234 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



October, 1906 



1 2 — A Colonial Wainscot Extends Around the Hall and Up the Staircase 



3 — Bookcases Built in, and a Fireplace with Onyx Facings and a Colonial 

 Mantel are the Features of the Living-room 



1 4 — Colonial Furniture Carries Out the Characteristic Feature of the Dining-room 



projects of the students of the great French School 

 of Fine Arts are reproduced in remodeled Ameri- 

 can designs, to the great wonder of those who 

 know their origin and have some familiarity with 

 architectural history and with the methbds of 

 original design. 



For to copy is not to design. The ethics of re- 

 modeling and readaptation are somewhat nicer 

 and abound in fine distinctions which would re- 

 quire a lifetime in their arguing. But the art of 

 original design seems on the verge of extinction. 

 Our architects are engaged in a veritable debauch- 

 ery of copying and appropriation. Every facility 

 is offered them. Ponderous volumes of existing 

 details may be had for reasonable sums, in which 

 everything that may be needed in a stately build- 

 ing can be found by the ingenious borrower. All 

 he needs to know is where the desired matter can 

 be obtained. Indicating the required volume to his 

 draftsman, he has little more to do until the com- 

 pleted compilation is presented to him for final 

 criticism and suggestion. 



It is delightful work, this architectural compila- 

 tion. It means the reduction of the art of design 

 to its simplest limits. It abolishes care. It 

 destroys doubt. It saves thought. It increases 

 speed. It adds to time. The time once spent in 

 thought can now be given to mechanical drafting. 

 The time once given to original designing can now 

 be saved for the more congenial task of compila- 

 tion. No need to wait on inspiration under this 

 system, for no inspiration is needed. All that is 

 required is a knowledge of where the necessary 

 materials can be borrowed, and the rest is plain 

 sailing. 



No architect believes a word of this. He will 

 tell you in the most solemn manner that there is 

 as much skill needed in compilation as in any effort 

 of original design. He will tell you that these 

 transplanted designs which are giving so foreign 

 a character to our chief streets, have all been care- 

 fully restudied, redesigned, readapted to new con- 

 ditions; that the modern buildings are not the old 

 ones transplanted, not the old ones made over in 

 a wholly new and original manner. And then some 

 wag will show you a photograph of the old build- 

 ing and the new and calmly ask you which is which, 

 or wherein the one differs from the other. In 

 many cases it will be difficult to answer this ques- 

 tion in a satisfactory manner. 



The time may come when the ethics of archi- 

 tectural copying may be discussed on its merits, 

 meanwhile it may be pertinent to point out that it 

 ensures, on the whole, work of a very high char- 

 acter. There are many monuments of architectural 

 art of extraordinary beauty and purity, work of a 

 sort that no modern architect has either time or 

 the ability to produce. There is a gain in borrow- 

 ing this beauty because it is good; but there is a 

 loss in originality and a distinct lowering of the 

 status of architects. Pushed to the extreme it 

 transforms the architect from a designer to a 

 copier; he is no longer an original artist, but a com- 

 piler; he no longer invents, but he takes; he is no 

 longer a man of original thought, but a man who 

 allows others to do his thinking for him. 



The churches of the medieval period, which 

 epoch was distinctly original, have the same basic 

 idea, but the development of the theme is individual 

 in each case. 



