Architecture and Building.

Progress, Volume XVI, Issue 9, 1 May 1921, Page 199

Architecture and Building.

C. Reginald Ford, F.N.Z.1.A., M.S.A.

An Architect and a Poet.

In reading just recently the very interesting story of “Westminster Cathedral and its Architect,” I was much struck by the opening paragraph of the fourth chapter; “Bentley returned from Italy steeped in Byzantine art, without any sketches or written notes. It was never his habit to make either; nevertheless he brought back, clear and definite in his mind’s eye, a vivid presentment of the Cathedral he meant to build. All through life he had taken pains to cultivate, to a remarkable degree, this gift of interior vision, never setting pen to paper till his subject had arrived at complete mental development. ‘ Everything,’ he would say, ‘ the reality as though before me solidly—light and shade, colour, all is there—and not until I see this in its entirety do I ever begin to draw.’ ” Every architect—indeed, every creative artist whatever be his medium—must possess, in at least some measure, this gift of visualising as a complete structure his unfinished work. It is indeed possible that the ultimate value of the work—be it picture, building, oratorio or drama—could be shown to be in direct ratio to the possession or development of this gift in its author. Bentley’s own words show that in his case, at least, the production of a great masterpiece was associated with a marvellously developed gift of visualisation. A present-day poet—John Drinkwater—whose small volume of poems I number amongst the treasures of my library, has in a short poem—“ The Building vividly presented to his readers this idea of a building being the material embodiment of a mental vision. The poem was evidently inspired by the observation of some building, the work upon which was proceeding at night time:—

“ Whence these hods, and bricks of bright red clay, And swart men climbing ladders in the night?

And, while the city sleeps, in the central poise Of quiet, lamps are flaming in the night, Blown to long tongues by winds that moan between The growing walls, and throwing misty light On swart men bearing bricks of bright red clay In laden hods; and ever the thin noise Of trowels deftly fashioning the clean Long lines that are the shaping of proud thought. Ghost-like they move between the day and day, These men whose labour strictly shall be wrought Into the captive image of a dream."

The poet shows further his realisation of creation as the central fact of architecture:—

“ And momently the moist and levelled seam Knits brick to brick, and momently the walls Bestow the wonder of form on formless space

Indeed, he does not hesitate to make the highest claim for the art, likening its labours to the work of God Himself in the following lines which conclude the poem:—

“ Not the first word of God upon the deep Nor the first pulse of life along the day More marvellous than these new walls that

sweep Starward, these lines that discipline the clay,

No trowel-tap but sings anew for men The rapture of quickening water and continent, No mortared line but witnesses again Chaos transfigured into lineament.”

Signs are not wanting to-day that architecture is coming into some measure of recognition upon the part of those who write our books. It is very pleasing to find that a poet of the first rank not only finds his inspiration in a building work but recognises so clearly its most inner meaning. It is a happy augury for the future of architecture.