Notes and Reviews 
supported by surfaces which invite vegeta¬ 
tion ; and equally important with these he 
places soundness of construction. There 
are few examples in the book which do not 
carry out these dicta; and if the collection as 
a whole shows some want of originality and 
invention, the argument remains upon the 
side of rational though conservative design. 
The illustrations are uniformly of line-and- 
wash perspective drawings, accompanied by 
plans drawn to scale. 
The forward steps Germany has recently 
taken in the artistic development of do¬ 
mestic architecture and household furnishing 
have been revealed to many persons only by 
the exhibit of that country at the St. Louis 
Exhibition. To those familiar with present art 
literature, however, it is not surprising that in 
the volume entitled “Das Moderne Land- 
HAUS UND SEINE INNERE AuSSTATTUNG,” ‘ 
there should be found much good design 
and little that has not some kernel of sug¬ 
gestion to all home builders, whatever coun¬ 
try they may inhabit. Whatever is done 
must be thoroughly modern in spirit, is the 
attitude of a progressive circle of German 
architects regarding architecture to-day, and 
in harmony with this view the present vol¬ 
ume contains quite a cosmopolitan collection 
of dwelling houses, but all of very recent 
execution. 
There are German and Austrian, English 
and Finnish houses, the last being represented 
by a few in the vicinity of Elelsingfors, which 
plainly betray the influence of modern Eng¬ 
lish work. The presentation of the latter is 
inadequate and misleading, although such 
names as Baillie-Scott, Edgar Wood, Ernest 
Newton and C. F. A. Voysey may be read 
under illustrations of work so far from repre¬ 
sentative of these men that one must refer 
to the captions to learn the author. The 
exceedingly interesting house of Charles R. 
Mackintosh completes the English section 
of the book and immediately brings it into 
consort with the Austrian and German work. 
In many of these the air of L'Art Nouveau 
is distinctly visible. 'To go into detail upon 
1 “ Das Moderne Landhaus und seine innere Ausstattung. ” Two 
hundred and twenty illustrations in half-tone of modern houses in Ger¬ 
many, Austria, England and Finland, together with their plans and 
interiors. Folio, in boards. Munich, F. Bruckmann, A.G., 1904. 
Price, 5 marks. 
the extreme cases would be to diagnose 
minutely that much-discussed malady. It is 
rather in the more temperate expressions of 
its thought that the interest and volume of the 
book to American house-designers lies. We 
refer particularly to the interiors designed by 
Herren, J. M. Olbrich, Berlepsch-Valendas, 
Richard Riemerschmid, C. und A. Bembe, 
the furnishings of Peter Behrens, Patriz EIu- 
ber, Josef Eloffman and Wilhelm Keppler. 
At the exteriors of houses designed by these 
men we involuntarily catch our breath, for 
the initial dip in their sea of idea is chill. 
We escape and recover ourselves before a few 
charming examples of modern work designed 
upon the traditions of Germany’s old country 
houses,—such a work, for instance, as the 
Landhaus Oberhof, by Gabriel von Seidl. 
In nearly all of the work there is a voice 
of revolt against those long-accepted forms 
of architecture and decoration which have 
now become merely historic. In eschewing 
these and the reminiscence of them, the Ger¬ 
man designers have been led to invent new 
ornamental forms, or to omit enrichment 
altogether. 'To the difficulty of the first 
these houses surely testify, wherever the de¬ 
signer follows only a theory accepted by the 
intellect. In the second alternative lies the 
greatest work of the school and the greatest 
promise for its future. Wandering in fancy 
the architects have absorbed some of the 
spirit of Japanese art, and its limited accept¬ 
ance has given the houses,—especially their 
interiors,—a character which may well be 
read as a new and refreshing starting-point. 
Admit that some of these intended surround¬ 
ings for comfortable life are over-severe, un¬ 
sympathetic and extreme, and the reader must 
at the next page discover an interior scene 
full of refined dignity and repose, and ren¬ 
dered interesting by charming alcoves, happy 
window arrangements and attractive hang¬ 
ings and floor coverings, bearing decorations 
which are extremely effective though almost 
rudimentary in their simplicity. The designs 
have been executed in the least costly mate¬ 
rials it is possible to build with; and the wood¬ 
work, which is of first importance in the 
interiors, would be interesting in its effects 
alone were it possible to overlook the places 
ingeniously provided for every conceivable 
household utensil. 
