Studio: international art (84.1922)

MODERN HOUSES IN CHELSEA

and the latter by The Grand Canal,
Venice, with its Palaces. 000
The work of the later landscape painters
is well illustrated by excellent water-
colours by Tom Collier and E. M. Wim-
peris. A powerful painting Blue Lights,
Tynemouth Pier, by Alfred William Hunt,
shows a night scene with a stormy tide
rushing up the river. The work, and
another by the same artist, Oberwesel,
painted in 1859, were in the Newall Col-
lection. By the living artists R. Thorne-
Waite, R.W.S., and Albert Goodwin,
R.W.S., there are several water-colours in-
cluding A Golden Sunset by the former and
two representations of Fribourg, one called
the " Blue " Fribourg and the other the
"Pink" Fribourg, a fairy city in the sun-
rise, by the latter, both painted with the
utmost delicacy. These drawings fittingly
terminate the water-colour section of the
Rienaecker Collection. The oil paintings
will be the subject of a concluding article.

MODERN HOUSES IN CHELSEA.

ON the north side of the " King's
Private Road," as that street of banal
and sordid architecture, the King's Road,
Chelsea, was called until recently, lies
a little colony of modest-sized houses that
have been built within the last decade or
two—houses which prove that there are
amongst us men who can still plan beautiful
and comfortable dwellings. The site on
which they stand is that level tract bounded
on the south side by the King's Road, by
Elm Park Avenue on the north, and on the
east and west by Church Street North and
Vale Avenue respectively. The roads
that comprise this colony are Vale Avenue,
Mallord Street, Mulberry Walk and part
of the west side of Church Street, a 0
If different architects have designed the
several houses, then, though the variety
of their architecture is considerable and
delightful, the unity of the colony as a
whole is even more remarkable. This is
no small achievement and speaks well for
the recognition of limitations and sense
of fitness of the architects concerned. If
all the houses are the offspring of one mind
it must be the mind of an architect of
186

fertile invention and considerable origin-
ality. The drawing of the north side of
Mulberry Walk gives some idea of the
variety and at the same time uniformity
of these houses. 0000

The colony is entirely residential. To
make this ideal one looks for two essentials
—quietness and cheerfulness. The site
provides the former ; the variety of house-
fronts, in strange and pleasing contrast
to the deadly uniformity of some neighbour-
ing streets, dispels dreariness. Several
of the houses, especially in Mallord
Street, have been painted bright and
uncommon colours, which, together with
the plane trees that pattern the pavements
with their shadows, add welcome touches
of cheerfulness to enliven the grey, heavy
atmosphere of London. 000

With very few exceptions the most
" local " material has been used for the
construction of these houses—brick, the
" natural " building material of London.
A brick of somewhat thinner proportions
than that generally used has been utilised
freely, and when alternated with larger
bricks some interesting contrasts have

DOORWAY, MALLORD HOUSE
MALLORD STREET, CHELSEA
PEN DRAWING BY E. HESKETH
HUBBARD, R.O.I.