ARCHITECTURAL NOTES.
THE SECOND EXHIBITION OF THE ARCHITECTURE CLUB, GROSVENOR HOUSE.
IT is a most healthy sign when one generation feels perfectly sure that it is doing better work than its predecessor. A
visit to Grosvenor House gives us the comforting conviction that as far as architecture is concerned, there is absolutely no doubt about our present superiority.
Perhaps the new housing schemes furnish the most complete proof of this happy state of affairs. A contrast between the building development schemes of fifty years ago and the trim and studied little houses at Dormanstown, Redear, Yorks, by Messrs. Adshead, Ramsey and Patrick Abercrombie, with the picturesque yet architectural houses at Swanpool, Lincoln, by Messrs. Hennell and James and with Cushencan Village, Co. Antrim, by Mr. Clough Williams-Ellis, will silence the most sceptical.
Another problem which is being more satisfactorily solved now than in Victorian times is the economical church. The modern architect relies on proportion and scale to dignify his stark simplicity rather than on a meretricious richness of flimsy and mechanical ornament to mask his poverty. Mr. Robert Atkinson's church at Hammersmith is a conspicuous example of a magnificent effect produced by great economy of means, and it is one of the best things in the show. Mr. E. Simmons' Roman Catholic Church at Gretna is another most successful essay in the same manner.
But it is not only in housing and church building that a high level is reached. The building for the Faculty of Arts, Manchester University, by Messrs. S. and J. H. Worthington, is a work of the most exquisite refinement. Mr. Arthur W. Kenyon's King Edward VII. Memorial Hospital, Sheffield, has a quality of distinction which puts it into the first rank. Among many other things which should not be missed are Sir John Burnet's Ramsgate sunshelter, Mr. W. Naseby Adams' entrance to a boot shop, in which various obvious difficulties have been successfully overcome, and Mr. F. T. Verity's " Pavilion " Cinematograph at Shepherd's Bush.
Among the models Mr. Norman Evill's house in Hampshire has a personal and very charming tang about it. This and the model of Mr. Oliver Hill's house in Smith Square form a striking and pleasing contrast to the " YE OLDE OAKE TEA &WIVE " architecture of a riverside house, Bray-on-Thames, shown close to them. GERALD WELLESLEY.
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