clearness and certainty to the means by which that most desirable end is to be obtained; and it is thus – To abandon with all convenient expedition the whole mass of accumulated human traditions under which we have been, as it were, smothered, and take earnestly to the study of the Divine laws, and by-and-by we shall find it more difficult to keep running in the old rut than hitherto we have found it difficult to get out of it.

Let us once fairly comprehend the living law, and we will at once and for ever get freed from the bondage of dead forms. And yet these old forms are not to be despised; far otherwise. They are there for dissection. They are there to teach us what has been already discovered – to place us upon an elevated starting-point for yet higher attainments – to connect our sympathies with the men whose thoughts they represent, and with the Creator whose laws they reveal to us. I admit that there are in some of the more highly developed styles features which are as near perfection as we can well conceive, and, in so far as we can thoroughly comprehend the spirit that is in them, they remain to us living forms. But as no two minds are exactly alike, and as all our work should be done “on soul and conscience”, it is better that everything should be cast into the crucible, and reduced to fluid thought, top be remoulded into fresh forms of expression, even at the risk of suffering a little deterioration. If we are duly watchful, the process, by being often repeated, must lead to improvement and ultimate emancipation.

The majority of our popular writers on architecture affect to speak derogatorily of all attempts to purify and regulate our architecture, and boldly advocate those styles which admit of greater latitude and variety. They take great delight in marking the peculiarities of individual treatment, of the characteristics of different nations and periods, of the interesting associations which they suggest. Again, we are told that our chief business is to embody the prevailing taste of the time to adapt our designs to the sympathies of our clients. High Art is said to be irksome, and so a style based upon what is called commonsense and homeliness is specially recommended.

Now there is a certain amount of feasibility in all this, but in reality these are the doctrines which have brought our Art into its present state of degradation, and reduced its professors from the position of teachers and ministers of truth to the servile condition of caterers to popular caprice. The writers who have inaugurated the present state of things are for the most part mere literary men, who are guided more by sentiment than knowledge; or professional men who find it easier to adapt the old than to create the new, and seek to justify their course by a free use of the pen in appeals to popular prejudice. The latitude and variety which they advocate are much nearer akin to licence than to liberty.

True liberty lies in knowing and obeying the law. The law is embarrassing only to the transgressor, or to those who, from ignorance of its course, put themselves in opposition to it. If we could conceive of a man having perfect knowledge of the law with unlimited power of imagination, what unbounded freedom, what grandeur, what purity, what variety would pervade all that he did!

But the great difficulty we have to deal with is not the inability of architects to keep pace with other professions, but the obstructions which are placed in their way by their employers; for, instead of giving encouragement to progress as a thing essential, or even desirable, the custom is to forbid it as a thing intolerable. The public has got it into its head that it knows by intuition what is right, and utterly ignores the results of special training and life-long study. Instead of being looked up to as the exponents of architecture, we are regarded as mere agents, and instructed what to do within certain recognised limits of commonplace. The public believes that it understands and loves art, whereas if your work has not the familiar common-place aspect – if it does not suggest some pleasing association – if it does not resemble some other thing that has been sanctioned by some authority – in short, if it has nothing to recommend it but its artistic merits, it is unceremoniously put aside as despicable, and just in proportion to its excellence it is hated and condemned. An intelligent public cannot brook instruction, and regards anything that seems above its comprehension as offensive and insulting. While this state of things is allowed to continue, it is evident that we shall neither be respected nor remunerated as we ought to be, and so the aim of this association should be to devise means to put matters into a more satisfactory position.

There is a story told of Canova which may be repeated here by way of illustration. Some great man had died, and some of the people in the town in which he had accidentally been born thought it a good opportunity of bringing themselves before the world and resolved that his statue should be erected in their market place. They were recommended to give Canova the commission, and accordingly a deputation was sent to Italy to tell the sculptor what was wanted. He heard them and said, “Is Mr. Flaxman too busy to take your commission?” “Mr. Flaxman!” said they, “we never heard of him.” “Ah,” said he, “you English see with your ears. Your own Flaxman is the first sculptor in Europe and you don’t know it. Give him your commission.”[3]

Now then, the question is, how are we to get people to see with their eyes? The funds of this Institution are not calculated for aggressive measures. It is not intended that we should hold meetings to which the public might be invited to hear lectures. We cannot support a local periodical for the purpose of advocating our views; but perhaps some of our members might be willing to join a committee whose business it would be to act upon the public through the press, either by writing themselves or getting selections from books and periodicals quoted in the local papers, or any other means that might appear likely to further the purposes of the Institute. The public have no interest in being misled, and, if we could manage to awaken an interest in our work, improvement would follow as a matter of course.

1. Alexander Thomson, as President of the Glasgow Institute of Architects, gave his address to the Institute after dinner on 7th April 1871 in the George Hotel in George Square. Thomson’s full text was printed in the Glasgow Herald for 8th April 1871 and in The Architect for 15th April 1871; this was reprinted, together with a commentary by Gavin Stamp, in the Alexander Thomson Society Newsletter for May 1998 and in Mac Journal 4 (the journal of the Mackintosh School of Architecture).

2. “If we have no architectural style, it is not for lack of material, for we know nearly all that has ever been done...” was an acknowledgement of the essential dilemma of the 19th century architect which had often been addressed by others, including Gilbert Scott, who, in discussing ‘The Architecture of the Future’ in his Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, Present and Future of 1857, had written that, “The peculiar characteristic of the present day, as compared with all former periods, is this, – that we are acquainted with the history of art. We know better whence each nation of antiquity derived its arts better than they ever knew themselves, and can trace out with precision the progressions of which those who were their prime movers were almost unconscious… It is reserved to us, alone of all the generations of the human race, to know perfectly our own standing-point, and to look back upon the entire history of what has gone before us, tracing out all the changes in the arts of the past as clearly as if every scene in its long drama were re-enacted before our eyes. This is amazingly interesting to us as a matter of amusement and erudition, but I fear is a hindrance rather than a help to us as artists.”

3. Thomson greatly admired the work of the English artist and sculptor, John Flaxman (1755–1826), to whose work he referred in the Haldane Lectures three years later, and he had had Flaxman’s illustrations of Homer’s Iliad, published in 1805, enlarged and rearranged as a frieze in the dining room of Holmwood House for James Couper (discussed by Anne Ellis in The Alexander Thomson Society Newsletter Nº16, May 1996), cartoons for which survive amongst Thomson’s drawings in the Mitchell Library. Antonio Canova (1757–1822), the great neo-classical sculptor who lived at Possagno in the Veneto, had a theory “that we see with our ears” which was regretfully endorsed by Thomson.