Houses Of Beauty

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 47, 19 November 1936, Page 6

Houses Of Beauty

Where Are They?

AT a time when the Labour Govern--7A ment lias brought housing problems very prominently before the public eye, the comment of visitors on New Zealand dwellings bolds more than usual interest. Generally it damns with faint praise, but occasionally one meets an outspoken and ruthless critic like Mrs. J. Slade, Sydney, who passed through Wellington last week on her way north. “Everywhere I go 1 hear people getting excited about New Zealand scenery, but I never hear a word about New Zealand houses,” said Mrs. Slade. “I am no architect, but it has struck me that your dwellings are out of keeping with the loveliness of their natural surroundings. Apparently you can’t have enough of those flimsy, unimaginative, ugly bungalows that line street after street. Seldom have I seen a more dingy small city than Wellington, or houses so little indicative of the people who live in them. Perhaps the reason is that nature has been so kind to you that you do not trouble about manmade beauty.” /CRITICISM of such frankness is apt V to rouse resentment, but undoubtedly there is a good deal of truth in what Mrs. Slade said. New Zealand should .be building houses with personality, houses that reflect the spirit and tradition of the people. Instead, we put up with ready-to-wear bungalows, neither beautiful nor particularly convenient. Most of our loveliest homes were planned for English or American landscapes, and we have little that is distinctively our own. Worst of all are the houses unwisely borrowed from other countries. In a recent address on domestic architecture to the Wellington Business and Professional Women’s Round Table Club, Mr, J. W. Chapman-Taylor mentioned the craze for so-called “Mission” style of building which is gaining a strong hold in one New Zealand city. The real mission architecture originated in the early days of California, Mr. Chapman-Taylor pointed out, and the mission buildings were erected in solid wood and stone —of tremendous strength to withstand the attacks of the Indians. In its massive ruggedness the style was true and beautiful, but it loses all its lineness when it is copied in New Zealand in flimsy four-roomed cottages. Similarly, fifty years ago America •suffered under a wave of enthusiasm for turreted French chateaux, and, with the exuberance of the American temperament, architects were soon building models of the chateaux in cheap, light woods. Thus an original beauty of design was distorted into ugliness by being shaped in the wrong materials and set against the wrong background. There are three requirements of a house—strength, utility and beauty—to which the Greeks added truth. They demanded that every pilaster and every strut should support something, not be merely an ornament. To them what was unessential was wrong. In a lifetime of plaiuiing houses, Mr. Chapman-Taylor has found that many women concentrate rather on the domestic arrayigements inside their homes than on the architecture of the whole building. The home is their workshop, and they plan it from the practical and utilitarian standpoint, so that it often becomes simply a machine to live in. Nevertheless, utility and strength need not be divorced from truth and beauty. Many people do uot stop to think how great is the effect upon their own and their neighbours’ characters of the exteriors of their homes. Just as in clothes dull colours and shapeless cut create almost subconsciously an atmosphere of depression, so does a row of ugly and dingy buildings spread gloom over a town. There is no friendliness or stimulus in a street of similar, grimy, wooden bungalows. JjET your home match its background, not only of natural beauty, but also of human kindliness. New Zealand people are free-thinking, gay and hospitable. So should their houses be. After all, for every one person who will cross the doorstep there are a thousand who pass by and see only the shell of the building. Therefore, let. the shell be a true index of the beauty and comfort within. There are people who will throw up their hands and cry “no money” to a plea for beautiful homes. Yet some of the most beautiful are little fourroomed cottages built for a few hundred pounds. They are simple and unpretentious, but they fit perfectly into their background and they exactly meet the requirements of those who live in them. Such houses are happy and have charm. 'They know they are wanted

gOAIE houses, of course, cannot bo made friendly or attractive, (n Wellington particularly the narrow, compressed buildings with narrow windows have a somewhat forbidding air. But it is remarkable what can be accomplished by effort. Eor instance, the front door is an important thing to the visitor. If it is ugly and dirty it is repellent to touch, but a bright door is like a hand held out ini welcome. Paint and elbow grease, perhaps a twining creeper—these things can transform a front door.

So, too, with gates and the little pathways running from them. Bare concrete walks with raised-up sides are always ugly unless softened by borders of .shrub or flower. On the other hand, there is invitation in red-brick paths or flagstones outlined in grass.

To most Wellington people, good advice would be—“ Paint your house, and' don’t think only in terms of creamy, walls and red roofs.’’ Certainly many cannot afford gallons of paint, but that need not write “finish” to thoughts of improvement. Every beauty-loving woman has power to create beauty, even if to do it she has to take up saw and chisel, paint and cotton print. —O.M.A.