The bungalow is a distinctly popular type of moderate and low-cost dwelling on the Pacific Coast, where architects have developed it into a thoroughly charming and livable affair, and it is essayed to-day, with varying degrees of success, in nearly every part of the country.

The bungalow is appreciated, in a popular way, more extensively than it is understood, and if architects and prospective builders will take it a little more seriously, and develop it into a miniature all-year-round house (a rôle it very frequently fills to-day), there may be evolved a highly desirable and essentially American type of dwelling, bearing no similarity whatever to the tropical affair from which its name has come, nor yet to any other architectural type in any other country.

At this point, having presented in a necessarily brief form, an analytical guide to those architectural styles and types which possess definite form, and which may be subjected to definite classification, it is no less important to direct a little critical attention toward certain phases of our subject which might be called "Architectural Addenda."

In point of style, comment will be made upon that strange movement called "L'Art Nouveau," and upon the Secessionist (now "Modernist") movement of Austria and Germany.

It will prove interesting, as well, to direct observation toward the results which have come from the application of certain old architectural styles to new architectural types-to the modern city house and shop front, the tall office building, the loft building, the vast modern American hotel and railway terminal. In "many inventions" to fulfil new and unexpected duties, the art of Architecture has splendidly lived up to its destiny.

CHAPTER IX

NEW STYLES APPLIED TO FAMILIAR USES, AND OLD STYLES APPLIED TO NEW USES. "L'ART NOUVEAU," THE "SECESSIONISTS" AND "MODERNISTS." THE CITY HOUSE, THE OFFICE BUILDING, THE LOFT BUILDING, THE MODERN HOTEL, THE APARTMENT HOUSE AND THE GREAT RAILROAD TERMINAL

No of

O study of stylistic expressions in architecture would be complete without some acquaintance with certain schools of design which exist outside the pale of the historic periods. It is the purpose of this chapter, therefore, to discuss certain "new" styles, and certain new applications of old styles which have been added to the history of architectural development in modern times.

One of the first secessions from historic precedent in design appeared about 1896 in the form of a movement which was known as "L'Art Nouveau." This new art, originating, as its name would indicate, in France, threw design in general into convulsions which, at the time, seemed likely to entirely transform all previous ideas of Classic or academic design in architecture and furniture. L'Art Nouveau, furthermore, assumed, temporarily, an absolute dominance of feeling in the design of jewellry, ceramics, bookbinding and other crafts, as well as in the graphic arts.

The style, however, could not last beyond the first bloom of its novelty, because it was illogical and basically unsound. It sought to mould form to accommodate decoration, instead of accommodating decoration to form. In two respects, it was a highly naturalistic sort of art, employing as motifs plant forms, and render

ing these in a naturalistic manner. "L'Art Nouveau" was a style of flowing and sinuous lines, often graceful, but too frequently bizarre and "forced," and although naturalistic, it was also highly artificial, in that the natural forms employed were forced into illogical uses.

It is true that no previous school of design had produced works in any way similar to the creations of the "art nouveau" enthusiasts, even though there might be traced an accidental similarity in some free Gothic renderings of leaves or fruit. The style reached its height in France and found its most ready outside acceptance in Belgium, being too "French" for the Germans and too "emotional" for the English. It was copied, in America, solely by reason of its novelty, and without any understanding whatever of the intention of its French creators.

As a style, "L'Art Nouveau" comes to us to-day sometimes as a sort of joke, and nearly always as a misguided and ephemeral fantasy. This, perhaps, is not altogether fair, because, with all its faults, "L'Art Nouveau" had some occasional flashes of real inspiration. If it had done nothing more, it awakened an appreciation of graceful form, and of the inexhaustible possibilities of deriving decorative motifs from plant forms. One of the illustrations shows a Parisian shop front-the style, perhaps, exemplified at its best, for of all buildings, a hat shop, or a candy shop, or a small theatre, may permissably indulge in architectural frivolity. One cannot imagine a courthouse or a post-office designed along "art nouveau" lines, but one can readily think of instances in which the style might be acceptable and pleasing. To-day, however, it is to all intents and purposes a "dead" style, excepting in the imprint which it left on the previously Classic archi