3 The waste of stylism Vs. the worth of character
2The Rolls-Royce Automobile was designed twenty years ago and its design has not been changed since. A ten-year-old rebuilt model today brings 58,000 which is more than the price of the best new American stock car. The secret of the Rolls-Royce success was absolute honesty of design and full courage of their convictions. They segregated and solved the functions in the best mechanical way, with the best materials, and with harmonic balance. (No superfluous aprons or other self-conscious spring hiders on the Rolls).
3 More than any other of its characteristics, America’s deference to stylism. has held back its designing, and put millions of dollars worth of material in the annual junk heap. This is due to the self-conscious ‘‘keeping up with the Joneses’’ idea, quite natural with young people in a vast new and rich country. The breath is taken away and the landmarks are lost, in the great rush of progress and new riches, wherefore the grasping at stylism. Stylistic deference in the creation of the new industrially-to-be-produced house would spell its defeat. It must be functionally designed, dynamically balanced, and harmoniously presented.
4 It is this same deference to stylism, plus the self-conscious misconception that individualism and character are primarily material effects, that has withheld from the business mind the stupendous possibilities of the simply solved, harmoniously designed, industrially produced home.
5 The styles of architecture, which all educated people know as early New England, Cotswold, Gothic, etc., are the result and the expression of character, in various localities and at various periods in history, of the people building to the best of their ability with the tools, materials, labor and science within their knowledge and the grasp of their hand. Primarily their buildings were designed to fulfill some particular function and their plan generated from this source. Today with marvelous advance in scientific knowledge, materials, tools and transportation methods employed in all other industries, we still copy methods and employ materials literally centuries old in the so called ‘‘building industry’’. We find the architecture of the home commencing in the owner’s mind with the external style, patterned after any one of the period styles, as his first consideration. This is designing from the outside in. We are in no way creating an architecture of our own (mind you this refers to the small house, not the city building) because we are not being truthful, using our knowledge, or daring to create. Until people dare unself-consciously to stand on their own, having the courage of their convictions, and express these convictions to the world, they will never acquire character. The home, the composite of groups of people, will never acquire character until this is done.