OF FURNITURE. Part 2.
There is one point touched upon by Mr. Parker in his paper, about which I should like to say a few words: I refer to the question of simplicity in furnishing. I feel that in showing to an assembly of art workers many of the illustrations which we wish to show, some further explanation on this point is due.
There may be rooms required for state purposes in the palaces of kings or the mansions of the great, which call for elaborate & very ornate furnishing: such I do not propose now to consider. I would refer rather to the homes of average middle-class people, where this style of furnishing would be out of place.
Such people have usually thought it necessary for their houses to contain several sitting-rooms, calling them dining-room, drawing-room, and breakfast-room, although the means at the disposal of the great majority would not allow three decent rooms; and the desired number could only be obtained by reducing them all to tiny box-like chambers, not one of them large enough to make a comfortable living apartment. From this supposed necessity has sprung the typical modern suburban residence, which consists of a series of these small box-like chambers more or less cleverly fitted together; while to meet the demand thus caused, we find the warehouses filled with ready-made furniture, supposed to be suitable to these rooms, inscribed “drawing-room suite,” “dining-room suite,” and so on. These also I will not consider; they have no interest, no actual touch on life. Such houses and the furniture which is made for them are no more fitted to the lives of nine out of ten middle-class families than would be the old hall and solar of the middle ages with their rude fittings. My contention is that the great majority of middle-class families live in one sitting-room. It is even pathetic to watch their attempts to do this in houses which seem specially designed to make it as difficult as possible. Many make the dining-room serve them for a living-room, wasting the best room in the house by keeping it vacant, except on more or less state occasions; others live in the drawing-room, taking their meals only in the dining-room. But whatever the arrangement, they all alike seem to be hampered for want of a good comfortable living-room designed and furnished as such.
I want specially to speak of rooms of this class, in the designing and furnishing of which we are at once brought into touch with the daily life of the household, and have scope to consider and meet their actual requirements. In such a room, if they possessed it, most families would take some at any rate of their meals; suitable table and seats must therefore be provided, with something of the nature of a sideboard or dresser to hold the many accessories which are most conveniently kept in the room. The ladies would do their work here and should have cupboards or other provision for their numerous apparatus. A piano and place to keep music will generally need providing; while book shelves, cupboards or drawers for newspapers and magazines, will be required; and some kind of writing table or bureau properly fitted to contain the household stationery & business papers would mostly be a great boon. The room too should have cosy seats, and something in the way of a sofa or settle as the family will sit and rest here; and these must be comfortably placed in relation to the fire, door, and windows. A place would not uncommonly have to be found for children to spend at any rate part of the day, which implies a toy drawer and some space for play.
It is of course only in the smaller middle-class house—which by the way is numerically far the most important—that the whole of the family life is carried on in one sitting-room: but the need of a good living-room is none the less felt in many a larger house where the means of the occupants will allow of their having more rooms than one in regular use. In such houses some of the functions of the living room will no doubt be provided for separately. There will be a nursery or play-room for the bairns in one house; a special room for meals in another: in one, afternoon callers will be received in a boudoir; in another, a study or library will be set apart for more studious pursuits; while the tastes of some families may demand a room set apart for music. But whatever rooms may be added, still, in the great majority of cases, there will be needed one to serve as a general living-room. Just as in the middle ages the great hall was the centre of the house, all the other chambers clustering round and being subordinate to it; so in the modern middle class house a good living room is the first essential, and all the other rooms should be considered in relation to it.
This living room requires furniture and fittings specially suited to its various functions, and its requirements can no more be met by a suite of dining-room or drawing-room furniture than they could by a set of kitchen things. If we remember that large numbers of such houses as we are speaking of are worked with one servant, and the majority with not more than two; it will be obvious that this room, which in so many cases will be used for an early breakfast, must be so arranged that it can be easily and quickly cleaned. If we consider further the great number of articles that must be kept handy in such a room, to say nothing of the people themselves who are to occupy it—for whom after all the room exists, and as a back-ground for whose life it alone has any reason for being—it will be evident that the furniture cannot well be too simple.
If the result is not to become a crowded jumble, ample allowance must be made, in considering the decorations and furnishing, for the life that is to come into the room, and for the hundred and one articles which we may call the implements of such life. These of themselves must form a large element, good or bad, in the decoration of a room; and could they all be obtained graceful and beautiful, there would be a liberal supply of ornament. But this is one of the greatest difficulties; for, while it is possible to find beautiful plaster-work, carving, gesso panels, and so forth, it is almost impossible to obtain the necessary implements of life even tolerably elegant.
In vain do we seek to make a room look beautiful by the elaboration of its decoration and furniture, irrespective of all that goes to make up the life that will be lived in it. The successful room is the one which looks well with all the life in it, not the one which looks its best before it is occupied. It is only by making proper allowance for this life that a living room can be made to look well. Great simplicity is needed in the treatment of a room which may so soon become crowded and restless; but which may also, if properly treated, be more charming and homelike than any other, just because it is so full of life and the evidences of life—a decoration after all by no means to be despised.
RAYMOND UNWIN.
BUILDING & NATURAL BEAUTY.
Around the cottage I live in there is a large rookery, spreading over many trees which form a small wood on the hillside. Last year a pair of rooks began to build a nest in a beech-tree that stands by the cottage: they chose a large bough over-hanging the road, quite away from the general colony, and in a very prominent position. This was evidently the cause of great annoyance to the black-coated community, who again and again destroyed the half-built nest. The enterprising pair maintained their position however; and after some weeks of contention got the nest completed, by working in turns, one mounting guard while the other fetched the twigs. They reared their family without further molestation, so far as I could observe; but this spring the first thing the rooks did was to destroy the last remnants of the nest left by the winter storms.
This interesting little episode of rook life set me musing as to why the community should object to this nest. I could only suppose that its isolated and prominent position offended their sense of the general fitness of things, and that they wished to guard against the first beginnings of “Suburban Villadom.” If so, we must I think commend alike their good sense and their good taste. For there is nothing which it seems more hopeless to harmonize with natural scenery than the modern town suburb. We find plenty of cities, towns, and villages, castles, mansions, and cottages, which are a joy in the landscape; but when a modern town begins to sprawl its squalor or its suburban gentility out into the fields, what desecration of scenery follows! Most people feel this without realising the cause very fully. But if we look for it, we shall find that modern suburbs specially offend in coming between the town and the country; so that, however the city may be fitted to beautify the landscape, we cannot see it from the fields; nor can we catch a refreshing glimpse of the cool green hillside from amidst our busy streets. For between lie miles of jerry cottages built in rows, or acres of ill-assorted villas, each set in a scrap of so-called landscape garden.
In the old towns which we admire when we chance to come on them, we notice that the country comes up clean and fresh right to the point where the town proper begins: and it does begin indeed: honest town, confessed, which does not seek to look half-countrified. In the oldest cities we sometimes find a wall with the country coming right up to the gates, which adds to this effect. In old times all the townspeople lived in the town, and tried to make it comely as a town; and when this was done it generally looked pleasing in the landscape. It was possible to get most charming peeps of country from its streets—framed in perhaps with an old gateway, or with some decent town buildings. Of our modern citizens, all who can afford it live outside the town, removed from those who work to make them wealthy. Hence they lose interest in the town as a dwelling-place, and we get a great central business quarter, surrounded by the residential suburbs containing only poor town buildings or nondescript half-country dwellings. It is not however with suburbs only that we spoil scenery; in isolated buildings, or groups of buildings, we very often put up what is offensive to the lover of country; and it will I think be both interesting and useful to enquire a little further why the buildings which our forefathers put up mostly adorn a landscape, while our own erections so frequently spoil it.
Much of the charm of old buildings is no doubt due to the kindly hand of Time, which not only heals the scars that man makes on the earth, but tones down the raw surfaces, and softens the hard lines and colours of anything he may build. But not to Father Time can we give all the credit. It will be more than he can do, I think, to make our modern suburbs look as beautiful, as fitting in the scenery, as many an old city or country town does. Apart from the question of beauty in the style of building, which of course is an obvious factor of great influence, there are a few more easily understood reasons for the difference between old and new. If we take for example their position: do not old houses and villages generally seem to nestle in a valley, under a hill, or by the edge of a wood or copse, and both by their placing and style convey the idea of shelter and retreat? Sometimes this characteristic was carried so far, that we find houses placed so as to get little or no view. But they were built for busy people who lived mainly out of doors, and returned to their shelter at night as the rooks come home to roost. Too often now we place a building so as to strike a note of defiance with surrounding nature. The thing stands out hard and prominent in the landscape; shouts at you across the valley; and through not co-operating with the scene, fails to convey anything of that sense of nestling in a fitting nook, or on an appropriate ledge—that sheltering under Nature’s wing as it were—which makes a building look really at home.
Then, too, does not the old building seem almost to grow out of the ground on which it stands? Built of the local stone; roofed with material common to the district—thatch, stone shingles, or grey slates, perhaps; harmonizing in colour with the rocks and soil; it is as appropriate to the earth on which it rests, as the twig built nest of the rook is to the tree top on which it sways so lightly and yet so securely.
As we pass from county to county, rejoicing in the unspoilt bits of old villages and towns, we cannot but notice how much of the restful quiet beauty is due to the general harmony. We see the grey stone-roofed village of Yorkshire and Derbyshire, so quietly fitting to the country of rocks and stone walls; the green slate of Cumberland and Westmoreland, that country of bright colouring; the thatch of Shropshire or Somerset, always cosy and homely looking, whether on the timber-framed building or on the whitewashed cottage; or again, the purple slates of North Wales, unobtrusive among the dark blue shadows of her towering peaks, and fitly covering in the cottage whose walls are of rough slabs of the same slate. The red tile, too, coloured with the iron which tints the soil, more widely distributed and in greater variety than any of the roof coverings, though not exactly a natural product only needs to be clothed with the golden green of the lichen to look as much at home as any of the rest: we know it well in Staffordshire, and to think of Whitby without its red roofs is to realise at once what beauty it can give to a scene. Each of these roof coverings has a special beauty of its own; some look well almost anywhere; but we do not always realise how much of roofs we see in a landscape, or to what extent the restful charm of old places springs from their harmony with surroundings and the general prevalence of one material in the district.
Our fathers were not tempted as we are in this. They had to use the local material and to stick to it. There were no railways in their time carrying blue slates to Whitby, or red tiles to North Wales. Now all these materials are brought to our doors, and the builder chooses each according to his own fad; and so we get all sorts of materials and colours hopelessly jumbled up together, with no thought of general harmony.
Our manufactured materials too are less beautiful. Our tiles by perfect machinery are made so true and flat that a modern tile roof looks as though it had been ironed with a polishing iron, like a shirt front. And both our tiles and bricks tend to become so hard and forbidding that no kindly lichen will clothe them, no wind and rain soften and tone them. It gives one something of a shock to see the delicate clematis and the clinging ivy struggling with a wall which, after twenty or thirty years, still looks as hard and new as the day it was built. The old tiles were a little curled in burning, and had a surface rough enough to afford lodgment for moss and lichen; and so the lines were less hard, and the newness of surface and colour soon mellowed into all sorts of lovely shades.
Many an old building that has little pretension to fine architecture, yet adorns a scene of natural beauty by its simple fitness of design, where a modern one would probably spoil it. Such design was the outcome of a natural effort to get the most use and convenience out of materials thoroughly known. Hence a general suitability is found between design and material, and an obvious connection between quaint features and the want that has called them into being. Look at the plainest old four-square thatched cottage, and there will nearly always be some interest in the way the thatch has been coaxed up over a window, or a ridge worked to avoid a chimney gutter, which redeems it from baldness. The same skilful handling of tiles is found in all real tile districts; and so we find many picturesque gables, which we should miss in a country of slates or stone shingles.
There is on all hands evidence of a willingness to give labour without stint; to do a job well and a bit more; to linger over it, and see if a little more work here and there would not improve the look. In fact, we read in these old buildings, as in an open book, of a simple workman who was something of an artist, one who could take pleasure in his work, finding joy in the perfection of what he created, and delight in its comeliness.
Whenever we again raise up such an army of builders, working at their trades with the pleasure of artists, then will all buildings become as beautiful as of old; then will it be possible for such workmen, co-operating with a true architect or master builder, to raise fine architecture, like our old cathedrals and abbeys. No effort of office-trained architects, with workmen whose chief interest on the job is to find ‘knocking-off time,’ can ever take the place of the co-operation between real craftsmen under the leadership of the most able among them: for it is to this that we owe most of the building that we can truly say adorns our country.
RAYMOND UNWIN.
CO-OPERATION IN BUILDING.
As beautiful as an old English village.” The phrase arrests our attention and calls up many a pleasant picture stored in our minds; but with the remembered beauty there comes too the associated sadness of something loved that is fast passing away. The picture we recall may be the view down some long wide village street bordered with clusters of cottages, some opening direct on to the roadside, some with their bright bits of flower border in front; here and there a break in the buildings is marked with the dark foliage of trees in a larger garden; a dignified forecourt with its iron railings reveals an old manor house, or a gate-way in a high wall overhung by elms leads to the vicarage; while at the street end where the road turns away is the lich-gate, leading to the church whose parapetted roof and slender spire rising far above all the surrounding buildings complete the whole group. Or maybe we picture to ourselves rather some village green, with the rows of sunny whitewashed houses, the barns and haystacks of an occasional farmyard, the end of an orchard, and the village school, that are gathered round it.
In such views as these there are houses and buildings of all sizes: the hut in which the old road-mender lives by himself, the inn with its ancient sign, the prosperous yeoman’s homestead, the blacksmith’s house and forge, the squire’s hall, the vicarage, and the doctor’s house, are all seemingly jumbled together; and mingled with them are barns and village shops, wood-yards and wheel-wrights’ sheds. Yet there is no sense of confusion; on the contrary the scene gives us that peaceful feeling which comes from the perception of orderly arrangement. This is the more surprising because the order is rather intuitively felt than seen or consciously realised by the beholder. It is due very largely to the beautiful grouping of buildings and roofs, a grouping which has come so inevitably that it seems as if it would be somewhat difficult to avoid it, or to utterly spoil it. Certainly where many buildings of various characters and sizes are gathered together, as in a village, a picturesqueness of grouping is rarely absent even when the individual buildings have in themselves no special beauty; and very often the introduction of one or two really ugly modern buildings detracts little from this particular charm.
The village was the expression of a small corporate life in which all the different units were personally in touch with each other, conscious of and frankly accepting their relations, and on the whole content with them. This relationship reveals itself in the feeling of order which the view induces. Every building honestly confesses just what it is, and so falls into its place. The smallest cottage has its share of the village street on to which the manor house also fronts. It is content with that share and with its condition, and does not try to look like a villa. It is this crystallisation of the elements of the village in accordance with a definitely organized life of mutual relations, respect or service, which gives the appearance of being an organic whole, the home of a community, to what would otherwise be a mere conglomeration of buildings. This effect is greatly enhanced where the central feature around which the village has clustered, the church, castle, or manor house, is of sufficient size and architectural interest to challenge comparison with the whole village rather than with the individual houses. The impressive pile of the old Priory as seen across the valley towering above all the other grey roofed buildings of the little town of Cartmel, is a fine example of this. The sense of unity is further increased in most old villages by a general harmony in colour and style of the buildings themselves, due to the prevalent use of certain materials, which are usually those found in the district.
In the modern building-estate all these elements of beauty are entirely wanting. The land is cut up into little plots all about the same size; these are sold to a chance collection of people who erect on them houses of any conceivable style, or lack of style; each deals with his own plot quite regardless of the others; and every house seems to be wishing to dissociate itself as much as possible from its neighbours, to look as distinct and imposing as it can. Ground enough not being allowed for each house to stand comfortably within its plot, such separation as exists only makes it possible for every house to block the view from some other, and easy for the occupants to over-look their neighbours and realise their near presence all round to a maximum extent. No grouping of buildings is thought of nor any organized arrangement, beyond occasionally some feeble attempt at laying out streets; and it is rarely indeed that we seem able to erect a public building of any sort at all in scale with the extent of the surrounding houses.
To compensate for the loss of the interest springing from variety of grouping, a loss specially evident in the old-fashioned four-square suburban villa, an attempt is now mostly made to introduce some special features into each individual house, and so to create an artificial picturesqueness. This is not uncommonly done by needlessly cutting up the roof with turrets from which there is no outlook, or gables which serve no purpose except to provide an excuse for a little black and white half-timber work. A street of such houses is however even less satisfactory than one of the old square box houses, in that it is more artificial, and lacks a certain element of dignity which its predecessor often acquired from its very simplicity. In short, around all our towns are spread patches of villadom of the beauty of which no one can cherish any memories, but the ugliness of which causes them to be regarded by many with a cordial hatred; so much so that to the lover of natural scenery the commencement of a new house is regarded as a sure sign of the coming destruction of the old beauty.
Modern conditions of life and work are not conducive to the production of great architecture, and it seems probable that we shall have to await some change in these conditions before much that is really fine in building will be accomplished. But in the simpler buildings required for domestic purposes there are marked signs of improvement. Already a few architects are meeting our wants without affectation or pedantry, but with simple directness and honesty of construction, and are producing individual buildings of great beauty; but so long as these remain isolated examples, mere units in a chance collection, they can do little to help the whole effect. The various buildings must be brought into harmonious relations one with another; the suburb or settlement must be conceived in some broader spirit and developed in relation to a definite idea of the whole, if any improvement is to be effected.
We cannot of course put back the hands of time, nor can we re-create the spirit which built the old churches that crown so many villages. The relationships of feudalism have gone, and democracy has yet to evolve some definite relationships of its own, which when they come will doubtless be as picturesque as the old forms. But allowing full force to these disadvantages, we could, if we really desired it, even now so arrange a new building site that it should not be an actual eye-sore, and might manage that it should have some little of the charm of the old village.
Thanks to the growth of taste among all classes of people there is springing up a demand for something of the kind. In all the large towns are numbers of people who hate the ugly & dreary life that they are condemned to live in them, who love the country and country life, and who will travel long distances to and from their work that they may be able to enjoy them. These people do not want to live in isolated houses, out of sight of their neighbours; they are townspeople of sociable instincts: but neither do they desire to live in a mere extension of the fringe of the town. What they really want are country villages, little centres of life large enough and varied enough to give them interesting human society and a few of the more necessary comforts of modern life, such as a post office, a railway station, efficient drainage and water supply. These people have many common interests, much that all would wish to preserve in a new home, as, for example, fresh air, and an open view of country that cannot readily be spoilt. Just such an amount of associated action as would ensure these advantages for them all, would suffice to give the sense of cohesion to the whole settlement which is so lamentably wanting when each struggles ineffectually to secure as much as he can of them for himself alone. With some co-operation the maximum of these advantages could be obtained for every individual house, be it large or small; without it none but those rich enough to purchase a large tract of country for themselves can be secure of even a limited share of them.
Within easy reach of large towns, estates & farms are constantly changing hands at prices little above their value as agricultural land. Frequently we find the enterprising purchaser takes advantage of the demand for country homes: he spends a few hundred pounds in developing his purchase as a building estate, by making roads and laying drains; then he cuts it up into small plots and sells it at three, five, or even ten times the rate at which he bought it. If a few of those who wish to secure a country home were to purchase such an estate or farm among them, they could get all the advantage of cheap land themselves. If they were then to develop the site on co-operative lines, they could obtain many other equally solid advantages. The houses could be grouped together and so arranged that each would obtain a sunny aspect and an open outlook; and portions of the land could be reserved for ever from being built upon to secure these views.
See plates [11], [38] and [39].
The arrangement that should be adopted to obtain the best result, would depend entirely on the nature of the site. If it were on the ridge of some rising ground, probably the best plan would be to group the houses at each side of a good broad roadway, taking the wide village street as the suggestion; while on a good southern slope, the most successful plan might be to gather the houses and other buildings on three sides of an open space, adopting the village green as the model. Where the site was large enough, and the slope sufficient, a second green with its houses could be arranged, low enough not to obstruct the view from the upper one; or where two sides of a valley were included, villages might be placed on each of the slopes, leaving the valley below for ever free to afford a pleasant prospect for each village. The particular arrangement to be adopted would be a matter for most careful thought, and no building should be commenced until some definite conception of what the completed village was to be like had been worked out. The sites for prospective schools, church, or other public buildings, should be reserved from the first, in accordance with the size to which the available land would allow the community to grow. The houses should be clustered together as much as possible, not set villa-wise each in the centre of a little plot. Some few houses of wealthier members could stand back in larger grounds, taking advantage of outlying positions or sharing in the common outlook as seemed best: their gardens and entrances would make pleasant openings in the buildings. But the majority of the houses should be gathered into groups, which would inevitably acquire picturesqueness from the variety both in size and form of the buildings.
A good number of the houses too might be open to the road or green. The unfenced common coming right up to one’s doorstep, always gives a charming sense of openness whether viewed from within or from without; a sense in no way diminished by the contrast that occasional fenced gardens or forecourts offer where the houses are set back somewhat. All sorts of individual tastes and needs would afford opportunity for obtaining variety: the one thing to be avoided at all costs would be the producing of anything like a street of detached villas.
The common insatiable desire for detachment is very remarkable; it appears to arise mainly from a resigned acceptance of the jerry builder’s party wall as the inevitable one. Everyone suspects a party wall, looks to hear through it his neighbour’s child in the dead of night, or his piano on a Sunday afternoon. Guarantee a sound-proof party wall, and few will be able to give any valid reason why there should be from ten to fifty feet of useless ground between every two houses. In a properly built house, one is really much less conscious of one’s neighbour, and much less over-looked by him, if his house is attached, than if it is a few yards away. Where it is desired, however, many minor devices, such as a highly walled garden or a covered-in yard, may be used with effect to increase the number of separate houses without destroying the grouping.
Artistically, the success of the plan would depend largely on the clustering of the buildings, the avoidance of mere rows on the one hand and of detached villas on the other. But, in addition, some controlling influence must maintain a certain degree of harmony. The use of local materials as far as possible should be encouraged, and the introduction of discordant colours or styles of building be prevented. The extremest degree of simplicity should be allowed, but anything pretentious, showy, or false, be rigidly excluded. Probably this general control could be best secured by giving to some architect in full sympathy with the scheme powers similar to those usually possessed by the agent of a large ground landlord, though exercised in the latter case more often to maintain the value of the property than its beauty.
The question of design in the individual building is one that cannot be touched on here, though obviously a matter of vital importance to the degree of beauty attainable; rather I seek to emphasize the great advance which is possible to us by a right use of such taste and designing ability as may be readily commanded to-day. So soon as the desire for some collective beauty in our buildings has been stimulated, the chief difficulty will have been overcome. If by some little co-operation we can arouse interest and pride in the matter, time will develop that collective appreciation of what is fitting, to which we must look for final success.
Association for mutual help in various ways is undoubtedly the growing influence which is destined to bring to communities that crystalline structure which was so marked a feature of feudal society, and the lack of which is so characteristic of our own. When our new settlements begin to feel this influence they will again take on some of the unity which comes from organic growth. And as this influence increases in force, and interest and thought become more and more centred in the communal institutions and buildings, so will these begin to grow in beauty; for the people will wish to adorn them. The beauty of the village and its public buildings will then become a first consideration, and the pride of the inhabitants will be displayed in these, not in the aggressive elaboration of their own houses.
There is the more hope of this because the practical advantages to be derived from such co-operation as suggested, are so great and obvious as to form just such a reliable basis of utility as is required for the healthy growth of art. Without going fully into this side of the question, a few of the more obvious directions in which co-operation could help people of limited means, after they had associated for the purpose of purchasing and developing their settlement, may be referred to. The improvement and use of the land not required for building purposes, by draining, planting of fruit trees, or the erection of a suitable dairy, would be one of the first and most important of these; this would secure a good supply of pure milk and fresh farm produce, and at the same time allow the open ground to be enjoyed to the full for recreative purposes. A laundry would be another enterprise specially easy to organize on co-operative lines, and even in a village too small to support a fully staffed laundry, it would make all the difference if everyone could have the advantage of a well appointed wash-house instead of having to use the ordinary inconvenient cramped scullery with no proper appliances. In a community where several business men daily journeyed to the town, a co-operative conveyance to and from the station could be arranged in connection with the farm, as could also the general carriage and cartage requirements. In providing education for the young and recreation for all, association would be invaluable; while it could easily be used as a means of buying, on advantageous terms, in large quantities, commodities which cannot economically be obtained in the country in small quantities, and of securing many valuable services for all which would be out of the reach of individuals.
It is of course not necessary that the first steps towards the development of such a building scheme should be taken by the prospective tenants. A landowner might well work on this line; he would find in it a means of adding greatly to the value of estates which might not be available for an ordinary building scheme. If he would lay out a plot of land and offer to all comers a site of such size as they wanted with sufficient open land between them and any future buildings that might block their view secured by perpetual guarantee, he would get plenty of applications even in positions that are not the most favourable. He could also, by building some houses of various sizes and carefully grouping them, give an example of the sort of building he would encourage, which would soon be followed. By retaining some control of plans for buildings to be carried out by others on his land, he would be able to secure a general harmony and a consistent development. He could too enlist the interest of his tenants or purchasers in the growth of the colony, and foster among them co-operative effort in that direction.
On the same lines, also, the state or municipal landlord might relieve the over-crowding in towns by developing hamlets and villages in the out-lying districts wherever they had, or could get, suitable land. And even in the towns and immediately surrounding suburbs, much might be done to remove the dreary ugliness of the streets by the use of co-operation in building, and by the fostering of it in the occupants of the houses. The arrangement would need to be different for a town or suburb, where land would be costly, from that suggested for a village. For just as the price of land in the centre of cities regulates to a large extent the height to which it is profitable to carry up the buildings, so on the outskirts it must determine the area of land that can be allowed to each house. By co-operation it may be secured, however, that all the land which can be afforded shall be available to give air and outlook to all alike, while its actual occupation can be reserved for those who really want a garden.
See plates [6 to 10], also [34] and [35].
In the country we have seen how co-operation could give back to us some of the picturesqueness of old villages. In the same way it would add character and dignity to our towns, even to rows of cottages. What more satisfactory town buildings could one desire than some of the old colleges? Yet these consist primarily of rows of small tenements grouped round quadrangles or gardens with certain common rooms attached. The hall, the chapel, and the gatehouse, are prominent features; while the cloisters, where such exist, affording covered ways from the tenements to the common rooms, help to give a sense of unity to the whole. Why should not cottages be grouped into quadrangles, having all the available land in a square in the centre? Some of the space so often wasted in a useless front parlour in each cottage, could be used to form instead a Common Room, in which a fire might always be burning in an evening, where comfort for social intercourse, for reading, or writing, could always be found. Such a room could be used also for music & general recreation, and might add much colour to the lives of all those who frequented it. To this Common Room could be added a laundry and drying-room fitted with a few modern appliances which would not only reduce by half the labour and time occupied in the weekly wash, but would take the bulky copper and mangle out of each cottage, and relieve them all of the unpleasantness of the steam and the encumbrance of the drying clothes. In connection with this a bath-room could be arranged for groups of the smallest cottages, while the growth of co-operation would soon bring the common bakehouse and kitchen. From this to the preparation of meals and the serving of them in the Common Room would be only a matter of time; for the advantage of it is obvious. Instead of thirty or forty housewives preparing thirty or forty little scrap dinners, heating a like number of ovens, boiling thrice the number of pans & cleaning them all up again, two or three of them retained as cooks by the little settlement would do the whole, and could give better and cheaper meals into the bargain.
It is not only to those who live in cottages that co-operation offers advantages. From another class we hear much of the great servant difficulty. Hotels, boarding houses, and hydropathics, are springing up in every direction to accommodate those who are seeking to escape from the worry of servants, the trouble and expense of jerry-built houses, and the endless small anxieties that go to the running of a separate establishment. But hotels and boarding houses do not really meet the wants of this class. What they need is some arrangement by which they could retain the privacy and individuality of a separate house, while gaining the advantage, which they have in a boarding house, of properly organized service and skilled cooking. These needs would be admirably met by groups of houses arranged to give ready access to a communal establishment, where meals would be supplied, laid either in the common dining room or in the private house as desired; where the occasional use of commodious rooms could be obtained for entertaining purposes; and from whence properly trained effective helps could be sent out daily, for as long or as short a time as might be required, to do all the domestic work of the separate houses, or such part of it as the occupants might prefer not to do themselves. Such an establishment could readily be built and worked on co-operative lines, giving many of the advantages of hotel life without entailing its disadvantages or its costliness.
The planning of the Common Rooms would require much thought and care. On this would depend greatly the success of the co-operative effort. The usual small meeting-room, high, four-square, having a great deal of tawdry decoration, but lacking anything whatever to give a sense of comfort or to add a bit of interest, would be fatal. High the rooms should be, in parts, sufficient to give air space and promote easy ventilation. But there should be deep recesses or ingles with low ceilings, places which by the contrast of their special cosiness should attract people to sit there. If there could be a little gallery for the musicians, a deep balcony overlooking the street or the gardens for the smokers, these would prove great attractions for which everyone would gladly dispense with the adornments usually thought necessary for public rooms: though adornments of a more interesting character there well might be, and undoubtedly would be, when people came to appreciate their Common Rooms. As such co-operative quadrangles multiplied, the necessary variety to suit different habits of life would arise; for even those composed of houses of similar size would become differentiated, somewhat as different colleges in a university acquire a character for hard reading, for athletics, or for sport, and each could choose according to his tastes. The essential thing from the æsthetic point of view is that there shall be enough co-operation to secure some grouping of buildings, some centralising influence on them.
How different our streets would look if instead of the rows upon rows of dreary uninteresting cottages and hardly less dreary terraces of larger houses, we could have blocks such as suggested. Some might be adorned with a colonnade facing the street, and leading to the common rooms at the corner; some might have a comely arched gateway into the court as a special feature, through which, as one passed, a peep at the quadrangle, tennis ground, or garden, would be obtained. There need be nothing elaborate about such buildings. Quite simple cottages or houses, with some variety of size to suit large and small families, a little taste in proportioning doors, windows, and other details, a little imagination in welding them into a complete whole—these would suffice to change our dreary streets into something, the beauty and interest of which would be a constant source of pleasure.
Architecture has always reflected the condition of the society in which it flourished, being great in times of organisation, and deteriorating in times of disintegration. Recently it has very clearly represented the inordinate desire for individual independence. One sees terraces of houses, each painted a different colour to try and emphasize their independence. Or one may find the gable end of a porch which is common to two villas, painted half a bright green to match one house, half a chocolate red to accord with the other. These may be extreme instances, but they are very typical of the length to which independence has been carried. Society is, however, now realising very fast that this independence is no end in itself, and is only good in that it sets free the individuals to form new relationships based on mutual association. This is already having its effect on architecture, in that it is now not uncommon for the individual to make some effort to have his buildings made beautiful for the public to look at, as well as convenient for himself: the interest of the community in the matter is so far acknowledged. Very soon it will seem equally obvious that the relations of the separate buildings to each other should be considered, and concerted effort be directed to the creation of streets with at least some unity and dignity of effect, and settlements that, if they may not have all the charm of the old English village, shall at any rate look at home in their country surroundings.
RAYMOND UNWIN.
THE ART OF DESIGNING SMALL HOUSES AND COTTAGES.
By Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin.
A paper read by Mr. Unwin before an audience of Architects in January, 1901.
In the domestic branch of architecture, each commission presents to us a fresh problem, full of human interest, the right solution of which demands that we shall consider it from many points of view. We must look upon the task primarily as the providing of a suitable setting for the life of our client and his family. In this connection, not only his actual wants but his ideals of life have to be taken thought of; nor must we overlook our possible influence upon him through his house.
Again, each house appeals to us as a new creation of our art. We are in much the same position as the portrait painter: the likeness, truly, is that of the sitter, but the interpretation of it, the setting, and the colour—in short, the art of the picture—belong to the painter. So, too, the house as a habitation belongs to and must satisfy the client, while as a work of art it belongs to and must satisfy its designer. In this matter we stand as guardians, alike of our reputation and of the general interest of the public as beholders of the building. The right of the public to be considered is much clearer than many seem to realize. No one who might add to the joy of life by building something comely should add to its gloom by building what is ill-looking.
I do not anticipate that these considerations, or those to which we shall presently come, are new to you. But it is probable that they would appeal to each one in a different order of relative importance, so that in no two of us would our attitude towards the problem be exactly alike. In no house can every advantage be obtained; each must be somewhat of a compromise; in each there must be a sacrificing of what we deem less important to secure what we esteem of greater value. It follows that the variety of our attitude must produce individuality in the result. When, therefore, you did me the honour to suggest that I should bring this subject before you, I felt that the best response I could make would be to try to give you, as from one fellow-workman to another, some account of the way in which we approach our domestic work, hoping, that in comparing this, and the results which we shall show, with other methods and results, you might find some little interest.
Suppose then that we have received a commission for a dwelling house; that we have made ourselves sufficiently acquainted with our new client’s wishes, his mode of life, and habits, by getting him to write to us very fully of everything he would like to be specially considered, discussing points with him, or visiting his home, as circumstances may suggest; and further, that we have made full notes of all the instructions and information thus gathered for our own use; the first thing is to visit the site and devote some time to thinking out the problem on the spot.
The site is the most important factor to be considered, for it usually suggests both the internal arrangement and the external treatment. If the site is a large one the position of the house upon it must first be determined. In past times the house was regarded mainly as a shelter, and this greatly influenced the choice of its position. But we do not to-day so much build shelters for people who live out of doors, as dwellings whence they may occasionally go forth. A primary consideration then must be, to so place the house as to afford its occupants the greatest possible enjoyment of such beauty of adjacent country or grandeur of distant view as the site can command. While doing this, however, we must place and design the house in such a way that it shall not stand out as a disturbing excrescence, but shall look at home in its site, in harmony with its surroundings.
This consideration of the house as a detail in a larger picture will bring us to a determination of its general form, its treatment and its colouring. Some positions demand a lofty building, while others seem to suggest that it be kept as low as possible. And in the country, certainly, the low house is more successful, more in harmony with the scenery; perhaps because it is suggestive more of man’s dependence upon Nature, less of his defiance of her powers. In the choice of materials and colouring, harmony rather than strong contrast should be sought. There is only one sure way of obtaining this at all generally, which is, of course, to keep to local materials and local ways of using them. At any rate I think we may lay it down that strong reasons of use or economy are needed to justify a departure from these. Where a departure is made, let the contrast with what is usual in the district be as slight as may be. We do not enough consider when we introduce for the first time into some valley a bright red roof, how it will haunt the eye from every point of view, and may go far towards marring the beauty of the whole scene by destroying its restfulness. We should let the surroundings which are to constitute the picture suggest the colouring as well as the form of the new object we are about to introduce. Some definite scheme suitable to the position should be adopted, and colours of paint and any enrichments made to contribute to it.
Greatly as must the site influence the external treatment of the house, its internal arrangement will be even more definitely dictated by it. The position of each room in relation to the points of the compass & the outlook should be determined on the spot. It is now pretty generally realised that no sacrifice is too great which is necessary to enable us to bring plenty of sunshine into all the main living rooms. In the South of England perhaps some moderation must be observed in applying this rule, there being no inconsiderable number of days on which a too sunny room may become unbearably hot; and, where the size of the house will allow of it, to have an east and west room is often a great boon. But over the greater part of our country, certainly in the Midlands and the North, the importance of arranging for the few days when the sun is oppressive is small indeed compared with that of planning to suit the many days when every hour of sunshine is of the utmost value. The general rule, then, would seem to be, so to contrive as to get the sunshine into a room at the time when it is most likely to be occupied. Let a study or breakfast-room be east or south-east, a general living-room or drawing-room south and south-west. A good western window in the room we most occupy during the latter part of the day, gives us many an extra hour of daylight; while the opportunity it affords us of habitually seeing the bright colour of sunset is a privilege which is worth some effort to obtain. A kitchen is best north-east or east, for the first coming down into the fireless house may well have its cheerlessness reduced for the servants by what sunshine is to be had at an early hour; later in the day, when the kitchen is hot with cooking, the heat of the sun should not be added. A bath-room and bedrooms, too, are pleasant with an eastern aspect, though some cannot sleep in a room into which early sunshine can come.
Next only in importance to such considerations of aspect, and certainly important enough to modify them somewhat, is the question of prospect; for a pleasant outlook is a boon only less great than a sunny aspect. We must not ignore a fine view even when it can only be had to the north, and much less must we allow any trivial conventions, like the old commonly accepted idea that the front of the house should be to the road, to betray us into sacrificing such solid advantages as sunshine and a pleasant view. In fact, to produce a good plan, one should go to the site without any preconceived conventions, but with a quite open mind, prepared to think out each fresh problem on the spot from the beginning, and to receive all the suggestions the site can offer. I hope you will pardon me if I seem to insist unduly on the importance of so elementary a principle as that of building to suit each site. But one sees the principle so commonly disregarded that it is needful to emphasize it. Not only do we find houses perched uncomfortably on the shoulder of a hill, or thrust into prominence one way or another regardless of their effect on their surroundings; but, in arrangement, the disregard of the site is carried so far that semi-detached houses are even built with their plans just reversed, so that a plan designed for the north end is made to serve for the south, or one arranged to suit the east side allowed to pass for the west. Before leaving the site one should be able to carry away not only detailed notes of drainage, water supply, levels, fine trees, views and aspects, but also a general idea as to the best arrangement of the rooms of the new house, an ideal plan to be aimed at, and a sort of mental sketch in block of the general form the new creation should take externally.
It would be only tedious to you if I were to go through all the items of a house, trying to deal with them in a general way. I will therefore now take one or two definite examples, and explain how and why we worked them out as we did, trusting that the interest which attaches to any actual problem solved may come to my aid and redeem the details from tediousness.
We have chosen for the first example a country house designed for a site in North Staffordshire, partly because this site is not one to very obviously suggest or very imperatively demand a special treatment. The plot of land consists of a small field, long, and rather narrow; it is much the shape of a suburban building plot, though situated right in the country. The main road runs along the north-east end, and the ground rises on the far side of this road, cutting off all view in that direction. The ground falls from the road towards the south-west: the slope being very slight at the top, suggests a level terrace on which to place the house. The land continues to fall away to a stream; across this there is a very pleasant view, which becomes finest to the south of the plot.
See plate [1].
The client required the house to have a good comfortable living-room for the general family life; another good room for entertaining guests and callers; a small den for his own use, with desk, safe, and sample cupboards; four bedrooms, one to be a bed-sitting-room for an only son; and a kitchen with the usual offices. The house was to be arranged to give as much open-air life within as possible. As the site is exposed to the prevailing winds, and the best prospect is in the direction whence they blow, some form of court upon which the rooms might open, suggests itself as a means of obtaining the needful shelter. The stableyard not being very suitable for the purpose, the house is grouped about a very small central court, round which a corridor is planned fitted with sliding windows, so that it can be converted at will into a sort of small open air cloister by sliding the sashes down below the sill. This is roofed over at as low a level as possible, to avoid anything of the feeling of a well, which a court, as small as this needs must be, might soon produce. The main roof also is made to slope away from the court in all directions, so that a good deal of sunlight may find its way in. Upon this corridor the main rooms open with wide double doors, and the court being protected against wind on all sides, it is possible, except when extremely cold, to have the living rooms much more open to the fresh air than is usual. A ventilating stove prevents cold draughts in winter. The kitchen, butler’s pantry, front and side entrances, and stairs all communicate with the corridor, but so as not to destroy the privacy of the living rooms by obliging anyone to pass the doors when going from one to the other. Pleasing vistas are obtained from the rooms across the court, and from the corridor into the rooms, such as it is not often possible to contrive in so small a house. This charm of vista should always be thought of when planning. The living-room, as the most generally occupied, and therefore most important room, is placed at the south corner, having the double outlook to south-east & south-west, and getting all available sunlight and the best of the prospect. It is not enough to give a room windows in the right direction, however; the room must be so arranged that it shall, so to speak, turn its face right; and the windows be so placed that one would naturally look out of them from the most usually occupied parts of the room. For this reason an angle window commanding the pick of the view is thrown out on the south-east side. This brings the sun well into the room, and at the same time provides a good well-lighted position for the piano, from whence anyone can easily face to the whole room while singing. For the same reason the fire is put on the north-east wall; and, that a thorough sense of cosiness may always be obtainable, it is placed in a deep recess or ingle.
Now an ingle affords a very good instance of how easy it is to misuse the old examples which we study, and that in two manners. For while some neglect altogether the suggestions which they offer, others copy the old forms without troubling to understand them. To make use of old features legitimately, of course, one must first understand the reasons which called them into being, the difficulties which they were designed to meet: and when similar reasons or difficulties present themselves to us we may then avail ourselves of the solution which they indicate, not copying slavishly the details, but taking the principle and working it out to suit our own particular circumstances. The ingle had two main uses: the first was to protect a wide open fire from the cross draughts arising from badly fitting or open doors, shutters and windows; the second was to afford sheltered seats near the fire, where the aged and feeble could rest and anyone could keep warm in cold or rough weather. Incidentally, no doubt, our forefathers appreciated the value of contrast, the charm of the ruddy fire-lit space glowing red in the grey ill-lighted building, and the cosiness of the sheltered low recess in the wide and lofty hall. To obtain this charm, as is often done, by forming an ingle so small that one cannot sit in it comfortably, is merely to remove the fire further from the room; while on the other hand, to arrange a large ingle, as is also sometimes done, with a modern tiled register stove set in a chimney breast, is to lose the feeling of sitting on the hearth, and the charm that springs from the fire being able to cast its glow all over the recess and be seen from every part where one can sit. The ingle adapted to modern use, and justifying the space it occupies in rooms of moderate size, must be large enough to be comfortable for one to sit in regularly, a place where one can live, not merely sit to be roasted. The fire must be so designed as to have something of the feeling of the old fire on the hearth, and must not be cut off from the recess or in any way allowed to grow into a fireplace within a fireplace. It is generally well to make the whole recess into the hearth, and we often arrange for the fire to burn in a suitably shaped fire-brick hollow, which answers all purposes excellently. The ingle must be protected from cross draughts, otherwise the fire cannot be sufficiently exposed. Fenders are best avoided, and anything like a loose coal-box is a disadvantage. A coal-box can often be contrived in the thickness of the wall. When properly arranged, and fitted with comfortable low seats, the ingle always proves to be a favourite part of the room; the place where people naturally go to sit and rest.
But I am digressing from the plan, and must return to the living-room which we are designing. There the ingle is of somewhat special construction, having several small windows to afford peeps out towards the court and the view, and to give light conveniently placed for reading; and also having cupboards for the display of oriental pottery. The seats are made long enough to recline on.
See also plates [25] and [50].
A large sunny bay facing the fire is arranged to be used as a dining recess, except in very cold weather. Such a recess relieves a living room from being uncomfortably blocked up with a meal-table. The bay also gives us a west window through which the evening light will come.
In all rooms there is a part by the door where no one willingly sits, because of a certain lack of comfort; it is well to keep such part of the room as small as possible. Very often a room may be actually improved by being reduced in width just where the door opens, while the space cut off may be put to valuable use. In this case the sheltered south-west balcony, which is obtained by narrowing the two rooms opposite the doors, adds greatly to the amount of open air life it is possible to enjoy, and makes it easy to have the pleasure of frequently taking meals in the open: the little window by the sideboard is convenient to hand things through for this purpose. A recessed balcony is, in our climate, much more useful than any projecting verandah. It is possible, owing to the extra shelter, to sit in such a balcony two or three times as often as in the verandah with open ends.
See plate [32].
In this room, a sideboard, a large cabinet and the other important furniture, form part of the scheme: they are thought out and designed with the building. In the treatment of the room advantage is taken of the beams and lintels required for the recesses, and where these are lacking a deep picture rail carrying line with them is adopted, under which the sideboard, cabinet, and most of the windows are arranged to finish, leaving an unbroken frieze above, and giving a sense of order and unity to the whole. This frieze is decorated with a painted suggestion of landscape; but in simpler treatment, if whitewashed, or coloured with the ceiling, it would be light & satisfactory. The lower portion of the walls, under the decorated frieze, is finished in plaster tinted to the required shade by mixing colouring matter with the skimming coat; this forms a good, plain, solid-looking background for either pictures, furniture, or the people who inhabit the room.
Where economy is any consideration we may keep rooms as low as possible, giving additional space outwards, which is as valuable as space upwards for use as an air reservoir, and for all other purposes so much more valuable. This house is nine feet from floor to floor.
See plate [33].
The hall, or entertaining room, being intended for less constant as well as more formal use, takes a somewhat simpler shape. Placed at the west corner with windows south-west and north-west it gets all the sunshine during the afternoon and evening, when most occupied. It is immediately accessible from the entrance, and opens upon the balcony and garden through a double window. The fire is placed in an ingle contrived under the stairs and half landing, an arch being used in this case to carry the chimney stack and form the recess. The flue from the fire is brought over on to the arch by means of a copper hood. A little bay, partly in the porch, lights this ingle. The messenger’s seat in the porch, a cupboard, and a coal box complete the utilization of the space under the stairs, which is thus not only made to add to the convenience, but also to contribute something to the interest of both the room and the porch.
Adjacent to the entrance is the small sanctum. Here, again, something is taken off the square room, which, while improving it rather than otherwise by giving a recess for desk and pigeon holes, enables us to have a small vestibule with cupboard for visitors’ hats and cloaks. A comfortable corner between fire and window is left clear for easy chair and reading stand.
Behind the living-room, with its fireplace at the back of the living-room fireplace, is placed the kitchen. It occupies the east corner of the house, and has its main window to the north-east, the right aspect for a kitchen. There is a small window to the south-east, to light the range and make a comfortable place for sewing or reading. One corner between fire and window should always be kept free from doors in a kitchen, so that there may be a place to sit in; and a still more comfortable kitchen results, when it is possible to collect all the doors on one side.
The larder has its window in the back porch, to get a north aspect; while thorough ventilation is secured by an opening on the south-east under the eaves where the sun cannot reach it. The cellar was added after the preliminary plans were made, the scullery being re-arranged to allow of it. This latter is shaped to obstruct as little as possible the squint window in the living-room ingle, and at the same time faces south, which, as there is no fireplace, is a good aspect for it.
The staircase rises from the corridor, and as it is accessible from all parts without passing the doors of the reception rooms, a back staircase is not needed. Where economy is a consideration the back staircase is one of the first things which may be dispensed with, for it adds so little real comfort in proportion to its cost.
See plate [2].
The bedroom plan follows pretty closely the ground plan, the bedrooms also leading off a corridor round the inner court. All four bedrooms are arranged so that in addition to being convenient as bedrooms, they have at least a corner near the fire comfortable to sit in. In small houses to regard a bedroom as a sleeping room only is a mistake. The accommodation is greatly increased when each member of the household can use his or her bedroom as a private den also. The balcony is repeated on the first floor—the bedrooms being as serviceable without the space it occupies—and by reason of the parapet and overhanging eaves, it is even more sheltered than that on the ground floor; and it is thus possible in two bedrooms to sleep practically in the open air in almost all weathers. It has special value, too, as an addition to the west room, which is designed for the boy’s bedroom and study. Here the bed fits in a deep recess out of the way; a washstand is contrived in the sill of the window of the same recess, which is slightly bayed to give the needful room; and a curtain may be drawn across, cutting off all the special bedroom appliances; so leaving a good comfortable study. A window is put to bring the south-east sun into bedroom No. 3, the wide sill of which in the rather narrow room may be used for a dressing table. In bedroom No. 4 an over-hanging window recess is carried out on the joists, to avoid the want of comfort which one always feels on the window side of a room when the door opens right in the corner, as here. This room has also a little window towards the court to bring in morning sun; and thus all the bedrooms get through ventilation and plenty of sunshine.
Of the treatment of the rooms little need be said. The recesses by the chimney breasts are fitted with cupboards and bookshelves, which are designed to include simple framings or mantels for the fireplaces, and the cornices of which are arranged to match the cornice over doors and windows and to carry line with a picture rail running round the room. Wall papers or other decorations stop at this rail, all above being taken in with the ceiling. This arrangement enables the ceiling to be broken up by the slopes of the low roofs without giving the ugly odds and ends of papered wall, which really are the only unpleasing feature about a ceiling broken up in that way.
During the whole of the planning the elevations are of course kept in view, and the block design carried away in the mind from the site constantly exerts a modifying influence. The difficulty usually is to maintain sufficient simplicity; so many features are suggested by little conveniences of planning that one has continually to cut them out, never to seek for them merely for the sake of effect.
This plan which we have just considered, representing, perhaps, rather a large house to be classed as “small,” does not quite illustrate one point to which we attach very great importance in the designing of small houses. The second plan shown gives me an opportunity of referring to this. Here a special effort was made to obtain one room giving some sense of space in a house not large enough to contain several large rooms. In all small houses much must be sacrificed, but it seems to us to be infinitely less of a sacrifice to reduce the number of rooms, than to reduce the size of them all. In every small house it should be a first consideration to secure one room large enough to allow of some interest being worked into the room itself, and to afford some comfort and dignity of life to its occupants.
See plates [3], [64], and [65].
In the plan now before us the hall was made into the chief living room; it is carried up two stories to provide for an organ gallery. The gallery leading to the balcony, the landing, and the staircase, are all thrown into this hall; the stairs are so arranged as to afford a screen to the fire, and form a sort of deep ingle with low ceiling under the landing. The low ceiling continues under the organ gallery and the balcony, the central part of the hall being open to the full height. The sense of cosiness in this ingle is greatly enhanced by contrast with the lofty open space outside; while the variety in lighting, whether when the morning sun streams in at the great east window, or when the ingle glows red in the gathering dusk, adds a perpetual charm. In the gallery is a second fire, with a lounge seat by the organ, under a kind of canopy formed by the half-landing of the second floor stairs.
See plate [4].
To obtain this spacious hall the remainder of the house has been reduced as much as possible. Only one other small room, for den or meal-room, is provided, with kitchens, offices, and four bedrooms, two of which are on the second floor. Lest you should be inclined to think that only for people living a very exceptional life would it be advantageous to throw so much space into one room, I will next refer to a design drawn for a London literary man, who, though not able to afford a large house, still by reason of his position required occasionally to be able to entertain a good many people. Here the first consideration has been to obtain a hall which would be at once a comfortable living-room and a dignified entertaining room. The meal-room has been kept as small as would just allow of a little dinner-party being given in it. The fire is placed in one corner, the sideboard in another; had it been possible to put the door also in a corner it would have been still more convenient, for in a small dining-room it is in the corners that there is a little space to spare. The narrow Hampstead building plot, having a south-west aspect, and the best prospect to the south, dictated the general arrangement of the house and the placing of the best room at the south corner. This room is spanned by two arches to carry the wall of the study over; within one of them is placed the fire recess with seats and fitment, thus using up all the space under the stairs to add to the size and character of the room; while the stairs themselves, which are shut off from the vestibule by a door, are also open to the room, the quarter-landing forming a small gallery overlooking it.
The staircase is such an essentially interesting and decorative feature in a house, and the space under and around it may be made to add so much to a room both in size and individuality, that it always seems a pity to shut it off in a mere passage. In old houses the charm of some departure from the plain room is well recognised, for the favourite view, alike for the artist and the photographer, is always that which contains some peep of stairs from the hall, some gallery, balcony, ingle, or deep window recess. When the most is made of such advantages as can be claimed for the bare square room, they seem but a poor compensation for the loss of character and charm.
Over the hall in this house are placed the client’s study and bedroom, the two being combined that both may have the benefit of the whole air space: book cases and curtains screen off the bedroom portion. Double doors and double windows are fitted to this room, for perfect quiet both by day and by night is essential; and further to secure this, ventilation is obtained independently of the windows by means of two fireplaces and an air shaft built in one of the stacks. The client’s wife, son and daughter all proposed to make considerable use of their bedrooms in the day time.
But I must pass on now to cottages, the second part of our subject. The distinction between a small house and a cottage, never a very clear one, has been further obscured by a common affectation of simplicity. The word certainly suggests a simple shelter for a simple form of life, and for our purposes I propose to regard as a cottage any house in which separate accommodation is not provided for servants. Provision for domestic help there may be, but it must be “as one of the family,” not constituting a separate class to be separately provided for.
To cottages, what has been said about the advantage of securing a good living-room, even at great sacrifice of other conveniences, applies with additional force. For not only is the total space at our command usually less, but the number of functions which the living-room has to provide for is greater, many of the functions of a kitchen being added to it. To combine the comfort of a living-room with the convenience for work of a kitchen will tax our skill in planning, and as the space we can give becomes less, our care in the disposal of it must become greater.
Let us again proceed by way of example, taking a largish cottage designed for a client who wished to live a quiet simple life, yet on a scale that would allow of his enjoying the more necessary comforts and refinements. The site is near a small Derbyshire town, and consists of a mound caused by the out-crop of some shale grit. On the north runs a stream, to which the ground falls precipitously; the road is to the west, and there is a steep fall here also; to the east the fall is slight, while to the south the ground rises gently. There are fine views in all directions, most interesting to the north, least so to the south. The client, however, desired the main windows of the living-room to be to the west, having a special liking for the evening light. The site seemed to demand a simple oblong house with plain span-roof kept as low as possible, forming a sort of crest on the steep-sided mound.
The western end of the building becomes the living-room, having windows with the desired outlook. There is a window to the north to command the best of the view; another on the south side admits plenty of sun; and in addition on this side there is the outer door, placed there that it may be possible to enjoy the charm which a door opening direct from a room upon a sunny garden always gives. Such a door must, however, be so placed that while the peep out is obtained the comfort of the room is not destroyed. Here we have gathered the two doors and the stair foot together in a narrow part of the room out of the way, leaving all the rest of the space comfortable to occupy. The fire is placed on the north wall, in a deep recess; one side of which is devoted to rest, the other to work. The former is occupied by a comfortable low seat; in the latter is fixed a plate-rack, and a working dresser fitted with a small fixed bowl for washing up glass and china. All the kitchen work done in the living-room is thus confined to the one corner handy to the fire for cooking, and well lighted by the north window. The fireplace is designed to be used as a closed cooking stove or as an open fire to sit round. The floor of the recess is tiled, which enhances a little the feeling of sitting on the hearth, and at the same time affords the most easily cleaned surface for the working corner. The arrangement, though producing a little the effect of a room within a room, secures at anyrate some of the cosiness of an ingle. We are enabled to get a sheltered garden-seat by reducing the width of the recess to a more comfortable dimension. The ingle is further defined by an archway, on one side of which is fitted a writing desk, and on the other the piano is designed to stand, occupying part of the space under the rising stairs, the remaining portion being taken up with a store cupboard opening into the kitchen. A second resting place is provided by a wide low window seat in the main window. Fixed seats are arranged for two sides of the meal table, one having a high back to screen it from any draught coming through the outer door.
To this one good room is added a kitchen for the more dirty work, fitted with a small range; a good cupboard for coats and hats by the entrance; a coal-place and larder. Upstairs are four bedrooms, necessarily rather small; one has a bed-recess taken off the largest room to help it, and as it is over the low ceiling of the ingle, it gets the advantage of extra height under the sloping roof; and thus the low ceiling, which adds so much to the feeling of cosiness in an ingle, is made to benefit the bedroom over. Where some such arrangement as this is not possible, we sometimes utilize the space between the low ceiling and the floor above as a storage cupboard, and we often take advantage of it for ventilating purposes, by bringing fresh air into the room, slightly warmed by passing behind the fire, and delivering it over the opening to the recess, where it is distributed with the least possible draught. Where an outlet into a flue is desirable to supplement the exhaust due to the fire, we find this a very good place to arrange it. In a room with close-fitting iron casements, sufficiently well built not to leak excessively through floors, skirting, and door, the most frequent cause of a smoky chimney is the want of sufficient air supply, and some form of inlet is an absolute necessity. For bedrooms this may be successfully arranged in some cases through a hollow fender kerb.
All the bedrooms in this cottage are so arranged as to have a fairly comfortable corner between the fire and a window, where one can sit to read or write. An east aspect is obtained for the bath-room, and a linen cupboard warmed by the cylinder is provided.
Of the elevations I need only say that local random range stone is used for the ground story, while for the upper portion the need for obtaining four bedrooms over a house so narrow requires the use of nine inch brick walls which are rough-cast in cement. The roof is covered with local stone slate.
It is obvious that the living-room of this cottage could with much less trouble have been made a four-square room with a fire at one end and a door at the other; and might have been furnished with a mixture of kitchen and parlour furniture. But I shall have sadly missed the purpose of this paper should you not now feel, as we do, that life would be immensely more comfortable and more dignified in a room such as I have been describing, where each requirement has been considered and provided for, and which has had just the shape and arrangement given to it that seemed best to meet those requirements; where, moreover, all the furniture has been designed in keeping with its place and its purpose, so that there is no incongruity between the desk and the dresser, the piano and the plate-rack.
Time will not permit me to refer in detail to any smaller cottage plans. But enough has, I hope, been said to make it quite clear, that, whatever the size of the house, we think it should grow, both as a utilitarian plan and as an artistic creation, out of the real needs of the occupants; and that the art of designing small houses and cottages consists, not in following any accepted code of conventions, however useful these may be in their place, but in working out such a convenient and comely setting for the special life that shall be lived in them as shall enable that life to expand itself to the fullest extent, not merely unhampered by the building in which it is clothed, but actually stimulated by a congenial surrounding.
