DOI Heft:
Nr. 116 (November 1902)
DOI Artikel:Watson, W. R.: Some recent Scottish domestic fittings and decorations
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19877#0121
Scottish Domestic Decorations
ENTRANCE HALL DESIGNED BY J. GAFF GILLESPIE
WOOD CARVING BY JOHN CRAWFORD
carefully considered are often filled with articles by placing the doorway across the angle of the
incongruous in design, bad in taste, and utterly chamber.
commonplace and uncomfortable. The good In the decoration of the bedroom the architects
taste of the owner is usually reflected in its fittings, recognised that to gain repose without dulness
and the architect's scheme can only be said to be and delicacy without monotony ought to be
fulfilled when the apartments are furnished under the designer's aim. This is especially notice-
his supervision. About these architects' houses able in the house in University Gardens, where
it may be said that should they by chance the lines of the furniture, like those of the rooms,
fall into the hands of tasteless or unappreciative are severe in their simplicity, but neither heavy
owners, the quiet harmony of their structural parts nor trivial. The furniture has in form the same
would maintain a certain dignity, and defy some of characteristic that there is in the colour—a subtlety
the less glaring anachronisms of taste in decoration that prevents the care that has been given to per-
and furnishing. In many modern houses we find fecting them becoming too obvious,
too obvious evidences of planning with a view to The charm of the work of these architects is not
securing picturesque effect, the result being a feel- due to the prevailing use of any particular materials,
ing of unrest and fussiness, which entirely defeats nor is to be found in any abject reverence for
the designer's purpose; especially is this found to precedent, nor in adherence to any given style,
be the case in the attempt to dissemble the though at the same time it cannot be said that
monotony of an oft-repeated angle by the construe- the originality of thought and treatment is
tion of a so-called corner. Without any unnatural that of eccentricity masquerading under a nobler
effort, but simply as a natural outcome of the plan, name. Knowledge of the architecture of the
Mr. Gillespie succeeds in giving an architectural past is kept in its rightly subordinate place by
treatment to such dead angles, and in affording a equally full recognition of the modified conditions
grateful relief to the eye tired of angular repetition, of the present, and the result is sane and practical
109
ENTRANCE HALL DESIGNED BY J. GAFF GILLESPIE
WOOD CARVING BY JOHN CRAWFORD
carefully considered are often filled with articles by placing the doorway across the angle of the
incongruous in design, bad in taste, and utterly chamber.
commonplace and uncomfortable. The good In the decoration of the bedroom the architects
taste of the owner is usually reflected in its fittings, recognised that to gain repose without dulness
and the architect's scheme can only be said to be and delicacy without monotony ought to be
fulfilled when the apartments are furnished under the designer's aim. This is especially notice-
his supervision. About these architects' houses able in the house in University Gardens, where
it may be said that should they by chance the lines of the furniture, like those of the rooms,
fall into the hands of tasteless or unappreciative are severe in their simplicity, but neither heavy
owners, the quiet harmony of their structural parts nor trivial. The furniture has in form the same
would maintain a certain dignity, and defy some of characteristic that there is in the colour—a subtlety
the less glaring anachronisms of taste in decoration that prevents the care that has been given to per-
and furnishing. In many modern houses we find fecting them becoming too obvious,
too obvious evidences of planning with a view to The charm of the work of these architects is not
securing picturesque effect, the result being a feel- due to the prevailing use of any particular materials,
ing of unrest and fussiness, which entirely defeats nor is to be found in any abject reverence for
the designer's purpose; especially is this found to precedent, nor in adherence to any given style,
be the case in the attempt to dissemble the though at the same time it cannot be said that
monotony of an oft-repeated angle by the construe- the originality of thought and treatment is
tion of a so-called corner. Without any unnatural that of eccentricity masquerading under a nobler
effort, but simply as a natural outcome of the plan, name. Knowledge of the architecture of the
Mr. Gillespie succeeds in giving an architectural past is kept in its rightly subordinate place by
treatment to such dead angles, and in affording a equally full recognition of the modified conditions
grateful relief to the eye tired of angular repetition, of the present, and the result is sane and practical
109