Page 21

AMERICAN COUNTRY HOMES OF TODAY:
AN ACHIEVEMENT IN DOMESTIC ARCHI-
TECTURE: BY WILSON EYRE
[E architecture of a nation, like every other vital form
of practical and artistic expression, is the result of
gradual evolution. It may be based largely on the
experience and achievements of other days and other
lands, but if it be developed along natural, logical
lines it will in the end become a distinct national type,
              the outcome of local and individual needs. It will
reflect the ideals and the customs of the people for whose wants it
was created, and in this way it will achieve the only genuine sort of
originality-that which has for its incentive the fulfillment of a new
and definite need.
   This is true of our American architecture today. Much of its
inspiration is drawn from Old World sources, and the influence of
past and foreign styles is still found in many of our modern homes;
but taken as a whole, they are essentially the product of our own
country and our own people, and every year they are becoming
more and more distinctively American and more closely in harmony
with our environment and life.
   And after all this path of evolution is the only one which will
lead us to success. Mere imitation of a foreign style, however
cleverly it may be accomplished and however beautiful the result
may be, can never be wholly satisfying or expressive; and on the
other hand the "invention" of a new type merely for the sake of
producing something "original" is apt to be unrelated to the real
needs of the people, and more often than not arrives only at eccen-
tricity.
   Here, as in so many other things, the solution of the problem
lies in compromise, in the adaptation of old ideals to new condi-
tions. And it is by working along these lines that our architects
have attained the most successful results.
   The source from which American builders have borrowed most
extensively has of course been England. They have turned to the
mother-country for her sturdy principles of construction as well as
for her beauty of design. And this was perfectly natural, for in the
majority of our States the climate is not so very different from that
of the British Isles, and the same general type of structure and
arrangement is applicable here as there. Then, too, in many of
our suburban and rural districts, especially in the East, the nature
of the landscape, the formation of the soil, the building materials
available and-above all-the mode of living, are very similar to
English conditions.
21