HOUSING STYLES

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23132, 23 September 1940, Page 1 (Supplement)

HOUSING STYLES

ARCHITECT’S REVIEW

In a centennial review of New Zealand housing, Mr Paul Pascoe has some interesting comments on the improvements of interiors. *Tn judging the quality of the design of a dwelling the interior is much more important than the exterior, and the outside should be an honest expression of the interior,.” he remarks. “Since each room has a different function, it should, for example, have its windows designed with this function in mind. Kitchen windows usually need a higher glass line than living rooms. These have been influenced by the modern appreciation of the open’ air, encouraged by the motor-car, and are being designed with larger and lower windows that bring house and garden into a closer relationship. • „. . . “The transition from the Victorian to the Edwardian interior was marked by a greater diversity of room shapes. There were more nooks and crannies. Ceilings were higher. A greater ostentation, expressed perhaps in elaborately carved stair heads and banisters, perhaps in more elabfirate door-panels Or metal light-brackets, was the order of the day. Though the smaller houses in town and country could not reach this pitch of display, they followed after the same fashion of ostentation. The fireplace was a unit that could be over-designed even in small houses. The mantelpiece became a fearsome structure of shelves, fretwork, and mirrors, while the hearth was surrounded by coloured and often floral tiles. Or again, the fireplace became an ‘ingle-nook’ with its own built-in seats alongside an open hearth, finished perhaps in rough-edged bricks. “Some architects, however, had_ always produced restrained interiors, and in the 1920’s the Georgian traditional interior was ably by some skilful designers. But though ceilings are now lower and windows generally larger, the interior of the average bungalow is still restless and unsatisfying. Ledges, coloured glazhig and other ornamental distractions bewilder the eye. Its small windows may have one welcome relief. There is often one window which has a large sheet of glass, and it may look out on a pleasant garden or a good view. “The most modern interiors show a change of plan. The new materials and new heating methods give the designer greater freedom. The rooms are no longer so symmetrical, and there is a general tendency -to introduce built-in furniture as part of the architect’s plan, and at the same time to reduce the number of ledges that can harbour dust. But in most houses the modernisation begins .with tne Painroom and kitchen. The fittings in these rooms have been brought up to date in many homes otherwise old in ’design. Thus an example has been set that will gradually influence the other rooms.”