Publisher's Synopsis
"The Mistress Art"
In selecting the above words as the title for the republication of his Royal Academy Lectures on Architecture, Mr. Blomfield has assumed that central position for architecture which has been often talked about and written about, but which has practically been almost wrecked, and; the claim for it stultified, in days when, as the author says, "architecture has become so complicated, and has strayed so far from the narrow track of art into the easier paths of financial enterprise." The main object which is evidently present to the author's mind throughout these lectures is, while claiming again for architecture the position of the Mistress to show how and why architecture once held this place, and how alone she can hold it again?
As to the charge of complication, it must not be forgotten of course that modern conditions of- life have also become complicated, as they never_ were before, and that architecture which is to provide for complicated requirements must become in itself a complex problem. A modern Town Hall or a large Hotel, with its multiple requirements of planning, lighting, heating, and ventilation, is a very different practical problem from a classic temple, and requires a much greater variety of practical knowledge more, in fact, than one man can generally have acquired; the architect has to be assisted by specialists, whom he sometimes finds it difficult to keep under control. But in fact, all these complicated requirements are actually concerned with internal economy only, and need not necessarily affect the expression and composition of the external architecture. The influence of financial enterprise is the real degrading influence in modern architecture; the fact that the question put to the architect by the building owner, tacitly or openly, is not - "can we make any fine architecture out of this?" but "can it be made to pay? " and "how soon will the building be ready to earn money?"
There is not time to think out the architecture. When the Queen's Hall, for instance, was built, the sole question with the promoters (as we were informed by the architect himself) was, how many saleable seats could be provided in the space, the exterior architecture was a mere perfunctory matter, and the interior was turned over to a rapid decorating firm to fill it with some of the worst banalities of decoration to be seen anywhere. 'In this case we doubt if the aspirations of the architect were much higher than those of his clients; but if they had been, would he have been allowed to indulge them, or even allowed time to do so?
-The Builder: An Illustrated Weekly Magazine for the Architect, Vol. 95