DOI issue:
No. 57 (December 1897)
DOI article:Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: A small country house
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18390#0211
A Small Country House
GROUND PLAN" M. H. BAILLIe SCOTT, ARCHITECT
the division of the wall space and many other
details, will help to give this appearance of breadth
to the smallest room.
The feeling of space may also be gained by the
use of sliding partitions, which may be opened out
in summer time, and a glance at the plan will show
how these have been used in the house illustrated.
In designing a house it must also be remembered
that it must prove a happy haven under absolutely
opposite conditions of weather, but as indoor life
is so much more essential in the winter than in the
summer, it will be well to consider the house rather
as a protection from cold and storm than from
heat and sunshine, and each room should be de-
signed with a view to its possible comfort under
the most trying conditions.
A few points in the plan illustrated may be men-
tioned in illustration of these remarks. The
position of the kitchen range enables it to help in
heating the hall and the central part of the house
generally. The side turn on entering the hall
from the porch minimises the possibility of draught
from the entrance, and in both sitting-rooms com-
fortable well-lighted firesides have been arranged.
All these practical considerations, which have
received so much attention in the planning of the
house, tend to produce what is, after all, the
essential quality of home—comfort.
It is not enough, however, that a house should
possess this material comfort, which is so important,
it must also appear comfortable, and the eye must
be soothed and satisfied as well as the body. It
will be found quite impossible, for instance, to be
really comfortable in the most luxurious of arm-
chairs amidst the barbarous and insistent ornament
which is so often all that is meant by decoration.
" I don't care about art," says the modern philis-
tine, " I want to be comfortable ;" but it is just
because the artist cares so much for comfort that
he gives so much attention to the decoration of his
rooms.
The true cause of art in this respect has suffered
much from its unintelligent votaries. The sim-
plicity, repose, and absence of all straining after
effect which is the mark of good work, is rarely to
be met with, and it is often replaced by a frantic
striving for originality, for the new thing of to-day
which to-morrow will be hopelessly out of date.
And so rooms are filled with furnishings which,
cunningly designed to catch the taste of the
moment, become for evermore an incubus and an
eyesore. The very term " artistic " has become so
associated with work which is aggressive in cha-
racter that one hesitates to use it in connection with
quiet and unassuming design.
Just as in literature the noblest work is little
more than telling a plain unvarnished tale in a
simple way, so we find in design the tendency to
return to simple forms and modes of construction,
a tendency to deal with materials in a reasonable
way, uninfluenced by tradition or convention.
There is so much unconscious slavery to prece-
de rva*\fs
fWrrw>~
FIRS! FLOOR PLAN
M. ii. BAILLIE SCO'l i, ARCHITECT
i 69
GROUND PLAN" M. H. BAILLIe SCOTT, ARCHITECT
the division of the wall space and many other
details, will help to give this appearance of breadth
to the smallest room.
The feeling of space may also be gained by the
use of sliding partitions, which may be opened out
in summer time, and a glance at the plan will show
how these have been used in the house illustrated.
In designing a house it must also be remembered
that it must prove a happy haven under absolutely
opposite conditions of weather, but as indoor life
is so much more essential in the winter than in the
summer, it will be well to consider the house rather
as a protection from cold and storm than from
heat and sunshine, and each room should be de-
signed with a view to its possible comfort under
the most trying conditions.
A few points in the plan illustrated may be men-
tioned in illustration of these remarks. The
position of the kitchen range enables it to help in
heating the hall and the central part of the house
generally. The side turn on entering the hall
from the porch minimises the possibility of draught
from the entrance, and in both sitting-rooms com-
fortable well-lighted firesides have been arranged.
All these practical considerations, which have
received so much attention in the planning of the
house, tend to produce what is, after all, the
essential quality of home—comfort.
It is not enough, however, that a house should
possess this material comfort, which is so important,
it must also appear comfortable, and the eye must
be soothed and satisfied as well as the body. It
will be found quite impossible, for instance, to be
really comfortable in the most luxurious of arm-
chairs amidst the barbarous and insistent ornament
which is so often all that is meant by decoration.
" I don't care about art," says the modern philis-
tine, " I want to be comfortable ;" but it is just
because the artist cares so much for comfort that
he gives so much attention to the decoration of his
rooms.
The true cause of art in this respect has suffered
much from its unintelligent votaries. The sim-
plicity, repose, and absence of all straining after
effect which is the mark of good work, is rarely to
be met with, and it is often replaced by a frantic
striving for originality, for the new thing of to-day
which to-morrow will be hopelessly out of date.
And so rooms are filled with furnishings which,
cunningly designed to catch the taste of the
moment, become for evermore an incubus and an
eyesore. The very term " artistic " has become so
associated with work which is aggressive in cha-
racter that one hesitates to use it in connection with
quiet and unassuming design.
Just as in literature the noblest work is little
more than telling a plain unvarnished tale in a
simple way, so we find in design the tendency to
return to simple forms and modes of construction,
a tendency to deal with materials in a reasonable
way, uninfluenced by tradition or convention.
There is so much unconscious slavery to prece-
de rva*\fs
fWrrw>~
FIRS! FLOOR PLAN
M. ii. BAILLIE SCO'l i, ARCHITECT
i 69