schemes of Christian charity, as an opiate for their conscience.
Just think of the splendid field for architectural accomplishment, of scope for the new school of building which is eager to plan and construct for the service of the community and the public welfare and pleasure, if the hundreds of acres now cumbered and blighted in every large town by slums and stews and germ-cages could be swept clear and clean for the rebuilding of the city on broad and beautiful and healthful lines for the comfort and shelter and enjoyment of its citizens!
In “remoulding nearer to our heart’s desire’ the condemned old parts of our cities and towns and the growing new ones, it must be clearly recognized that the day of the single and separate house is over and gone. Houses in the new and open parts of the cities must be built in groups around parks and gardens. In the down town, denser regions they must also be built in groups called apartments, around spacious central courts, and receded sufficiently from the street line to make each one, so to speak, provide its own air and light. If they are more than four stories high the upper stories must recede still farther from the lot line and the highest assume the character of towers.
Each individual house or apartment should be considered and planned as merely a unit in the group, and, far from being in any way “self-contained,” dependent absolutely upon the rest of its fellows and neighbors. It should give certain concessions in regard to air, light and view to its neighbors, both lateral and vertical, and receive from them other similar concessions in return.
Each group whether down town in a tenement or out in a suburban garden court should have a central system of heating, lighting and gas supply and of air or power for cleaning and domestic laborsaving purposes. These need not be operated by or dependent upon the skill of the individual tenants, but be attended to by groups or teams of experts who would visit the building so many times a day for heating or lighting service and so many times a week for cleaning, window washing, laundry and heavy cooking work.
Even where central heating or city electric and water and gas supply are not yet available, all modern group-buildings should be provided with flues, wires, pipes, etc., for all these services, so that whenever the city can give them these privileges they can be utilized to the best advantage. In the meantime most house groups except the very smallest would find it a distinct economy and advantage in every way to have one central furnace instead -of a dozen or fifteen separate ones, one central lighting system, where possible electric, and where not, acetylene or other inexpensive form of private
gas-installation, and a central water supply from well or spring, pumped and distributed by gasoline engine or windmill.
It is also very convenient in most house-groups whether above and below or side by side, to have a central kitchen and a central cafe or dining room on the cafeteria plan. Here the heaviest, most laborious and heating forms of the cooking, the joints, the vegetables, the breads and biscuits, the pies and cakes can be carried out by an expert cook, paid bv all the tenants in common. Then such families as wish can have their meals served in the dining room, cafeteria fashion, or bring them up to their rooms on the same plan and dine at home.
This would save much space and stuffiness and greasy odors and cooking smells in the separate houses and apartments, as well as much discomfort and dirt from ashes, coal, slops and garbage. Each individual house or apartment need only be provided with a small, well lighted and ventilated kitchen, equipped with a gas stove, sink, cabinet, glass or enamel-top tables, refrigerator and electric ironing table.
The modern kitchen should in any case be small, compact, with the stove in the centre of the room, the mixing table next to it, the sink and dish closets in easy reach from one side of the stove and the refrigerator and cabinet from the other. It should be a laboratory, not a living room, so arranged that one or at most two individuals can stand or sit on a high stool in the middle of it and reach everything they require for food and mixing and preparing on one side, and for serving, washing and distributing by wheeled table or carrier, on the other, without moving from where they stand or rising from where they sit. Any more space than this in a kitchen “cometh of evil,” causing unnecessary trotting about and lost motion generally as well as wastage of valuable floor space.
The floor of the kitchen should be either of hard wood, or, better still, of concrete, or one of the tough wood-pulp mixtures, or, failing this, linoleum covered. Its walls should be not merely painted but enameled; its tables, sinks and drainage boards, either glass or enamel or heavily paraffined wood, so that every surface of tables, walls and floor can be sluiced down or wiped clean with a wet cloth. The stove should, of course, be either gas or electric, as a good and economical private “gas-works,” or electric dynamo for ten or more houses can be easily constructed, where there is no city service of either gas or electricity.
In addition to this the up-to-date kitchen will be supplied with cold air pipes from a central cooling plant, so as to prevent cooking the cook with the roast when the weather is too warm, to permit the room being cooled by its numerous windows.
Just think of the splendid field for architectural accomplishment, of scope for the new school of building which is eager to plan and construct for the service of the community and the public welfare and pleasure, if the hundreds of acres now cumbered and blighted in every large town by slums and stews and germ-cages could be swept clear and clean for the rebuilding of the city on broad and beautiful and healthful lines for the comfort and shelter and enjoyment of its citizens!
In “remoulding nearer to our heart’s desire’ the condemned old parts of our cities and towns and the growing new ones, it must be clearly recognized that the day of the single and separate house is over and gone. Houses in the new and open parts of the cities must be built in groups around parks and gardens. In the down town, denser regions they must also be built in groups called apartments, around spacious central courts, and receded sufficiently from the street line to make each one, so to speak, provide its own air and light. If they are more than four stories high the upper stories must recede still farther from the lot line and the highest assume the character of towers.
Each individual house or apartment should be considered and planned as merely a unit in the group, and, far from being in any way “self-contained,” dependent absolutely upon the rest of its fellows and neighbors. It should give certain concessions in regard to air, light and view to its neighbors, both lateral and vertical, and receive from them other similar concessions in return.
Each group whether down town in a tenement or out in a suburban garden court should have a central system of heating, lighting and gas supply and of air or power for cleaning and domestic laborsaving purposes. These need not be operated by or dependent upon the skill of the individual tenants, but be attended to by groups or teams of experts who would visit the building so many times a day for heating or lighting service and so many times a week for cleaning, window washing, laundry and heavy cooking work.
Even where central heating or city electric and water and gas supply are not yet available, all modern group-buildings should be provided with flues, wires, pipes, etc., for all these services, so that whenever the city can give them these privileges they can be utilized to the best advantage. In the meantime most house groups except the very smallest would find it a distinct economy and advantage in every way to have one central furnace instead -of a dozen or fifteen separate ones, one central lighting system, where possible electric, and where not, acetylene or other inexpensive form of private
gas-installation, and a central water supply from well or spring, pumped and distributed by gasoline engine or windmill.
It is also very convenient in most house-groups whether above and below or side by side, to have a central kitchen and a central cafe or dining room on the cafeteria plan. Here the heaviest, most laborious and heating forms of the cooking, the joints, the vegetables, the breads and biscuits, the pies and cakes can be carried out by an expert cook, paid bv all the tenants in common. Then such families as wish can have their meals served in the dining room, cafeteria fashion, or bring them up to their rooms on the same plan and dine at home.
This would save much space and stuffiness and greasy odors and cooking smells in the separate houses and apartments, as well as much discomfort and dirt from ashes, coal, slops and garbage. Each individual house or apartment need only be provided with a small, well lighted and ventilated kitchen, equipped with a gas stove, sink, cabinet, glass or enamel-top tables, refrigerator and electric ironing table.
The modern kitchen should in any case be small, compact, with the stove in the centre of the room, the mixing table next to it, the sink and dish closets in easy reach from one side of the stove and the refrigerator and cabinet from the other. It should be a laboratory, not a living room, so arranged that one or at most two individuals can stand or sit on a high stool in the middle of it and reach everything they require for food and mixing and preparing on one side, and for serving, washing and distributing by wheeled table or carrier, on the other, without moving from where they stand or rising from where they sit. Any more space than this in a kitchen “cometh of evil,” causing unnecessary trotting about and lost motion generally as well as wastage of valuable floor space.
The floor of the kitchen should be either of hard wood, or, better still, of concrete, or one of the tough wood-pulp mixtures, or, failing this, linoleum covered. Its walls should be not merely painted but enameled; its tables, sinks and drainage boards, either glass or enamel or heavily paraffined wood, so that every surface of tables, walls and floor can be sluiced down or wiped clean with a wet cloth. The stove should, of course, be either gas or electric, as a good and economical private “gas-works,” or electric dynamo for ten or more houses can be easily constructed, where there is no city service of either gas or electricity.
In addition to this the up-to-date kitchen will be supplied with cold air pipes from a central cooling plant, so as to prevent cooking the cook with the roast when the weather is too warm, to permit the room being cooled by its numerous windows.