DOI Heft:
No. 251 (March 1914)
DOI Artikel:Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: The cheap cottage
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21209#0139
The Cheap Cottage
A PAIR OF THATCHED
COTTAGES. M. H. BAIU.IE
SCOTT, ARCHITECT
this varied beauty in the
building of old cottages was
obtained by simple and un-
lettered folk building in
natural and unaffected
ways. And we who bring
country village to disprove this fallacy. And if to the problem all the knowledge and skill which
art in the construction of cottages has no definite our modern civilisation boasts, have so far failed
relation to cost it is likewise necessary to insist that utterly to produce cottages worthy to be set by the
it has no definite relation to hygienic conditions, side of the old work. We have lost the art of
We all know that many charming old cottages fall producing beauty in simple building. It is some-
short of modern demands in this respect, and we what unfortunate then that at such a time we should
must not therefore hastily assume that a cottage be threatened with an extensive development of
which is charming to the eye is necessarily defective cottage building, for our previous experience pre-
in practical advantages. The old cottages when eludes the hope that these cottages will be designed
they fail in this respect do so not because they are or built by those who still retain some appreciation
beautiful but because their designers did not for the artistic aspect of the problem. We have
recognise the importance of such matters. observed with dismay the uncompromising and
If we consider the cottages of our old villages, brutal ugliness of recent official cottage building in
we are impressed at once by their aspect of natural Ireland, and protest against a like disfigurement of
and unaffected grace, and while we recognise in our country villages and rural lanes with work of
each an individuality they are each and all in this kind. And if we consider the cottages which
harmony with each otherand with their surroundings, have recently been built in England, there seems
They seem to explain and make articulate the small encouragement for the hope that we have yet
appeal of nature. We can imagine nothing more learnt the secret of cottage building. We have seen
appropriate to Sussex than the Sussex cottage in of late years the development of the garden suburb,
all its variants, and if we leave the kindly sheltered and much as we dislike the frank and brutal
places of the South for the bleak and rugged uplands ugliness of the official cottage, it is at least honest
of the North, we shall find the cottage there has and unaffected and makes no pretence to artistic
become no less austere than the landscape. All claims. But in the garden suburb we find ourselves
134
A PAIR OF THATCHED
COTTAGES. M. H. BAIU.IE
SCOTT, ARCHITECT
this varied beauty in the
building of old cottages was
obtained by simple and un-
lettered folk building in
natural and unaffected
ways. And we who bring
country village to disprove this fallacy. And if to the problem all the knowledge and skill which
art in the construction of cottages has no definite our modern civilisation boasts, have so far failed
relation to cost it is likewise necessary to insist that utterly to produce cottages worthy to be set by the
it has no definite relation to hygienic conditions, side of the old work. We have lost the art of
We all know that many charming old cottages fall producing beauty in simple building. It is some-
short of modern demands in this respect, and we what unfortunate then that at such a time we should
must not therefore hastily assume that a cottage be threatened with an extensive development of
which is charming to the eye is necessarily defective cottage building, for our previous experience pre-
in practical advantages. The old cottages when eludes the hope that these cottages will be designed
they fail in this respect do so not because they are or built by those who still retain some appreciation
beautiful but because their designers did not for the artistic aspect of the problem. We have
recognise the importance of such matters. observed with dismay the uncompromising and
If we consider the cottages of our old villages, brutal ugliness of recent official cottage building in
we are impressed at once by their aspect of natural Ireland, and protest against a like disfigurement of
and unaffected grace, and while we recognise in our country villages and rural lanes with work of
each an individuality they are each and all in this kind. And if we consider the cottages which
harmony with each otherand with their surroundings, have recently been built in England, there seems
They seem to explain and make articulate the small encouragement for the hope that we have yet
appeal of nature. We can imagine nothing more learnt the secret of cottage building. We have seen
appropriate to Sussex than the Sussex cottage in of late years the development of the garden suburb,
all its variants, and if we leave the kindly sheltered and much as we dislike the frank and brutal
places of the South for the bleak and rugged uplands ugliness of the official cottage, it is at least honest
of the North, we shall find the cottage there has and unaffected and makes no pretence to artistic
become no less austere than the landscape. All claims. But in the garden suburb we find ourselves
134