March, 1906 
AMERICAN HOMES AND 
GARDENS 173 
Helps to Home Building 
Fashions in Houses 
OR many years past the designing of houses 
has been dominated by fashions. ‘The cus- 
tom extends well back into the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and is, therefore, no new thing. Until 
the end of the medieval or Gothic period 
men built in the only way they knew; that 
is to say, they built in one style, or in a progressive style in 
which each marked period was but a step further on in the 
same method. With the epoch we call the Renaissance a 
new system of designing was introduced. Men no longer 
built in an hereditary fashion, but set about getting new de- 
signs, inventing new modes, employing new ideas. Classic 
structures immediately supplanted Gothic structures in popu- 
lar and artistic estimation. It was the first of the architec- 
tural fads. 
It was enormously successful. “he new movement spread 
rapidly over the whole of Europe. Masterpiece after mas- 
terpiece was designed in the new style and are still regarded 
with abounding favor. By the end of the seventeenth cen- 
tury the original fires of inspiration were well nigh extin- 
guished and the eighteenth century witnessed a collapse 
whose completeness was only exceeded by the various falls 
and summersaults of the nineteenth. 
The home builder of to-day is not immediately concerned 
with these records of the past. He has enough to do to 
keep in touch with the fashionable changes of his own time, 
which are rapid enough and bothersome enough to keep an 
active man busy in recording them. But it is well to remem- 
ber, perhaps, that for several centuries architecture has been 
the plaything of fashion, changing from time to time with 
the vagaries of a monarch, swayed by the genius of an over- 
powering designer, brought into life by some daring experi- 
menter, or inspired by some strange new taste whose origin 
has been lost among other important things. 
Fashions in architecture, therefore, are no new thing; but 
it is doubtful if any age can equal our own in the rapidity of 
change or in the variety of modes. If our architectural 
fashions do not change daily they at least move so swiftly 
that it is dificult to keep track of them, and this change is 
without any real reason at all. It does not come from the 
owners of property and the builders of houses, for these 
people, with but few exceptions, have no knowledge of 
architectural history and little conception of architectural 
taste. It does not come from any public or private need, for 
our architects have amply demonstrated that convenience, 
necessity and use in building is above mere style, and that 
any structure can be as available as any other, no matter how 
it is designed. It does not come from earnest thought and 
effort on the part of the architects, for these complacent souls 
will do anything they are asked to do, and will turn out an 
English farmhouse with the same ease and grace that they 
will employ in designing you an Italian palace. 
It is quite as profitless to trace the origin of styles in build- 
ing as to seek the meaning of changes in fashions in dress. 
But it may be pointed out that the first great architectural 
fashion—that of the Italian Renaissance—did not begin in 
the indifferent flimsy manner that modern fashions in archi- 
tecture seem to originate. The great architects of that won- 
derful building period were animated by the loftiest love 
ana admiration for the new forms and the new style in which 
they were designing. They approached their work in a rev- 
erent spirit for beauty and accomplished great results be- 
cause they worked in a great way. 
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Nothing of that sort is done to-day. Now the architec- 
tural fashions change as quickly as the wind and with as 
little reason. Some wealthy person builds a great house in 
a particular style. He may never have heard of it before, 
but his architect has convinced him it is the thing to use. It 
may have the element of novelty—for not everything in ar- 
chitecture has yet been used up, valiantly as the modern 
copiest has tried to exhaust the past—it may have qualities 
of splendor, there may be many reasons brought forward 
for its use. And forthwith the commission is given, the 
house designed and built. Then, we may suppose, every 
friend and enemy of the rich man falls upon that house. 
Some are filled with admiration, others with envy. Some 
one wants another house designed in a similar way; and 
then another arises, and still another, and a great fad or 
fashion is started that continues—not until it burns itself 
out—but until some other vagary comes into vogue and a 
new idol is erected on the pedestal of public admiration. 
It is a pity that this should be the case, and more than 
a pity. he single person benefited by these operations is 
the architect, and he only to the amount of his fee. He adds 
nothing to his professional dignity, although he may win 
a certain local fame that will be his until some brother prac- 
titioner does something better in a newer way. He does 
not add to the dignity of architecture, for he transforms 
its practice into a pure money-making business in which the 
rewards are reckoned in dollars and cents. He does not ad- 
vance architecture, for what he does is without thought of 
furthering his art, but of pleasing himself and his client, 
and perhaps magnifying his own facility in design. ‘The lat- 
ter end may for the time being be accomplished, but there 
is no real progress, for the latest news from Europe, or the 
latest hint from a new client, will turn his thoughts to other 
fields, and he begins afresh, totally oblivious of the fact 
that he is going backwards. 
Yet with all this hurried scramble in the architectural 
styles there has come a betterment of architectural condi- 
tions. The public is quicker to note a new building and to 
comment on its architectural parts than ever before. This 
is not much, it is true, but it is something, and it indicates 
a better point of view than when a new building was never 
thought of as an object of any interest. Thanks to their 
realization of the value of architectural training our archi- 
tects, even in their varied styles, do better work than before. 
There are fewer solecisms, fewer personal vagaries; if there 
is less originality there is at least more correctness; better 
models are followed, and better work done in many ways. 
Not always, of course, nor perhaps even generally, but in 
a broad way architecture has advanced in our own time, 
although the advancement has been without concerted action 
and has been achieved without definite ends. 
A special word of caution should be given the home 
builder on the subject of fashions in homes. We live in a 
period of architectural fashions, which change quicker than 
in any other period. There is an astonishing desire to build 
in the latest style. It is a desire that should be gratified 
only with the utmost care and deliberation. The latest 
style may not be a good style for the special house that is 
proposed. It may not be suited to the needs of the owner. 
It may have inherent disadvantages which render it unsuited 
to any purpose. Mere fashion in architecture is the very 
last thing to be considered. It is bound to pass away sooner 
or later, and perhaps sooner than may be expected. 
