68 
House & Garden 
EDWARD MILLER 
& COMPANY 
Meriden, Connecticut 
Established 1844 
Distinctive 
Home Lighting 
Few homes have lighting fixtures which 
are actually beautiful. But more and 
more attention is being given to this sub¬ 
ject of artistic lighting. 
And even if you are not building a new 
house, you can improve your present 
home at no great expense with 
Lighting Fixtures 
This design harmonizes with almost any 
home furnishing and the prices are revo¬ 
lutionary for handsome, high quality 
fixtures. 
Chnndplipr 5 H s ht ’ antic i ue gold 
i/iuuiueiier finish .$24.00 
$25.00 west of the Rockies. 
Colonial silver finish suitable 
for dining room... .$28.50 
$29.50 west of the Rockies. 
2 light, with switch, antique 
gold finish .$10.25 
$10.75 west of the Rockies. 
Colonial silver finish... .$12.50 
$13.00 west of the Rockies. 
On request we will gladly give you the name of the 
nearest dealer where these fixtures can be seen. 
The Patio—An Architectural Heritage 
(Continued from page 40) 
It is a known fact that the patios of 
Spain are, as a rule, more beautiful and 
sumptuous than those of Latin Amer¬ 
ica, but the latter have the attractive¬ 
ness of their tropical flowers which 
remind one strongly of those of Anda¬ 
lusia, filled with the delicate perfumes 
of orange-trees and carnations. The 
patios of Castile, Leon and Aragon are 
serious and magnificent in the old 
manorial houses as well as in the castles, 
and those of Andalusia are so extremely 
beautiful that they can never be cast 
into oblivion once a person has seen 
them. In some cities, such as Seville, 
the patios are, in truth, their glory and 
pride, and there are some worthy, in¬ 
deed, of the traditions of the Arabs, 
being so beautiful and attractive that it 
is still said in Spain that when a wealthy 
person of Seville would have a house 
built he would order the architect as 
follows: “Make me a patio, and with 
what is left, a house.” And thus the 
Spanish patios have become famous the 
world over. They combine the peace 
and silence of the monastic cloisters 
with the pagan gaiety and beauty of the 
Arabic and Pompeian yards. 
Transplanted Patios 
Our readers will undoubtedly fully 
understand why in all Latin America 
the patios constitute the most interest¬ 
ing themes and current topics of the 
day. The Spanish conquerors and col¬ 
onizers settled in America from Cali¬ 
fornia to the extreme South. Even to¬ 
day in the old cities on the Pacific Coast 
Americans are able to find vestiges of 
these patios. Those of Mexico, Cuba 
and other Latin American countries re¬ 
mind us of the Spanish patios. They 
are generally made of rubblework, are 
whitewashed, and their pavement is 
made of brick. Those of Spain have the 
columns of the gallery made of marble 
and in the walls of the interior of the 
gallery high friezes of Mooresque glazed 
tile, of vivid colors, precious drawings 
and iridescent reflections open to the 
light of the sun and moon, which can 
easily reach them. In the center of the 
Spanish patio there is nearly always a 
well with artistic ironwork, and in those 
of Andalusia a fountain around which 
flowers and plants grow profusely. In 
the patios of America there are flowers, 
too, and fountains, the latter being of 
Oriental origin and design. 
These patios of classic Spanish archi¬ 
tecture are reached from the street by 
the zaguan or corridor which is closed 
with a magnificent front door grating 
of iron. Across the patio, in front of 
this entrance, is located another grating 
leading to the garden which extends 
itself behind the house. When the house 
has a top floor, the stairway on one of 
the sides of the gallery leads one to the 
interior of the building, without de¬ 
tracting from the beauty of the patio. 
This form of stairway, however, is 
rather an adaptation, made previously 
by the Spaniards themselves in the 
colonies, than the classic manner of de¬ 
veloping the stairs in the native country. 
So it may truthfully be stated that 
the Spanish houses of Latin America 
have their origin in the Far East, hav¬ 
ing gone through a period of develop¬ 
ment in Greece and Pompeii, and hav¬ 
ing been inspired as well by the Arabic 
influence, which in Spain has left such 
wonderful works of art as the Alham¬ 
bra of Granada and the Alcazar of 
Seville, these being in truth the realiza¬ 
tion of the Arabian Nights in all their 
glorious splendor of a phantasy lit by 
the legendary torch of Mahomet, for 
which the most celebrated artisans of 
India, Bagdad and Damascus came,—to 
finally reach the world of Columbus 
where their peculiar beauty is repro¬ 
duced under the golden rays of the 
tropical sun and the moonlit nights of 
the western latitudes, in the midst of 
the splendors and sublimity of Mother 
Nature, astonishingly luxuriant. 
Latin American Types 
But the requirements of modern life, 
unfortunately, are casting all this aside, 
and who knows if in America the Span¬ 
ish patios will begin to fade away, as 
is already happening in the large cities 
of Spain where all the houses are mod¬ 
ern and have several stories without 
patio, and in the modern cities of Amer¬ 
ica, San Francisco, California, Mexico 
City, Montevideo, Buenos Aires? These 
patios still exist in Havana and Vera 
Cruz, and how ardently we would wish 
that those patios that have passed in 
such a glorious manner throughout the 
centuries would not die in America! 
For it can well be said that the history 
of the civilization of those countries of 
the New Continent is written on them. 
The patios can exist, notwithstand¬ 
ing the requirements of our modern life. 
There is absolutely nothing more adapt¬ 
able to all times and all civilizations, as 
is clearly demonstrated when we state 
that they existed under Greek paganism, 
under the Roman Empire, under the 
austere spirit of the Castilians as well 
as under the dreamy spirit of the sons 
of Mahomet and in the new American 
colonies on this side of the Atlantic. 
For All Climates 
Moreover, the patio can adapt itself 
to all climatic conditions. There are 
patios in Northern Spain, in Salamanca, 
Leon and Burgos, where, during the 
winter time, the snow completely covers 
the ground, for be it known that the 
patio can well be covered with a glass 
roof. And we likewise see them in the 
south, in Andalusia, where the heat is 
as intense as in the tropics, because the 
patio is covered with a large canvas 
awning which protects you from the 
ardent rays of the sun, and metamor¬ 
phoses the garden filled with flowers, 
with fountains and marbles, into the 
most exquisitely delicious place of rest 
and recreation. 
Religious and civil architecture has 
also adopted this structure of the Span¬ 
ish patios. The convents and missions 
that exist in America from the time of 
the Spanish conquests still retain the 
traces of these most beautiful patios, 
and in all Latin America the old palaces 
of the Spanish viceroys are to be found, 
constructed in the same manner as the 
old houses of Seville, with the large 
interior patio. 
Modified Styles 
The style of the architecture of the 
patios has also been modified to a 
certain extent as time has elapsed. At 
first they had the classic simplicity of 
the Roman and Grecian courtyards; 
later on they were embellished with 
attractive ornaments, paintings, draw¬ 
ings, stone work, arabesques and in¬ 
scriptions of the Arabian courtyards, 
tiles and marble incrustations, jaspers 
and even perfumed woods as in the 
Alhambra. After this came the classic 
patio of Castilian design with the in¬ 
fluence of a Gothic style. Later on we 
see the real Spanish patio which was in¬ 
troduced in America, the style being 
of the Spanish Renaissance, as the one 
of the University of “Alcala de Henares” 
near Madrid and similar to that of the 
palace of the Dukes of the Infantado in 
Guadalajara (Spain). Then a little later 
on the patio of the so-called Greco- 
Roman style came to Latin America 
and it has since predominated in the 
Spanish colonies, being the style created 
by a famous architect, Francisco Her¬ 
rera, who constructed the magnificent 
Monastery of the “Escorial” near Ma¬ 
drid. 
(Continued on page 70) 
