Studio: international art (79.1920)

WOODEN HOUSE DESIGNED AND
CONSTRUCTED FOR PERSONAL
OCCUPATION BY PAUL RICHARDT

THE REVIVAL OF THE WOODEN
HOUSE. BY GEORG BROCHNER *

THE modern, or as I would rather
term it the modified, timbered house
has within a comparatively short span of
years made for itself a host of friends.
And no wonder. It is quaint and pictur-
esque, lends itself to arrangements more
or less unconventional and incompatible
with the ordinary brick house ; it pos-
sesses, besides, some solid practical advan-
tages. Timbered houses, for instance, are
cool in the summer and warm in winter
as compared with houses built of stone or
brick ; the air in them keeps fresher, the
wood absorbing the smoke of tobacco; and
they are very dry, even if left unoccupied
and in consequence fireless for lengthy
periods. This is a very desirable quality
where it is a question of a week-end house
or one intended only for occasional use.
Let me, however, emphasize at once that
the timbered house is absolutely suitable
also for residence in winter, although most
of them may not be intended for permanent
residence. Further, it is relatively cheap
to construct, and costs but little to keep in
repair, a very occasional tarring being all
that is needed. The matter of first cost

is more elastic with a timbered than with
a brick house, and as for durability, when
properly built it will last for centuries. In
Norway there are extant timbered build-
ings that have stood for eight or nine hun-
dred years, even in localities where the
climate must be denounced as extremely
unfavourable for wooden structures. a
Norway and Sweden, more especially
the former country, are the home of the
proper timbered house; you will come
upon them when touring in these northern
latitudes, and you will find them, and more
easily so, in the various Open-air Museums,
upon which the present writer has more
than once had occasion to enlarge in the
pages of The Studio. The ancient dwell-
ings preserved in these museums are the
prototypes of the present-day timbered
house, and the old principles of construc-
tion have on the whole been observed and
adopted by our modern architects. A
pioneer in this connexion is Mr. Paul
Richardt, B.A., of Copenhagen, who, from
the days of his youth, has been interested
in all kinds of slojd, and has made a most
thorough study of this ancient craft, if one
may so call it, by repeated travels, espe-
cially in Norwegian mountain valleys,
where he has had opportunities of becom-

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