May 24, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 409
THE BUILDING NEWS. et LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 24, 1872.
THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD
COMPETITION.
HE competition designs for six schools
about to be built by the London School
Board were exhibited on the premises of the
Sunday School Union on Friday and Saturday
last. The sites selected are Kender-street,
Hatcham; Essex-street, Stepney ; Mary-
street, Bromley ; Old Castle-street, White-
chapel ; and St. Paul’s-road, Bow Common ;
and we may as well notice some of the
principal designs in this order. The first set
of drawings on our list, for the Hatcham
School, are by Mr. J. P. Seddon. They
exhibit a compact three-story building, in
which the infants, asusual, are placed on the
ground floor, while the girls and boys occupy
the first and second stories respectively.
The block throughout is two rooms deep,
the school in each plan occupying the front
and the class rooms the back. This arrange-
ment has its advantages, of which economy
in cost may possibly be one, but it is evi-
dently less favourable for lighting and venti-
lation than a system which admits of windows
on both sides of the main apartment. It
must be remembered that in these many-
storied structures effectual ventilation cannot
be counted on—at least, in warm weather—by
any appliances fixed in the ceiling. The case
is quite different from that of a one-stor
school, which, even if it had class-rooms
attached to three sides of it, might still be
thoroughly cleansed from foul air by dormers
or other contrivances in the roof. ‘The fact,
too, that rooms one above the other naturally
have flat ceilings and limited height is an
additional reason why every provision should
be made for rapidly changing the air in
them, and we doubt the possibility of doing
this by a range of openings confined toa
single wall of the chamber, Mr. Seddon’s
arrangement is no worse than those of many
other competitors; indeed, as regards the
infant school, which is |_ shaped, and has
openings both back and front, it is better,
but it offers us the first opportunity of
calling attention to the subject. Two
opposite principles are noticeable amongst
the designs in general: the principle of getting
light and air from one side of the school-
room alone, and the principle of getting
them from both sides ; and if our opinion as
to the sanitary advantages of the latter is well
founded, the matter is of sufficient conse-
quence to be noticed in the future instruc-
tions of the School Board to competitors.
Another point, too, as to which marked
differences of opinion seem to exist, is the
position of the classes in reference to the
windows. In many designs, and Mr.Seddon’s
amongst the rest, the children are placed, for
the most part, with the light behind them,
while other places have evidently been
worked out so as to get the light from one
side. No draughtsman, we are sure, would
sit with his back to a window, when he had
the alternative of keeping it on his left
hand, and the position which is most con-
venient for drawing is also that which is
best for writing. On this point, therefore,
though it is less vitally important than the
last one, an official recommendation might be
of service. It might not always be possible
to carry it out completely, but it is well to
know what to aim at; the standard of per-
fection can hardly be kept too high.
The next competitor for the Hatcham
School, Mr. Joseph Gale, adopts a much
more extended plan than Mr. Seddon. His
buildings form two sides of a square, with
the infants’ and boys’ schools on the ground
floor, and the girls’ above. For light and
air and general healthiness this comparatively
than the compact one. It takes, of course,
more roofing and more foundations, and so
might be anticipated to be rather more ex-
pensive; though Mr. Gale’s estimate, indeed,
is only £5,521, while Mr. Seddon’s is £7,902.
We should anticipate, however, that for
either design the latter sum would be nearer
the truth than the former one. The exterior
of Mr, Gale’s design is picturesque and un-
pretending—plain in its details, but acquiring
satisfactory @haracter from its general form
and composition. Mr. Giles sends the
next set of plans for this site on a system
approaching more nearly to Mr. Seddon’s.
His building is a three-story one, with the
boys on the second floor. The windows are
behind the classes in the school, but on one
side of those in the class-rooms. The archi-
tecture is of a plain Pointed style, with
mullions. Mr. Wyndham Tarn adopts an
H-shaped plan, like the common section of
an iron girder. What would be the web in
the girder is occupied by the schools, and
the two flanges by the class-rooms. This is
a good arrangement for light and air; but it
is worked out in a rigidly and uselessly-
formal way, and its dreary, lifeless exterior
is suggestive of imprisonment rather than of
education. We are not quarrelling with its
plainness, but with its mechanical, repulsive
uniformity ; with its want, not of ornament,
but of cheerfulness and homeliness. Few of
the competitors, in fact, fall into the folly
of over-decoration; and scveral of them
have known how to import interest and
character into their work, without relying on
positive ornament atall. This is just the end
that needs to be attained, not only in our
schools, but in a very large proportion of our
buildings, whatever they may be; and it is a
hopeful sign in this competition that it has
been more than usually kept in view.
For the school at Stepney Mr. Lewis Banks
submits two designs. One, with an estimated
cost of £5,077, is partly an adaptation of an
old building. The infants and junior girls
are on the ground floor ; the senior girls and
boys on the first floor, and the drawing
school on the second floor. The exterior has
a treatment somewhat Italian in spirit, but
admitting the pointed arch to the windows
and doors. The design B is for a larger build-
ing, not, however, so good architecturally as
the previous one; and the estimated cost is
£7,000. Mr. Hennell’s design for this school
has a rather complicated plan, with effectively
shaded elevations, which are somewhat dis-
appointing when they come to be put into
perspective. This building is chiefly a two-
story one. Mr. Quilter gets the bulk of his
accommodation on the ground floor, putting
only the senior girls and junior boys on the
first. There are some peculiarities in the
shape and arrangement of the rooms, which
look as if they had been introduced rather
for their attractiveness on paper than for
their advantages in actual execution. Geo-
metrical forms of plan, unless worked
out with a close attention to internal
and external perspective, are apt to be mis-
leading. They look plausible and pretty in
asetof drawings, but in real work they are
apt either to end in failure, or to be entirely
overlooked. Mr. Joseph James proposes a
nearly straight oblong block, in three stories,
with class-rooms behind the schools. The
latter are consequently lighted from one side
only, and, in opposition to the prevailing
practice, the desks are shown on the
opposite side to the windows. There is
a low-pitched roof and an exterior of
extreme plainness. If Mr. James has not done
himself injustice in his estimate of £8,000,
some of his fellow-competitors are apparently
wide of the mark. Mr. Charles Barry’s design
differs from the rest in comprising two blocks
of building connected by a corridor. The
infant school is, of course, on the ground
floor ; above this is the junior mixed school,
and highest of all the senior girls and senior
boys. There are low-pitched hipped roofs,
straggling arrangement appears far better | and some Gothic details in the front elevation,
Mr. John Young’s plans, again, are arranged
on a scheme of his own. He has a square
central block divided into four class-rooms,
and from the right and left of this the two
ranges of school-rooms stand out as wings.
This allows of ample light and a thorough
draught when neccessary, and for these im-
portant advantages deserves commendation.
The elevations are not without picturesque-
ness in parts, but in detail they approach un-
pleasantly to the Southwark-street type of
Gothic.
For the Castle-street School, Whitechapel,
we first come on some plans by Messrs.
Habershon & Brock. They indicate three
blocks of buildings, besides the swimming-
bath, which it is in this case proposed to
place on the site, and which will be by no
means the least valuable of the educational
appliances. Mr, Robins sends a design with
a creditable and carefully represented ex-
terior, but with a general arrangement which
may be described as rather complicated. Mr.
Biyen has two picturesque views intended for
this site : one Gothic, and the other in a style
which in feeling, though not in detail, has
some affinity to Greek. Messrs. Tarring &
Son submit a plan which has advantages on
the ground of air and light, combined, un-
fortunately, with elevations which we should
be sorry to see adopted, even in Whitechapel.
A public school in a poor neighbourhood, as
most of the competitors seem wisely to have
considered, needs little in the way of decora-
tion, though much in the way of design.
Messrs. Tarring have reversed the conditions,
and instead of producing a good general form
and leaving it plain, they have produced a
very poor one, and then tried to enrich it,
This is beginning at the wrong end, and
could not be commended even if the
enrichment were tolerable. Being what it is,
it is doubly unfortunate that it should be em-~
ployed so freely, and that those designers
precisely whose talents do notliein theregion
of ornamentation should always persist in
covering their works from end to end with
ornament.
For the Battersea School, Messrs. W. M.
Teulon & Cronk have adopted the H-shaped
arrangement, with tne schools in the centre,
They exhibit simple and not unsatisfactory
elevations. Mr. Edis, however, shows to the
most advantage as regards his architecture,
and sends some elevations which, on this
ground, we should be glad to see adopted.
The skyline, indeed, as we have observed in
Mr. Edis’ previous works, is somewhat tame
and flat, and we could wish that he would
take a leaf out of Mr. Norman Shaw’s book,
so far as to.turn his chimneys to better
account artistically. On the whole, however,
this design strikes us as being (externally) as
appropriate and characteristic as any in the
room, though the tinting of the perspective
is almost too quiet and delicate to attract
general notice ina competition. The planning
has the merits—and the demerits—of com-
pactness ; and as to the windows, we observe
that the light on the school desks will
come from the side. We must pass over
several designs of no great interest, merely
noting that for the Mary-street School,
Bromley, Mr. Watson proposes a plain and
compact building ; Mr. Lacy Ridge an
equally plain, but more extended one; and
Messrs. Slater & Carpenter a T-shaped one,
for the most part convenient and economical.
The designs for the §. Paul’s-road School,
Bow Common, do not happen to offer many
points of interest, but that by Messrs. Phené
Spiers & Hall has some picturesqueness and
considerable merit in its planning.
eee ee meenerred
ARCHITECTS IN THE CAPACITY OF
THUMBSCREWS.
ANY, if not most, employers seem to
consider an architect in the light of an
instrument of torture, a sort of moral thumb-
screw, formed to wrench from wretched
builders the uttermost scruple of that pound
