HOUSE AND GARDEN 
July, 
1914 
and broken line the average architect takes 
refuge, but here is one bold enough to abjure 
artifices and say frankly and definitely what 
he has to say by sheer means of simple line, 
bold mass, and the interdependence of house 
and surroundings. 
He has chosen concrete as his medium of 
expression. One of the oldest of building 
materials, used in Babylonia, Egypt and 
Rome, concrete is also the newest and ap¬ 
parently destined to universal use. To an 
incorrigible modern, an insistent glorifier of 
his own hour, the choice of concrete is a 
natural one. This material, considered by 
many a bland and expressionless medium, has 
been actively advocated by Mr. Gill. It re¬ 
sponds to his frank and simple methods of 
design and construction. With concrete and 
hollow tile walls, and cement floors, his 
houses are virtually fire and time proof, 
which in itself sounds a new note in a land 
notorious for its fire waste and the generally 
transient nature of house construction. 
With consummate daring Mr. Gill has 
abandoned all orthodox decorative effects. 
Yet no necessary and practical detail is too 
small for special thought. A door, a screen, 
an iron gate, a small outside stairway for 
the iceman and the tiny opening in the outer 
wall of the refrigerator, an electric fixture, 
a knocker, a bit of stained glass on a stair 
landing, each in turn is of his own careful 
designing—details now so often the concern 
of mechanics rather than craftsmen. The 
wood reinforcement for the screen of an 
upper window forms in his mind the back¬ 
ground for the greenery or color of a win¬ 
dow-box. On such a window-box or small 
balcony, the occasional reliefs of a severe 
fagade, he lavishes the thought another 
would spend on artificial ornamentation. 
With all the ceaseless discussion of the 
artistic, no two are agreed as to what consti¬ 
tutes art. Why not, then, reasons this apos¬ 
tle of simplicity, cease the pretense of art 
and enlist the aid of Nature, who invariably 
pleases ? She makes no two leaves exactly 
alike, has no hard and fast rules, and yet is 
an architect's most dependable ally. And so 
he works in close touch with his landscape 
gardener, consciously relying upon aid from 
the slender spire of an Italian cypress, the 
bending frond of a palm, the tangled drapery 
of a vine, or the play of light and shadow 
from a wide-spreading oak or sycamore, for 
the interruption of what might otherwise 
seem too great austerity. Foreseeing na¬ 
ture’s part, he is content to wait for the com¬ 
pletion of his plan and he makes others con¬ 
tent to wait. 
In California nature is a more willing and 
generous ally for such a builder, who has 
doubtless been enabled to develop his gospel 
of simplicity more fully and spread it more 
widely than would be possible elsewhere. 
She provides not only a wealth of growing 
Wall surfaces are finished in rough plaster, but so careful is their coloring that they become decorative 
in themselves without relying upon paper or hangings 
The architect has experimented until he has produced steel-door frames and window casings, thus making 
every part of the house perform some structural purpose 
High walls pierced by arched gates, providing privacy to rear gardens and balconies, are a pronounced detaiP 
