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VTI. GOTHIC PALACES. 269 by the base principles of modern building; some vaultless floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged rents of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed away by the first wave of a summer flood; some fungous wall of nascent rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with its workmen into a heap of slime and death.* These we hear of, day by day: yet these indicate but the thousandth part of the evil. The portion of the national income sacrificed in mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift condemnation and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses, passes all calculation. And the weight of the penalty is not yet felt; it will tell upon our children some fifty years hence, when the cheap work, and contract work, and stucco and plaster work, and bad iron work, and all the other expedients of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to show themselves for what they are. § xlviii. Indeed, dishonesty and false economy will no more build safely in Gothic than in any other style: but of all forms which we could possibly employ, to be framed hastily and out of bad materials, the common square ' u Fig. xxxv. window is the worst; and its level head of ■ , . . . . , ,,, , brickwork (a, Fig. XXXV) is the weakest \\\\ \ ///// way of covering a space. Indeed, in the [ ^£ hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there may be seen often even a worse manner of rrV\TT777777 placing the bricks, as at b, supporting them \V1a1ZZZ/// by • a bit of lath till the mortar dries; but 1 ~x T even when worked with the utmost care, and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir * " On Thursday, the 20th, the front walls of two of the new houses now building in Victoria Street, Westminster, fell to the ground. . . . The roof was on, and a massive compo cornice was put up at top, as well as dressings to the upper windows. The* roof is formed by girders and 4j-brick arches in cement, covered with asphalt to form a flat. The failure is attributed to the quantity of rain which has fallen. Others suppose that some of the girders were defective, and gave way, carrying the walls with them."—Builder, for January 29th, 1853. The rest of this volume might be filled with such notices, if we sought for them.
Title | The stones of Venice - 2 |
Creator | Ruskin, John |
Publisher | J. Wiley |
Place of Publication | New York |
Date | 1889 |
Language | eng |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Title | 00000311 |
Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Transcript | VTI. GOTHIC PALACES. 269 by the base principles of modern building; some vaultless floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged rents of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed away by the first wave of a summer flood; some fungous wall of nascent rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with its workmen into a heap of slime and death.* These we hear of, day by day: yet these indicate but the thousandth part of the evil. The portion of the national income sacrificed in mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift condemnation and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses, passes all calculation. And the weight of the penalty is not yet felt; it will tell upon our children some fifty years hence, when the cheap work, and contract work, and stucco and plaster work, and bad iron work, and all the other expedients of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to show themselves for what they are. § xlviii. Indeed, dishonesty and false economy will no more build safely in Gothic than in any other style: but of all forms which we could possibly employ, to be framed hastily and out of bad materials, the common square ' u Fig. xxxv. window is the worst; and its level head of ■ , . . . . , ,,, , brickwork (a, Fig. XXXV) is the weakest \\\\ \ ///// way of covering a space. Indeed, in the [ ^£ hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there may be seen often even a worse manner of rrV\TT777777 placing the bricks, as at b, supporting them \V1a1ZZZ/// by • a bit of lath till the mortar dries; but 1 ~x T even when worked with the utmost care, and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir * " On Thursday, the 20th, the front walls of two of the new houses now building in Victoria Street, Westminster, fell to the ground. . . . The roof was on, and a massive compo cornice was put up at top, as well as dressings to the upper windows. The* roof is formed by girders and 4j-brick arches in cement, covered with asphalt to form a flat. The failure is attributed to the quantity of rain which has fallen. Others suppose that some of the girders were defective, and gave way, carrying the walls with them."—Builder, for January 29th, 1853. The rest of this volume might be filled with such notices, if we sought for them. |
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