A Bungle-ode
by Ern. Freese and its response, The Peridiotic Cottage by
Los Angeles/Pasadena architect Arthur S. Heineman. Published
in The Architect and Engineer of California in March and
April, 1918.
A
BUNGLE-ODE
By Ern.
Freese
A Bungalow is a species of inhabitable mushroom that
springs up over night on vacant lots. It might be more comprehensibly
defined as the manifestation of a peculiar style of Western domestic
architecture that causes lady tourists from the two-storied East
to be precipitated into involuntary and rapturous comments, such
as "Oh! How cute!"
Architecturally
speaking, the bungalow is a composite of Swiss chalet, Japanese
tea-house, Frank Lloyd-Wright leaded glass, Spanish hacienda,
Chinese influence, Mission furniture, monstrous originality, disappearing
beds, and disillusioning appearance.
What?
You are incredulous? Listen, then. Allow me to describe one of
these bungalows as I hypothetically view it from where I sit.
No, I shall first describe the whole flock.
"Flock"
is the proper term. They appear to have just "lit,"
or as if flight were imminent. That is the first impression; restlessness
and impermanency, created by the multiplicity of flattened-out
gable roofs and enormous flapping eaves, all abristle with fantastically
fashioned rafter ends. However, on further survey, it is realized
with a jolt that if the bungalow proper takes to flight, at least
a part will remain eternally anchored to earth. I refer to the
huge piles of masonry--brick, cobblestones, concrete--that constitute
the porch piers. For, behold, even though a bungalow have no foundation
upon which to rest other than a two-by-six redwood plank, yet
in the porch piers must there be at least ten tons of solid masonry
to support the two-by-four raftered roof. Why mention the mysteries
of ancient Egypt? Imagine future antiquarians discoursing as follows
of the days in which we live:
"Huge
piles of masonry still stand upon the sites of those ancient Western
cities. The origin and purpose of these great and numerous Cobble-Isks
are shrouded in mystery. The only rational theory by which we
can account for their existence is that the people of that Peculiar
Era did start to build what were then known as Skyscrapers, but
that Land Values changed over night and the project was abandoned
because there was no Money in it."
One
bungalow in particular attracts my attention. The porch piers
of this one are of cobblestone. And the cobblestones are studded
with brick--for effect. The effect is that you wonder why the
contractor neglected to furnish enough cobbles to finish the job.
The rivers are full of them--not contractors: cobbles. They are
a dominant note in the scenic grandeur of far Western rivers.
These rivers are peculiar; they are upside-down most of the time.
That is to say, the water is underneath, the sand and cobbles
on top! You simply drive down the river and pluck them.
Well,
as I have said, the porch piers of this particular bungalow are
studded with brick--for effect. You have noted the effect--upon
me. Wait. There are four of these great piers, all in a row. At
the ground line they are perhaps six feet square, and they rise
roofward in sweeping curves of the fourth or fifth dimension to
the dizzy height of about seven feet. At this point, the sweeping
curves have swept into tangency with the vertical. And here they
terminate, two feet square, capped with a chunk of concrete half
a foot thick. But the end is not yet. There still intervenes a
space of two feet between the top of each pier and the overhead
roof-beam. And now--O ye of little understanding--I beseech ye
to behold the monstrous originality of the bungalow builders!
This intervening space of two feet is occupied by a four-by-four
stick of timber that rests in supreme and supercilious stability
upon its enormous base of stone. This construction is artistic.
What? I repeat--artistic. It is moreover delightfully frank--not
Frank-Lloyd-Wright: frank. For it acknowledges the fact that instead
of a tonnage of masonry to support that paper roof, all that is
actually required is a four-inch stick of Oregon pine!
In
the end-spaces between these piers are described graceful catenaries.
A Catenary is no part of cat or canary. It is the curve described
by a hanging chain. Perhaps I should have said that between these
piers hang chains, describing catenaries. Then describing on my
part would end into the eternal masonry of the piers. They replace
the antiquated classic balustrade--and they serve a useful purpose
(beauty and utility should be co-existent)--they serve as swings
for children. Not necessarily the bungalow-dwellers' children,
but your children, my generations yet unborn. The chains are procured
from the manufacturers or harbor dredges and also from the builders
of steel derricks.
Farther
along on bungalow row is what is technically known as an "aeroplane."
This particular aeroplane is a bi-plane--that is to say, it has
two sets of white planes--two paper roofs, one above the other.
The upper roof hovers over a second-floor sleeping apartment.
The walls of the sleeping apartment are set back, all around,
from the walls of the story beneath. This is an aeroplane of the
bungalow army. It is also a highly successful combination of freight-train-caboose
and Japanese pagoda. And the Chinese influence is decidedly marked
in the jig-sawed, tip-tilted rafter ends. Other influences are
also in evidence.
Another
bungalow exhibits a melee of original and startling timber work.
The starting point of it is that it does not crash to earth of
its own weight. Mighty timbers--with ends cut into every conceivable
form of curve known to higher geometry, planing-mill mechanics
and jigsaws--are piled up this way and the other ways in a bewildering
and spiked-together intricacy that causes the beholder to gasp
in unbelief. Theoretically, this bewildering intricacy is the
"support" of the over-gravitation is an undisputed fact.
Wherefore, these flapping, wing-like, overhanging eaves of two-by-four
rafters sag under the very weight of their aforementioned "supports,"
and a typical bungalesque down-drooping roof curve manifests itself
just beyond the wall line. Have patience. Not yet have you learned
all the wonders of the bungalow. Enter. Grasp the ponderous store-front
handle of that four-by-six-eight slab of solid oak, and come in.
Solid oak? Ah--vain and for the nonce are the front doors of the
bungalow builders, for the paper veneer on that door is already
wrinkling its back where the sun hits it. But come in.
Look
out! Don't open the door too wide--"twill crash into the
Mission rocker. And if the rocker starts rocking, "twill
smash the leaded glass of the book-case doors. Now look at the
mantlepiece and the beamed ceiling. All of solid mahog--Oh!--one-by-six
Oregon pine boards nailed together and stained--stained out of
all semblance to Oregon pine boards.
You
are curious as to the meaning of that lowered ceiling-beam occurring
midway between the front door and the kitchen. Ho! Ho! Surely
you are from the far, far East--mayhap from Massachusetts. Listen.
That particular beam is the dividing line between this and that,
"this" being the living-room and "that" being
the dining-room.
Follow
the path into the kitchen. Careful. Don't bump your shins on that
seat-end. Oh, I nearly forgot--that built-in seat conceals the
head-end of a perambulating bed. The feet-end projects into the
bedroom closet. The roof of the bed-space is the floor of the
closet, and the floor of the closet is three steps above the
floor of the bed-room. If you stand up straight in the closet
you bump your head on the ceiling.
Isn't
this kitchen a wondrous thing! In comparison, a dining-car kitchen
becomes a vast and immeasurable space. Stand there by the sink.
You can reach everything in the room.
And
this is the bed-room. Where is the bed? In the wall behind that
mirror. Step back in the kitchen and I will let the bed down.
There! That's how it works. But now if you insist upon seeing
the bath-room, I shall have to fold up the bed again or we shall
have to crawl over it--we are on the wrong side!
Enough.
I would a confession make.
By Arthur S. Heineman,
Architect
In your March issue,
I read the truth about the Bungle-Ode, and I am minded to discourse
upon the Peridiotic or Colonial type of cottage--pronounced cottage,
as in garage or cabbage.
The
Peridiotic cottage is designed by an archi-choke, and by the time
it is completed the owner invariably hopes that he will or has.
As
all are aware, period things had their origin in the Orders. The
Orders were taken--not given--and the incubation of the Peridiotic
cottage involves the "following of Orders if it breaks masters"--and
it usually does. These houses are done in a style or type of architecture,
and by the time the modern needs are shaped to the ancient style
the cottage achieves all its Peridiotic appendages.
An
ancient proverb sayeth: "Hew to the line, let the quips fall
where they will," and "there's a destiny which shapes
men's ends, rough hew them how we may." The appendages of
a Peridiotic style of architecture and decoration, when dwarfed
into a modern cottage, do enough to the destiny of the architect
without the rough hewing that the event does to him.
So
much as to effect. Now as to caws:
Exteriorly
speaking, over the front door is placed a deleted eyebrow--arranged
to shed not even a tear.
The
front porch is provided with a guard rail, so that the opening
of the front screen door won't catapult the porch occupant onto
the flower beds.
Above
the front door is a fan window--baseball parlance--meaning it
doesn't make a hit.
From
the exterior the windows are arranged symmetrically, equally spaced,
and the spaces equally divided, so that you are constantly reminded
that the architect had a tape line--and used it. In fact, that
is the principal impression you get--the measured-off effect--and
each time you pass and re-pass the house you measure it up with
your eye, hoping to find that they slipped up an inch or so and
that you may go and tell the architect about it.
And
the windows are all full of panes, and the housewife has to take
still more pains to keep them clean. Generally they are in squares,
like a checkerboard, and the flies learn to jump from square to
square--sort o' speculating on them.
This
symmetrical arrangement of the windows on the exterior has a sporadic
effect on the interior. The windows are sort o' sillymetrically
in the rooms. Everything in the room is what you might call in
profile--or three-quarter-wise--because of those windows. They
pop up in all sorts of places, and wherever you expect and hope
and want a wall to be--there's your window; and where you really
want a window--for a beautiful view or a charming vista into a
pergola or something--why, there's a nice, full-sized, transparent
section of plastered wall.
The
best thing about the living rooms with the windows arranged symmetrically
for the exterior is the wall spaces. Pianos, particularly baby
grands, if intended for use, are hung with chains from the ceiling.
It's the only way to place them in the room and not disturb the
sillymetricness of those windows.
Outside
and adjoining and abutting and bounding those windows are shutters-
green ones. The shutters might be called openers. At least they
are never shut; usual they can't shut; but they are ornamental
and decorative and cute. Its a case of form following function,
just like the nose ring of a cannibal- ornamental, decorative,
cute, and oh! so functional!
Most
of these Periodic cottages have eaves- not overhangs and exposed
rafter ends- oh, dear no. Nothing so vulgar and indecently exposed
as that! Just nice, smug, useless, and enclosed Eavs. too short
to protect the walls and windows from the beating of the summer
sun; too short to protect the walls and windows from the driving
of the semi-tropic rains; not wide enough to create an air eddy
as under the broader overhang which pulls the heated air from
the room; just a dear, chopped off, useless- snub-nosed Eve- designed
in the paradise of its own misunderstood function, because A-dam
architect is wedded to it.
The
other parts of the interior of the house are really very livable;
and if you can forget and forgive its effect of Prunes, Prisms
and Priscillas, and the hard-and-fast four-squaredness of it--you
can, by the use of modern touches and the expression of your own
free soul, in the choice and arrangement of furnishings, really
live along very sweetly and independently.
True,
the life of peace and independence is not always compatible with
period type residences, but the cottages as a class escape the
fungus of varying and multi-period rooms which usually clusters
the larger houses of this type. I have passed through dwellings
wherein each room was done--well done, one might say--in a different
period of architectural and decorative treatment-- one of those
houses, you know, of which the decorator proudly boasts that the
owner gave him carte-blanche--and I, for one, am fed up on decorator's
"carte-blanche" houses. As you go from room to room,
to avoid the blind staggers you must make a complete metamorphosis,
and if, like tabby, you are conducted through a Victorian hall,
a Baronial dining-room, then a Louis Quintz salon, mein host's
daughter, affecting to live up to her surroundings, lifts pince-nez
and says, "Je ne sais pas," to which you reply, "No,
I didn't see your pa, but there's a hell of a lot of other queer-looking
things here."
Period
rooms, abutting and abounding in one defenseless house, are nothing
but cheap sensations, artificially produced--a sort of second-hand
realism--and realism is vulgarity under a mask of authority.
The
use of well-chosen words to conceal one's meaning is the very
apex of oratory; hence the above.
From
all the great and unblushing world truths that have gone before,
the reader may have concluded that the Periodic cottage is wholly
without merit. Such an assumption would be well founded were it
not for the barrage of protecting and saving qualities about to
be divulged:
The
saving genius of the Periodic house is the housewife. Battling
like a Greek at her Thermopoli, though she sells dearly her long
cherished ideals of livableness and homelikeness, she must be
entirely annihilated by architectural barbarism before she will
sacrifice the stronghold of convenience. And preferring a living
client to a dead prospect, the architect, not mindful of his fee,
sacrifices art for art's sake, and fills the cottage with the
thousand and one contrivances that have made the bungalow--love's
hand maiden--the children's paradise--and the old maid's temptation.