and unexceptionally beautiful, but because it is inflexible — unsuited to our purposes, and unsuited to our climate. There are very few days in the year that we require to be sheltered from the sun; and the deep porticos which were refreshing to the inhabitants of a Greek city, would be damp, cold, and very far from congenial to us. Of course, I do not understand that a building is in the Greek style, because it has a Greek cornice running along its face over a row of unmistakeably English windows; or because it has in its centre a Doric portico, architrave, and tympanum; where there is in reality no gable, and where the laborious and heavy ornament might, so far as structural purposes are concerned, have been as well placed at any other part of the building. Indeed, I do not know that we have in this country any modern building avowedly and completely designed upon the model of the Greek temple. The unfinished fragment on the Calton Hill, which, however, always puts one in mind of the Temple at Sunium, testifies, I think, that this is not the sort of thing that our climate and our purposes require.

And now gentlemen, let me in conclusion, offer a few observations upon the character and objects of our Society. It is, in the first place, socially useful, that three very different classes-the professional architect, the professional builder, and the non-professional amateur-should occasionally meet together to discuss subjects interesting to all. It is good for the professional man occasionally to hear his daily business treated not as a trade, but as an art resting upon a science-as something in which not only his immediate employers, but all who, upon any settled principle, prefer beauty to deformity, feel an interest and entertain an opinion. It is good, on the other hand, for the amateur, who builds his castles in the air, to have his fancies checked by those whose imagination has been educated to submit to

the irreversible laws of nature. Should nothing more than this come out of our Association, it will have been far from useless either to art or to our social relations.

After this, the business of our ordinary meetings, I know of no object more deserving the attention of the Institute than the formation of an Architectural Library. This has been held out as one of our leading objects, and donations to it have been made by several of our members. It cannot however be said, that we have as yet laid even the foundation of a good library; nor do I think that such a foundation can be laid in any other way, than by judicious purchases by the Institute itself and from its own funds. The books presented must be such as the donors have and can spare, and these may be of a very different character from those which the Institute needs, and would purchase if it had the means. What we especially need are those works which a young architect would require to consult, but which from their price he could not, at the commencement of his career, purchase without inconvenience and imprudence. Especially we ought to procure foreign works of merit, particularly of the French and German schools. Art exists and is in active operation beyond the limits of our own island; and it is most desirable that our architects and students of Architecture should know something more of what has been done recently at Paris, and Munich, and Cologne, than they can learn even from technical descriptions.

And now, gentlemen, I must bring this farrago libelli to a close. I am aware, that it is undeserving of the attention you have paid to it; the fault, however, of its deficiencies lies not with me, for I have really done my best, but with your Council, who on this occasion have failed in putting the right man into the right place.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTE OF SCOTLAND,

SESSION 1855-1856.

No. I.

REMARKS

ON THE

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE

OF

PARIS.

BY

DAVID COUSIN, Esq., F.A.I.S.

[Read at a Meeting of the Institute in Edinburgh, held on 17th December 1855.]

THE few observations I have to offer on the Domestic Architecture of Paris are of a very cursory nature, gathered on a recent occasion during the course of a hurried visit to the Industrial Exhibition of France.

The public buildings of this magnificent city-its palaces and gardens, its halls of assembly, its courts of justice, its picture galleries, its Champs Elysee, and its numerous churches-present strangers with such varied sources of attraction, that it is only after repeated visits one ever dreams of looking into the social arrangements which mark its street architecture, and dwellings of the middle and working classes.

It may be proper to remark at the outset, how dangerous it is, amongst so much that is different from the habits of our own country, to draw inferences as to the character of

a people from their social habits or household arrangements, which at best we can but imperfectly understand. All of us must have been amused at the representations of the social habits of our own country, which have been given by passing visitors, often founded on incidents that were in some cases exceptional and in others entirely misunderstood. Hence the necessity, in similar circumstances, of caution in forming opinions in regard to our continental neighbours.

It is perhaps unnecessary farther to remark, that many of the points noted as peculiar to the houses in Paris are common to those of many other continental cities. The contrast is meant to apply as between the arrangements of the Parisian houses and those of our own, and not as between the different cities abroad.

The streets of Paris, with the exception of the Boulevards and other leading thoroughfares, even in the fashionable quarters, are rather narrow. The houses are in general lofty, ranging from four to six stories. Except in the aristocratic quarters, the street floor is generally occupied by shops, with an entresol above, reached by interior spiral stairs, occupying marvellously little space. On the first floor we have a series of apartments on one level, occupied by one or more families, according to the quarter of the city or description of building. In many cases families of high social position occupy the first door in the stair, as we say, with a series of similar dwellings above, all entering by the same stair.

The external elevations of the street architecture are of a marked character, and in most cases of good design. The fenestral apertures are always more or less decorated; even in the common streets we seldom meet with those mere apertures for light, destitute of dressings of any kind, so common in some of our best streets. The windows of the first

and second floors are generally finished with architectural dressings, such as architraves, or panelled pilasters, with a good deal of carving on them, and on the trusses, frieze, and cope above; having handsome cast iron balconies, generally bronzed or painted of a dark brown shade, the smaller members and carvings enriched with solid gilding, which produces a sparkling effect. The buildings have generally a massive well-proportioned cornice, enriched with the appropriate decorations of the order to which it belongs, surmounted by an attic story, in which the mouldings are always of a subordinate character; never, as in so many cases nearer home, do we find the cornice of this part of the façade coming into competition with that of the main building. The care with which all subordinate ornamentation and detail are proportioned with reference to the main features of the building, forms a marked feature in many of the modern houses. The dressings of the upper floor windows, as they approach nearer to the main cornice, are always subdued in power by lessening the projections; the effect in some cases being produced by sinkings rather than by raised moulding, so as to prevent these details from coming into competition with the main cornice, and thereby lessening its power. In some cases I observed this has been carried to the extent of making the dressings of the windows, immediately under the main cornice, scarcely more than surface decoration, the forms being indicated rather by lines than by shadows. The effect was striking, and on the whole pleasing; the general outline of the building was thereby well defined, and a repose and simplicity of effect produced, which would have been lost had the minor features been more prominent.

The windows of the first and second floors, where there are balconies, generally reach to the floor, and are fitted with