Architecture of the small House

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 11, 1 July 1917, Page 1005

Architecture of the small House

Architects like to boast of the steady improvement in the design of expensive American houses and in the laying out of big estates, but when asked about our smaller domestic work they tell you it is still far below the standard. The reasons for this are obvious enough. No well trained architect whose education has been a matter of six years or seven years and a great sum of money can afford to design small houses at the established rate. A small house looks like an insignificant problemso easy of solution every untrained woman in the land is ready to solve it; but the truth is that a house at £BOO requires twice as much time and study to design successfully as a house at £1,600, for the reason that there never lived an £BOO client who did not want every convenience and comfort crowded into his little house that a £1,600 man demands in his. Moreover, he is usually a tyro in home-build-ing ; his little sum represents the first money he has been able to amass for the purpose, and it takes much patience to persuade him how really little he can expect for it —that he must not expect the number of closets and baths and dens and back staircases and piazzas that can be put into a costlier house.

If a small dwelling is to have any distinction whatever, its prime expression must be simplicity. It takes more art to leave out useless ornament and detail than to put it in. A small house is nothing more than the simplest form of shelter for a very few people. To make it an expression of refinement and good taste and at the same time thoroughly modern as to comfort and convenience, requires more of the architect’s time than he would put on a larger house where his commission would be both actually and relatively much higher.“ The Architect and Engineer.”