The Modern Home -
Its Place
in the Landscape
ONE cannot go far in a discussion on present-day architecture without encountering the argument that the modern house (which may be assumed, for our present purpose, to have a flat roof and to be built of concrete) does not fit in with its surroundings. " It may look all right abroad ; but it looks quite out of place in the. English countryside "—and to this is probably added something vague about the use of local materials. This last phrase is almost sure to come up sooner or later ; and it means practically nothing. Only a small proportion of the most admired examples of architecture have been built of local materials : as a rule, the greater the im- portance of the proposed building, the more indefatigable were the builders in collecting what seemed to them the best mate- rials available, irrespective of their place of origin. The stone for the Pyramids was brought down the Nile from quarries some five hundred miles away and transported with immense difficulty to the building site at Giza. Are we expected to allow that Winchester Cathedral would have been better for being built of the local materials, which are—if my memory serves me—either flint or chalk ? Of course, the whole thing is nonsense. A man can build a poorly designed house of bricks, brought from fifty-miles away, roof, it_with,slatea.from. a hundred miles away, lay- on timber from Finland, and -no one will have a word to say against it. But let him propose to build a ferro-concrete house in Middlesex, where the raw material for the cement and the shingle for the aggregate lie under its very foundations, and we shall hear talk of the neglect. of local materials. The word " Ideal " in this context has been rendered meaningless by the development of trans- port. It must have taken the builders' of an Elizabethan house longer to fell the timber for their framing and to move it a mile or so over the appalling roads of that period than it would now take to get delivery of a few loads of Portland stone from the quarries—even if they were wanted in the north of Scotland.
But if the cry for local materials need not be taken too seriously, this does not mean that the harmony of a building with its surroundings can be left out of consideration. On the contrary, it is obvious that it should be studied with the very greatest care. The chief difficulty here is to determine which factors do in effect constitute harmony or the reverse. Is it form principally—or colour—or both ? I am writing this article in Switzerland, and as I look out of my window I can see down some ten or twelve miles of valley, both sides of which are dotted with chalets, alone or in small groups. The lines of the Engadine valley are here only gently rising, any verticals being so far above the normal line of vision as to be almost in another world. And yet, placed very often in the most obvious positions on the tops of small rises or at the very edge of plateaux, these little box-like structures stand in direct opposition to the whole scheme. The mountain sides are white ; most of the chalets are painted white also—but a white which cannot stand comparison with the purity of the snow, against which it appears cream-coloured. One of them is defiantly pink all over—a colour which is nowhere else to be seen. The same can be said of the jade green which is in some favour for window frames and shutters. The whole scene is typically Swiss and entirely charming. But are those chalets in harmony with their surroundings for any other reason than that. weexpect to see them there ? Their shapes are not ; and their colours are not. They are probably built of local mate- rial ;. but; so fox as appearance goes, they might as well be built of papier-mache from Japan. Harking back to my first point for a moment, it is interesting to note that the least- successful building in view is a minor hotel, constructed of local stone; whieh- shows up drab and reetangular—a far less interesting shape than anything Nature allows herself in that material._ One would not claim any higher degree of architectural beauty.for these chalets ; but I think most people would agree_ that they are pleasant things, according well with their sur- roundings : they most certainly do not spoil the landscape. We may assume from this example, then, that it is not neces- sary for a building to ape its surroundings either in shape or
colour in order to harmonize with them. The point should have been obvious enough—one has only to think of the Parthenon or almost any masterpiece of architecture—but there does seem to exist a school of thought which believes that the perfect house should be built of bricks so mellow as to be the colour of the soil and be thatched so luxuriantly as to be indistinguishable from a coppice. The plain truth is that if a building is bad, the less that is to be seen of it the better ; if it is good, there is no reason at all why it should not stand out boldly and claim our admiration.
We have seen that in both shape and colour a house can
contrast strongly with its surroundings and yet not seem out of place. What, then, is this elusive factor which makes it " go with " its environment ? I suggest that it is almost entirely subjective, and that it can best be defined as fami- liarity. If we come upon a house in the sort of surroundings in which we expect to find such a house, we really delude ourselves into thinking that there is some objective merit in its design which makes it peculiarly suited to such surround- ings. It is only when we attempt to analyse this merit that we discover most of it to be non-existent.
Let_ us imagine for a moment that we have never seen a
church tower- or spire. We are walking through a typical English meadow in early summer. MI around us the lovely shapes of bush and hedge and tree swell up from the level stretch of green. In the background, soft clouds hang above the subtle curve of the downs. A clump of elms towers ahead of us. Suddenly we see, jutting above their rounded tops, a great spike of white stone. Can we not imagine our indigna- tion ? There is nothing else of stone in sight. What can this be ? A new type of petrol pump ? At any rate it is utter vandalism. Its crude sharp outline cuts clean across every gentle curve of the landscape. If we are of that sort, we shall write to the papers about it.
That is how we should judge the thing with unaccustomed eyes, seeing it as it really is. But when we see it now, our minds fill with lines from Gray's " Elegy." It seems to us entirely suited to its surroundings—a typically English scene. Our judgement is affected by a score of unremembered picture post- cards and even pictures. We have no idea why we like it ; we only know that it is the sort of thing we expect to see in such a place, and so we maintain stoutly that it harmonizes with its surroundings.
If all this be accepted as true, we have to admit that the
chief fault of the modem house in this respect is that we are not familiar with it. The obvious remedy, then, is to build more of them. They are cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain—and incomparably better to live in. The flat roof is no new thing : scores of Queen Anne and Georgian houses have them—and are admired none the less. The colour presents no problem at all. One is not tied down to any par- ticular shade, as with brick or stone. It should be clearly. understood that a concrete house is not, as a rule, left the very unpleasant shade which ordinary cement gives. In any- case steps have to be taken to remove the marks of the " shut- tering " or mould in which it is poured. At the same time, by the use of special preparations which are far more durable than paint, it can be finished almost any colour desired. In Holland, where the prevailing building material has until recently been brick, concrete houses are now poured behind a thin outer fireing of brick.
One last point, of some importance when harmony with surroundings is being considered, is that the use of concrete gives the architect maximum scope in suiting his plan to its site. Any other type of building consists generally of a rect- angle to which are joined various other rectangles : concrete reeks little more of right angles than does Nature. It is possible that its continued use may result in a closer harmony between house and site than has hitherto been achieved.
G. M. BoUMPHREY.
[Enquiries arising out of articles on " The Modern Home" should be addressed to the Editor- of THE SPECTATOR, 99 Gower Street, W.C.1, and marked " Modern Home" in the top left-' hand corner.]
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