A protest which, doubtless, will find sympathy in England, is
voiced by Mr. A. Lawrence Kocher, chairman of the Ameri- can Institute of Architects' committee on Preservation of His
Monuments. Mr. Kocher objects strongly to the practice,
indulged in by American buyers, of stripping old English buildings of their ancient cabinet work for the embellishment of the interiors of new dwellings erected in the United States. Vandalism of this kind, as he points out, is trebly offensive. It desecrates the buildings in which the panellings, stairways and so on had-their native and appropriate settings. It-empha- sizes the vulgar imitativeness of the alien buildings to which they are transplanted as • part of a composite, fabricated re- construction. Imitativeness obviously is bad, too, for the development of native Ameriiian architecture. ..Mr. Kocher is by no means alone amongA-Merican arehitecti in his efforts to undermine the custom. l'he influence- of the architects prOmisek to niake itself increasingly felt, with-the consequence that the demand foil old cabinet work and imitation " antique "
furniture to go with it will be appreciably iedifeed. ' ' New York, Weifneickly, MOy'14th.''
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