DOI article:
Scott, Mackay H. Baillie: Small country houses and cottages
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.41879#0019
SMALL COUNTRY HOUSES AND COTTAGES
HOUSE NEAR BOOKHAM—GARDEN FRONT M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
to give it a new lease of lire, it must be “ condemned,” and some poisonous
and hideous arrangement of brick and purple slate be raised in its stead,
in accordance with the byelaws. And while these little autocrats of the
countryside execute their deadly work no one appears to mind. There
seems to be an impression that a building has only to be sufficiently
repulsive to the eye to be immediately endowed with peculiar practical
virtues. In order to clear the way for any revival of beauty in economical
building, the first step must be to get rid of modern building byelaws,
or at least to limit them to their proper functions of dealing mainly
with sanitation.
Being then free to do as we will without interference, we may consider
how best to spend the sum at our disposal for the building of a house.
We have to enclose and to roof-in a piece of space, and to divide the
space so roofed-in and enclosed into such apartments as we require. In
so doing it is advisa-
ble that the subdivi-
sions of the total
space should be as
few as possible,
dictated by actual
requirements rather
than by conventional
shibboleths. In the
early days of house
building the house
was one and indivisi-
ble. Since those days
thedesirefor privacy
7
HOUSE NEAR BOOKHAM—GARDEN FRONT M. H. BAILLIE SCOTT, ARCHITECT
to give it a new lease of lire, it must be “ condemned,” and some poisonous
and hideous arrangement of brick and purple slate be raised in its stead,
in accordance with the byelaws. And while these little autocrats of the
countryside execute their deadly work no one appears to mind. There
seems to be an impression that a building has only to be sufficiently
repulsive to the eye to be immediately endowed with peculiar practical
virtues. In order to clear the way for any revival of beauty in economical
building, the first step must be to get rid of modern building byelaws,
or at least to limit them to their proper functions of dealing mainly
with sanitation.
Being then free to do as we will without interference, we may consider
how best to spend the sum at our disposal for the building of a house.
We have to enclose and to roof-in a piece of space, and to divide the
space so roofed-in and enclosed into such apartments as we require. In
so doing it is advisa-
ble that the subdivi-
sions of the total
space should be as
few as possible,
dictated by actual
requirements rather
than by conventional
shibboleths. In the
early days of house
building the house
was one and indivisi-
ble. Since those days
thedesirefor privacy
7