DOI Heft:
No. 129 (November, 1907)
DOI Artikel:Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: On the characteristics of Mr. C. F. A. Voysey's architecture
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28253#0035
Mr. C. F. A. Voyseys Architecture
ON THE CHARACTERISTICS
OF MR. C. F. A. VOYSEY’S
ARCHITECTURE. BY M. H.
BAILLIE SCOTT.
If one were asked to sum up in a few words the
scope and purposes of Mr. Voysey’s work, one
might say that it consists mainly in the application
of serenely sane, practical and rational ideas to
home making.
The modern house, as represented by the average
villa, is, from the rational and practical point of
view, a tissue of absurdities. Its plan represents
an attempt to realise, on a contracted scale, the
ideal mansion. It is adorned with all kinds of so-
called artistic furnishings ; and, as a whole, it is
insanitary and comfortless.
To those who have become inured to such houses
it is not strange that a rationally designed dwelling
should appear bizarre, affected and eccentric; and
though in other arts—in that of literature for
example—the merits of direct and simple statement
are understood, in architecture we do not recog-
“ GARDEN CORNER)” CHELSEA: THE DINING-ROOM
nise the existence of art at all, unless all the
obsolete and meaningless features of the past are
added, as an outward screen, to a building in which
they bear no structural significance.
Carlyle, in writing of the forms in which religious
belief has expressed itself, states once for all the
fundamental truth in this matter : “All substances
clothe themselves in forms; but there are suitable
true forms, and there are untrue, unsuitable. As
the briefest definition one might say : Forms which
grow round a substance, if we rightly understand
that, will correspond to the real nature and purport
of it, will be true, good; forms which are con-
sciously put round a substance, bad. I invite you
to reflect on this. It distinguishes true from false
in ceremonial form; earnest solemnity from empty
pageant in all human things.”
The architects of the Renaissance initiated this
bad method of consciously putting forms round
the substance of their buildings : and this “ shirt-
front architecture”—as Mr. Voysey has called it —
being originally practised by men of great genius,
has proved a fatal precedent for our times. And
so our Palaces of Peace and other public buildings
DESIGNED 1IY C. I'. A. VOYSEY
19
ON THE CHARACTERISTICS
OF MR. C. F. A. VOYSEY’S
ARCHITECTURE. BY M. H.
BAILLIE SCOTT.
If one were asked to sum up in a few words the
scope and purposes of Mr. Voysey’s work, one
might say that it consists mainly in the application
of serenely sane, practical and rational ideas to
home making.
The modern house, as represented by the average
villa, is, from the rational and practical point of
view, a tissue of absurdities. Its plan represents
an attempt to realise, on a contracted scale, the
ideal mansion. It is adorned with all kinds of so-
called artistic furnishings ; and, as a whole, it is
insanitary and comfortless.
To those who have become inured to such houses
it is not strange that a rationally designed dwelling
should appear bizarre, affected and eccentric; and
though in other arts—in that of literature for
example—the merits of direct and simple statement
are understood, in architecture we do not recog-
“ GARDEN CORNER)” CHELSEA: THE DINING-ROOM
nise the existence of art at all, unless all the
obsolete and meaningless features of the past are
added, as an outward screen, to a building in which
they bear no structural significance.
Carlyle, in writing of the forms in which religious
belief has expressed itself, states once for all the
fundamental truth in this matter : “All substances
clothe themselves in forms; but there are suitable
true forms, and there are untrue, unsuitable. As
the briefest definition one might say : Forms which
grow round a substance, if we rightly understand
that, will correspond to the real nature and purport
of it, will be true, good; forms which are con-
sciously put round a substance, bad. I invite you
to reflect on this. It distinguishes true from false
in ceremonial form; earnest solemnity from empty
pageant in all human things.”
The architects of the Renaissance initiated this
bad method of consciously putting forms round
the substance of their buildings : and this “ shirt-
front architecture”—as Mr. Voysey has called it —
being originally practised by men of great genius,
has proved a fatal precedent for our times. And
so our Palaces of Peace and other public buildings
DESIGNED 1IY C. I'. A. VOYSEY
19