How to build a house

by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

“Yes, that is what I mean.”

“Well, then, in remote ages, architects conceived the idea—which was a very natural one—of erecting vertical supports, and placing cross-pieces of wood or stone connecting their summits; and on this open colonnade they raised a roof. This formed a shelter open below, but covered in—what we call a halle. But, as in many cases it was also necessary to close in these covered spaces, they built walls behind these vertical props, leaving between them and the isolated supports a space called a ‘portico.’ It was thus, for instance, that certain Greek temples were designed. By degrees the genius of architects, study, and the observation of the exterior effect, led them to give to these vertical props, and to that which they support—that is, the entablature—relative proportions, of delicate and harmonious type, whence laws were deduced; for I would have you remark that the example always precedes the rule, and that rules are only the results of experience. In this way the Greeks invented three orders: the Ionic, the Doric, and the Corinthian—each of which possesses its system of harmonious proportions and its special type of ornamentation. Among the Greeks these systems were not so rigorously distinct as to prevent their frequently trenching on each other’s precincts.

“But the Romans, who were devotees of order, and who undertook to impose it in everything and everywhere, in adopting these arrangements from the Greeks, insisted on reducing these three systems to an almost absolute formula. That simplified matters, and the Romans were fond of inclosing whatever appertained to art in an administrative frame. A step further in the wrong direction was taken as the result of the study of classical antiquity in the sixteenth century; authorities on the subject presumed finally to settle the relations between the different members of each of these orders; and with a view to leave some degree of latitude to architects, they even added two orders to the three original ones, viz., the Tuscan and the Composite. These stereotyped orders have been applied on every occasion, and in every fashion, just as hangings are attached to a wall to decorate it. Architects have frequently bestowed more thought on placing an order on a façade, than on the disposition of the building erected behind this front. Certainly nothing of the kind more contrary to reason has been produced than the Colonnade of the Louvre, for its ordonnance has no relation to what it contains; and this immense portico, situated on the first story, absolutely serves no other purpose than to obscure the openings for light placed along it, while you never see any one walking in it. But in those days it was obligatory to be magnificent, at whatever cost. We have not entirely renounced this solemn fooling; and even now you may see ‘orders’ placed, without its being possible to say why, in front of buildings that could very well dispense with this adventitious decoration, which is merely designed to prove to the public that there are such things as ‘orders,’ and architects capable of presenting them in those proportions which their formula requires.

“But you will study these branches of architecture a little later on. I think it a bad method of teaching art to allow flowers to be introduced into discourse before the power of expressing thought clearly has been acquired; and it is thus that writers and speakers are formed who take balderdash for eloquence; and architects, who before they think of doing justice to the exigencies of construction, and studying the requirements of the case, amuse themselves with reproducing forms into whose origin, justification, and real meaning they have never inquired. But just now, let us keep to our proper business. It is a house, not a temple or a basilica, that we are building. We have to consider all its parts; and this is work enough for us.

“We have leisure to consider the details of our building thoroughly, since the frost obliges us to suspend the works. Construction, my dear fellow, is an art requiring foresight. The good builder is he who leaves nothing to chance, who does not put off the solution of any problem, and who knows how to give each function its place and value with respect to the whole, and that at the right moment. We have drawn plans for the several stories; we have given the details necessary for constructing the lower parts of the house; now we must draw the working elevations. The first thing is to make an exact section of the front walls giving the height of the floors, the levels of the tie-bars, and the base of the roof.”

Eugène, who, as we may suppose, had previously realized to himself, if not drawn, all the parts of the building, had soon sketched out this section for Paul, who did not cease to wonder at the promptitude with which his master succeeded in drawing on paper any detail required. He could not help remarking it again.

“How do you manage to indicate the arrangement of all these parts of the building without hesitating a moment?” said he.

“Because I have thought about them, and have represented to myself all these parts while drawing or setting you to draw their combinations. If they are not on the paper they are in my head; and when I have to render them intelligible to those who are commissioned to execute them, I have only to write, so to speak, what I know by heart already. And thus it is always desirable to proceed. Look at this section, and these few details (Fig. [42]); let us examine the drawing together; you will soon observe that you have already seen all that the sheet of paper contains, and that with a little attention you would be able to arrange these different parts in their due order. You see the thickness of the wall on the ground floor figured, and with its central line dotted; the height of the window sill, A, and its support; the arrangement of the window casing and its lintel; the height of the floor and its thickness. The string-course, B, had to be determined; it should have the thickness of this floor; it indicates it externally. Then, reducing the outside walls to 1 foot 8 inches on the first floor, we put a set-off course at C; window sills like those of the ground floor. The height of the first story from floor to floor has already been settled. The under member, D, of the cornice indicates the thickness of the second floor; lastly comes the cornice table of hard stone which receives the eaves-gutter. As regards the first floor windows, they are formed like those of the ground floor, excepting that the inside reveal is less deep by 4 inches, since the wall is 4 inches less in thickness. Their lintels are similar, as well as the casing which has to take the sheet-iron jalousies, and the tie-bars come underneath these lintels. As we have gables, the cornices cannot return, and must stop against a projection, E, which, rising above the roof, receives the coping, F, which will have a projecting fillet to cover the junction of the slating with the gable. At G, then, I draw the angle of the building with this projection, E, and the coping we have spoken of. As I foresee that the joists will have too long a bearing in some places, I suppose the intermediate beams, H, to carry them and the corbels, I, for the support of these joists.

Fig. 42.—Section of the Side Walls, with Details.