International studio (17.1902)

Recent Domestic Architecture

originality; for the human mind has often among
its vagaries the curious habit of undervaluing
its own ideas and of over-estimating its collections
of facts. This is why the architects who copy the
old styles are always self-confident and dogmatic.
Anyone who differs from them is a “ charlatan ”;
they alone are the salt of the earth in matters of
architecture. A slight variation of an old motif,
a motif with which they have long been familiar
—this, to them, is a sure and a great sign of
originality; and so they spend their time at
ease in a mental atmosphere of paraphrases, and
are proud and happy.

A visit to the Architectural Room in this year’s
exhibition at the Academy will not fail to con-
firm the truth of the foregoing remarks. We
admit, indeed, that the drawings as a whole are
more workmanlike than usual, for their chief
defect is not a prettiness of handling which, to
the British workman, might possibly suggest a
water-colour by Birket Foster. In former exhibi-
tions many of the architects seemed anxious to
qualify their designs for the water-colour room;
this year they are much more practical, much less
picturesque; and the change is welcome. The
weakness to be deplored is one not of hand but of
mind ; there is a lack of independent judgment,
of fresh and vigorous thought, of freedom and
vitality of purpose. The drawings, indeed, are
nearer in touch with the Renaissance of long ago
than with that of our own time; and when every
allowance has been made for the causes of this
imitation, there is room left for regret and surprise.

As architecture inherits so much on its structural
side—so much that is permanently good—even the

laziest imitators might well be content, and, being
content, might well find pleasure in creating some-
thing all their own in the shape of ornament.
Also, it seems reasonable to believe that anything
obviously discordant with the needs of the present
day might be shunned quite as easily by architects
in their designs, as the use of obsolete words is
avoided by them in their speech. There is not
one among them who, in writing out a specifica-
tion, would hark back to the English of Sir John
Maundeville. Yet this would be neither .more
affected nor more ridiculous than building a
modern house with a mediaeval tower or keep.

Mr. Arnold Mitchell, in his design for Maesycru-
giau Manor, illustrated on p. 120, tries his hand at
a rather militant-looking tower without battlements,
and although he has made it as modestly serviceable
in the plan of his design as it well could be, it yet
seems out 01 place, for it does not at once suggest
a practical need that it could serve daily. Its
rooms, to be sure, would be useful and pleasing,
but not more so than the other rooms in the
house, which require for their protection no relic
of masonry reminiscent of early forms of warfare ;
and then, why should such a tower be turned from
its real significance and made into a symbol of
ease, of quiet, comfortable living ?

But if Mr. Arnold Mitchell is at fault in this
matter, he is quite right and at his best in the
other features of his design, the distribution of the
component parts of his Manor being particularly
fortunate.

The House at Wrotham, Kent, by Messrs.
Niven & Wigglesworth, illustrated upon page
115, is a distinct success, the design, modest

HOUSE AT CROWBOROUGH
I l6

M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT