Architecture and Building

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 11, 1 July 1917, Page 1011

Architecture and Building

[Note-The Articles appearing on pages 1011 to 1018 are published by arrangement with the New Zealand Institute of Architects.]

Planning for the Client

(From “ Architecture

It seems to be a very common impression among the people who come to architects, that as soon as the architect gets a job he is going to try to put something over on his client; that he is more or less like a child with a new suit of clothes which father has purchased for Sunday use, and sonny insists on wearing it in all sorts of weather, just to “show off,” regardless of the effect on the clothes or the consequent loss to father’s pocket book. Unfortunately, there is some ground for truth in this sentiment. Architects do occasionally permit their artistic instincts to run away from their practical side and they furnish, not what the client needs in the way of a comfortable house or a good working factory, but what they think the neighbourhood demands as a terminal feature of a street, or an ornament to a corner. It will rarely be found that beauty and practical considerations cannot be reconciled and in almost every instance a good working plan will permit of an exterior of good, if not of the highest, quality. Absolute freedom of limiting conditions of plan would permit the use of blank walls, or projections, wings, colonnades and other ornamental features which cannot be profitably included in the design of any specific building; yet architecture in its truest sense is final and complete acceptance of logical necessities of plan and their expression as may best be done on the exterior.

Of course, this can be carried much too far, and the client, desiring a country house, who insists that his dining room be 15 ft. by 19 ft. and his living room 17 ft. by 32 ft., and will not consent to changes of two or three feet in either one of these rooms is a very foolish person; but the architect who would desire that the two rooms be made equal in size because of some preconceived notion of exterior treatment, would be still more foolish. Every building is the result of a scries of compromises between different ideals, those of space, cost and appearance, and the successful architect is he who arrives at the most equitable balance

between these factors. In many buildings too great stress is laid upon plan and too little upon exterior, since the functions of buildings are liable to change very rapidly, and as most buildings of any size are intended to permit further expansion of business, the exact arrangement of the building is determined somewhat by probable requirements as well as by actual ones. Very few people foresee . just what working arrangements will eventually be necessary, and with the growth or increase in the functions housed in a structure, or even the development of these functions, the plan which begins by being

ideal, ends by becoming a poor compromise; and if all exterior appearance is sacrificed to ideal present conditions, eventually the building will be entirely worthless as much from a utilitarian as from an artistic standpoint.

On the other hand, the most beautiful building possible may be so badly arranged that it can never be a good investment or a workable enterprise, and the architect who considers beauty alone will defeat his purpose to erect a monument to his own ability because the building well be remodelled and re-arranged or destroyed. A notable case in this respect is the Madison Square Garden, one of the handsomest things in New York and which has so little accommodation that company after company has failed to meet running expenses and it looks as if the building would have to be destroyed, since even at the low price at which the present owners secured the property by foreclosure sale, it has no earning power.

The architect who keeps the requirements of his client firmly in his mind, is the man who succeeds best, whether his speciality he residences, commercial buildings or public buildings, and the man who in his struggle for artistic effect sacrifices vital conditions of plan, may achieve a professional success but will be unable to secure further commission for other buildings of that kind. A case in point is that of the designer of a country court house which had in combination with it the usual number of cells for the detention of prisoners. This architect neglected to make provision for a bath room for the prisoners, and in consequence they were, and still are, taken in automobiles some eighteen miles to he washed. He has produced a building of extreme beauty and which in most respects fulfils its purpose, but every county commissioner in that state has been informed of this omission and it is improbable that the architect will ever secure another building of similar type, although the appearance of the ■ building has attracted a sufficient amount of attention to bring to this architect several commissions for private people.

Unfortunately, whether individuals or corporate bodies, clients are far loss apt to recognize beauty as an asset than is the architectural profession, and the man Avho makes a good working court, house of hideous aspect, .is more apt to secure other commissions of similar type than is the man who builds a lovely but impracticable building for the purpose. Nor can the architectural profession properly complain against this. fact. If architects desire to be known as a collection of artistic dreamers who spend their client’s money without regard to their client’s wishes, they cannot fairly regard the man who docs not employ them as being of doubtful intelligence, If architects desire that their prefer:-

sion bo respected, not alone for its artistic attainment, but for its capable handling of the business problems connected with it, they must produce useful as well as ornamental structures. They must sec the building through the client’s eyes and not through their own.

The man who speaks of a commission as his building and says that he was unable to do something really worth while because bis client would not let him, is the man who docs not deserve to have another thing to do. Every building is first and foremost the property of the client who has employed him, not alone because of his artistic training and native taste, but because of his experience in practical problems of plan and of : his skill in adapting means to an cud. It is essential that the architect should be able to show the owner not only how the artistic appearance of his building may be improved, but also how he can economize space, or lay out space so that a business can be more efficiently conducted. It is not infrequent for managers of large businesses, when consulting an architect, to bring tentative layouts, often quite carefully studied, showing what they conceive to be the minimum requirements of their problems; and these tentative layouts should be treated with the utmost respect and considered

not as a childish exercise on the part of the manager, hut as a definite if not definitive, expression of his desires. It will be found that such a layout may he improved by a competent architect and very frequently improved in cases of details of purely technical nature. The tendency of the average layman is to economize space at the wrong points, as for example, in the construction of halls, passages or corridors. A good illustration of this was in a case of a large warehouse erected not long ago, to house a branch of a mail order business. The superintendent of the parent company had laid out his floor plans with care and with great intelligence as to the distribution of various departments so that the handling of goods was reduced to a minimum, but in his anxiety to economize snace, he had made his corridors so narrow that the small wheeled boxes or trucks in which orders were collected, could pass only with difficulty and conld not turn corners at all. The architect hapnened to he sensible as well as artistic, and in studying the operation of one of the older branches, discovered the loss of time occasioned by delays at corners and in passing, and his suggestion that the money spent on wider corridors would result in economy of oneration was accented instantly by the manager of the plant.

This is the sort of thins which architects should more frequently accomplish, and it is the sort of thing that clients do not habitually expect from their architects and which they can he taught by experience to expect. The good architect should ho able to save his own commission in one of several ways, either because he secures better quality than an owner can secure from a contractor for the same money, or because he increases the available space by comparison with the total floor area of the build-

ing, or because he is able to arrange the unit requirements in a smaller space than either an o'rner or a contractor. ‘ One of these things the

architect ought to be able to accomplish as well as to produce for the owner a beautiful building, and when the architectural profession accepts the fact that these functions are as truly part of their duty as in the design of a facade, the position the profession holds will be radically benefitted.