AND   BUILDERS'   GUIDE





Vol. XI.





NEW YOKK, SATURDAY, JANUAEY 11, 1873.





No. 252.





Published Weeklu bu

THE REAL ESTATE RECORD ASSOCIATION.

TERMS.

One year, in advance......................$6 00

AU communications should be addressed to

C.   "W-.   SWHIHÎT.

•7 AND 9 AVARHBN STREET.





No receipt for money due the REAL E.>7r.\TE RECORD
will be acknowledged unless .signed by one of our regular
collectors. Hknry D, SiliTil or TrfOMAS F, Cirjl.MiXGS.
AH bills for collection «-ill besent from the office on a rega-
larly nrinted form.





The Index of tlie Conveyances of Real Estate
for New York City Avill be ready next Saturday,
January 18.





The messages of G-overnor Dix and Mayor
Havemeyer are, on the Avhole, timely and well
written documents, and contain much that is
of vital interest to property-holder.s. It is
évident that there will be an active canvass at
Albany over the new city charter, and that the
dominant party Avill split upon the question of
patronage, The dispute will be whether a
charter shall be given the city without référ¬
ence to party, and solely in the interest of good
government, or whether the republican party
will hâve ail the city patronage. We judge the
latter view will prevail, and that the party in
power in the Fédéral government will also con¬
trol the city in ail its departments. This is
not exactly what enthusiastic reformers hâve
had in Adew, but it will at least give us a re¬
sponsible government. We wUl know who to
blâme in the event of gross misgovemment.

We judge that the views of Mayor Have¬
meyer as to the necessity of throwing ail
power, législative and executive, into the hands
of the M lyor and Common Council, wiU not
prevail, but that we will be governed by boards
and independent executive olficers as hereto-
fore. We fear there is but a slight prospect of
any diminution of taxation ; indeed ail the in¬
dications are that the rate will increase.





. We are enabled to announce that the Cen¬
tral Underground road is revived. It is under-
stood that an English banking-house furnishes
the money, the Seligmans, who had a lien on the
charter, selling it back tô Matthew Byrne. It
would be odd, after ail, if the Central Under¬
ground should be built before the famous Van-
derbilt route. There will be plenty of schemes
this winter, and we judge more than one com¬
mencement wiU be made to supply New York
with rapid transit. The Gilbert scheme looks
very promising, but will hâve to go through
some vexatious litigation before it can com¬
mence work.





AECHITECT AND CRAFTSMAN.

A VERY lively sensation has recently been
created in the Avorld of art by an article in the
English Quarterly Beview, wherein the writer,
in criticising modem architecture with some
véhémence and much ingenuity, advances some
new and startltng doctrines. His leading idea
is that no one can possibly be an architect who
is not at the same time a craftsman ; i.e., ca¬
pable of carrying out the deAdces of his imagin¬
ation by the labor of his own hands, To many
this may, at first sight, appear plausible enough ;
but expérience does not sustain this notion ; and
it is not therefore strange that the gauntlet
thus defiantly thrown down by this writer has
been taken up by many anxious to enter the
lists with him.

If architecture and building were one and
the same thing,—if an elaborately contrived
édifice, every square inch of which is inge-
niously arranged to meet some desired end,
could be improvised and put together as bées
construct their hives or beavers their won-
drously intricate dweEings, there might be
something in the argument of this writer, and
the most sumptuous édifice might in conception
and exécution be the Avork of craftsmen. But
it is impossible to entertain such an idea re-
specttng any great work of architectirre, wheth¬
er of ancient or modem times. Without some
one controUing intellect to invent the whole,
and to see to the harmonious blending of the
varions parts, it is inconceivable that any other
resuit could take place than the confusion
which overtook the builders of the toAver of
Babel—each craftsman talking in a language
incompréhensible to his fellows. Look at the
old cathedrals of the mediseval âges, with their
marvellous intricacy of design and ornamenta-
tion. Could they hâve been piled together
without some one directing mind ? Who Avere
William op Wyiceham, Abbot Seabroke,
and the others who hâve immortaiized them¬
selves by the stupendous works they hâve
handed down for our instruction ? Were they
architects, designing those noble cathedrals and
seeing each part faithfuUy carried out to the
m.inutest particular, or were they merely crafts¬
men like the- rest, toiling with their own hands
at one portion of the structure, whUe each
other craftsman worked out his individual in¬
spiration upon some other portion ? That, in
those halcyon days of art, when each workman
threw his whole soûl into his Avork as a matter
of love and faith, considérable latitude was
given each man to work out his individual fan-
cies, is doubtless true ; but to think that aU
this beautiful workmanship was then left to
fall into its allotted space by individual Avhims,
and that such harmonious magnificence could
hâve resulted from any thing else than one coa-
trolling direction, is simply preposterou^.





But while it is absurd to expect that ail com¬
pétent craftsmen—carpenters, masons, brick-
layers, etc.,—are capable of assuming the parts
of architects, painters, and sculptors—^being
artists and workmen at the same time—there
is nothing whatever to prevent architects from
being craftsmen, and craftsmen architects. But
the caUings are totaLy distinct; and perfect
akiU. in one does not necessitate perfect skill in
the other. That a knowledge of practical
workmanship—the use of the tools—^in one or
two of the leading branches of building, would
be of essential use to architects, nobody, how¬
ever, Avill deny ; and in this respect the éduca¬
tion of most of our architects is unquestionably.
faulty. Any skilful craftsman who has taste
and imagination enough to qualify him for the
higher aBsthetic studios of architecture, Avill
find himself working to great advantage over
those who hâve not undergone the same amount
of practical tuition. Having been a craftsman
himself, he knows more minutely precisely
what knoAvledge craftsmen require to hâve im-
parted to them ; and therefore, as a gênerai
rule, the détail drawings of such men are far
more easy to be followed by workmen. To
this extent practical knowledge of workman¬
ship is of the same use to an architect that a
sea-captain finds in haAring in his youth handled
the ropes ; but to assume, as many seem to do,
that this knowledge of handicraft enables a
man to cope Avith the higher and more intel-
lectual reach of architectural design, is jusfc as
absurd as to imagine that a seaman who can
handle ropes skilfully is necessarUy a skilful
navigator.

There are few professions so little under-
stood as that of an architect, and none but
those who hâve sttidied it can comprehend how
complicated it is in aU its ramifications'. To
compare such an art with sculpture or painting
is perfectly idle. It is true that both the
sculpter and patnter are—so to speak—crafts¬
men as weU as artists, That is to say, they
exécute with their own hands what their
imaginations hâve conceived. But to expect
an architect to be at the same time a craftsman
—i.e., to require him to be capable of doing
vsdth his oAvn hands what his brain has con¬
ceived,—is to expect something superhuman.
A sculpter is confined to the model, and a
painter to the canvas, in their studios ; but
an architect's conceptions, to be carried to
fruition, may run over the whoie range of
human industries in constructive art ; and how
could he—though ten Michael Angeles roUed
into one—be expected to master personaUy
ail the handicrafts necessary in carrying out
his invention? The writer in Oie Quarterîy
Beview has evidently overshot the mark, but
the discussion to which he has given rise is cal-
çulated to be productive of good.    There is no