ARCHITECTURAL NOTES.
BRITISH EMPIRE EXHIBITION, WEMBLEY.
III.—THE PALACE OF ARTS.
IT is to be hoped that there is not, in the whole world, anyone so unchildlike as not to appreciate the Queen's Dolls' House. It must surely be the most wonderful present which has ever been given since primitive man first shaped wood and clay to his own uses. Never before can the labour of hundreds of skilled and gifted people have been concentrated into so small a space. As I am writing under the heading " Archi- tectural Notes," I must not describe the wonders of the electrical and sanitary arrangements, the rarities of the wine cellar and library, and the beauties of the garden— perhaps the most astonishing feature- of the whole Palace —where every minute leaf is made of iron. In the popular imagination these delights quite naturally overshadow the architectural and historical importance of the Dolls' House. But the house is far more than a grown-up's toy. The eleva- tions represent an ideal house designed by our greatest living domestic architect. They form an exact compromise between Palladio's correctness and refinement, and Wren's English common sense. Although many of the rooms are lofty, the general proportion of each storey is wider and lower than an Italian house. Conversely, Wren could never bring himself to use the truly classical. slope for a pediment which he felt was not steep enough to throw off our northern rains. But Sir E. Lutyens' design, although frankly inspired by Wren, has a personal flavour about it, which becomes more pronounced in the interior. This has certain obvious pleasing anachronisms and inconsistencies of style about it which render it typical of the furniture and decoration of the present day. Perhaps the best thing is the grand stair- case. One feels that the " going " would be perfect, and the rounded sweep of the bottom flight is magnificent. Mr. Nicholson's painting on the walls is superbly decorative. The library is a most " livable " room, and contains a chair specially made for those who like dangling their legs over the arms of easy chairs. The dining-room is the least happy of the important rooms. It is rather low for the heaviness of its ceiling and the pictures are too heterogeneous. The Royal bedrooms, particularly the Queen's, are the ideal of what State bedrooms should be. The chief, indeed the only, fault that the hypercritical might find in the Dolls' House is that the relation between the internal arrangements and the façades is not very clear, and on one side there are no fewer than four small rooms which have no windows. But what is a little thing like that compared to the ethereal beauty of the shagreen and mother-of-pearl of the Queen's bathroom ?
The . Period Rooms are somewhat disappointing. One feels that they might have been so supremely interesting" and that the chances have been missed. When we are shown a typical 1750 room, we have a right to expect that it shall be pedantically correct. The 1750 room in the Palace of Arts does not fulfil this expectation. It looks like a charming " period " room erected yesterday by an expensive London decorator. In the first place, a great deal of the carving in pine is left unpainted, a modern fashion which would have been unthinkable in 1750: Moreover, the whole arrangement of silk curtains, net curtains, and finally blinds with lace edgings, is entirely modern. The steel grate and at least one important piece of furniture in the room are surely of a later date than 1750. The 1815 room is more convincing, but the arrangement of the furniture is too haphazard for so stiff an age. The shallow bow and scagliola columns are excellent, but the mantelpiece, perhaps owing to its material, is disappointing, and, as it had to contain a , fine old grate and the architect shirked a chimney breast, it has a monstrous and most untypical projection. The 1852 room is the most satisfying of the period rooms. The occu- pants seem but just to have left it. The 1888 room is appar- ently a dining-room, but its general aspect is far more typical of a bedroom. It was more usual for the paintwork in the reception-rooms of the period to be olive green or peacock blue, or else the woodwork was made of unpainted oak. The paper would also probably have been darker and heavier in the dining-room. At the same time the room is extremely interesting, and it represents a period of great importance, although just at present we find the fussy decoration which covered every inch of surface rather trying. The 1924 hall and dining-room are from the designs of my partner and . myself, so I can obviously make no comment on them. A man standing in the crowd beside me one day said : " It isn't 1924, it's a nightmare," so I will leave it at that. The 1924 bedroom is pleasing and restful, though it is perhaps questionable whether the material space available was suffi- ciently large to allow of so much architecture in the shape of a dome, four columns and other features.
The visitor to the Palace of Arts should note how satis- faetory for their purpose the galleries are, and how fine are the simple proportions of the so-called Basilica. Mr. Laurence's painting in the Apse must make everyone feel that they are Woking at something which has real greatness in it.
At present there is an architectural exhibition showing in the Palace of Arts. All, or practically all, the exhibits have been seen before, which does not at all mean that one does not wish to see them again. There are some fine photo- graphs of work in the Dominions which should not be missed, notably No. 197, Pretoria Cathedral, by Mr. Herbert Baker ; No. 389, Office Building, Calgary, Alberta ; Nos. 414 and 415, Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, by Messrs. Emley, Cowin, Powers and Ellis, a most dignified and scholarly work having the peculiar character of freshness and vigour which the tradition of the Italian Renaissance seems always to give when transported to the soil of a new country.
GERALD WELLESLEY.
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