began to travel, new architectural ideas came in. The Italian garden was admired, and many Italian gardens were laid out on English estates. The Englishman preferred his own kind of house, so he did not adapt the Italian villa. Many Italian painters, decorators and artisans, however, were brought over to create interiors and works of art to gratify the "classic" tastes which had arisen as a result of travel. Contact with the Far East created a mania for "the Chinese taste," mostly evidenced in Chippendale's furniture, but nevertheless potently in favour in many other directions and certainly a style as alien to English traditions as could be conceived. Later came the Brothers Adam, imprinting the architecture and furniture of their time with a classicism which was not to wear off until the late Georgian period.

The more intercourse of ideas, the more travel, the more familiarity with varied styles, certainly the less will be the likelihood of the development of any one essentially new style. And because the intelligent and practical study of the architecture of this country today must be largely a study of adaptations, it is essential to be able to trace derivations with accuracy and ease. It would be impossible to acquire any understanding or appreciation of the architecture of this country to-day without a practical familiarity with the great architectural styles of Europe.

With this in view, the following two chapters are designed to outline concisely the evolution of historic architecture, with special reference to the characteristics of the styles, discussed consecutively, and with as great a degree of brevity as is consistent with adequate presentation.

Before proceeding, however, to traverse the ages

from the time of the Egyptian temple-builders up to the present day, a few absolute fundamentals of design should be comprehended by the reader in order that it may be seen to what extent the architects of the historic styles succeeded in realising their intentions.

It would be an easy matter, in this direction, to plunge the reader into a maze of technicalities, whereas a real grasp of four great essentials of architectural design may be said to comprehend all lesser points. If these four essentials have been rationally realised in a given building, it is safe to assume that the building is worthy of the name of "architecture."

The design of a building, regardless of its "style" or its function or uses, should be expressive and appropriate, and the designer should have demonstrated in his finished building his grasp of the architectural essential of scale and the pictorial essential of lightand-shade.

Briefly considering these four essentials-a building defeats its own design if, while seemingly a tall and upright building, this effect is destroyed by strong horizontal lines. The result is a distressing optical and mental confusion on the part of the beholder-an inevitable doubt as to whether or not the architect had been perfectly certain in his own mind as to what he was trying to express. The tall, upright building should express its height, with an introduction of horizontal members so subsidiary to the vertical as to serve only to break the monotony. A long, low building should contain no conspicuous elements in its design which will detract from its horizontality. In short, any building should immediately and unequivocally express the intention of its designer, should be a building massive and dignified, light and graceful, tall and upright, or low

and spreading, or of any other type. If we are assailed by any doubt or conjecture in so important an aspect of the building, we may well expect to find further serious evidences of inept design.

On the score of appropriateness, there is, perhaps, little to say which would not be obvious. The design of a building, irrespective of its style, should be expressive of the purpose or nature of the building, and hence appropriate. A little millinery shop should not look like a bank building. Appropriateness inevitably involves style, because certain styles are peculiarly suited to the expression of certain ideas. Classic styles are dignified, modern French styles are festive, Italian styles are refined and graceful-and so on through the pages of architecture. The able architect is the architect who can unerringly select for the design of a given building the style which will most clearly and effectively express the intent of that building.

"Scale" is a word seldom met with outside the architectural draughting room, or outside the conversation of designers, and this is unfortunate, because the term is not a "technical" one, and errors in scale are more common than errors of any other kind-be the question involved one of architecture, furniture design, or even the selection of a picture frame.

In plain diction, "scale" involves the relationship of parts, whether well or ill related. If a window, for example, is of exactly the right proportions for a wallspace which it occupies, the architect says it is "in scale." If, however, this window is too large or too small, he says it is "out of scale." A façade may be admirably designed, and in every way pleasing, with the exception of one fatal defect: the cornice, for instance, may be "out of scale"-may be overpoweringly

heavy, or may be insignificant and inadequate in relation, or in "scale" with the rest of the design. A single moulding, a single bracket may be "out of scale," marring the whole design. No member of a building is too large or too small to escape the necessity of "scale." An entire wing or a tower may be "out of scale," or a single feature (apparently) so unimportant as the keystone over a window. It is apparent, then, that an architect's success as measured by his works must depend very largely on his eye for "scale"—which might be called, perhaps, his eye for relative proportion.

It will be conceded at once that effects of light and shade must play an important part in the design of a building, and cognate with it, the handling of voids and solids. Architecturally, the "voids" in a design are all windows and door openings, loggias or arcades; the "solids," all of the building which is not "void." Skilful balance of void and solid is an essential in architectural design, as will be apparent in one's observation of any building, studied with this in mind. Light and shade must also be skilfully manipulated, and mistakes most often occur through too much study of a building "on paper," as a composition of lines, without sufficient visualisation of the effect of the executed work. Every projection from the face of a building casts a definite shadow, and the effect of these shadows is as much a part of the whole design as the detail of a moulding or the interpretation of a classic order.

From the foregoing observations on expression, appropriateness, scale and light-and-shadow, it must be apparent that the able architect needs much mental equipment in addition to his knowledge of historic styles or his familiarity with structural problems. It should

be noticed, moreover, that the more masterfully an architect handles these essentials of design the less appreciation he receives from the lay critic, for the reason that perfection in such matters as scale, for instance, so rests the eye as to attract no attention and elicit no praise. The trained architectural observer, however, will find much to delight him in his conscious appreciation of these niceties.

To proceed further in a consideration of the principles of architectural design would be inconsistent with the purposes of the present work, no matter how interesting in itself, and a necessarily brief study will now be directed through the evolution of those great historic styles whose present-day manifestations we see around us on every hand.