DOI Heft:
No. 249 (January 1914)
DOI Artikel:Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: A house in a wood
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21208#0311
A House in a JVood
In modern times we have changed and are still
engaged in changing all that. From the office of
the modern architect, plans of country dwellings
are sent far afield, too often without discrimination
as to local qualities ; and the little artistic villa of the
garden suburb with all its pretty cleverness of
design has invaded and disfigured the most sacred
solitudes—poisoning all the wells of beauty with its
presence, and reducing all the varied and ever-
changing beauties of the country to the level of a
cheap and vulgar Cockney’s paradise.
That is the remorseless and continuous process
which is going on. The world seems to have
become blind to beauty and art, except when it is
properly defined and labelled as such in picture
galleries and museums; and to protest against the
destruction of all that is most precious to those
who have eyes to see, is to speak as the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, a wilderness of utili-
tarians, who seem to imagine a house can merely
serve material needs instead of being a medium for
the highest expression of the ideals of the soul.
I know of no form of art so powerful in its
appeal or so insistent in its continuous influences
as this forgotten and discredited building art; and
I cannot believe that I am alone in this or
peculiarly susceptible to the influences of buildings.
Pictures may enthral us as we look at them, but
they require a special effort of the mind. They do
not meet us half-way. But a building wrought in
the old ways surrounds and envelops us in an
atmosphere of its own. It is almost human in its
appeal and breathes out penetrating influences
which it is impossible to evade or forget.
Consider the old village church as yet un-
desecrated by the restorer’s hand. There are
surely many who are capable of feeling the sweet
influences of its cool dim silences. The reverence
and piety with which its stones were laid are there
built into the very walls, and like a continuous
music speak into our souls. Just as the “record”
of the gramophone scored with apparently meaning-
less lines—a dead material thing—comes to life
under the needle-point and gives us the living
tones of some long dead voice, so these buildings
reveal to the sensitive mind all those thoughts and
aspirations of their natures which lie too deep for
words.
And then if we consider the other side of the
picture, what shall be said of the influences of
the modern artistic villa. It also speaks—but the
tale it has to tell is a hateful one. It speaks to
us only of base material things, and of all the
insincerities and conventionalities of villadom. In
A HOUSE IN A WOOD : SOUTH-EAST CORNER
M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
In modern times we have changed and are still
engaged in changing all that. From the office of
the modern architect, plans of country dwellings
are sent far afield, too often without discrimination
as to local qualities ; and the little artistic villa of the
garden suburb with all its pretty cleverness of
design has invaded and disfigured the most sacred
solitudes—poisoning all the wells of beauty with its
presence, and reducing all the varied and ever-
changing beauties of the country to the level of a
cheap and vulgar Cockney’s paradise.
That is the remorseless and continuous process
which is going on. The world seems to have
become blind to beauty and art, except when it is
properly defined and labelled as such in picture
galleries and museums; and to protest against the
destruction of all that is most precious to those
who have eyes to see, is to speak as the voice of
one crying in the wilderness, a wilderness of utili-
tarians, who seem to imagine a house can merely
serve material needs instead of being a medium for
the highest expression of the ideals of the soul.
I know of no form of art so powerful in its
appeal or so insistent in its continuous influences
as this forgotten and discredited building art; and
I cannot believe that I am alone in this or
peculiarly susceptible to the influences of buildings.
Pictures may enthral us as we look at them, but
they require a special effort of the mind. They do
not meet us half-way. But a building wrought in
the old ways surrounds and envelops us in an
atmosphere of its own. It is almost human in its
appeal and breathes out penetrating influences
which it is impossible to evade or forget.
Consider the old village church as yet un-
desecrated by the restorer’s hand. There are
surely many who are capable of feeling the sweet
influences of its cool dim silences. The reverence
and piety with which its stones were laid are there
built into the very walls, and like a continuous
music speak into our souls. Just as the “record”
of the gramophone scored with apparently meaning-
less lines—a dead material thing—comes to life
under the needle-point and gives us the living
tones of some long dead voice, so these buildings
reveal to the sensitive mind all those thoughts and
aspirations of their natures which lie too deep for
words.
And then if we consider the other side of the
picture, what shall be said of the influences of
the modern artistic villa. It also speaks—but the
tale it has to tell is a hateful one. It speaks to
us only of base material things, and of all the
insincerities and conventionalities of villadom. In
A HOUSE IN A WOOD : SOUTH-EAST CORNER
M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT