Design for the Law Courts, Strand (not built), William Burges, 1867

Design for the Law Courts, Strand, London

William Burges

1867

Building News, 14 (3 May 1867): facing 306.

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Other entrants in the competition

Entry by E. M. Barry

Entry by George Gilbert Scott

Street's winning design

The competition for the Law Courts on the Strand was won by George Edmund Street, whose completed project is still much admired today. Amongst the other competitors drawn from the "magic circle" of major architects, William Burges provoked the most contradictory responses [Commentary continued below].

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A staff writer for the Building News wrote only partly humorously:

Mr. Burges, with a sly wink at the present Government, and with that caution and foresight which characterise him, has prepared for possible contingencies by fortifying his law courts with a sumptuous array of strong machicolated towers; these towers, especially those flanking the entrances, are very imposing, and, had Mr. Burges given us a few street or bridge views, like Messrs. Waterhouse, Street, and Scott, or a model like Mr. Seddon, we are sure his studies of French chateaux and palaces would produce an effect as pleasing as his present view is displeasing. (25 Jan. 1867, p. 58)

A later correspondent, signing himself "Verax," wrote to the editor of the same journal with even more mixed feelings:

This is a truly magnificent design. Up to its cornice line it is hard to conceive anything more beautiful, so grandly simple is its treatment; and yet there is such a glaring discrepancy of proportion between this and many of his towers, so overwrought and missal-like in their treatment, that one cannot but wonder so accomplished a designer should jeopardise in this way his prospect, otherwise so fair, of carrying off the coveted blue riband. Where there is so much to command admiration, one is loth, but from a sense of fairness, to notice small blemishes which offend a fastidious eye. I refer to the unworthy manner in which he attempts to reconcile the square bases with his circular towers, and to the angular abruptness of his dormer treatment. But his Temple Bar Bridge is of itself sufficient to atone for little flaws like these. (22 Feb. 1867. p.147)

"Verax" seems positively confused. Can a design be "truly magnificent" when there is a "glaring discrepancy of proportion" between its main elements? Is lack of harmony such a minor matter? Both comments include references to the preponderance of towers, so typical of Burges, and veer between admiration and criticism.

No wonder. Joseph Mordaunt Crook numbers this among Burges's "most extraordinary designs," describing it as "combining lucidity and drama to an exceptional degree," and saying that it was "designed, apparently, to turn London into Camelot" (11). Whatever its failings, the published design certainly attracted attention, and parts of it clearly influenced other important buildings of the period, not least Lockwood & Mawson's Bradford Town Hall of 1870-73, designed in 1869.

References

Building News and Engineering Journal. Vol 14. Internet Archive. Uploaded by Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto. Web. 13 September 2011.

Crook, J. Mordaunt. "The Strange Genius of Willam Burges." The Strange Genius of William Burgess, "Art-Architect," 1827-1881. By Crook et al. National Museum of Wales and Victoria and Albert Museum Centenary Exhibition Catalogue, 1982. 10-12.

Last modified 3 February 2012