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objectionable character in bricks, since he remembered when, some months back, he visited Tskudashima where bricks were manufactured in considerable quantities by the convicts there, the Governor of the prison pointed out with great glee how a stack of black bricks absorbed pailful after pailful of water as it was thrown over them. He thought all must agree that Mr. Brunton’s severe criticisms of the new buildings in Tokio and Yokohama were most just, especially as regards the pastrycook style of architecture, the one most in vogue, which produced residences like sugared cakes, of layers of white plaster hiding a framework of unseasoned and ill-jointed wood. The builders of these houses appeared to have exercised the greatest ingenuity in combining the flaws of Japanese dwellings with the vices of second-rate European suburban villas; for where, in the modern Japanese house was the graceful roof-curves, the quaintly-moulded corner tiles, the grand entry with its curved scrolls, the picturesque eaves, the ingenious arrangement of rafter, and decorated panels of the Daimio’s home? Whilst warmth and solidity, so rightly esteemed as most important characteristics of European buildings, were conspicuous by their absence. He could scarcely agree with Mr. Brunton that the new brick houses in the Odori of Tokio, the main street of the metropolis of Japan, were satisfactory; since he considered the pretensions to the classic style displayed in the architecture had produced a result not more happy than the absence of all architecture in the more flimsy structures previously referred to. He doubted whether Europe’s ancient Gothic architects would approve of the new mongrel red-brick buildings of Tokio, that bear go strong a resemblance to national school-houses. In addition, to a race like the Japanese who loved brightness and sunshine, who passed the greater portion of their lives in the open air he could imagine nothing more distasteful than the small windows, absence of verandahs, and general gloom of a medieval building. What was really wanted in this country at the present moment was an architect who had thoroughly mastered the varieties and styles of the European schools of architecture, and who, in addition, had also studied the ingenious development of wooden structures in the United States. Such a man after arriving here would with similar industry study Japanese buildings and their extreme siutability, in many respects, to the climate of the country and the tastes of the people. He would then be in a position to evolve buildings that did not as now combine the evils of all styles, but which, instead, bore evidence that the best points of native and imported art had been judiciously selected. We might then have buildings possessing the beauties of the yashiki and the conveniences and comforts of a first-rate English building.
The Meeting then terminated.
