Page 873

ALS IK KAN: NOTES: REVIEWS
NOTES
HE twenty-first annual exhibition
        of the Architectural League of
        New York at first glimpse looks
very much like the former twenty, but on
careful overlooking there is astonishing
progress in creation and expression, old
things are being better done and there are
many new developments in building, dec-
oration and artistic interior fittings that
are worth thoughtful study.
   There is most noticeable of all a much
freer expression  of individuality-men
are thinking out architectural problems
according to their own standards of beau-
ty and convenience. There is a manifest
tendency to design houses suited to Amer-
ican life, and to decorate them in relation
to their uses. Men may be studying for-
eign architecture as a means of culture,
but they are investigating American con-
ditions as an inspiration for building.
Houses are thus much more simple in
effect  and   much   more  intelligently
planned. For generations we Americans
suffered because our lives were lived out
in  rough   environment, which   neither
expressed our interests nor ambitions; then
without stopping much to think we coated
over the roughness with a veneer of for-
eign cultivation. Our homes, our furni-
ture, our clothes were "imported." They
did not belong to us or our civilization;
the earlier rough stage was more genuine,
and more artistic, because more expressive.
   But at last we are waking up to the
importance of living our lives (rapidly
growing to be the most cultured in the
world) in our own way, of developing
American methods in architecture, in-
terior decoration, furniture and ornament.
  All of this is proved most interestingly
and convincingly at the present League
Exhibition. Our architects no longer in-
stantly start to Europe when an order
comes in for a fine municipal building.
They take a trip to the town where the
building  is to  be erected  and   study
the conditions of the life and the purposes
of the structure, then they design a build-
ing that will belong to the landscape and
serve its real uses. This is equally true
of domestic architecture-a man can at
last live contentedly in this century in an
American   house, without the faintest
hint of a Rhine castle, an Italian villa or
a French chateau about it. The most in-
teresting display of houses at the League
is designed with this intention.
   Homes are simpler and working plans
more elaborate as we improve our national
architecture. And improvement is not
alone noticeable in house designs; the
drawing of houses, the sketches and eleva-
tions are done by artists so that they are
beautiful artistically as well as perfect
architecturally. As, for   instance, the
sketches for the office building of the
House of Representatives, Washington,
D. C., are done by Jules Guerin, with all
the poetry and atmosphere he could in-
troduce into a pastel of the New York
harbor or an autumn park scene. Some
interesting painting has also been done in
various sketches shown by architects, art-
ists unknown, but work excellent.
  Of the mural decorations, although Le
Farge, Blashfield, Kenyon Cox and other
important men are on the walls, there is
no more distinctive home note struck than
in the Western friezes by E. W. Deming
of Indians, plains, animals and landscapes
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