Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
1
192
The House in Good Taste
·
Elsie De Wolfe
3
I
THE
DEVELOPMENT
OF
THE
MODERN
HOUSE
I
know
of
nothing
more
significant
than
the
awakening
of
men
and
women
throughout
our
country
to
the
desire
to
improve
their
houses.
Call
it
what
you
will--awakening,
development,
American
Renaissance--it
is
a
most
startling
and
promising
condition
of
affairs.
It
is
no
longer
possible,
even
to
people
of
only
faintly
æsthetic
tastes,
to
buy
chairs
merely
to
sit
upon
or
a
clock
merely
that
it
should
tell
the
time.
Home-makers
are
determined
to
have
their
houses,
outside
and
in,
correct
according
to
the
best
standards.
What
do
we
mean
by
the
best
standards?
Certainly
not
those
of
the
useless,
overcharged
house
of
the
average
American
millionaire,
who
builds
and
furnishes
his
home
with
a
hopeless
disregard
of
tradition.
We
must
accept
the
standards
that
the
artists
and
the
architects
accept,
the
standards
that
have
come
to
us
from
those
exceedingly
rational
people,
our
ancestors.
Our
ancestors
built
for
stability
and
use,
and
so
their
simple
houses
were
excellent
examples
of
architecture.
Their
spacious,
uncrowded
interiors
were
usually
beautiful.
Houses
and
furniture
fulfilled
their
uses,
and
if
an
object
fulfils
its
mission
the
chances
are
that
it
is
beautiful.
It
is
all
very
well
to
plan
our
ideal
house
or
apartment,
our
individual
castle
in
Spain,
but
it
isn't
necessary
to
live
among
intolerable
furnishings
just
because
we
cannot
realize
our
castle.
There
never
was
a
house
so
bad
that
it
couldn't
be
made
over
into
something
worth
while.
We
shall
all
be
very
much
happier
when
we
learn
to
transform
the
things
we
have
into
a
semblance
of
our
ideal.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
