THE ESTATE 253 



it, the approaches, the shape of the ground on which it is set. The 

 choice of the form of the house may be made because it is obviously 

 desirable in the large composition of the whole estate to put a tur- 

 reted and aspiring house on the top of the steep hill which has been 

 chosen, or perhaps, on the other hand, to put a long, low house in the 

 flat plain which is occupied by the estate which is being designed. 



Very important in its effect on the shape of the house is the choice House Form as 

 of the architectural style. To be sure, if the economic necessities of r{^- fst I 

 the house produce, inevitably, a long, low, rambling form, then the 

 architect can choose only among such styles as express themselves in 

 forms of that kind ; and similarly, if the house, for economic reasons, 

 works out to be small on plan, but tall and narrow, the style will be 

 fixed, or at any rate restricted, by this consideration. Then, too, 

 there will be the accepted style of the region, local traditions, local 

 materials, and so on, which, in the absence of good reasons to the con- 

 trary, ought at least to be seriously considered in choosing the style 

 of a new house. Again, and fundamentally important, there will be 

 the taste of the client, and particularly the mode of life which he is to 

 live — how the house is to be used : whether it is to be often occupied 

 by gay parties of guests, or whether it is to be the quiet abode of 

 some studious person. So the choice of style may be to a con- 

 siderable extent motived by the similarity of the life of the owner 

 of the new house to the life of the people who created the particular 

 style which is being considered. 



Another factor in determining the form of the house will always be 

 the taste of the designer. This, at times, has been given too free a 

 rein ; some designers seem to feel that the work of designing a house 

 is purely a matter of the expression of their own personality, as the work 

 of painting a picture or making a statue might be. The better attitude 

 in that regard is, as we have already seen, that planning a house or lay- 

 ing out an estate is interpreting the personality of the client, bearing in 

 mind, however, that the designer probably has an artistic ability superior 

 to that of the client, and that the designer is responsible for making the 

 result a work of art. /• • // 



The location and orientation of the house will be determined pri- Orientation of 

 marily by the factors of access, light, view, topography, and the deter- House 



