Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/264

 240 COTTAGE, FARM, AND VILLA ARCHITECTURE. If such a line of cottages were erected in a country where fuel was dearer than it is at Abersychan, it might be worth while to keep the floor of the wash-house three feet lower than that of the dwellings, and to conduct the flues from the boilers and ovens under the floors of the living-rooms, in the manner indicated in § 19. Perhaps some might think that it would be an improvement in our elevation, fig. 426, to bring the windows of the living-rooins more into the middle of the space between the door and the party-wall ; and also to bring the door to the back-kitchen into the middle of the space between the passage door and that party-wall, as in figs. 428 and 429 ; and we grant i 429 a n a n D IBC Br THl— M would, looking no farther than mere symmetry: but in figs. 425 and 427 there are spaces in the living-rooms at h, and also at i, in which a person may be seated at work without being in the draught between any opening and the fireplace ; and also in which tables or dressers might be placed : Init supposing the door of the back-kitchen and the front window placed in the middle of their respective walls, as in fig. 429, there will be no place for either table or dresser, and the whole room will become, as observed by one of our correspondents § 365, a complete " Temple of the Winds." Thus, though there cannot be a doubt that, in point of architectural symmetry, the elevation, fig. 428, is much more beautiful than fig. 426 ; yet, in point of fitness, that is, with reference to the interior plan, the latter is decidedly more beautiful than the former. Can there be a doubt, then, which kind of beauty ought to be preferred, in cases of this sort ? We say there cannot. The most useful is unques- tionably the most beautiful. When the question is between a beauty belonging to the expression of art, and a beauty con- nected with fitness for enjoyment, it is clear to us that the decision ought to be in favour of the latter. The great object of the Architect ought to be, to combine the two species of beauty; but as this cannot be done in every case, it is clear, that in judging of a building merely by its exterior, unless we are intimately ac- quainted with its use, we can only decide as to its symmetry, or other architectural expression. To form a just taste in architec- ture therefore, it is as necessary to study all the various purj^oses to which the difltrent parts of the interiors of buildings are ajjplied; and the different modes of lighting, warming, and ventilating, of supplying water and draining, of avoiding bad smells, damp, dry rot &c., as it is to study the original or conventional beauty of lines and forms. It may be useful to observe that the chimney tops in figs. 426 and 428 are formed by setting up four slate stones, such as fig. 430, two about a foot, and two about eighteen inches broad, and all from three to four feet high ; firmly 432 flanching them to the top of the chimney shaft with cement, and sometimes cramp- ing them with iron into each other. Over these slates is placed a two-feet square slab, fig. 431 ; and on that a truncated pyramidal stone, fourteen or sixteen inches square at the base, fig. 432. The handsomest cottage chimneys on tiie hanks of the lakes of Cumberland and Westmoreland are formed in this manner; and we shall give saeciinens of some of them in the historical part of this work. 431