their Hon. Secretary (Mr. Harbottle Reed), who had been recently awarded the Grissell Gold Medal for his clever design for a wooden church. There was no work so open to criticism as the work of architects. Public and private, free and open, candid and spiteful, it lasted for all time, or as long as the building stood, and happy was the architect who was not very thin-skinned. . . . Why was it that in the more modern towns, fashionable and unfashionable, which had sprung up during the present century the impress of architecture was so imperfect and unsatisfactory? Because for the most part they had not Leen the creations or work of architects. This had been a misfortune for the profession, but it had been a greater misfortune for the towns, and the occasion of numberless blots on the face of Nature. Occasionally it had, no doubt, been possible to carry out in such new towns a well-considered and effective design; but one gcod building alone could not make a beautiful street. In an age like the present, when nearly everything pertaining to a building could be produced by machinery, including carving, moulded bricks, terra-cotta, doors, windows, and reversible materials of all kinds that would go anywhere and do everything, there must necessarily follow great monotony and absence of artistic interest in the buildings largely ccmposed of them. Trade-catalogue architecture might be very well from a strictly commercial and economical point of view; but the tendency of it was to destroy all individuality in a building, and to drag architecture proper to oblivion. Buildings were being pulled down in all parts of England possessing historical interest and features of great architectural beauty. Were they to be supplanted by lifeless structures of this automatic type? This was a subject which demanded the consideration of all architects. Their hope must be that in the coming century, as in all great periods of architecture, buildings might be more and more the reflex of the individual mind of the architect. MINUTES. XIV. At the Fourteenth General Meeting of the Session, held on Monday, 16th May 1898, at 8 p.m., Mr. H. L. Florence, Vice-President, in the Chair, with 27 Fellows (including 14 members of the Council), 23 Associates (including 2 members of the Council), 2 Hon. Associates, and several visitors, the Minutes of the Meetings held on the 2nd May 1898 [p. 358], were taken as read and signed as correct. Mr. Edward James Bridges [4.], attending for the first time since his election, was formally admitted, and signed the register. Mynheer Jan Stuijt, architect, of Amsterdam, was introduced to the Meeting by the Chairman. The following candidates for membership, found by the Council to be eligible and qualified according to the Charter and Bye-laws, and admitted by them to candidature, were recommended for election, namely:--As FELLOWS, Michael Francis Cavanagh [A., qualified 1888], VicePresident of the West Australian Institute of Architects (West Australia); John James Thomson [4.]; Charles Edward Bateman (A., qualified 1895], President of the Birmingham Architectural Association (Birmingham); James Souttar, President of the Aberdeen Society of Architects (Aberdeen); Frederick William Lacey, M.Inst.C.E. (Bournemouth); George Campbell Sherrin; William Banks Gwyther, Assoc.M. Inst.C.E. [A., qualified_1886], (Bengal, Calcutta). As ASSOCIATES, George Benson [qualified 1885], President of the York Society (York); Frank Peck [qualified 1895]. As HON. FELLOW, Sir Edward John Poynter, President of the Royal Academy. A Paper, by Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A., on THE LIBRARIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES, having been read by the author, and illustrated by lantern slides, a discussion ensued, and a vote of thanks was accorded the author by acclamation. The proceedings then closed, and the Meeting separated at 10.10 P.M. LEGAL. The London Euilding Act, Section 43. Paynter . Watson, heard before Mr. Justice Wills and Mr. Justice Kennedy, on 9th May, was a special case stated by a Metropolitan police magistrate raising a new question under the London Building Act 1894, section 43, as to the right of an owner of premises to rebuild them in a different manner from the old buildings without first obtaining the leave of the London County Council. The appellant was Major George Paynter; the respondent was the District Surveyor of the district of St. George's, Hanover Square north. The case was stated on an appeal to the magistrate from a notice of objection served by the district surveyor under Section 150 of the Act. The appellant had served a building notice under Section 145 on the district surveyor, and had annexed thereto the plans and sections of the new buildings which he proposed to erect on the site of Nos. 12 and 13, Grafton Street. These plans showed that the new buildings would not cover any ground that was uncovered before, but the arrangement of the upper floors was such that a certain amount of the old existing air-space would be occupied by the new buildings, which were to be higher and to contain more cubic feet than the old. The magistrate found that the plans of the proposed new buildings did deviate in certain respects, and particularly in regard to the height, from the plans of the old buildings, and he held that the word" deviate "in Section 43 (2) applied not only to the ground covered by the old buildings, but also to that of the buildings in respect to height and width and depth on the several floors, and he therefore affirmed the surveyor's objection. Mr. Macmorran, for the appellant, contended that the owner was within his rights so long as he covered no more or different ground with the new buildings than the old buildings covered. Mr. Avory, for the district surveyor, pointed out that by Section 41 all new buildings were to leave air-space from the ground upwards. Under the law before this it was enough to have air-space from the ceiling of the ground floor. As, under the old law, the ground floor did not necessarily have air-space, it followed that if a person reerecting old premises chose to build up straight above the ground floor no air-space would be left at all. The Court supported the decision of the magistrate. Mr. Justice Wills said he had in this case no doubt, and had not had any during the argument. All depended on what was meant by "the plans showing the extent of the previous existing domestic building in its several parts" in Section 41 (1). It would be the most extraordinary synonym for ground plans possible. It was clear that a complete set of plans was intended. If a person chose to rebuild an old house exactly as it was, he might get the protection of this section. The cardinal condition of the section was that no ground previously uncovered should be covered. But if a person desired to deviate in any respect, and not in one respect only, then he was subject to the jurisdiction of the County Council. The general purview of the Act was the limitation of private rights over property for the general good. It could not be doubted that the magistrate had put the right construction on the section. If the building owner desired to alter his old buildings, he must submit to the discretionary sanction of the County Council. Mr. Justice Kennedy concurred. A Correction.-- Mr. Owen Fleming [4.] writes that his remarks at the Annual General Meeting, advocating an annual grant to the Science Standing Committee for original investigation, should read: "There is great need of information as to the strength and making of concrete”— not "brick," as printed in the report [p. 361]. T THE LAGOONS OF VENICE. BY GIACOMO BONI [Hon. Corr. M.]. EN years ago there was a project for widening some of the streets of Venice, and for opening new ones in imitation of those which run from one end to the other of a modern city. At that time, I said to myself it was strange that, if this work had to be done, the fifteenth century had not thought of doing it, when the population of Venice was half as large again as now, when the bulk of the commerce of the East and West centred on the Rialto, and when there was a beautiful original and living art which would have impressed its character on what was done. It often happens that, in enlarging a street, not only are the houses pushed back more than is necessary, but everything is torn down to give place to new and pretentious monstrosities, and to display, one after the other, modern imitations of ancient buildings, repeated until one is sick of the very originals. Or even an attempt is made to better these originals, there being certain periods, as Leopardi said, when, to say nothing of other matters, the effort is made in art and in teaching to remake everything because people can make nothing new themselves. The project of widening the streets of Venice was not necessary for the development of modern industries, because all those natural to the place are either prospering now or might be revived without any such rebuilding, and therefore the fancied need for broadening and straightening the streets seemed to me a mere aberration. The disastrous fire which, in the year 64 of the present era, destroyed two-thirds of Rome, was a scheme of Nero's, just as if, as Suetonius says, the unevenness of the buildings and the congestion of the ancient quarters irritated him. According to Tacitus, this fire destroyed the monuments of ancient time which many of the older inhabitants remembered and which could not be replaced. "The reconstructions were in accord with a plan for the entire rearrangement of the city with broad streets and freer quarters, though some believed that the ancient form of the city was more healthy, because the high houses and the narrow streets kept out the sun's rays which now beat down with unbroken ardour." (Annales, xv. 43.) The worst parts of the scheme for modernising Venice were not allowed to be carried out, but the new streets which are already constructed are like large trenches, into which the sun pours until it melts the asphalt pavement. On the other hand, little has been done to clear and regulate the canals, and nothing whatever underneath the city in making tunnels where the sea-water might flow freely and maintain the constant scour on which the purity of the water and the health of Venice so much depend. Instead of sanitary works of this kind, we are threatened now with a new impediment: a second bridge over the lagoon, which must necessarily cause the accumulation of mud, and check the flow of the too gentle tide. Whoever, with the blood of the zente de mar in his veins, has been for many years, as I have, far from this my native city, travelling through different lands, must have felt his Third Series. Vol. V. No. 15.-11 June 1898. 3 н love for her increasing, stirred by the records of her which he finds scattered in other countries. In Istria and Dalmatia, and in the Greek islands, the Venetian civilisation left marked traces in the architecture, and even in the dialects which have the forms and accents of Goldoni, such as are found among a few old people in Venice herself. In the interior of the Peloponnesus there are still used silver coins with the winged lion, and the people speak of SPIGNON LOWLANDS FIUME OSELIN NEW BRIDGE RAILWAY BRIDGE VENEZIA TORCELLO MAZZORBO BURANO MURANO S.ERASMO MALAMOCCO PORTO DI MALAMOCCO MAP OF THE LAGOONS OF VENICE. TREPORTI Venice as the "beautiful one." On the mountain of Erix, on the extreme point of Trapani, the women, wrapt in their long black Venetian shawls, remind one of the Greek Tanagra figurines, and the shepherds on the rocks watching the sea never get tired of asking one questions on the beauty of Venice, her canals, and her lagoons. In the village of Kelmscott, near the sources of the Thames, in the house of William Morris, who brought to life again in Northern Europe the arts of coloured glass, of tapestries, of weaving, and of artistic printing, among the learned and thoughtful people who are England's greatness, I felt bursts of joy that almost overcame me at hearing my native city spoken of with more than filial love, and at TREPORTI realising how much inspiration the most beautiful of the cities of Italy still continued to dispense. A student from the extreme East called to my attention that the Japanese name of the narcissus (suisen) conveys the idea of the water out of which it grows. To Théophile Gautier, Venice, seen from far off on the lagoon, seemed a shell of mother-of-pearl bristling with points and (without any poetic license) in her true element. Only a few years are necessary for one to perceive how the conditions of the lagoon are becoming more and more insanitary, owing undoubtedly to causes imposed by modern engineering works, by the railway bridge, the filling up of part of the lagoon with refuse, and the fish-hatching stations. After leaving the station of Mestre one crosses high and fertile fields, followed by others more marshy, and then the line is only supported by the embankment which leads to the beginning of the bridge; here the submerged land begins, and we have little brackish lakes separated by mounds on which grows a meagre useless herbage. Then comes the lagoon, quite neglected, which the ordinary tide leaves in too great part uncovered, so that sea-weeds die, and molluscs and water-insects rot in the sun. The stone railway bridge, two miles long, weakens the transverse tidal movement of the water in that part of the lagoon, which has life only from the undulations caused by the scirocco on the one side and the Greek winds on the other. The much-needed tidal motion is impeded by the numerous large piers of the bridge and by the embankment, and has become now so insufficient that, in the signal-stations at the end of the bridge, the mortality from malaria would be one hundred per cent., if the railway company did not have recourse to the expedient of changing the watchmen every twenty-four hours, and of keeping them saturated with quinine. It is to this sad region the new roadway would conduct the Venetians, by a bridge which could never be shaded by trees without filling the lagoon, and so intensifying the malarious conditions; while, if a promenade were wanted from San Nicolò del Lido to the Port Alberoni, that is to say, along the lagoon and by the edge of the sea, there might be made a walk of the most wonderful beauty-pleasant, and healthy; and it could be rendered more beautiful still by the shade of the pines. Doctor Paluello, a Venetian of great experience, has noticed that malarial diseases have become of late more frequent in Venice; and everybody can understand that if a new bridge is constructed, and another stretch of the lagoon is shut off, there will be nothing left to do but to erect a temple to the goddess Fever. The health of Venice depends on the daily flow and ebb of the sea-water which, entering through the ports, flows up the canals, and spreads over the marshes and the lowlands. The "Serenissima" Republic, jealous guardian of the watery plain which circles Venice like a wall, and distinguishes her among the cities of the world, threatened whoever made encroachments on its freedom with the same penalties as were inflicted on those who violated the sacred walls of the Fatherland. In our time, on the other hand, too many permissions have been given, one after the other, to make new land and to drain pools which, even though they were not very deep, played a necessary part in the movement of the water of the lagoons. With the modern progress of agricultural studies, and with the extension of the lowlands in the districts of the estuary, easily approached through navigable canals, it would be possible to turn into fertile land, by means of the salts which it contains, the greater part of the 300,000 cubic metres of mud which are annually dredged from the channels, and then diffused in the waves of the Adriatic, to be brought back by the following tides. For every cubic metre of mud excavated from the surface of the flats there would enter at the port of Lido one cubic metre more of water-sea-water, salt and pure-which would pass twice a day, like a disinfecting wash, through the canals of Venice, dragging with it and |