STYLE IN ARCHITECTURE. 4OI 



into words. Kuskin, the .greatest genius who ever essayed 

 the task, went mad in the attempt. 



There is an ascending' scale in all the arts, measured by their 

 appeal to the emotions through the senses as opposed to the 

 intellect merely. In literature the scale rises from ordinary 

 prose to the liig'hest poetry, and so in architecture, at the 

 bottom of the scale are purely utilitarian buildings, which may 

 be compared to ordinary prose. Near the top is the poetry of 

 architecture, the apse, the vault, the dome, and the spire. 

 Highest of all in this scale is to be found the stained glass 

 windows, in which the subject matter shrinks to a matter of 

 little importance and the mosaic of coloured hre appeals to the 

 senses like its sister, the anthem. 



I have, I fear nearly exhausted the liiuits of my paper, and 

 have left little time for discussing' public and domestic build- 

 ings, and the crafts whicl; depend on them and on which they 

 themselves depend, such as furniture, decorations and garden- 

 ing'. Each subject, to do justice to it, would need a special 

 paper to itself. 



I can only say here that the same principles which I have 

 laid down in connection with general architecture should apply, 

 I believe, to our public building's and to our houses. We 

 should in our studies of these also go back to South Europe, 

 to Italy and to Spain for our models. The dominant feature 

 of the design should in this country be the colonnade, or the 

 loggia, or stoep, the open court or cloister or patio, the bal- 

 cony, lattice shutters and deep eaves. Much less dominant 

 in our designs (I am speaking of South Africa generally, not 

 only of Johannesburg) should be the bay window, which was 

 invented in a northern climate to catch every ray of sunlight, 

 and to warm the winter parlour, as the room was called in the 

 Elizabethan house. 



I do not, on the other hand, advocate copying slavishlv the 

 style of the Italian house, but I see in this new combination of 

 circumstances in the history of architecture a European people 

 with its northern traditions and high civilisation making homes 

 in an alien climate — another opportunity for the creation of a 

 genuine new style. This will not be achieved by reproducing 

 Surrey houses or Italian villas, but by adapting our notions of 

 comfort and refinement, which older nations did not possess, 

 to the altered material conditions with which we are sur- 

 rounded. 



It is often, by the way, forgotten how modern are the refine- 

 ments of civilisation. In the house of Plantin, a man famed 

 throughout Europe as the greatest printer of Antwerp, his 

 bedroom and all its fiu"niture is preserved intact, and a very 

 beautiful room it is. but there is no sign of anything that 

 could have been used for washing. At Hatfield there exists 

 a complete inventory of every household utensil, down even 

 to the kitchen spoons, that belonged to the great Cecil of the 

 reign of Elizabeth, ])ut there is no mention of any utensils for 

 washing. Our great ancestors of two or three centuries ago, 

 if they washed at all, pi'obably used the pump in the court- 

 yard. At Windsor Castle you are shown the Librarv iii which 

 it is recorded that Queen Elizabeth walked and spat and swore. 



