We do not want pseudo-Italian palaces, or bad copies of French street architecture, with forced arrangement of fenestration and cutting up of wall-space, utterly at variance with home requirements; nor do we want so-called mediæval structures, in which light, ventilation, and air are sacrificed to narrow Gothic or pointed-headed windows and doorways.
So far as I can judge, it seems to me that the so-called Elizabethan, or later Renaissance, of this country is infinitely more charming and more suitable to every-day wants and requirements than any other style, Greek, Roman, or Gothic; anyway, we want to express in our external work a sense of comfort and utility, and to provide ample light and air-space for the rooms, of which the front wall is only the external casing; and any style which combines these desiderata will commend itself to common-sense people.
Good architectural effect may be perfectly well obtainable with a good common-sense plan, and there is no possible excuse for a design, whether classic, Gothic, or Queen Anne, which does not first of all recognize the internal necessities and conveniences, and which is not subordinate to a great extent to every-day internal requirements of a well-arranged and comfortable house. While I advocate first of all that the elevation or design should be made subservient to the plan, I do not see the necessity of following the types of various schools of French, Italian, or thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth century Gothic buildings; and, when I see the pretentiousness of imitation of either of these schools, I am bound to confess that it suggests nothing but an ignorant conceit, which would not for a moment have been carried out by the great architects, whose works we admire, had they had all the modern improvements which increased knowledge and higher skill in invention have brought about.
In our monumental buildings, and even in our ordinary street fronts, architecture should be much more intimately allied with the sister arts of sculpture and painting. Even a porch in which the ornament is modeled with care by an artist, or the corbel of a projecting bay, will redeem an otherwise bad design from commonplaceness; a proper regard for proportion and arrangement of outline in the most simple building shows the work of a true artist, much more than the overlaying of his work with useless ornament or carving, or the overcrowding of parts with feeble enrichment stuck on balustrading and pediments. In house-design, it seems to me that, first of all, the de sign should convey some expression of the comfort and general planning of the building, and that its fenestration should show, above all, proper regard to the lighting and ventilation of the rooms, and generally bear the characteristics of the material with which it is carried out.
If importance is wanted in an elevation, let it be got by good sculpture in such portions of the building as are nearest the eye-line; a porch properly treated with good modeled decoration, either in figure
