HOUSE AND GARDEN 
233 
the characteristics of what has been sometimes referred to as the 
Chicago School. They are sufficiently unlike to raise, perhaps, 
some question as to just what the Chicago School is, and the 
question is hard to answer. They show, however, a common 
freedom from the restraint of accepted academic formulas of 
design and a general inclination on the part of their designers 
to build simply from local conditions, expressing logically the 
governing functions and developing the nature of the materials 
A living-room in which the arrangement and treatment of the natural 
materials, free from applied decoration, tell the whole story of 
architecture. Walter Burley Griffen, architect 
employed in a manner simple and at the same time interesting. 
The article by Mr. Frank E. Wallis in the December, 1909, 
number, “What and Why Is Colonial Architecture?” is so well 
written and is so largely true that it compels our admiration and 
convinces us, at least, that a Colonial house by Mr. Wallis would 
be very lovely indeed. He deals some doughty knocks at what 
he calls "the so-called misnamed Mission" style, yet even Mr. 
Wallis would not advise Colonial for the hot and arid places 
whose local conditions produced and made lovely the old mis¬ 
sions that we still delight to see. It is the modern “Mission” 
style, the importation, that Mr. Wallis resents, and when he 
raises his little hammer, I, for one, wish more strength to his 
elbow. The old missions were true to their time and place, truly 
and beautifully built, and we still find them good. The lesson 
is always the same — to build closely to the lines of need, of 
environment, is always to build truthfully and nearly always 
beautifully. Failure to do so always results in pretension, and 
generally in artistic cbaos. The make-believe is never truly or 
permanently beautiful. As surely as a “Mission” house looks 
out of place in Massachusetts, just so surely does a Colonial 
house look ridiculous in New Mexico or Southern California. 
The argument that Colonial is indigenous, American, and 
therefore to be preferred for use to-day could not be better pre¬ 
sented than it is in the December number, nor could a fitter 
argument against its too literal use be advanced than the frontis¬ 
piece of that number illustrating Mr. Wallis's article. This pic¬ 
ture shows the living-room of a remodeled farmhouse at 
Pocasset, Mass. It is a beautiful room, perfectly typical of a 
Colonial farmhouse. It has the old-fashioned wide and high 
fireplace with iron crane suspending a large copper pot and 
tea-kettle. On the chimney-breast hangs a powder-horn and in 
the corner of the room an old flint-lock rifle. Beside the chim¬ 
ney rests a mortar and pestle for grinding grains, on the wall 
a warming-pan and over one of the doors the model of a ship. 
These with a dozen other implements, including chairs, table 
and clock serve now to decorate the room, just as they probably 
did in the days when this house was occupied by its builder. But 
(Continued on page 242) 
“The intricate interweaving of texture, form and color to produce a 
pattern at once logical and interesting: that is style in archi¬ 
tecture” 
A perfect example of the “Western School” by its founder, Mr. Louis 
H. Sullivan 
A living-room in which the frank and straightforward treatment of 
wood paneling takes the place of all decoration 
