Excerpt from Small Country Houses of to-Day
While there is no lack of books which illustrate various types of small modern country houses, both by photographs and plans, they are, as a class, singularly devoid of critical explanation, whether from the practical or the ?sthetic point of view. House-building is, moreover, a primitive instinct, and the story of its development takes an important part in the larger history of social growth. Monographs on representative Small Country Houses of To-day designed by architects of established reputation serve, therefore, a double purpose. They explain the buildings themselves, setting out the conditions which determined their plan and treatment, and they estimate their place in relation to English culture and habits.
Since the end of the eighteenth century, architecture has been struggling with many vicious influences, and not least, with the lack of tradition, both in design and construction. The battle of the styles has been fought, not without fierceness, but with no good result. Now, after the lapse of a century devoted to groping experiments and detached eclecticisms, there are definite signs of the renewing of sleeping traditions, not on merely imitative lines, but in the spirit of the old work. This happy renaissance cannot march to success, unless the public at large concerns itself with architecture and becomes informed as to the problems to be faced and the ends to be attained. Building needs, in fact, to be brought back into the normal current of intelligent thought, instead of being relegated to the limbo of technical mysteries. That is not to say that the layman is wise to fill his mind with the details of construction, or attempt to master what is the absorbing study of an architect's lifetime. There are, however, certain qualities of architecture which lie open to the cultivated eye: mass, proportion, scale, and texture, and these become visible with observation to anyone with artistic perceptions. The time has come when educated people should shake off the shackles of the speculative builder and turn their backs finally on the desirable villa residence. Fifty years ago the architects who were doing honourable service in house-building were a small but brilliant band. One need name only the giants; Philip Webb, Eden Nesfield, George Devey, and Norman Shaw. To-day there are scores of young and brilliant men who have carried the pioneer work of their elders to its natural conclusion, and gone far to re-establish English architecture on a logical and national basis. Much remains to be done, especially in the larger field of town-planning and civic architecture, where this country lags behind the Continent; but the driving power must come from an enlightened public opinion. The present need seems therefore to spread, as widely as may be. the knowledge of what is being done to-day. In the long last, every movement which has a claim to endure must have a sound economic basis. It is idle to ignore the fact that there still prevails in some minds the idea that "an architect's house" is necessarily a more costly matter than "a builder's house." In every case therefore where the information was available, not only the total cost of the house has been given in the following pages, but also the price per cubic foot. The latter method of calculation has not been adopted with any idea of instituting comparisons between the work of one architect and another, and, indeed, any such comparison would be futile and mischievous. It may be well to set out here how a cubic-foot price is calculated. The usual way is to take the height from the top of the foundations to halfway up the roof slope where there are no rooms in the roof, and to two-thirds the way up where the attic is utilised. This dimension multiplied by the length and breadth of the building gives its cubic content. Assuming, say, fifty thousand cubic feet, and a total expenditure of one thousand two hundred and fif. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Small Country Houses of to-Day (Classic Reprint) (Lawrence Weaver)