The American architect
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL. CXXV
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1924NUMBER 2436
HALF TIMBER
Scattered Observations and Sketches made in France
BY SAMUEL CHAMBERLAIN THERE are rare spots in France, hidden
throughout a hundred towns and villages, where the atmosphere of a medieval world is authentically preserved by a towering old timbered house. The sight of one of them, battered, warped and crumbling, shooting up at grotesque angles on a dingy street, has inspired many an artist to laudable things. They are appreciated in some quarters and kept in repair, objects of a dormant civic pride which asserts itself only when a movie photographer or an idiot on a sketching stool calls attention to the charm of the place.
Others are woefully neglected, looked upon as worthless old shells that soon must collapse under the axe of the housewrecker, to be replaced by a thoroughly cold and unfeeling, but to be sure, most “practical” type of house that is often built nowadays. The watchful eye of the State, therefore,
has to be on the alert to restrain unappreciative landowners from tearing down some of the finest relics. One of the noblest half timbered structures in the Touraine, a splendid weather beaten old hulk in Chinon with a dejected “list to port, ” its windows an assortment of broken glass and cobwebs, a squalid family of screeching children on the ground floor, had already been turned over to the axe-wielders when the Beaux-Arts officials stepped in and converted it into an immune “monument historique. ”
Rouen, of course, is honeycombed with old houses. The extent of them is not appreciated until one begins to wander through the labyrinth of side streets and alleys that give access to much of the town. Caen, Lisieux and Bayeux are famous on account of them. Blois, Compiegne, Auxerre, Tours and Bourges are all plenteously
HALF TIMBER CONSTRUCTION AS SEEN AT ITS BEST IN FRANCE
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL. CXXV
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1924NUMBER 2436
HALF TIMBER
Scattered Observations and Sketches made in France
BY SAMUEL CHAMBERLAIN THERE are rare spots in France, hidden
throughout a hundred towns and villages, where the atmosphere of a medieval world is authentically preserved by a towering old timbered house. The sight of one of them, battered, warped and crumbling, shooting up at grotesque angles on a dingy street, has inspired many an artist to laudable things. They are appreciated in some quarters and kept in repair, objects of a dormant civic pride which asserts itself only when a movie photographer or an idiot on a sketching stool calls attention to the charm of the place.
Others are woefully neglected, looked upon as worthless old shells that soon must collapse under the axe of the housewrecker, to be replaced by a thoroughly cold and unfeeling, but to be sure, most “practical” type of house that is often built nowadays. The watchful eye of the State, therefore,
has to be on the alert to restrain unappreciative landowners from tearing down some of the finest relics. One of the noblest half timbered structures in the Touraine, a splendid weather beaten old hulk in Chinon with a dejected “list to port, ” its windows an assortment of broken glass and cobwebs, a squalid family of screeching children on the ground floor, had already been turned over to the axe-wielders when the Beaux-Arts officials stepped in and converted it into an immune “monument historique. ”
Rouen, of course, is honeycombed with old houses. The extent of them is not appreciated until one begins to wander through the labyrinth of side streets and alleys that give access to much of the town. Caen, Lisieux and Bayeux are famous on account of them. Blois, Compiegne, Auxerre, Tours and Bourges are all plenteously
HALF TIMBER CONSTRUCTION AS SEEN AT ITS BEST IN FRANCE