Studio: international art (79.1920)

SITTING-ROOM IN MR. H.

Andersen's wooden house

AT HORNBCEK. PAUL RICH-
ARDT, ARCHITECT

THE REVIVAL OF THE WOODEN
HOUSE. BY GEORG BROCHNER.

SECOND ARTICLE.

IN continuation of the article dealing
with this subject which appeared in
the March number of The Studio, illus-
trations are now given of a few additional
timbered houses, all designed and built by
M. Paul Richardt, B.A., Copenhagen, who,
as already mentioned, has designed a large
number of such houses in recent years. 0
There is one point about these timbered
houses which cannot help impressing an
attentive and interested observer. They
seem to grow from out of the soil in a
direct, spontaneous manner, they appear
to be part and portion of the land upon
which they stand ; they are, for choice,
lowly structures which trustfully nestle on
the broad back of mother earth. And liv-
ing within them, somehow, brings their
inmates in closer and more unceremonious
contact with surrounding nature. The
more or less hackneyed and trivial appurte-
nancies of ordinary “ civilized ** towny
existence, a possible surfeit of form, are
forced more into the background, if at all

allowed to assert themselves ; life involun-
tarily unbends a little, its trend is apt to
move towards more simplicity, rather an
advantage, perhaps, under present condi-
tions. 000000
We must remember that the timbered
house of yore, the prototype of our modern
timbered houses, was the home of plain,
hardy, and frugal people, that it belonged
to an age, utterly alien to most if not all of
the refinements and luxuries in which
women of to-day, and men, too, for the
matter of that, are wont to indulge, and
these ancient houses preach, so to speak,
their own useful sermon, not in stones,
but in strong, sound timber. They are in
their way perhaps even more Spartan than
some of the work of a certain school of
modern architects, but their apparent
severity is more genial after all, though
this may savour of the paradox. 0 0

Of course there are means—and quite
legitimate means—of beautifying the in-
terior of a timbered house and which are
in perfect keeping with its tradition and
structure. The woodwork itself can be,
and not infrequently is, adorned with
carving which again may be treated with

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