66 
House Garden 
THE WHEREFORE OF QUOINS 
'These Architectural Details, Once An Integral Part Of The 
Structure, Now Mainly Serve As Legitimate Decorations 
COSTEN FITZ-GIBBON 
W HAT are quoins for? 
What do they do to a 
building? 
The architect, of course, 
knows what they are for and 
what they do, but the client- 
home builder also is interested 
to know their “why’s” and 
“wherefore’s,” and the best 
way to grasp the situation is 
to examine a number of 
examples. 
The word “quoin” merely 
means a comer or angle, and 
when we apply it to an archi¬ 
tectural feature it means a 
corner or angle stone if the 
building is of stone or, at any 
rate, an angle projection of 
some sort if the wall is of 
another material than stone. 
Quoins are very much like 
the “sword” buttons on a 
man’s coat tails, or the but¬ 
tons on coat sleeves. At first 
they served a definitely useful 
purpose of structure; now, for 
the most part, they have be¬ 
come a mere convention, em¬ 
ployed chiefly with orna¬ 
mental intent. 
Whatever may have been 
the original intent of quoins, 
and however far they may 
have become but a conven¬ 
tional amenity, they still give 
satisfaction to the eye and 
mind, and the conviction they 
carry in that respect is really 
an important thing. It is just 
as much so as the satisfaction our eyes 
derive from friezes, pilasters, and many 
other well-recognized architectural 
forms, which were once upon a time 
structural and necessary but are now 
mostly conventions to which, however, 
we have become thoroughly attached 
and without which we should be 
unhappy or dissatisfied. 
The present use of the quoin is best 
determined by noting instances of 
sundry sorts, which give a raison d'etre 
and precedent. A number of those that 
appear in the illustrations have more 
than one lesson to teach. First of all, 
there are the quoins that still have a 
distinctly structural purpose and are, 
incidentally, gratifying to the eye 
because they convey to the mind a sense 
of their honest object. It is often pos¬ 
sible to find in old English houses walls 
built in small thin rubble courses which 
would not give the requisite firmness 
and strength for corner construction. 
W’ailace 
In Mount Pleasant, Philadelphia, once owned by Benedict Arnold, the 
beveled edged brick quoins not only give strength of construction, but contrast 
agreeably both in color and texture with the stucco of the wall surface 
The white painted wooden quoins on this church in 
Providence, R. I., built in 17Ji. are in sharp contrast with 
the clapboard finish of the wall, thus satisfying the eye 
Therefore the corners are 
built with large tooled flush 
quoins which are structural in 
intent and decorative by acci¬ 
dent. These quoins are, often, 
so to speak, dovetailed in the 
masonry. That is, they are 
alternately long and short on 
each face of the wall, the long 
quoins of one face being the 
short quoins of the other face 
■ around the corner, just like 
the corners of a well joined old 
wooden chest. That is the 
natural way for quoins to 
be set. 
The brick quoins, with 
beveled edges, at “Mount 
Pleasant,” in Philadelphia, 
are designed to perform a 
double function; they stiffen 
and strengthen the corners 
and, at the same time, they 
please the eye by the sym¬ 
metry of their beveled edges, 
by the play of light and sha¬ 
dow their projection creates, 
and by the contrast between 
their deep red color and the 
yellowish stucco of the face 
of the wall. 
Oftentimes quoins were em¬ 
ployed chiefly for the sake of 
giving emphasis and charac¬ 
ter to corners or angles. In 
both the stone farmhouse near 
Reading and the English 
country house by Lutyens 
they serve no structural pur¬ 
pose whatever, nor were they 
intended to. There is no projection, 
and consequently no play of light and 
shadow. There is simply the sharp 
contrast in color between the dark red 
brick quoins and the white or gray 
walls, to give emphatic definition to 
the corners. 
The Georgian building in Gloucester 
would be lost without its quoins. The 
conspicuous white cornices and balus¬ 
trades, the prominent keystones and 
vigorous architraves impart such em¬ 
phasis and call attention so pointedly 
to every feature of the composition that 
the building would look weak and 
unbalanced without the well-defined 
quoins. Here, too, the quoins contrib¬ 
ute some structural re-enforcement, 
but their function is chiefly the satis¬ 
faction of the eye. 
The large stucco quoins with even 
ends on both walls of the little Priest’s 
House at Viroflay, near Versailles, are 
(Continued on page 86) 
