This period has finally ended through a series of sane reactions, brought about by a change of outlook. Three men took a promi nent part in this reaction, and their influence is responsible to a large degree for the present high standard of English work, based once more on the national traditions which respect locality and materials and pleasant manners as attributes of house building. These men were Philip Webb, Eden Nesfield and Norman Shaw, who evolved, severally, a type of architecture which inspired many architects to carry on the work of restoring English domestic building to its former high estate. Webb and Nesfield designed in a personal way, particularly the former. His work had at times a Gothic flavour, yet it reflected the more vital influences of his day, when William Morris was becoming a power in the field of art. Webb collaborated with Morris, and his first important house, the "Red House" at Bexley Heath (1859), was designed for Morris himself. This house reflected a mixture of both Gothic and Renaissance, and in its freedom of treatment marked the beginning of a modern school of design. Nesfield also passed through a Gothic phase, and later worked in a free style which was inspired by the Renaissance and the i8th century. He designed in partic ular, in 1866, a house in the Queen Anne manner which had a considerable influence in popularizing this dignified and homely style amongst younger architects. Norman Shaw was an architect who designed according to the requirements of character and site, and his work ranges from romantic blendings of brick, stone and half-timber, to the dignified simplicity of such plain London fronts as are found in Lowther Lodge in Kensington and his houses in Queen Anne's Gate. In his small houses in Bedford Park, Shaw set a model for dignified design in estate development.
Greatly influenced by Norman Shaw, the late Ernest Newton maintained a high standard in domestic work which was always simple and generally rather formal. His work was less personal than that of his well-known contemporary, Sir Ernest George, whose houses sometimes reflected foreign influences. Pre-eminent to-day stands Sir Edwin Lutyens, who has designed in nearly every material, and has touched the keynote of nearly every traditional English style. Sir Guy Dawber's interesting houses are designed in the simple picturesque idiom—with stone walls and slate roofs—of the Cotswold district, Gloucestershire. Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Guy Dawber typified the best English domestic designers, who prefer to use the materials and idiom of the locality where they build.
There is to-day a movement towards larger windows and a re duction in the actual size of houses, which has led to designs that depend less on wall surface and more on window grouping. Coupled with this external effect is a great improvement in planning, great compactness and arrangements for "labour saving" through the elimination of long passages and badly lit spaces. The design of English homes has become more scientific, and with this is a tendency, somewhat pronounced amongst younger architects, to design in a formal manner, the external treatment tending to a type of Georgian rather than to the picturesque type. This is largely due to the abuse of the latter in the hands of specu lating builders. In small and large country houses, and in the
homes in the "garden suburbs" and "garden villages," estates which are laid out to provide ideal conditions of domestic life, English architects are without superiors. Town houses are well designed, combining i8th century elegance with modern conven iences. The advanced modern movement, with its cubist tend encies, has made little headway in England. There are, however, a few examples, such as the houses designed on the Silver End Estate, near Braintree, by Thomas Tait. This type of house is not, however, particularly well adapted to the English country-side, and presents few practical advantages over the traditional type of house which has developed so naturally from local materials and requirements.
France.—France is a country which offers widely varying cli matic conditions. These directly affect the type of domestic archi tecture ; in the south is a warm climate, and we find a typical southern architecture of flat tile roofs, simple thick walls, shut tered windows and shaded eaves. In the north we find steep roofs and an architectural treatment which by its own richness attempts to impart the warmth and interest which the southern sun sup plies. Yet in north and south alike we find common character istics which are national.
In the France of former days, farms, manors or châteaux formed the bulk of the larger detached country residences, and for the rest domestic life was lived in villages in which the houses often formed a continuous street. Community life flourished in French towns and villages, and it has developed in modern times into life in the large and small apartment houses which form the bulk of domestic building in larger French cities. To-day the château has given way to something more approaching the large English or American country house; the house of the notary or the doctor still remains to recall the architecture of the châteaux, in whose image it was so often built. The town houses of the aristocracy, which were in reality châteaux in town, separated from the street by a courtyard and stables with their main front age on the garden beyond, have been replaced by the smaller town house, the hotel particulier, not unlike the London town house in scope of accommodation, but very often an entirely de tached and independent unit.
Whatever the category of building, practically every French home reflects a dominant French characteristic, the taste for an architectural arrangement permitting a certain degree of grandeur display. This may perhaps be traced back to the traditions of French court life, the magnificence of Louis XIV. and Ver sailles. Certainly the homes of the French nobility reflected it in the formality of their planning. In modern French planning the tradition of splendour still persists. The French house takes definite account of the division of the plan into several units, those of reception, of living, of service. Each unit is treated character istically and logically. The reception suite is open, with symmetri cal rooms, wide doors from room to room, and more openings than wall space. Effect, not comfort, is the first consideration. The living quarters are more modest, and the services still more so. The best rooms are for reception ; and inadequacy in this respect is rare.