462 PRIZE QUESTION 



reseive in ornamentation should be considered a necessary economy, and at the 

 same time a proof of taste. 



House for renting by apartments with sJiops on the ground-Jloor. — This spe- 

 cies of habitation, so generally adopted at Paris, is still but little in use at Lille, 

 ■where the inhabitants prefer houses reserved for a single family; this is a defect, 

 however ; strangers do not find means of lodging conveniently ; the system of 

 .groups of rooms in one house would satisfy a real necessity. Here, it will be 

 seen, the question of expense is predominant, and it is necessary to renounce 

 the advantages of the habitation entirely private, with a view to the admission 

 of partial communism. The highest rate of renting should not exceed 2,500 

 francs. 



The society would especially call the attention of competitors to the difficult 

 problem of the establishment of lodgings at a reduced price for the working 

 class. Thinking it useful, in the interest of society, not too far to separatie 

 from one another the different classes of the population, that object will be 

 understood to form an essential part of the present programme. The difficulty, 

 therefore, of lodging dwSerent classes of society under the same roof must not 

 be evaded, but in proposing a special solution for lodges of workmen arranging 

 themselves in the general plan required. In this lodge the rent should not ex- 

 ceed a mean of seventy-five francs by the apartment and year. The conditions 

 of hygiene, of cleanliness, of morality, and, as far as possible, of commodious- 

 ness, must be met by means of an expenditure proportioned to the revenue. 

 Whatever cuinbination be adopted, the price of the ground, even in the centre 

 of a square, cannot be expected to fall below fifteen francs per square metre. 



The length of the street front is fixed at twenty-four metres, the depth of 

 the ground space being undetermined — that is to say, it is left to the discretion 

 of the architect whether one or several blocks of buildings be proposed. The 

 number and extent of the apartments is not fixed, depending, as they must do, 

 upon conditions which cannot be prescribed with exactness, without being 

 prejudicial to the conception of the types which the society wishes to obtain. 

 It may be added that the conveniences sought to be realized in the present case 

 must involve no neglect of the prescriptions of hygiene. The provisions relar 

 tive to sewerage are the same at Lille as at Paris. 



General conditions for the competition in architecture. — To encourage the ex- 

 tensive and complex science which is applied to the art of building habitations 

 corresponding to all the present wants of society, and at the same time to elevate 

 the public taste by the view of better types of modern civil and domestic archi- 

 tecture, such is the special object contemplated in the proposed competition; 

 competitors are therefore apprised that the society will accord the same value to 

 the qualities of economy, convenience, and health as to the artistic merit of the 

 architectural form. It will not consider its intentions well fulfilled except by 

 the simultaneous application of science and of art. To competitors the initiative 

 of ideas is left both as to substance and form, as Avell as the mode of their reali- 

 zation'; yet, without excluding the employment of materials transported at much 

 expense, it would seem judicious to prefer materials drawn from the country or 

 of no remote origin : for the walls, bricks, red or glazed ; for the basement, the 

 sandstone of Soignies, Belgium ; for the roof, slate, violet or green. The designs 

 for the whole should be given on a scale of 0.0025; plans and sections on one 

 of 0.025; facades 0.05; a detail of the facade should be represented of the size 

 to be executed. Independently of the required indications, competitors will be 

 at liberty to send all drawings and notes explanatory or descriptive which they 

 deem necessary. 



. The Society of Sciences will appoint a jury of adjudication, of which a ma- 

 jority shall be architects, and the greatest publicity will be given to the result 

 of the competition. An exhibition will precede the reading, in public session, 

 of the report, and after the judgment thus rendered a second exhibition will 



