More Lovely Homes

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 871, 15 January 1930, Page 7

More Lovely Homes

BEAUTY OUSTED BY UTILITY English Writer’s Opinion THERE are some who have a good idea of comfort and some who have an appreciation of beauty; some have neither and a few have both. Above these considerations is the sad fact that intelligent preferences often belong to people who have but little money. Most of us have to live, not where we would, but where we can. The provision of more beautiful homes is thus a complex problem.

We must be grateful to anyone who tries to solve it. Even those of ns who know that we shall never achieve perfect surroundings for ourselves like to see charming and sensible houses built for other people. In “The House Desirable” Mr. P. A. Barron has at least stimulated the desire for beautiful homes. Many of the photographs with which the hook is illustrated stir In the humblest of us a wish to acquire a country home or a “week-end retreat” on (as a witty woman has said) the never-never system. She referred, of course, to the deferment of complete payment. There are also deferments of hope! Municipal authorities, Mr. Barron thinks, care as a rule about nothing except by-laws and sanitation. “If we admit the principle that municipal authorities should have wider powers, then, I think, they should be compelled to appoint one or more architects of proved ability to give advice when plans for new buildings are submitted.” Any architect will not do. “I have the greatest admiration for British architects as a body, but it would be absurd to suppose that they are all artists. Many would be better described as capable engineers, with the ability of design water-tight, enduring, and, perhaps, convenient houses . . . technical skill and the magic touch of genius are sometimes linked, but they may exist apart.” Many of the beautiful houses and cottages of England, Mr. Barron reminds us, were designed and built long

before there was a sharp division between architects and builders. “The master builders of old times followed their own traditions, or their own fancies, built with materials which were nearest to hand, and evolved local styles which suited their surroundings so well that the homes seemed to become natural features of the landscape.” But the writer fears that “there are very few builders in England today who can be trusted to provide beautiful homes without the assistance of architects.” We cannot “blame fairly either architects or builders ‘en masse’ when we try to find out why England is being disfigured by so many ugly houses. “Rather, I think, we should blame many of our people who show so little interest in the beauty of their country that they buy ugly houses which are already built rather than take the trouble to search out designers who have talent, and commission them to plan good houses.” In the future, the author believes, we shall not be under the painful necessity “to herd.” We shall be able to have secluded though accessible houses. . . . “The sciences which gave us railways, coal gas. and electric mains . . . have within recent years placed at our disposal motorcars, small electric lighting plants, petrol gas, acetylene gas, appliances for the purification of water and sanitary systems which make isolated houses as healthful as those connected with costly mains.”