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Designing the well-tempered institution of 1873
Abstract
The Museum of Natural History in London exemplified the state of environmental services when it was built in 1873. Although the admirable qualities of the building's natural lighting have sometimes been noticed, other aspects of its environmental design have drawn little comment. This paper explores the fabric of the building behind the scenes, related to the integral construction for ventilation. Recent on-site investigations under the floor of the basement, within the attics and elsewhere, reveal the former presence of a comprehensive fresh-air ventilation system of surprising versatility before the advent of electrically-driven fans. Archival documents provide details. The design and performance of such fresh-air systems inform us about the evolution of building services and about the practice of architecture and engineering as distinct professions. And the forgotten knowledge revealed may serve to help in the design of natural and low energy systems for large buildings today.
This contribution explores the mutations and adaptations provided by the appearance of building services engineering on the architectural scene, since the end of eighteenth century. It try to open new perspectives on construction history by depicting the state-of-the-art information of recent studies and researches in the field of environmental approach to the architectural history, particularly in health and comfort technologies. It shows how mechanisms that connect (ancient and new) buildings and the environment should be well-mastered, and steer our behaviour in future choices, especially rethinking new uses of built heritage. As well as in structural interventions, new arrangements shouldn’t obliterate the past lives, material tracks and marks on the architectural legacy.
With its association between Gothic style and Christian morality, religious faith and architectural truth, the theory of Augustus W.N. Pugin (1812-52) exerted from the 1850s a decisive influence on Belgian Catholic artists, especially in the most radical and influential circles of the Ultramontanes.
This essay presents the four steps of Pugin’s impact in Belgium and its international diffusion from Belgium. Each step is associated with a place and with a group of persons. ___1, the transmission and assimilation of Pugin’s theory took place in Bruges with the English colony and Jean-Baptiste Bethune (1850-62). ____2, combat and consolidation strategies were diffused from Ghent by the first St. Luke’s School and an ultramontane hardcore (1862-84). ____3, the domination of St. Luke’s Puginesque Gothic climaxed thanks to the hegemony of Catholic governments in Belgium (1884-1914). ____4, missionaries diffused the St. Luke’s canon worldwide, to China and Inner Mongolia (from around 1900 to the 1920s).
This article offers a fresh look at the origins and environmental design of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, between c. 1875 and 1890. It augments existing histories through close reference to the hospital archives and by contextualising the building within the career and interests of John Shaw Billings, a doctor who was retained by the Hospital Trustees as an expert adviser on hospital design and management. The episode is presented as one of architectural ‘experiment’, in which an hypothesis was formulated, constructed and monitored in use. Architecture emerges from this analysis as an act of exploration and position-taking, with the hospital conceived as a ‘tool’ for didactic demonstration in an on-going multi-disciplinary, international discourse concerning the ventilation of non-domestic buildings.
The acoustic and ventilation simple sketch design tool is a spread-sheet. It was constructed to encourage designers to explore a proposed building's size and shape, the natural ventilation and simple acoustics, in order to promote sustainable architecture. A number of simple input parameters are necessary, the number of people the space must accommodate and the volume of air per person appropriate to the acoustic function. Allowing the internal air temperature to rise by some 10–15%, the building geometry, the natural ventilation and acoustics can be discussed via the volume of the space. This paper has two aims, firstly to demonstrate the acoustic and ventilation design tool generating the geometric features, the simple acoustic properties and the natural ventilation rates for buildings, ranging from a simple open-plan office to a multi-purpose space. Secondly, the design tool is applied retrospectively to the London Custom House Long Room, the Truro Methodist Church, the Vienna Court Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall, so that the validity of the design tool may be discussed, and its effectiveness demonstrated and evaluated. This is achieved by comparing the design tool output with real data from the literature on these four 19th century buildings.
The Museum of Natural History, London, typified the state of environmental service design in large public buildings when construction started in 1873, as described in an earlier paper in arq, vol. 2. Its exemplary systems included both ventilation with heating and the architect's use of towers, especially the novel multi-sleeved versions which he described as ‘thermosyphonic’, as ventilation exhausts. This paper describes how, both in critical design decisions during construction and in physical adjustments made after its occupation in 1881, the Museum reveals both contemporary practices and the professional skills of its architect and engineer.
Victorian architects shaped the spaces where natural science was made, and in turn helped shape the public's understanding of nature. Display strategies for natural historical objects--and the architectural decisions which sustained those strategies--reveal the contingent and shifting status of natural knowledge in Victorian Britain. Four case studies (Cambridge University Library, 1829-37; Oxford University Museum, 1855-60; Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, 1854-61; Natural History Museum, London, 1865-1881) reveal how science, dependent upon progress for its legitimacy, left traces of its history in museum architecture. At Cambridge University, C. R. Cockerell designed a classical collegiate quadrangle which was primarily a library, but also provided exhibition rooms for natural specimens, an indication that natural science was not yet an integral part of the university's intellectual life. A decade later at Oxford, the Gothic Revival University Museum marked the arrival of natural science in the curriculum. Although other considerations--cost and adaptability--were paramount, the naturalistic ornament represented the ideals of natural theology--the study of science as revelatory of Creation. Also at mid-century, the engineer Francis Fowke designed the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, an iron-and-glass building recalling the Crystal Palace. It showcased nature in the service of commerce and industry, and was built for middle-class visitors rather than only elite students. In London, the social role and style of the Natural History Museum caused controversy. The director of the national museum hoped to display God's work in its entirety, but he was thwarted by the efforts of progressive scientists, who preferred a small teaching museum. While some visitors approved of its Romanesque imagery, others objected to its church-like interior, which seemed to ignore the advent of Darwinism. Natural history and architecture were products of society. The educational role of museums was under contestation, the availability of natural knowledge to the public was expanding, and science was becoming a profession rather than a gentleman's hobby. In this climate of change, architects of museums, through style choices, planning decisions, and ornamental schemes, critically affected the way Victorian Britons understood nature.