The Studio yearbook of decorative art (1916)

NEW ZEALAND
earlier houses were generally very simple in their design; but, owing
chiefly to the steep pitch of the roofs required to make them watertight,
were often very picturesque. Verandas, too, which were adopted as a
necessary adjunct almost from the first, took largely the box-like ap-
pearance which the rectangular cottage might otherwise have had.
It was always a point in the minds of the earlier builders to have as few
breaks as possible in the outside lines of their houses. A break means a
somewhat damp internal angle ; but perhaps the chief objection was that
each break meant an extra cut and extra care in fitting in every board
forming the outside and inside linings of walls, and was really more
difficult, and consequently more costly, to make than a similar break
would be in a built-up wall of brick or stone. There was no straining
after the picturesque for the picture’s sake in the minds of the practical
early settlers, and any charm that their buildings possessed arose from
their very simplicity and fitness for the purpose they were intended to
perform; and these earlier houses, with their plain gables and simple
outlines, were immeasurably preferable to what followed when the
people were better off and before the advent of outside influences.
In the second period of New Zealand Domestic Architecture the enter-
prising carpenter-architect sprang into a flourishing existence. “Wood-
ward’s National Architecture ” (an American book giving designs for
houses which, according to the letterpress, were equally adapted to
brick, stone, or timber construction, and thus carried their condemna-
tion with them), and works of similar kind directed the taste of the
day, and the box-shaped house was covered with “ features” nailed all
over it. Quoins (sometimes simple, sometimes panelled) were mitred
on the angles ; bay-windows and other excrescences were carted from
the mills and attached to the fronts; classical porticoes, with cleverly
built and glued-up columns, marked the wealth of the building owner ;
while ruby and bright green glass appeared in the vestibule and other
doorways, and for some years vulgarity reigned supreme.
However, the children of the earliest settlers were, as a rule, much better
educated than their parents, and, with an independence of thought and
action which might shock English people, insisted on having a share in
the designing and furnishing of the new home that the increased wealth
of the hardworking run-holder or merchant warranted their having.
It is surprising, and frequently a great pleasure to an architect, to find
that the daughter of the house is able, not only to appreciate the well-
weighed reasons for his work, but often to make happy suggestions by
which the final results are better than if left to his entirely masculine
and professional management. Dame Fashion is, of course, a great power
in New Zealand as elsewhere, and her dictates (often foolish) have to be
followed by the “up-to-date” in houses as they are in hats or skirts or
other matters, but of course with much more serious results to her de-
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