Bankrupt Contractors.

13

ready to undertake it, and to back up their estimate if required by a contractor with a tender; of which the result will be what I described just now. Sometimes by way of variety of result, the contractor becomes a bankrupt before the work is half done, and leaves the committee to finish it as they can. That happened at two churches which I have been concerned in building, where there were fortunately sureties to a sufficient amount, and also at a certain large town hall which an architect and a contractor professed to build for 42,000l., and which I said would cost twice as much as soon as I saw the plans, and which did cost even more than that. The corporation who employed them had only got securities for 2000l., and so the loss fell upon the town. That had been a case of architectural competition, which the two churches were not.

Notwithstanding all these drawbacks I know that architectural competitions will go on, simply because the kind of bodies who adopt them can see all the plausible or theoretical advantages, and know nothing of the practical disadvantages. I wish I could say that even employing a non-competing architect to judge or help them is at all certain to produce satisfactory results; though it is doubtless better than having no such assistance. The decision of the non-professional majority of judges in the Foreign Office competition was against that of the professional minority of 6 assessors,' and was found to be indefensible, as I said. No decently competent and independent architect would be taken in by those pictorial devices which inexperienced committee-men or town-councillors have no chance of seeing through; nor, one would think, by such estimates as that for the town hall above mentioned. But it so happens that in that case a very

14

Insufficient Sureties.

eminent one was consulted, though not expressly on the estimates, and yet he held his tongue about the insufficiency of the price, though it was transparent to my comparatively small experience. If the corporation had been duly warned about it they would hardly have been so stupid as to be content with security for less than 5 per cent. instead of the usual 33. In consequence of what happened in another place as well as there, it is prudent to stipulate with the independent architect so consulted that he is to be paid a fixed sum for all the advice that he may give, as to alterations and everything, and to resolve that he is on no account to be employed as architect himself; for I have known even that happen after another had been chosen, judiciously or not, upon the competition.

Conditions for a Competition.-It may be of some use to suggest the best conditions that occur to me for a competition, though I by no means pretend that they will obviate all the difficulties I have pointed out.

I. Architects willing to compete may send in plans and specifications before to, from whom any

further information may be obtained.

2. All except the working drawings of details on a larger scale are to be on the scale of in. to a foot, and the longest vertical lines in the perspective drawings are to be on that scale also. Those drawings are to be made from as distant a point of view as possible (which distorts them less), and there are to be no figures or other imaginary objects in the foreground; and they are either all to be or all not be coloured. (If some are coloured and others not, it is impossible to judge fairly, and the colouring is generally deceptive.) All depths of windows, and other shadow

Conditions for Competing Designs.

15

casting parts and all thicknesses are to be accurately represented in the perspective drawings, and figured legibly on the plans and sections, and all inscriptions on the drawings are to be written in plain letters without lines. (There is a class of architects who expect to get credit for mediæval taste by the wretched affectation of writing everything on their drawings illegibly, and crossed over with lines. It is no excuse to say that their clerks do it.)

3. No part of the work that can be defined by drawings or specification is to be provided for by a sum of money named in the specification. (This is a fruitful source of extras, for the sum named is nearly always insufficient for the design which the architect proposes when the time comes; so you are left to choose between a mean looking thing or having to exceed the contract. I have known that happen to such a large amount in an estimate for carving that the committee were obliged to abandon a great deal of it altogether; and even then there was an 'extra' for substituting masonry. I once made an architect to his great disgust leave a conspicuous piece of work of the mean design which the sum he had fixed would only pay for, as a lesson to him; and there it stood for years, until somebody took pity on it and gave a new one. It may be allowed in small articles of ironmongery and the like, which are not worth specially designing, but no further. Things not to be found or made by the contractor should not be in the contract at all, such as handsome chimney-pieces and other fancy articles which the employer means to choose for himself. But that will hardly occur in competition designs for committees.)

4. The plans and specification are to include (according to local circumstances) all necessary drainage,

16 Conditions for Competing Designs.

heating chamber (there are generally separate tenders for the heating apparatus), bells (not church bells), grates, chimney-pieces (except as above), closets and shelves, provision for gas pipes according to circumstances, boundary walls and pavement, and everything, except furniture, that will be requisite to fit the building for its purpose.

,

but

any

5. The estimate for the whole is not to exceed architect who considers this insufficient for the proper execution of the work required may say so and send in his own estimate either before or with his plans. (I am aware that this is in some respects a dangerous power to give; but considering how incompetent most committees are to fix prices beforehand, it is a less evil than making it impossible to get the work well done.)

6. The committee will not be bound to accept any plan, nor to proceed with any one which they do accept unless they find that a contractor with sureties in one third of the amount of the estimate to be approved by them will undertake it for that sum. If no such contract can be made to their satisfaction, the whole proceeding is to be void and the architect to have no claim upon them. (The conditions of payment, either for drawings or employment, may of course be anything they please to announce, subject to the reminder that architects will also please themselves whether they will compete on those terms, and that the worse they are for them the worse the competitors probably will be. But I shall have more to say on that point independently of competition.)

Responsibility and Powers of Architects. It is commonly assumed that the only alternative besides a competition is to engage an architect from repu

Responsibility of Architects.

17

tation or recommendation; tell him what you want and are prepared to spend; and then, as people are in the habit of saying, 'throw all the responsibility on him.' Whenever I hear that proposed I ask the proposer to explain what he thinks he means by it, and what is the mode of making an architect responsible for a bad design. The only real meaning of 'throwing all the responsibility on the architect' is that you are to give no more attention to the plans of the house you are to live in and pay for than if you had nothing to do with it, or else to sit still and see any number of blunders committed, which you will either have to submit to for ever, or else to pay some other architect for pulling the house to pieces after it is done, to try and cure them.

It is impossible however to lay down any rule for the amount of interference which is expedient or likely to be beneficial to the employer: no rule could be adapted to the infinite varieties of knowledge and ignorance. But the expediency of interfering more or less is one thing, and the right of a man not to be made to pay for doing things for him on his own ground contrary to his expressed wishes, is another. Very few people are aware that every building contract prepared by an architect negatives this right altogether, and that architects distinctly deny it. The legal effect of the common form of contract is neither more nor less than this:-The contractor shall build, whatever it is, according to the plans for so much money; but the architect may order any addition or alteration that he pleases, either before or after any of the work is done, without consulting the employer and even though he may object; and the employer shall pay for it at a valuation, and shall also pay the architect a further percentage for designing it, and a further one besides for valuing it, unless some other

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