754 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



shall be cheaper per unit of accommodation than cottage homes. 

 This will probably not be true where tenement houses are required to 

 be fireproof. It is, however, advisable for citizens who are aware of 

 the urgency of their local housing problems to experiment in the con- 

 struction of detached and multiple cottages. The best ability of 

 architects in America has been turned to monumental work, but the 

 important social problem of designing cheap cottages has been almost 

 overlooked by them. In England the attention of the best architects 

 has been turned to this problem by the holding of competitions with 

 prizes for the best cottage constructed for a specified sum (£175 

 in the case of the first cheap cottages exhibition. Garden City, 1905). 

 The purchase of the houses constructed may be guaranteed by the 

 promoting body. 



It would be desirable to interest the best-trained architects of 

 America in this problem, for by competition among them new ar- 

 rangements of houses and new materials for construction will be 

 brought to public attention. Such a competition might be held by a 

 municipality (as, for example, one was held at Sheffield, England, in 

 1907), but such competition could be held with equal satisfaction by 

 some private organization. The cost of cottage construction may be 

 reduced also by large-scale building, buying and developing several 

 acres of land at a time. This may be done by philanthropic associa- 

 tions, by employers of labor, by commercial building companies, or 

 by cooperative associations of tenants. It is in experiments of the 

 type above indicated that private organizations can do their best 

 work in meeting the problem of promoting suburban housing. 



