The new buildings are not only uninteresting through lack of temporal
and local significance: they are also hideous. With all his learned
eclecticism, the new architect seems unable to evolve a fake that
shall be pleasing to the eye. Not at all pleasing is a mad hotch-potch
of early Victorian hospital, Jacobean manor-house, Venetian palace,
and bride-cake in Gunter's best manner. Yet that, apparently, is the
modern English architect's pet ideal. Even when he confines himself to
one manner, the result (even if it be in itself decent) is made
horrible by vicinity to the work of a rival who has been dabbling in
some other manner. Every street in London is being converted into a
battlefield of styles, all shrieking at one another, all murdering one
another. The tumult may be exciting, especially to the architects, but
it is not beautiful. It is not good to live in.
However, I am no propagandist. I am not sanguine enough to suppose
that I could do anything to stop either the adulteration or the
demolition of old streets. I do not wish to infect the public with my
own misgivings. On the contrary, my motive for this essay is to
inoculate the public with my own placid indifference in a certain
matter which seems always to cause them painful anxiety.
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