Nothing attracts more attention than a beautiful house. It is a pleasure to every one. It is as important to have a house beautiful as it is that it should be convenient. The same education and thoughtfulness that will enable an architect to design a convenient house will make it beautiful. No one can be conscientious in the consideration of the comfort of the housekeeper and neglect the smallest detail leading to the beauty of the house. The housekeeper lives in the hope of having a beautiful home. It has been the purpose, in writing this book, to bear all this in mind, and to add the element of convenience to what has been said and done by others toward making beautiful houses.
It costs no more to have a house beautiful than to have it ugly. Beauty, like convenience, is largely a matter of thoughtfulness and education. The only excuse for ugliness in house-building is ignorance. The student of architecture has had a great deal done for him. And, in considering that which has to do with appearance, he has only to accept the advantages of the best architectural schools and offices. Without these he cannot expect to succeed. To be a designer of beautiful houses, one must have had the same special training and advantages that are necessary for success in other lines of professional work. A physician must know the history of his profession, aside from the more formal knowledge which leads him through his practice. It is the same way with the student of architecture. The successful designer of a small cottage will do better from having a knowledge of the history of early architecture. Such a knowledge is indispensable, in order to reach the best results. One who has made a study of Greek architecture is much better equipped to design a beautiful low-cost cottage, of four or five rooms, than one who has not availed himself of these advantages. He will make a better house for the same money. He will do better work with simpler means. To take another illustration: We may suppose that an architect has a porch to design, and that the owner of the house does not have a great deal of money to put in it. There are four turned columns, a cornice, with a rafter finish, and underneath, a space in which may be inserted a small band of inexpensive scroll-work. A knowledge of the earlier architecture comes to his assistance in a wonderful way. For the turning on the columns the architect may select that from a column of the early English Gothic architecture of the fourteenth century. These are simple profiles, which can be turned at no greater cost, if the drawing is furnished, than some crude, modern invention of the turner or an uneducated designer. For the jig or scroll saw work, he can arrange figures from some of the earlier ornamental forms of the same period, and by drawing them full size the scroll-sawyer can reproduce a beautiful design, which has a history, with no more labor than he would give some corrupted design which has filtered through the minds of careless house-builders. For his rafter feet, this designer will have no difficulty in recalling some simple form which has had a refined development. This same line of procedure can be followed in all details of house-building, and not add one dollar to the cost of the structure. At the same time it brings about most beautiful results,—the results of successful experience.
It may be said again that it takes no more money to make a beautiful detail—one which has been the development of experience and refinement—than it does something which is clumsy and coarse. It requires, however, a knowledge of what has been done,—a knowledge of the history of design. It requires the faculty of using intelligently the results of the past, not merely as they originally existed, but in their adaptation to the wants and conditions of the present.
Several years ago Mr. Charles Eastlake wrote a book entitled “Hints on Household Taste.” The book accomplished a great deal, by merely leading people to think. To this day there are a great many architectural features which, in the builder’s parlance, go under the name of “Eastlake” designs. There are so-called Eastlake doors, Eastlake frames, etc. In truth, Mr. Eastlake had little to say about architecture in a distinctive sense, and many evil things have been perpetrated in his name. The best thing that Mr. Eastlake did was to teach people that the furniture and other things which they had around them could be beautiful and not expensive. That it was not necessary to have a chair or a piece of wood-work loaded down with something called ornament, in order to be beautiful. After this people lost confidence in the furniture manufacturer, and did not depend solely on the price of his wares as a measure of their elegance or attractiveness. This was the sole work of Charles Eastlake, with the masses of the people. He was a missionary in his way. A man of no particular knowledge in regard to architecture or design, yet one who was the means of doing a great deal for architecture. He taught people to look for beauty in simple things.
After a time came a certain something in domestic architecture which was designated as the “Queen-Anne” style. We all know what it is, yet it is difficult to describe. The veritable Queen-Anne architecture meant something; the “Queen-Anne” architecture of a few years ago meant anything—particularly something that was pointed, erratic, and unusual. It, however, did a good work. It enabled the architects to get out of the old beaten paths. A great many beautiful houses were built, which, by the public, were said to be in this style. The name “Queen Anne” was the vehicle for the passage from an old conservatism, which had to do only with the commonplace, to something which was fresh and attractive. In this way a great many beautiful houses were built during this so-called Queen-Anne revival.
More recently there has been a movement toward the revival of the old colonial architecture—a style that was developed by a class of educated builders among the earlier settlers of this country. Their knowledge was particularly of classic architecture of the period of the Italian renaissance. A great many strange and unusual things are being perpetrated in the name of old colonial architecture at this time. At the same time, a great deal that is beautiful and refined is being built in this style. In the work of the very recent period which has to do with this architecture, one may find a great deal of encouragement. It shows a decided re-action from the extravagant crudeness of the so-called Queen-Anne architecture, and in the end we will reach something that is rational and beautiful.
Thus it is to be seen that, in whatever lines architecture is moving, we shall find good work; that it is not so much the style that it is named, as the resources of the designer: resources which have to do with his education, and his disposition to select that which is fine and beautiful—the sense which leads him to discriminate.
Figure B