House and Garden 
Vol. IX February, 1906 No. 2 
ON THE CHOICE OF STYLE IN BUILDING A HOUSE 
By Frank Miles Day 
President of the American Institute of Architects 
OT long ago, the editor of House and Garden 
was asked by one who was about to build a 
house, what style it would be best to choose. The 
editor answered that the right course was to retain 
an architect of known ability and let the architect 
select the style. To this the would-be bouse owner 
answered, that he had already done so, but that the 
architect seemed as incapable of reaching a decision 
as he himself had been. He added, that there 
must be some fundamental principles which should 
control the choice of style for any given building, 
things subject to reason rather than fashion, and he 
suggested that the editor might well start a discussion 
of such questions. It is as a part of this discussion 
that the following thoughts are put forth. 
The first thing that occurs to me, and this without 
in any way attempting to beg the question, is that a 
deliberate choice of style is by no means an essential, 
is indeed often a grave hindrance, to a right and 
reasonable and beautiful solution of the problem of 
building. And by style, I here mean just what the 
editor’s questioner meant, that is to say, a well de¬ 
fined mode of building prevalent in some certain 
place and at some certain time. 
Normally, style of this sort originates from the 
needs of a people, from the materials at hand and 
from a desire to build with beauty; but in the course 
of its evolution, it is always modified and held in 
control by the builder’s knowledge of what has gone 
before or what is going on at his own time. Until 
the revival of learning, the age of the conscious, pas¬ 
sionate striving to resurrect the glory of the classic 
ages, there were but few, if any, deliberate attempts 
to hark back to an earlier manner of building. The 
ancients had done that sort of thing in sculpture when 
they had imitated the early work of their forbears 
in a way which, strive as it might, could not seize the 
real archaic spirit, the way we now call archaistic. 
But in architecture it is hard to put one’s finger on 
that sort of thing earlier than the time of the Renais¬ 
sance. Then, gradually, the old order gave way to 
the new. To be sure, even after the change, the 
needs of the people had to be met, and their needs were 
very different from those of the ancient Romans, 
COTTAGE ON LEHMANN STREET, GERMANTOWN, PHILADELPHIA Wilson Eyre, Architect 
Copyright , 1906, by The John C. Winston Co, 
57 
