“HOW TO CHOOSE THE STYLE OF A HOUSE” 
IX/TR. Frank Miles Day’s interesting and in- 
forming paper in the February number of 
“House and Ciarden’’ has been the subject of 
widespread and notable comment in the archi¬ 
tectural world. Mr. Day’s conclusion was that while 
site and style undoubtedly do and must react, it 
is exceedingly difficult to express in stated terms 
the exact relation between them. 
One of the interesting discussions provoked by 
Mr. Day’s admirable paper is reprinted below 
from the April number of the London Architec¬ 
tural Review. 
What style do you recommend for my house ^ 
is almost invariably the first question which the 
client puts to his architect. It is in the hope of 
offering some few useful points of advice on this 
subject that the present article has been written. 
For those readers of The Architectural Review 
who have not noticed it, it may he worth pointing 
out that this same problem is now being discussed 
in America, and forms the subject of an excellent 
article in the February number of House and 
(Lirden, written by Mr. Frank Miles Day, 
President of the American Institute of Architects. 
Now, in attempting to answer the question, 
there is a considerable amount of spade work to 
be done first. Thus, to begin with, it is utterly 
useless to decide upon any style until you have 
made yourself acquainted with your client’s dis¬ 
position. Apparently American architects are more 
fortunate in this respect than their English col¬ 
leagues. At any rate, Mr. Day states emphatically 
that “it is obvious that the architect’s training and 
predilections for certain style will, in the main 
exercise a far greater inffuence on the house than 
will those of the owner.’’ And again, after re¬ 
ferring to the passion which Mr. Thomas Hastings 
has for the French styles, and Mr. R. A. Cram 
for the Gothic styles, and so on, he writes: “In 
the face of obsessions such as these, how futile it 
is for the owner to talk of choosing his own style. ” 
For our part we can only envy our more fortunate 
American colleagues, and are hound in all se¬ 
riousness to say that with us the client’s character 
is the first consideration. With the client of very 
decided and constantly changing ideas it is out of 
the question to select any style which depends for 
its effect upon symmetry. In dealing with a man 
like this, who runs through two or three centuries 
of architectural change in five minutes, the “hig¬ 
gledy-piggledy” style alone is suitable. It is a 
case of Hobson’s choice. Architecturally, the 
seeming confusion of this style is the result of the 
numerous additions of centuries. The client pro¬ 
duces the same effect in a moment. 
This, perhaps, is as good an opportunity as 
any of referring to a new method of buying a house 
which is briefly described by Mr. J. M. Haskell 
in the March number of the same magayine. 
Illustrations are given of a house completed under 
the new system by Messrs. Hoggson Brothers. 
Acting as the owner s representatives they attended 
to the making of the plans for the house by a New 
York architect approved by the owner, to the de¬ 
signing and planting of the grounds by a landscape 
architect, and the building of the house and the 
grading by local labour under a local contractor. 
The advantages claimed for this method of con¬ 
tracting are, first, that the owner is guaranteed a 
certain maximum cost with a variable minimum 
cost dependent upon the saving effected over the 
first estimates (for the owner stipulates that the 
entire house and grounds complete shall not exceed 
a certain figure, and that if it costs less he shall be 
credited with his share of the difference), secondly, 
that the owner is freed from all worry; and 
thirdly, that the inclusion under one contract of 
all parties engaged ensures unity and uniformity 
not otherwise possible. Here again we notice 
that the American client is prepared to allow his 
architect a much freer hand in the designing, 
though it is, of course, conceivable that if the con¬ 
tractors proved cantankerous the architect might 
find he had only exchanged one tyrant for another. 
In the second place the main dividing line, of 
course, is whether the house is to be built in the 
country or town. Mr. Day’s article deals only 
with country houses, and it is with them that we 
also shall here be mainly concerned. But a few 
words about town houses may not be out of place. 
Naturally the necessity for making the greatest 
possible use of the available space and cubical 
contents is of the first importance and overweighs 
everything else, and even with the slight compensa¬ 
tion of only being responsible for one elevation the 
architect of a town house has a difficult task to 
carry out. For very often the situation is roughly 
as follows: He is called upon to design a house for 
an old square, the houses of which represent a 
definite scheme and are of equal floor levels and 
parapet heights (these last, unfortunately, only 
too rare in London), built, say, one hundred and 
fifty years ago, and having therefore some historical 
interest. Probably, a two-fold conflict ensues. In 
the first place you must contend against the 
old practice of house-building, which made the 
two lower floors very high and squashed the upper 
ones into a smaller space than is now permitted by 
the Building Act. And in the second place you 
must hold the balance between sentiment for the 
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