In many cities, very luxurious and extensive building-s have recently been erected to supply a demand for residences in " flats;" but, while these are welcomed as possessing certain advantages, the national taste undoubt edly prefers the residence adapted to the single family.
American Suburban diffusion of wealth throughout the country is exhibited by the handsome urban and suburban residences (pi. 16, fig. 1) built of more expensive materials. These assume numberless variations of the Norman, Gothic, and Swiss models, the architects rivalling, one another in producing with astonishing, fertility original designs for each succeeding edifice, and in finding in the beautiful native marbles and hard woods abundant supplies for unrivalled luxury and beauty of deco ration.
Houses for all civilized countries efforts have been made during the last few decades to build special dwellings for laboring people. Various plans have been adopted on a large scale for erecting such dwellings, to be rented with the expectation that they will gradually be purchased by the occupants. Some of these projects have proved only partially successful because rents have not returned a sufficient interest on the money invested.
The Society for Public Utility, founded in the year 1848 in Berlin, has met with such discouragement. It was organized for the purpose of erecting small dwellings in different parts of Berlin, and upon ground—known as the Bremerholie—purchased outside the city. The houses in the latter district were to be so rented that six per cent. was to be returned on the invested capital, four per cent. to be paid to the stockholders and two per cent. credited to the lessees; so that they would become the owners in a period of thirty years. Although the idea has not been fully successful, many persons, through the efforts of the society, have been provided with excel lent homes. The plan and elevation of one of these houses intended for two families are given on Plate I 4 (figs. 19, zo). The dwellings inside are not in flats, but are side by side, and, as each has a separate entrance and stair way, the building is, in fact, a double house. The characteristic feature of the plan is the combination of the entry and the kitchen; so that the kitchen fireplace is directly in the hall. The entrance to the large or sitting-room opens on one side from the kitchen, and on the other side are the stairs leading to the bed-rooms on the floor above. Each house has
a small garden.
An undertaking of this kind projected at Millhausen, in Alsatia, in 1853, by Jean Dollfuss and a company, has been perfectly successful. Each family occupies a separate house, the ownership of which is acquired by gradual payments. The houses, built entirely in the French style and under French direction, either stand side by side in rows, so that every two rows touch at the rear, or are combined in groups of four separate houses under one roof upon a square, each fourth of the square constituting one house with garden attached, as in Figure 25 (pl. 14). One of these, taken from the group, is presented in Figures 21 to 24. It is 2oX feet long and 18X feet deep. The general arrangement of the rooms is similar to that already described in the Berlin house. On the first, or ground, floor (fig. 22) there is an entry serving also as a kitchen and a living-room. On the second story (fig. 23) there are two bed-rooms. The garret (fig. 24) is used as a repository, or loft, being purposely built too low for a sleeping room. Each house has a cellar 6 feet deep. The height of the ceiling in the first and second story is 9 feet in the clear. The privy is built at the side, and is accessible from the outside only; it touches the neighboring one, and has a well in common. The facade (fig. 21) is so simple as to require no explanation. Similar houses have been built in Geisenlingen, Wiirtemberg.
English Workingmen's Hozcses.—In England, the houses for working men have received much attention, and enormous sums have been ex pended upon their creation; but tbere have been attempted no plans by which the tenant can become owner. Figures 26 to 28 give the perspec tive, ground-plan, and sectional view of a house built to contain two dwell ings. Each dwelling has two rooms on the ground floor, one intended for a combined living-room and kitchen, and the other for a bed-room. Be sides the entry, there are a store-room, or closet, and the stairway leading to the sleeping-rooms on the upper story. The exterior of these houses is picturesque and pleasing both from the peculiar Gothic style ofarchi tecture and from the manner in which the two houses are grouped.