[Illustration:
OLD HOUSE NEAR WARWICK. SKETCH BY WILSON EYRE, Jr.
From The Architectural Review, Vol. IV, No. 1.]
Mr. Wilson Eyre, Jr., in an article in _The Architectural Review_ for
January, which has been alluded to in our issue for October, and from
which we have borrowed the three charming illustrations reproduced from
his drawings, speaks as follows of English domestic architecture:
"There is much to be seen from the railroad in the way of long rambling
farmhouses and country houses of the modest kind, and there is much to
be gained by studying these for use in our own domestic architecture;
their average work is so much less pretentious, so much more homelike
than ours; their surroundings are studied so carefully, the garden
forming as much part of the house as the roof, and great pains being
taken that the garden wall, hedges, terraces, the little tea houses, in
fact all the immediate surroundings, should form a harmonious effect.
Photographs and measured drawings of the well-known and monumental
buildings are at hand whenever we need them, but no idea can be gained,
except from personal study, of the completeness and fitness of the
country houses and farmhouses and of their surroundings, their "flocks
of gables," the grouping and composition which through the most careful
study arrive at the entirely unstudied and almost haphazard effect, and
above all the impression produced that the building belongs to the spot
upon which it is built and to no other. This is what makes the English
domestic work better, to my mind, than any I have seen, and so well
worthy of study, especially by our American architects."
[Illustration:
OLD HOUSE, LICHFIELD. SKETCH BY WILSON EYRE, Esq.
From The Architectural Review, Vol. IV, No. 1.]
The one distinguishing characteristic upon which all observers agree
when comparing the houses of England with those of any other country is
the importance given to the idea of a "home." This idea of the family
life, more fully carried out by the Anglo-Saxon race than by any other,
has given rise to conditions differing essentially from those governing
the domestic architecture of other races. As pointed out in the last
issue in speaking of the country houses of France, the impulse to
associate in communities has been a stronger power in moulding the
domestic architecture of France than the desire to have an independent
home. In England the isolated house is the type. The social unit is the
family, and consequently the architectural unit is the "home." The
English character has given to the family an independence and privacy,
a permanence and sacredness which are all reflected in the English
houses, and it is this which makes them homes. The evidence of these
characteristics is what has attracted Mr. Eyre and many other Americans
besides, and will continue to do so for years to come.
[Illustration:
CHAPEL, DEERHURST. SKETCH BY WILSON EYRE, Jr.
From The Architectural Review, Vol. IV, No. 1.]
English architecture is not all and never has been all of the sort here
indicated, but where it departs from this type we feel the peculiar
charm somewhat lacking. The early Saxon hut, the Norman castle, have
each their especial interest, and we feel that the home has culminated
in the Elizabethan and Tudor mansions and the simpler homes of later
days which are adjusted to the needs of the family and suited to its
surroundings, because built honestly with due regard to the necessities,
and even if, as Ruskin says, their detail is abominable and there is no
precedent, no right nor reason in the square drip moulding over the
windows, yet we love them as a whole, and cannot help feeling that they
expressed truly the story they were intended to tell. But we do not feel
the same instinctive attraction in the Palladian mansions of Jones,
however accurately classical are their proportions or their mouldings,
nor in any other of the dignified importations transplanted from Greece
or Rome and forced to grow on uncongenial soil. They must ever be to us
exotics, with perhaps the beauty of the exotic, but without the homely
qualities which endear to us the real home.
[Illustration: XCIV.
Smithells, England.]
[Illustration: XCV.
Saintesbury Hall, England.]
LXXXIX.
OLD HOUSES, HANOVER, ENGLAND.
XC.
MIDDLE HOUSE, MAYFIELD, SUSSEX, ENGLAND.
XCI.
OLD HALL, WORSLEY, ENGLAND.
XCII AND XCIII.
SPEKE HALL, ENGLAND.
XCIV.
SMITHELLS, ENGLAND.
XCV.
SAINTESBURY HALL, ENGLAND.
XCVI TO XCVIII.
OLD MANOR HOUSE, LYTHE HILL, ENGLAND.
XCIX.
OLD FARM HOUSE, LYTHE HILL, ENGLAND.
C.
THE GATE HOUSE, STOKESAY CASTLE, ENGLAND.
+Club Notes.+
Nearly simultaneously with the announcement that the T Square Club,
of Philadelphia, has been awarded the medal offered by the St. Louis
Architectural Club for the best Club-exhibit of Mention Designs comes
the news of John Stewardson's lamentable death. As a founder of the
Club, as its president, and for years a member of its Executive
Committee, he remained to the last one of its most enthusiastic
supporters. Many of his drawings are now in the Club rooms, and his
record as the winner of many competitions is upon the minutes of the
Club.
His generous aid, sincere criticism, and deep interest in the welfare
of the Club contributed more to the advancement of architecture in
Philadelphia than can now be realized.
The ninth annual Exhibition of the Chicago Architectural Club will be
held at the Art Institute, Chicago, opening March 27, 1896.
This exhibition will include architectural drawings and perspectives
in all renderings, scale, details of public and private work, projets,
landscape drawings of parks and other public improvements, works of
sculpture and artistic exhibits of works of the allied arts.
Detailed information with circular of instructions and application
blanks can be had by addressing Frank M. Garden, Secretary, Chicago
Architectural Club, 274 Michigan Ave., Chicago.
In the seventh annual competition for the Robert Clark testimonials,
held under the auspices of the Chicago Architectural Club, the prize
winners are as follows: Addison B. Le Boutillier, Boston, Mass., gold
medal; William Leslie Welton, Lynn, Mass., silver medal; John F.
Jackson, Buffalo, N.Y., bronze medal; Harry C. Starr, Chicago, first
honorable mention (bronze medal); Edward T. Wilder, Chicago, second
honorable mention (bronze medal). L. J. Millet, R. C. Spencer, and
Irving K. Pond composed the adjudicating committee.
Messrs. Thomas Hastings, John Galen Howard, and Albert L. Brockway,
the committee of the Architectural League of New York upon the annual
competition for the League gold and silver medals, announce the program
for this year. Drawings are to be submitted on or before February 6. The
problem is the principal entrance of a terminal railroad station. Plan,
elevation, and detail are required.
[Illustration: XCVI.
Old Manor House, Lythe Hill, England.]
+The Brochure Series
of Architectural Illustration.+
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