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.