‘‘How to Choose the Style of a House” 
surroundings and the practical nature of the huild- 
ing; and so, while trying to avoid any jarring effect, 
you may annoy the client, who wishes to obtain an 
increased rental, or else may refuse to rebuild 
altogether. Under such circumstances the heroic 
course is the only course. You assume boldly 
that all the remaining leases will lall in soon, and 
that the probable reconstructions will follow your 
own example. 1 he assumption is not really so 
wild as it may appear, and it is therefore very 
important to get as much approval of your design 
as possible. The combined action of ground 
landlords, in fact, offers the one chance the big 
landholders have of beautifying London without 
burdening the leaseholders with undue expense. 
The frontages ought to be approved by the R. I. 
B. A., and, even if the frontages were not precisely 
identical, at least such definite features as the 
height of cornices, copings, etc., should be paid 
much greater attention. One could not do better 
than close these few brief remarks on town archi¬ 
tecture than by referring the reader to the speeches 
made at the 1905 annual dinner of the American 
Institute of Architects. For the principal result 
of the dinner was to give definite official approval 
to the idea that the day of unrelated buildings had 
passed, and that the capital city of the United 
States should be enlarged, extended, and made 
beautiful in an orderly and systematic manner. 
The addresses then delivered by prominent men— 
by no means all of them architects—were of great 
variety in the treatment of one main theme, the 
promise of American architecture. The signifi¬ 
cance of the occasion lay not in any achievement 
accomplished, but in the anticipation of the even¬ 
tual success of two great hopes and aims of the 
Institute. One of these aims, the placing on a 
substantial and adequate foundation of the Ameri¬ 
can Academy in Rome, does not concern us here. 
But with the second aim we are concerned intimate¬ 
ly. For when the Institute undertook to oppose the 
prevailing practice of constructing Government 
buildings without regard either to the original plan 
of Washington or to any established order, and partic¬ 
ularly the threatened mutilation of the historic 
White House; and when an expert commission, 
created by this agitation, reported in favour of a 
return to the L’Enfant plan for the treatment of the 
Mall, and not only prepared extensions of that plan 
to meet the new conditions, hut also schemed out 
a means of bringing into an harmonious whole a 
system of outlying parks and boulevards, then a 
forward step was taken which interested not only 
the people immediately concerned, hut all their 
colleagues all over the world who have similar 
difficulties to contend against. 
We can now turn to the main body of our subject 
namely, how to select a style for a country house. 
The first factor, it goes without saying, is the site. 
Is the country mountainousTr flat, open or wooded ? 
For the first thing any architect must aim at is 
to keep in harmony with nature. No matter what 
he the size or the style of the building, it must appear 
as it were, to grow from its site. A building which 
looks as if it had been dumped down upon the 
ground is a failure artistically. lo dogmatise is 
impossible, hut it may he stated generally that the 
low building will grow more naturally out of a 
plain than a high one, and, in the majority of cases 
perhaps, will also look better upon the top of a 
hill; whereas, on the other hand, where you have 
a background of the side of a hill the high building 
is the more pleasing because the eye likes to he 
deceived by the illusion of the high structure plung¬ 
ing down into the indefinite depth. How impos¬ 
sible it is to lay down any hard and fast rule is 
shown by the examples quoted by Mr. Day. While 
he, too, thinks that long level lines harmonize 
best with quiet stretches of landscape, he is forced 
to admit that his example of Groomhridge Place is 
counterbalanced by josselyn in France with its 
animated style, Chenonceaux spanning the quiet 
waters of the Cher with its series of bold arches 
and the massing of turrets and gables at the one 
end, and again the Azay “with its strong verticals 
and its agitated roof lines looking supremely beau¬ 
tiful in broad meadows with the folds of the Indre 
wrapped about its base.” 
The second consideration to be taken into 
account is the style of the houses in the locality. 
Where houses are sparse this consideration nat¬ 
urally will weigh less, but where the buildings are 
fairly numerous it should he impossible to ignore 
them or not to consider beforehand whether some 
style mentally agreed upon will or will not dove¬ 
tail in with the general character of the neigh¬ 
boring houses. In fact, to build roughly in ac¬ 
cordance with the style of the locality is almost 
invariably a very sound working rule. 1 he only 
question which then arises is whether the particular 
locality affords any examples of houses you want 
to copy. For exanq:)le, your client may he a mil¬ 
lionaire who intends to settle in a poor agricultural 
neighbourhood. In such circumstances this rule 
can hardly hold good. The locality contains 
nothing but instances of the cottage style, and to 
swell the cottage style to a big house has never yet 
been done with any complete success. It is a 
mistake which has been and is continually being 
made, and invariably produces a fussy effect. A 
small style and small detail cannot suit a big 
building. Conversely there is the mistake in the 
opposite direction. One has not to walk very far 
in the country without seeing specimens of the 
grandiose style which originally belonged to some 
“Baronial Flail” type of building applied gro- 
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