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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



July, 1906 



Helps to Home Building 



The Value of Architectural Study to the Architect 



HE architect is concerned with the practical 

 problems of actual building. Much of his 

 work is pure drudgery, hard, unprofitable, 

 unentertaining study. Like most men en- 

 gaged in any occupation he has constantly 

 to do things he does not want to do and 

 when he does not wish to do them. The agreeable side of 

 his work is the designing of agreeable things. He likes to 

 design and enjoys the study that results in designing. But 

 before he can design he must learn many things. The chief 

 oi these, without question, is to learn to design. His natural 

 gifts in that direction may be as great as you please, but 

 training and studying are necessary before a structure can be 

 so designed that it can be built in an economic and artistic 

 manner. 



The training of an architect is a subject that has received 

 a great deal of attention. In Europe — at least on the con- 

 tinent — it is more or less a matter of governmental control. 

 The greatest architectural school in the world is the cele- 

 brated Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and most other archi- 

 tectural schools are modeled on its methods. This is par- 

 ticularly true of the architectural schools in this country 

 which are supported or encouraged by men who have studied 

 in Paris. 



The trained architect is a comparatively modern creation, 

 trained as architects are now expected to be trained, and 

 trained as they must be if they would achieve any sort of 

 success in their profession. The architect to-day must be a 

 learned man. It is true that many good architects and many 

 successful architects cannot be so described. This, however, 

 by no means vitiates the truth of the statement, for the archi- 

 tect who knows the most is the one who wins the most 

 notable success. 



Knowledge with architects implies more than the mere 

 possession of groups of facts. Architecture is a practical 

 art, concerned with practical affairs. Architectural knowl- 

 edge must be real knowledge, adapted to practical work and 

 capable of being translated into actual buildings. He must 

 have creative ability as well as stores of knowledge, for 

 without the former the latter is of no value whatsoever. 



The conditions of architectural practice are not conducive 

 to the acquirement of knowledge or the development of cre- 

 ative powers. The architect who enters his profession filled 

 with the enthusiasm of youth for beautiful buildings and ex- 

 quisite decorations, soon loses his young ardor in the ex- 

 acting requirements of actual work. The fine buildings he 

 dreamed of are never realized. The great schemes that en- 

 thused him fail of realization. One by one the cherished 

 dreams, ideals of his early life, fail him, and there is little 

 left save hard reality. 



The experience is not confined to architecture, but is char- 

 acteristic of all callings which are in any way dependent on 

 the emotions or which have an emotional aspect. The re- 

 sult in architecture is, however, well calculated to arouse 

 sympathy, for the dreams of the young artist are pleasant 

 dreams that seem so capable of realization if the opportunity 

 to carry them out but presents itself. 



The architect, however, no sooner becomes immersed in 

 professional work than he realizes that he is no longer an 

 artist but a man of affairs. The question whether architecture 

 be a profession or an art has been argued by many weighty 

 minds without either side being satisfied. The current idea 



among architects as a rule is that they are artists. The 

 practical conception of them among those outside their pro- 

 fession is that they are men of business, engaged in business 

 matters. They are entrusted with their client's money; they 

 administer practical affairs, and they are concerned with all 

 sorts of things which have no artistic meaning or significance, 

 and which are essential in the practice of their art. 



All of this brings out very clearly the very great knowl- 

 edge the architect must have. He must know all sorts of 

 things. He must keep in touch with the advancement of 

 science. He must know what is the best material to use for 

 certain exposures, situations, method of construction and 

 results. He must know what is being done in his profession 

 to-day, and he must know what has" been done before. 



The pleasures of the study of architectural history are 

 very great. It is the most important part of the architect's 

 early training — of his pre-professional career. Once plunged 

 into office work he will have little enough time for historical 

 study. Then his ideas are narrowed more and more to the 

 rigid requirements of actual building. His time is so occu- 

 pied, the things he has to do are so varied that he speedily 

 realizes that he must devote himself to only the subjects of 

 immediate and practical importance if he can hope for any 

 satisfactory results. He does not mean to be narrow, he 

 does not mean to restrict his knowledge; but facts are against 

 him. He lops off historical study with one blow and comes 

 to look upon old buildings chiefly as sources of practical 

 ideas, from which he can borrow what he can and from 

 which he can compile the most. 



But the architect must know the past as well as the present. 

 No contemporary work looks so consistently to the past as 

 architecture. It ceased to be an original art in the old and 

 literal sense of the term, nearly four hundred years ago, and 

 since then it has been an art of compilation rather than an 

 art of creation. The greater the necessity, therefore, for ar- 

 chitectural study; the more urgent the need for familiarity 

 with the achievements of past time; the more vital it 

 is that this knowledge should be the widest possible, knowl- 

 edge without limit, knowledge without practical restrictions, 

 knowledge the mere recalling of which will be a pleasure and 

 a delight. 



For the buildings of the past have a greater art interest 

 than those of our own time. They were built under better 

 artistic conditions, by men who labored for art and who 

 were, in a sense, the masters of their employers. They 

 went into architecture because they loved it, and they worked 

 at it with enthusiasm that no modern man can bring to his 

 own labor. Architects do not work in the same way today. 

 Their problems are wholly different. They do not build 

 on the same scale nor with such splendid results. They have 

 no opportunity of doing so. Their work is less grand but 

 more practical. They are concerned less with the artistic 

 side of building than with the practical. They add less to 

 the beauty of life and more to its safety. And if they can 

 combine safety with artistic expression they have achieved 

 the most that can be asked of them and the most that can 

 be expected. 



This is the real new note of modern architecture. And it 

 emphasizes the enormous difficulties under which the modern 

 architect must work. He must use the old motifs as the 

 basis of his designs, and he must solve new problems with 

 old materials. Is it strange he does not always succeed? 



