I2O 



The Country House 



The wooden mantel with the wooden architraves calls for a fireproof facing 

 between it and the fireplace opening. Brick and marble Were used for this, as 

 well as the charming Dutch tiles now r so sought after. Some authorities lament 

 the use of w r ood in the above capacity, arguing that it looks, and is, inflammable. 

 This is true, but nevertheless the better work of the designers in wood does not 

 seem to alarm the most of us, and as a matter of fact there is more cause for 

 worry in the poorly constructed chimney and its relation to the concealed wood- 

 work, which cannot 

 be gotten at in case 

 of trouble. Then, 

 too, the wood must 

 begin somewhere, 



and the stone mantel 



u ji i 



is hardly in place in 



a room when it is 

 the only material of 

 its kind used. Those 

 who have considered 

 the problem with 

 any degree of under- 

 standing have done 

 their work well, and 

 it is to be remem- 

 bered that there are 

 people of consider- 

 able taste and small 

 purses who cannot 

 afford the marble 



or even the tile fire breast, even were it in good taste. Brick is cheap, but not 

 always in harmony with the rest of the room. These same authorities insist that 

 the architrave of the fireplace should extend to the opening, like that of the door 

 or window. Now it does not require a very lengthy argument to demonstrate to the 

 ordinary individual that the fireplace is neither a door nor a window, or that the 

 principles governing the latter cannot control the more stringent ones of the 

 former. It is the province of architecture to accommodate itself to the principles 

 of construction and utility, and not the reverse. The architecture that has made 

 itself subservient to, and at the same time harmonious with, these principles, is 

 the better architecture. True design is not constructed decoration but decorated 

 construction. It is not denied that the fireplace architrave may abut the opening, 

 if the thing be feasible, but it is denied that its separation from it by the usual 

 facing, in the case of wooden trim, is not just as good and pure design. A facing 

 of from 8 to 12 inches is safe enough, but it should not be less than this. 



With the craze for bric-a-brac the mantel shelf became a thing of much im- 

 portance and was much enlarged. From the simple and pleasing design the 

 wooden stock mantel has departed, and has given us a hideous grotesque of in- 

 numerable shelves, spindles and jig-saw work, fit to raise the old designers from 



Mantel in the Nichols House, Salem. Miss. A successful rendering in which the flanking beams 

 retain the squareness of the ceiling and serve to tie the motive to the rest of the room 



