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THE ART OF BUILDING A HOME

we do is to make our home take just that form which will, in the most straight-forward manner, meet our requirements. * * * *
" The planning having been dictated by convention, all the details are worked out under the same influence. To each house is applied a certain amount of meaningless mechanical and superficial ornamentation according to some recognized standard. No use whatever is made of the decorative properties inherent in the construction and in the details necessary to the building. These are put as far as possible out of sight. For example, latches and locks are all let into the doors leaving visible the knobs only. The hinges are hidden in the rebate of the door frame, while the real door frame, that which does the work, is covered up with a strip of flimsy molded board styled the architrave. All constructional features, wherever possible, are smeared over with a coat of plaster to bring them up to the same dead level of flat monotony, leaving a clear field for the erection of the customary abominations in the form of cornices, imitation beams where no beams are wanted, and plaster brackets which could support, and do support, nothing. Even with the fire the chief aim seems to be to acknowledge as few of its properties and characteristics as possible; it is buried as deep in the wall and as far out of sight and out of the way as may be; it is smothered up with as much uncongenial and inappropriate "enrichment" as can be crowded round it; and, to add the final touch of senseless incongruity, some form of that massive and apparently very constructional and essential thing we call a mantelpiece is erected, in wood, stone or marble, towering it may be even to the ceiling. If we were not so accustomed to it, great would be our astonishment to find that this most prominent feature has really no function whatever, beyond giving cause for a lot of other things as useful and beautiful as itself, which exist only that they may be put upon it, `to decorate it.' * * * *
"The essence and life of design lies in finding that form for anything which will, with the maximum of convenience and beauty, fit it for the particular functions it has to perform, and adapt it to the special circumstances in which it must be placed. Perhaps the most fruitful source whence charm of design arises in anything, is the grace with which it serves its purpose and conforms to its surroundings. How many of the beautiful features of the work of past ages, which we now arbitrarily reproduce and copy, arose out of the skilful and graceful way in which some old artist-craftsman, or chief mason, got over a difficulty! If, instead of copying these features when and where the cause for them does not exist, we would rather emulate the spirit in which they were produced, there would be more hope of again seeing life and vigor in our architecture and design.

THEN the architect leaves the house, the subservience to convention
is not over. After him follow the decorator and the furnisher, who
try toy overcome the lifelessness and vapidity by covering all surfaces
with fugitive decorations and incongruous patterns, and filling the rooms with
flimsy stereotyped furniture and nick-nacks. To these the mistress of the house
will be incessantly adding, from an instinctive feeling of the incompleteness and
unsatisfactoriness of the whole. Incidentally we see here one reason why the
influence of the architect should not stop at the completion of the four -walls, but
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