TECHNICAL SCHOOL BUILDING.*
Tess work appears opportunely, and affords a valuable contri- bution to the practical consideration of the question of Technical Education, which may be said to have at length passed out of the sphere of inquiry and discussion into that of action. Mr. Robins has had exceptional opportunities for writing a treatise on the construction of technical schools. As a member of the committee of the City Guilds Institute, he has been enabled to study every detail connected with the erection and fitting of the Institute's Colleges at Kensington and Finsbury ; and, as appears from his work, he has carefully inspected, in company with two professors of applied science, some of the principal technical institutions in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.
The real subject of the treatise is prefaced by two chapters dealing with technical education generally. In the former of these chapters, Mr. Robins gives a digest of the views expressed by well-known educationists in England and abroad ; and in the second chapter, he gives the reader an analysis of the second Report of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction. This chapter is somewhat disappointing, not so much on account of any want of ability on the author's part to treat of it, as from the in- herentdiReulty of presenting an analysis or resume of a Report which was itself as compressed a condensation as could be made of a mass of information collected from different sources here and abroad. The most valuable portion of the book is that which treats of the plans of foreign buildings, and the design and con- struction of fittings for the teaching of different branches of applied science. The chapters dealing with these subjects are fully illustrated by detailed drawings, and will be found most serviceable to architects who are called upon to design laboratory fittings. The knowledge of the care and trouble expended by the Germans and Swiss in fitting their chemical, physical, and mechanical laboratories with the most suitable appliances for practical teaching, thereby facilitating the study of applied science, and enabling the student to carry on operations which, without such fittings, would be impossible, has begun to awaken Englishmen to a sense of the importance of adequately equipping technical schools, and to the recognition of the fact that a building consisting of class-rooms and lecture-rooms, fitted with benches and blackboards, and nothing more, is of little use as a school for technical instruction. Indeed, nothing strikes one more forcibly in looking through the plates and letterpress of the work before us than the fact that the costliness of erecting technical schools depends mainly on the necessarily elaborate character of the appliances with which such schools are now provided.
The chapter on "Buildings for Applied Science and Art In- struction" contains a full description, illustrated by excellent drawings and statements as to cost of construction of some of the principal laboratories in Europe, including those of the Technical High Schools of Hanover, Aachen, Munich, and
• Teelmicat Sawa? and Collage Beading. By R. C. Robins, F.S.A., London Whittaker and Os. 1887.
Berlin, and of the new University at Strasbourg. Whilst the demand for State aid for higher technical instruction in this country is still unsatisfied, it may be worth while noting that the cost of the Technical High School of Berlin has ex- ceeded £400,000; that new chemical laboratories have been added to the Polytechnic of Zurich at a cost of £70,000, voted for the purpose by the Federal Council in 1883; that a new electrical laboratory has been erected at Paris at a cost of £14,000 ; and that one of the first acts of the German Government, after the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, was to erect a University in Strasbourg —probably the best-fitted building in the world for the teaching of certain departments of applied science—at a cost of £840,000. The cost of the endowment of this last building, paid from Imperial funds, is nearly £50,000 a year. Full descriptions of these buildings will be found in Mr. Robins's treatise.
Not the least valuable part of this important work are the chapters devoted to the consideration of the fittings needed for the effective use of the several laboratories which are fully described in an earlier part of the volume. These chapters treat of the general principles to be kept in view in the construction of working benches, sinks, draught-closets, flues, evaporation- closets, drawing-tables, workshop benches, and other fittings which are found in the most recently erected laboratories and lecture theatres. In preparing these chapters, the author has been at pains to consult the leading professore in London and provincial towns, whose opinions he freely quotes. The subject of "Heating and Ventilation," one of considerable importance, and still imperfectly understood, is fully and scientifically treated in a separate chapter, which is followed by a descrip- tion of the several methods of warming and ventilation actually in use in the principal technical schools which have recently been erected in this country. As a contribution to the study of this subject, these chapters have a distinct value ; but the reader must not expect to find in them a complete solution of the difficult problem of successfully heating, and at the same time of ventilating without producing draughts and unwhole- some currents of over-heated and dust-laden air, the several rooms of a large building. The problem of ventilating chemical laboratories demands separate consideration, and this ques- tion is fully and practically treated by Mr. Robins. Taken as a whole, probably no work has yet appeared in the English language which contains so much information of the greatest value to all persons who are interested in the provision of suitable buildings for technical education, as this new volume of Mr. Robins. It is too large a work, and too technical, to find its way into the hands of the general reader ; but it will prove an indispensable work of reference to architects, builders, and managers of technical schools, and the careful study of it may prevent many errors, and save much unprofit- able expenditure in the erection and equipment of buildings to be used for technical instruction.
Previous page
