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#0312
A House in a IVood
GROUND PLAN OF A HOUSE IN A WOOD M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
its more ambitious developments it is frivolous,
vain and pretentious, and, on a smaller scale, mean
and sordid.
It is the modern practice to ignore absolutely
the spiritual appeal of the home. When we speak
of “improved housing” we think of baths, drainage
and bay windows, and we approve rightly of garden
spaces. But not in this way will buildings be
realised to satisfy the soul. No clever planning,
no contrivance, nor impish ingenuity will give us
again what we have lost. Like children, we must
again begin to delight in work for its own sake.
Work must become play again, done with all the
joy and delight we now reserve for games alone.
In the old days men thought nobly of the house,
and the builders’ art which
found expression there,
produced often by the
simplest means a little
world—a cosmos in minia-
ture — which seemed to
possess all the noble
qualities of the world of
nature. Compared to
these old houses, the
modern dwelling is often
little more than a glorified
pigs’ trough, satisfying
nothing but material
needs and so little in har-
mony with nature that its
presence is an inevitable
blot on the landscape.
It has, indeed, become a
disfigurement to scenery,
and we are apt to forget
that buildings properly
conceived and con-
structed are capable of
giving just that human
interest to a scene which
the imagination seems to
demand.
In the accompanying
illustrations of a small house
recently built in a wood, an
attempt has been made to
show that materials may be
chosen which are not in-
harmonious with natural
colouring, and that in the
use of half-timber work, the
lines of the trunks and
branches of the tree may be
echoed in the building. A suggestion is also given
of the carpet of leaves which surrounds the house
adorned in due season by drifts of bluebells, prim-
roses, and other wild flowers that may be naturalised
there. The background which the varied tones of
the leaves afford is a fine setting for flowers. The
spring flowers are followed by a riot of foxgloves,
and later the autumn provides a new carpet of
brilliant and variegated colour. All this natural
beauty is not to be too lightly set aside in favour of
geranium beds and gravel paths, and it has the
advantage that in a house occupied perhaps for
only part of the year, no grooming and clipping
are required. The gardener has here for once
taken nature into partnership and when he is
290
GROUND PLAN OF A HOUSE IN A WOOD M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
its more ambitious developments it is frivolous,
vain and pretentious, and, on a smaller scale, mean
and sordid.
It is the modern practice to ignore absolutely
the spiritual appeal of the home. When we speak
of “improved housing” we think of baths, drainage
and bay windows, and we approve rightly of garden
spaces. But not in this way will buildings be
realised to satisfy the soul. No clever planning,
no contrivance, nor impish ingenuity will give us
again what we have lost. Like children, we must
again begin to delight in work for its own sake.
Work must become play again, done with all the
joy and delight we now reserve for games alone.
In the old days men thought nobly of the house,
and the builders’ art which
found expression there,
produced often by the
simplest means a little
world—a cosmos in minia-
ture — which seemed to
possess all the noble
qualities of the world of
nature. Compared to
these old houses, the
modern dwelling is often
little more than a glorified
pigs’ trough, satisfying
nothing but material
needs and so little in har-
mony with nature that its
presence is an inevitable
blot on the landscape.
It has, indeed, become a
disfigurement to scenery,
and we are apt to forget
that buildings properly
conceived and con-
structed are capable of
giving just that human
interest to a scene which
the imagination seems to
demand.
In the accompanying
illustrations of a small house
recently built in a wood, an
attempt has been made to
show that materials may be
chosen which are not in-
harmonious with natural
colouring, and that in the
use of half-timber work, the
lines of the trunks and
branches of the tree may be
echoed in the building. A suggestion is also given
of the carpet of leaves which surrounds the house
adorned in due season by drifts of bluebells, prim-
roses, and other wild flowers that may be naturalised
there. The background which the varied tones of
the leaves afford is a fine setting for flowers. The
spring flowers are followed by a riot of foxgloves,
and later the autumn provides a new carpet of
brilliant and variegated colour. All this natural
beauty is not to be too lightly set aside in favour of
geranium beds and gravel paths, and it has the
advantage that in a house occupied perhaps for
only part of the year, no grooming and clipping
are required. The gardener has here for once
taken nature into partnership and when he is
290