BUILDING AND HOMES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 52, 25 November 1930, Page 14

BUILDING AND HOMES

(©Y

JACK PLANE)

BUILDING AS AN ART Some Fashions That Might Be Changed HARMONY IN COLOUR SCHEMES If builders were architects as well as builders, writes Howard L. Kelly, in the “Illustrated Carpenter and Builder,” many of the our newly-developed estates would cause less anxiety to the miud behind the. aesthetic eye than they do at present. But if builders were architects then architects would be no more, so that the pain suffered by the aesthetic eye is a pain that has its considerations. Nevertheless, it is a pain that is deserving of. some alleviation, if not a complete cure: it is the result of a rash on the fair countryside of England, composed of hundreds and hundreds of little houses that contain everything that a little house should contain, from a free season ticket on the railways to no deposit terms. As buildings, many of them are structural? perfect (many of them are not), but quite a ..number of them would satisfy the requirements of anv of those venerable old gentlemen who wrote voluminous books on ‘ Building Construction” in the good old days of Queen Victoria; and. like those books and the gentlemen who wrote them, they miss the point bv one small word, a word of ten letters —“Refinement.” Refinement is an elusive thing in modern builders work; it is so seldom found. It may not be the fault of the builders, they only know what they have been taught, and the books from which the majority of builders obtain their initial knowledge devote no space to refinement. Horns to Sash W tndows. It is customary nowadays to construct double-hung sash windows with moused horns, because one of these old gentlemen opined that such excrescences were necessarv in the interests of structural stability; but in the days of the classic Georgians. when all building was refined, such thin/is were unknown. A double-hung sash windows in a Georgian house was cut square without any moulded boms to distract and irritate the eye. Moulded horns were the invention ot the \ teloriiins, who revelled in superfluous ornament; they mav add to the strength of the window. but there are innumerable examples of eighteenth century work wherein we windows that were without them then, 200 vears ago. exist to-day as testimonials of the worthiness of the clean-cut sash. Small or Big Panes of Glass? The introduction of sheet and plateglass was most probably responsible for tlie bariess window, and no doubt the practical mind of the housewite played a great part in the abolition of small panes, by thinking only of her household labours and closing her eyes to the beauty of scale, which small panes produced-; quite possibly her eyes were net er open, or, if they were, they could see no further than the dust in the corners of tlie panes. If this is so it is rather heartrending, to think that one or two specks of dust ean be allowed so to mutilate and destroy the architectural value of a window. A window that is subdivided into small squares is an essential unit, if architectural scale is to be maintained; and without the glazing bars all sense of scale is lost, and the eye can only perceive great gaping openings pifnetualing a facade with discords. Small panes properly proportioned are easily -rasped, aud the eye ean quickly assume the actual sizes of the component parts of a composition, thereby building up a conception of elosely related . elements. As to whether the window is divided with wooden glazing bars or lead cames depends upon the character ol the design aud the atmosphere that it is de' sired to obtain. Faint and Windows. Still harping ou the suujeet of windows, it is impossible to understand the motives that prompted the mind of the painter who tirst conceived «a window Having the sashes painted one colour and me names picked out in a darker tint, l-’ortunately for him his identity is unknown ; woiud tlmt he had never lived, for he has left humanity with a heritage that it cannot throw off, and the puolie have followed his example like sheep. A window, whether it be a double-hung sash or a casement, is an element in itself, composed ut strong vertical features of sash and muihon that are architecturally inseparable, and yet in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the sashes are 'picked out in a colour distinctly dihereut irom the frames, so that the mullions, instead of presenting an appearance ot strength and durability, iuok like attenuated.matchsticks, and the sashes like nothing at all. The sash and tlie frame are all parts of tlie same win-' dow, they are component parts of one unit; they are of the same material, and there is no possible reason or aesthetically) for the dissimilar treatment; but there is every reason why they should be treated alike, because unless they are both painted the same colour the appearance of strength is lost and the 'aesthetic value of the window is ruined. , So much invective has been aimed at tlie Victorians aud their works, particularly their works of art, that it seems rather unfair to hold them responsible for all the sins of the present generation. In a number of ways they promoted the progress of civilisation, their stars shone in many fields with a brilliance equal to, and even greater than, those of the present day, but in others they failed hopelessly. Theirs was an age of industrialism, an age of machine-made methods, an age wherein man’s individuality was sacrificed on the altar of the machine, which, man having invented it, took revenue upon him by mechanising him and his life, and in no way is this more noticeable than in Victorian buildings. Machine-made bricks, machine-made tiles, and machine-made methods were unknown before the Victorian era. Treatment of Brick Facades. ■ With the industrial age came the uniform brickwork, brick wulls composed of bricks all of the same colour, all of the same texture, and all exactly tlie same shape and size, each brick separated Irom its neighbour with a neat struck cement joint, perfectly straight and regular, like the Victorians themselves; a briek wall of machine-made bricks, a brick wall with no feeling, no individuality, and no life, but, like the machine that made it, hard and relentless. Times have changed brickwork has been faced with its emancipation. but the legacy of the industrialists is still with us. Beauty in brickwork is.not obtained by studied uniformity and so-called “neatness,” but by pleasing colours and varying texture of surface, a texture that is not tlie result of the brick itself, but of the brick and the joint combined. A hand-made sand-faced brick, with the joints flushed up solid in the same material in which the bricks are laid, is the only means by which real texture ean be obtained : then, while the sanded face of tlie brick gives life to tlie brickwork, the sand exposed in the surfaces of the joint harmonises and binds the whole together into one homogeneous mass. A piece of brickwork should form one harmonious whole, the brick and the joint together, and not be a series of little oblongs neatly divided one from the other by a piece of smooth cement. Beauty in Tiling. As with the brickwork, so it was with the tiling; the roofs of the Victorians were also mechanised, and the many-hued soft-textured roofs, of the earlier days gave way to the rigidity of the machinemade tile, which, like the brickwork, was uniform and lifeness, with ugly pieces of lead glaringly defacing the already monotonous surface. It is impossible to construct a pleasing roof with a flat tile. A rooting tile should be well cambered, as, apart from the beauty that the resulting irregular surface imparts to the roof, a tighter and more watertight joint is obtainable between the tiles. As to the leadwork. lead flashings around chimneystacks are necessary and eminently desirable, but it is a very easy matter to construct these so that they are hidden beneath the tiles. The stepped flashings should be formed of soakers worked in witli the tiles, and the tiles should be tilted against the stack, so-that the lead stepped flashings are not visible, and the

u"lv lead apron at the bottom of the stack is much better secreted beneath a heading course of tiles bedded solidly in cement on the lead and against the stack. There need be no fear of the tile failin’"- away; experience has proved that a heading course of half-tiles bedded on top of the"lead apron is perfectly durable. The eyesore of open lead valleys is too apparent to need comment: there is onlyone way to construct a valley in a tiled roof, and that is. by sweeping or interlacing the tiles to form a swept or laced valley. : STRAY NOTES Colour in Schools Attention is called by the London “Decorator” to a report on the influence of colour in schools made by Mr. .J. A. Cox. the Director, of Education for Masefield. Not for tlie first time Mr. Cox makes an eloquent plea for the use of brighter and more cheerful colours in the schoolroom, and gives powerful reasons for their adoption. Many of tlie children who attend school in Great Britain, he points out, come from slums or poverty-stricken • homes, and to place them in drab and ugly rpoms is to deprive them of any opportunity of aspiring to better conditions. If we examine tlie majority’ of elementary schools we find that tlie prevailing scheme of decoration is one of dull colours, principally’ green—the same as may’ be found in workhouses, railway waiting-rooms, and other similar-unplea-sant institutions. There appear to be two reasons (says our contemporary) for the use of this green; first, it is supposed to be restful to the ey’es, and, second, it does not show the dirt. Mr. Cox points out that there is no definite proof of.the first which is a fallacy’ based upon the fact that it is pleasant to look out on green fields; it is when the weather is warm and sunny, but, even then, there is an infinite variety of shades of colour in a so-called green field, with a bine sky and white clouds above. There is nothing pleasing in a. solid inass of green of the tint which is usually to be found in English schools. As to the second reason,, it is against all modern ideas of health: what is the sense of teaching children “Where there’s dirt there’s danger,” and then adopting the principle of hiding the dirt? The cost of painting a schoolroom in brighter and more pleasant colours .would be no more than that of treating it in its present manner, and although there might be some slight additional expense for keeping it clean, it would be more than justified in the interests of hygiene; because a dark wall does not show up the dirt, the latter is none the less there. SUMMARY OF TENDERS CLOSING DURING - THE PERIOD NOVEMBER 25 TO DECEMBER 9. Anscombe, Edmund. F.N.Z.1.A.. 8 The Terrace, Wellington,—Tenders for the erection 2-story residence (brick and wood), Christchurch. .Close 10 a.m., November 25. Rnngitikei County Council, Marton.— Tenders for the erection of Hautapu bridge. Ctvse noon. Novemler 26. Anseorabe, Edmund. F.N.Z.I.A.'. 8 The Terrace, Wellington.—Tenders for the?erection of Royal Hotel, Greymoirth (reinforced concrete and brick). Close'lo.3o a.m., November 27. , • . Seatoun, Sladden, and Pavitt, Wellington. —Tenders for the construction of concrete pathway at Plimmerton. Close noon, November 29. Secretary Public Works Tenders Board. —Tenders for the erection of new telephone exchange, Lower Hutt. Close 4 p.m., Decembei 1 2. Anseombe, Edmund, F.N.ZJ.A., 8 The 'Terrace. —Tenders for the erection stadium seats, etc., Wellington Show Association Company. . Close 2 p.m.,

December 4. Wellington Education Board, Mercer fet., Wellington.—Tenders for the erection additional classroom, Tn Horo School. Close 4 p.m., December 5.

An eminent architect was recently inveighing against the disregard shown towards achitectural effect in the back of a certain building, remarking that we might ns well justify wearing dirty under-linen because it is out of sight as put up an ugly f elevation because it would not be seen by the public. But we must be practical even in the midst of fine sentiments. Money is an all-important factor in the economics of building, and Sir Charles Nicholson’s stricture can only be justified, if he adopts the view that if we are not able to afford a fine rear elevation we must be satisfied with an equally poor facade in front. In large towns, such as London, where terraces of houses often abut on two paralled thoroughfares, the “back front” is a well-known feature, this being accorded a measure of architectural effect which is much welcomed But this, after all, is mostly for building.which are not erected out of public funds, while Sir Charles’s stricture was directed against a school building—an important distinction.—“lllustrated Carpenter and Builder.”