50 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
I F you would know 
what an architect is, 
consider him in terms of 
the strategist. The layman may dream his house, but the 
architect must dream its execution ; the layman can say what 
manner of house he wants, but the architect will tell him how 
to attain it. 
A deliberate arrangement of forces, his work, an arrang¬ 
ing of the powers of beauty against the powers of Nature 
that both may know the transformation of contrast. It is 
the creation, in stone or 
steel, in timber or in brick, 
of that path along which the 
armies of inexorable custom 
make their appointed way. 
In this battle of building he 
marshalls a force as real as 
serried hosts and more abid¬ 
ing; he studies his field and 
summons Nature to aid him ; 
upon the hills he imposes a 
new skyline whose spires 
look out upon to-morrow 
and the days thereafter. A 
dreamer this man, yet let 
him draw but a line — and 
lo! the void is filled with the 
reality of a house! 
You never hear of the 
strategists in battle; they 
would seem to creep away 
unacclaimed, to find com¬ 
pensation in the mere ac¬ 
complishment. So the archi¬ 
tect. Once finished, the 
dwellers glorify the house 
into a home. A home the 
architect cannot make; he is 
a builder of buildings, the 
man behind the plans. 
THE MAN BEHIND THE PLANS 
M : 
"EN have often asked: 
Is architecture a busi¬ 
ness or a profession? A 
business for some, a profes¬ 
sion with others, while to a hate, 
third class it is an avocation. 
To the majority it is an hon¬ 
orable and inspiring profes¬ 
sion in its highest sense ; but 
the architect has to be quite 
a number of things to-day 
that the usual professional 
man does not, and of which 
the architects of earlier davs 
knew nothing about. He 
must be a good housekeeper, 
something of a lawyer and engineer, he must know some¬ 
thing of real estate values and insurance, in addition to being 
a good business man. He must understand the fundamentals 
of sanitation for his professional qualifications, as well as 
being a fair plumber, steam-fitter and electrician, a good 
painter, an excellent carpenter and mason, know something 
about plastering, marble and tile setting and should work 
fourteen hours a day. That means a liberal education, ob¬ 
tained at an early age if a man expects to live long enough 
to practice it in time to make a living. On the whole, his 
remuneration is not high compared to the number of unpro¬ 
ductive years spent in acquiring theoretical and practical 
knowledge. 
But even more: the architect must be a diplomat. He owes 
allegiance to his art, allegiance to his client and must keep 
faith with his contractors. On all sides is he hedged in with 
limitations—limitations of taste, of mechanics, of a client’s 
wish and a contractor’s willfulness. How many a piece of 
good architecture owes its existence to diplomacy if the truth 
were but known! 
Now, no diplomat can carry through his policies save his 
nation support him, and in like manner no architect can ac¬ 
complish well the work he sets out to do unless he enjoys 
the utmost confidence of his client. 
These stones are not a hearth until they know 
The red and kindly miracle of flame. . . . 
Nor this house Home until love makes it so. 
Houses, for good report, or dubious fame, 
Take on the aspect of their tenants’ minds; 
The thoughts that seemed deep hidden in the 
brain 
Shall shine forth from the very eaves and blinds: 
Joy, sorrow, service, sacrifice and pain! 
No portals may bar sorrow out nor dread, 
And these expectant, empty rooms await 
The soul new born, the body newly dead, 
Rapture and grief, and all the gifts 
Few clients understand 
before building, the 
relation of an archi¬ 
tect to the process of building in general, or the nature, func¬ 
tion and scope of the profession, as well as its limitations as 
to the architect’s duties, distinguished from the duties belong¬ 
ing to the contractor. 
The architect is the professional advisor of his client, and, 
as such, his duties correspond closely to the duties owed by 
a professional man to his employer. 
More often than other-' 
wise the architect is the rep¬ 
resentative of his employer 
in the supervision and carry¬ 
ing out of the contract made 
between the owner and the 
general contractor. 
It is now customary for 
the contract between the 
owner and the contractor to 
name the architect as referee 
for the interpretation of the 
contract, and, to a great ex¬ 
tent, as the arbitrator of 
rights and duties thereby 
created. 
To the client the architect 
owes the ordinary duties of 
zeal, faithfulness and the 
exercise of reasonable pro¬ 
fessional skill. By exercise 
of reasonable professional 
skill is not meant the high¬ 
est possible skill or knowl¬ 
edge that might he possessed 
by any one of several archi¬ 
tects, but rather that sort of 
knowledge and skill which 
ordinary good usage has 
made it reasonable to expect 
from an architect of profes¬ 
sional attainment and exper¬ 
ience. 
of 
But when a hundred human years have gone, 
Here on this south and sunward-looking slope, 
God grant this homely fortress fronts the dawn 
With still unconquered kindliness and hope! 
T 1 
HERE will always be 
two orders of archi¬ 
tects : those to whom archi¬ 
tecture is a handmaid, serv¬ 
ing graciously and unfrow- 
ardly that life may be 
more livable and more full; 
and those to whom archi¬ 
tecture is a taskmaster, set¬ 
ting endless compulsions and 
impassable barriers to his 
life. The one holds that 
architecture is subservient to 
utility; the other, that architecture is an end in itself. To the 
one the great ideal is life; to the other, architecture. 
On those first days it was the artist in life who stood by 
the master draughtsman and watched him design the span 
of the heavens. It was he who saw planned the towers of 
the hills whence men thereafter might look for strength and 
inspiration. The architectural architect came along much later. 
Master and serf, they labor side by side down the years. 
Most of their work passes, some is not even a memory. The 
decay of age knows no distinction. Makers of new skylines 
arise. We in a young land reach up to the heavens and our 
lighted towers enspangle the skirts of night. We have taken 
the good of the past and fitted it to our needs. Lo! a new 
architecture! Listen! There never was a new architecture. 
There is only one great law: all buildings are houses—houses 
to work in, houses to play in, houses to pray in. The rest of 
architecture is the product of environment. 
It is the man who understands how to house his fellowmen 
so that, in their appointed time and place, they can best work 
and play and pray who becomes the artist in architecture as 
he is the artist in life. The mechanics of his craft—whether 
his roofs be flat or pointed, his towers buttressed or alone— 
he learns from Nature. For he is her servitor, even as archi¬ 
tecture is his handmaid. 
