DOI Heft:
Nr. 121 (April 1903)
DOI Artikel:Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: "Yellowsands", a sea-side house
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19878#0203
A Seaside House
" YELLOWSANDS " : VIEW FROM THE NORTH
M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
The irregular iorm of the plan also tends greatly
to enhance the picturesqueness and novelty of
the interior effects, and perhaps the best vista
effect would be that obtained from the bower
looking towards the hall, with its galleries and
the dining recess beyond.
The staircase is a spiral one, contained in one
of the towers which flank the entrance. It is
lighted by small, deeply-recessed windows,
where the depths ot the sea, peopled by strange
plants and fishes, may be portrayed in stained
glass, and the walls themselves may be either left
innocent of plaster, or adorned with a conven-
tional representation of the sea, repeating the
spiral upward curves of the staircase.
From the gallery with its shuttered openings
overlooking the hall the bedrooms open, each
the subject of special attention in its decoration
and furnishing, while the spiral staircase also
gives access to the attics for the servants. The
bathroom is placed immediately over the
kitchen, thus ensuring simplicity and economy
of plumbing.
In the development of the scheme generally it
has been taken as an article of faith that the form,
arrangement, and general proportion of the rooms
is a more important matter than superficial adorn-
ment, and the expression of structural facts
has been held to be the best means of de-
coration. Architecture considered in this way
becomes a kind of sculpture, and is concerned
rather with the modelling of masses than the
adornment of surfaces. In dealing with these
the claims of the structure to supply its own
decoration in the stonework of the walling or the
beams of the ceiling are not disregarded, and if
these are partially concealed by superficial decora
tion it is always realised that in so obscuring the
structural facts and the history they have to tell,
a certain loss is sustained which must be replaced
by something of equal, if not greater, interest of a
superficial nature.
It has been said that a room should express as
far as possible in its decoration and furniture the
characteristics and individuality of its occupants,
and that its general aspect should inform us in an
inarticulate way of the kind of person who lives
there. It would be very easy to press such a
theory too far, but when decoration becomes
articulate in the writing on the wall it affords us a
better opportunity of judging of the character of
" YELLOWSANDS": THE ENTRANCE
M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
I9I
" YELLOWSANDS " : VIEW FROM THE NORTH
M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
The irregular iorm of the plan also tends greatly
to enhance the picturesqueness and novelty of
the interior effects, and perhaps the best vista
effect would be that obtained from the bower
looking towards the hall, with its galleries and
the dining recess beyond.
The staircase is a spiral one, contained in one
of the towers which flank the entrance. It is
lighted by small, deeply-recessed windows,
where the depths ot the sea, peopled by strange
plants and fishes, may be portrayed in stained
glass, and the walls themselves may be either left
innocent of plaster, or adorned with a conven-
tional representation of the sea, repeating the
spiral upward curves of the staircase.
From the gallery with its shuttered openings
overlooking the hall the bedrooms open, each
the subject of special attention in its decoration
and furnishing, while the spiral staircase also
gives access to the attics for the servants. The
bathroom is placed immediately over the
kitchen, thus ensuring simplicity and economy
of plumbing.
In the development of the scheme generally it
has been taken as an article of faith that the form,
arrangement, and general proportion of the rooms
is a more important matter than superficial adorn-
ment, and the expression of structural facts
has been held to be the best means of de-
coration. Architecture considered in this way
becomes a kind of sculpture, and is concerned
rather with the modelling of masses than the
adornment of surfaces. In dealing with these
the claims of the structure to supply its own
decoration in the stonework of the walling or the
beams of the ceiling are not disregarded, and if
these are partially concealed by superficial decora
tion it is always realised that in so obscuring the
structural facts and the history they have to tell,
a certain loss is sustained which must be replaced
by something of equal, if not greater, interest of a
superficial nature.
It has been said that a room should express as
far as possible in its decoration and furniture the
characteristics and individuality of its occupants,
and that its general aspect should inform us in an
inarticulate way of the kind of person who lives
there. It would be very easy to press such a
theory too far, but when decoration becomes
articulate in the writing on the wall it affords us a
better opportunity of judging of the character of
" YELLOWSANDS": THE ENTRANCE
M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
I9I