kerchiefs, but the prize exhibits look like nothing more than the paper decorations on the unupholstered end of a mutton chop.
And they have their own games, particularly the fascinating “pelote, ” a distant country cousin to both handball and lacrosse. And the bullfights at San Sebastian — but this is no sporting column. A genuine fandango is danced by the natives on those frequent occasions when the
band plays in the public square. The abandon and utter lack of self-consciousness which characterize these people when, as the music suddenly bursts forth, the whole population swings into the gay gestures and agile steps of the fandango, are what startle the conventional Anglo-Saxon mind.
But most gratifying of all, the Basques have developed an architecture typically and incontestably their own. The Basque buildings, particularly the farmhouses, are deserving of study, for they combine a perfect utility with what is much rarer, an architectural treatment at once picturesque, well proportioned and devoid of detail. It is half timber construction at first glance, but basically it is stone and brick, effectively camouflaged with whitewash and painted timbers. Farm
buildings in the pure Basque style are invariably marked by a broad passageway in the middle of the structure, in which the wagons and often the horses and oxen are housed. The urban buildings with their vast overhanging eaves and heavily shuttered windows, usually look as though they had received their last coat of whitewash but a month before. Their timbers, slender and strong, are not closely spaced as one finds them
in Northern France, and the lintels are strung with only a simple bead-like ornament. It seems unprecedented to paint the timbers in any colors but a box car red, a sage green or a strange salt water blue.
Biarritz is, of course, the much touted city of the region. But Biarritz has sprouted from a forlorn fishing village to the most ornate of fashionable watering places in less than a century, and looks it! What picturesque spots there are in the town, although protected by rustic wooden fences which prove to be cement, appear weary and worn from the endless inspection of lolling tourists. Architects in search of aesthetic tonic here are advised to concentrate their attention on the shop windows of the English haberdashers
A TYPICAL BASQUE HOUSE IN CIBOURE
And they have their own games, particularly the fascinating “pelote, ” a distant country cousin to both handball and lacrosse. And the bullfights at San Sebastian — but this is no sporting column. A genuine fandango is danced by the natives on those frequent occasions when the
band plays in the public square. The abandon and utter lack of self-consciousness which characterize these people when, as the music suddenly bursts forth, the whole population swings into the gay gestures and agile steps of the fandango, are what startle the conventional Anglo-Saxon mind.
But most gratifying of all, the Basques have developed an architecture typically and incontestably their own. The Basque buildings, particularly the farmhouses, are deserving of study, for they combine a perfect utility with what is much rarer, an architectural treatment at once picturesque, well proportioned and devoid of detail. It is half timber construction at first glance, but basically it is stone and brick, effectively camouflaged with whitewash and painted timbers. Farm
buildings in the pure Basque style are invariably marked by a broad passageway in the middle of the structure, in which the wagons and often the horses and oxen are housed. The urban buildings with their vast overhanging eaves and heavily shuttered windows, usually look as though they had received their last coat of whitewash but a month before. Their timbers, slender and strong, are not closely spaced as one finds them
in Northern France, and the lintels are strung with only a simple bead-like ornament. It seems unprecedented to paint the timbers in any colors but a box car red, a sage green or a strange salt water blue.
Biarritz is, of course, the much touted city of the region. But Biarritz has sprouted from a forlorn fishing village to the most ornate of fashionable watering places in less than a century, and looks it! What picturesque spots there are in the town, although protected by rustic wooden fences which prove to be cement, appear weary and worn from the endless inspection of lolling tourists. Architects in search of aesthetic tonic here are advised to concentrate their attention on the shop windows of the English haberdashers
A TYPICAL BASQUE HOUSE IN CIBOURE