House and Garden 
engineering expert. He will require tact and 
persistency, in order to get the most out ol the 
ingenuity which the engineering expert fre¬ 
quently possesses. He must, in every case, 
have it definitely understood that no work in 
those departments is to be finally determined 
without reference to him for its ultimate effect 
in the sum total of his building. 
The landscape architect, the interior deco¬ 
rator, the glass designer, being men in whom 
the artistic sense is indispensable, are perhaps 
the most difficult of all to control; the more 
so that their functions are in many ways as 
important as that of the architect himself. 
Fortunately, these experts are much less frac¬ 
tious now than they were ten years ago, but 
the lack in each is usually due to a misap¬ 
prehension of the relation which his work 
should bear to the building of which it is an 
adjunct. 
It is a pity to have to admit that many 
architects do not consider the setting of their 
buildings, nor the treatment of interiors as 
an integral part of their design. It is a 
greater pity that many architects are not 
qualified to determine such questions. For 
such architects little respect can be anticipated 
from the specialist. The architect is of no 
help to him, and is not sensitive enough to 
appreciate the work of the specialist. The 
incentive to the best effort is absent. 
On the other hand, where an architect has 
mastered, if only in a general way, the prin¬ 
ciples of good design, where he has a clear 
conception of his completed work, he should 
have no difficulty in modestly but firmly im¬ 
pressing his convictions upon the specialist. 
The term “landscape architect” is an 
anomaly. The chief service of the landscape 
architect—since it seems to be the only term 
available—is to apply bis knowledge of 
planting, of the growth, form and color of 
vegetable life, to the details of the general 
scheme of grounds or setting, which has been 
correlated to the building and developed in 
its architectural parts by the architect him¬ 
self. The landscape architect should not be 
called upon to determine whether gardens 
shall be sunken or raised; whether walls, 
balustrades, dials, and such accessories shall 
be of one mass and design or another, of one 
material or another; whether the formal gar¬ 
den shall be in this axis or that, or off' axis 
altogether; this is the duty of the architect. 
The service of the landscape architect should 
mean advice in the choice of plants, in the 
relative value of trees, shrubbery and vines, 
in the planting of lawns and hedges, and in 
those items which are the result of special 
nature study and intimate living with nature. 
Regarding the interior decorator, there is 
no possible slaughter worse than that he can 
accomplish, and usually does accomplish, 
with an otherwise harmless if not entirely 
wholesome architectural interior. And with 
the interior decorator may almost be classed, 
in ruthless disregard of architectural princi¬ 
ples, the artist of eminence to whom is en¬ 
trusted the picture panels. Puvis de Cha- 
vannes is almost the only modern who has 
realized the dignity of his work, and it is an 
open question whether, in the one or two 
examples of his work which we have the good 
fortune to possess in America, he would not 
have changed his color scheme could he have 
seen its surroundings in advance. 
Of designers in glass and mosaic, how many 
can be trusted undirected with a work of im¬ 
portance, without the risk of their introducing 
an irrelevant style or an inharmonious color 
note ? 
The only guarantee of the perfect working 
out of these various parts in the make-up of a 
building lies first, in the education of the archi¬ 
tect whereby he himself is competent to con¬ 
ceive, to express and to execute, or to select 
from around him those who can do so; and 
second, in the untiring supervision of his 
executants. 
An interesting side of all this is that the 
intelligent specialist, whatever his work, is 
usually willing and desirous that general lines 
shall be laid down for him. He knows that 
his work thus gains in dignity, grows more 
interesting in variety, and helps more in the 
accomplishment of a unified result than would 
be possible under any other circumstances. 
There is no reason in the world other than 
deficiency of some sort on the part of the 
architect, why the architect and the specialist 
should not work side by side in entire har¬ 
mony under the acknowledged leadership of 
the architect and the willing acquiescence of 
the specialist. 
83 
