The Home Beautiful

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 717, 17 July 1929, Page 6

The Home Beautiful

Modernise your present home ! Bring your house up-to-date ! Domestic science has made great strides in recent years—enjoy the advantages—increase the value of your property and make yours the Home Beautiful.

(By

“PENATES”)

ELIZABETHAN BUILDING

PERIOD ARCHITECTURE A description of the architecture of the Elizabethan period was given by Professor C. R. Knight at the University last evening, as the sixth of a series of lectures on “Shakespeare and His Times.” The architecture of the time was almost purely secular, said the lecturer, and even then was chiefly domestic. The fine Gothic style, so popular in England for many centuries, had sadly degenerated. Because of improved methods of warfare and because of the dying down of the quarrels among the barons it was possible, about that time, to expand and improve the whole idea of the home. Castles were obsolete against artillery, ancl no longer need the residences of the great lords be bounded by the restrictions of a moat or wall. Consequently, it was either during or just after the reign of Elizabeth that many of the still-existing and famous county houses of England were built. Professor Knight described the change in style from pure Gothic to Renaissance architecture, showing how the second was imported from Italy, and demonstrating, by means of lantern slides, the enormous effect it had on English homes. The architecture of Shakespeare’s times, he explained, was in a state of transition. It did not have the grandeur of the later masterpieces executed by Sir Christopher Wren or Inigo Jones, who came soon afterward, but it had many useful and ingenious features and had formed a basis for much good work later. The lecturer showed a number of lantern slides illustrating typical architecture of the period and demonstrating the change which was taking place in the style of the work.

An engineer of the Westinghouse Company lias invented a red paint which turns black at a temperature of 150 deg. Fahrenheit. The paint is for use near bearings and other parts of machinery which sometimes run hot, to the detriment of equipment. As the metal cools down the black paint becomes red again.

Hates Bungalows

WRITER WHO PREFERS STAIRS Suggested Urge to Climb

ALTHOUGH the increased popularity, in this country, of the storey and a-half house is making his complaint unnecessary, an Englishman’s objection to the single storey bungalow is interesting. His theory is as unusual as it is entertaining and, though his hinted support of Darwinism may not be altogether palatable to many, his originality must be admired.

Writing in the Manchester Guardian,” H. G. H. Herklots says: “My own objection to the bungalow is an aesthetic one. “Bungalows are rarely beautiful. And frequently they supplant much natural beauty, re-creating beside the lanes and highways of the country the ugliness and impermanence of the suburbs. “Doubtless bungalows could be made beautiful. Doubtless architects could create single-storeyed houseß of graceful lines and pleasing proportions. “But the people who afford bungalows are rarely the people to afford architects, and there the matter rests, so that the rough-cast hutments of England increase daily, becoming as the sands upon the seashore innumerable. Dull and Ugly “Bungalows usually are dull and often ugly; I did not know that they had other disadvantages. They are built for people who like convenience, and I felt sure that they were convenient. They are built for people who treasure comfort, and I had never doubted that they were comfortable. “It so happened that the other day I was in a small company of friends about tlie fire and we fell to discussing bungalows. ‘I don’t like them/ said a woman, ‘I like to sleep upstairs.’ “And everybody else agreed. One woman described how she once inhabited a ground floor flat. But she did not inhabit it for long. The rent was low, the road was a quiet one, the neighbourhood was everything that could he desired; nevertheless she found it hard to sleep at nights. ‘I used to lie awake thinking . . .if only 1 could get upstairs!’ And the whole company sympathised with her. The Tree Instinct “There must be some good reason for this common desire to go upstairs to bed. The ground floor is

good enough for the daytime. But when night comes we all desire something different. We take our candles or switch on our electric lights and go aloft. “Why should a woman lie awake at night thinking ... if only she could get upstairs? “Probably the evolutionist is ready enough with his reply. Like other categorical imperatives it is an atavistic urge. “Every time a man mounts the cold chilly staircase to the chilly, fireless bedroom he is announcing his kinship with the brute beasts that have no understanding; he is emphasising his

descent from the apes that sleep among the tree tops. “Even the household cat, with centuries of domesticity behind it, who is content at noon to purr beside the fire, at midnight must climb to the housetop and sing his tenor love-song beneath the moon.” That Urge This ‘urge” that the writer refers to has apparently been eradicated from the mentality of the average New Zealander, perhaps that is because he has advanced further along the road of evolution than some of the types of the Old World, who are still enslaved by inherited instinct. As to the objections to the bungalow, they are not to be taken overseriously. A well-built bungalow is more hygienic than a place of two or three storeys. It involves less work. It is safer in the event of a fire breaking out. In any case, the average New Zealander does not feel any particular “urge” to go upstairs to sleep or read. He prefers to be near the ground—which saves effort. One time high beds (grotesque structures they were, too) were fashionable in England, and they were even introduced into this country. Probably these beds were also the result of the atavistic “urge” to get as high as possible when going to rest—so as to be beyond the reach of nredatorv beasts