The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-05-10
WANTED AN AMERICAN ARCHITECT.
EngIfshwOman Sure He Could Make
All Her Rooms Face South.

New York Mail and Express.
Great is commercial expansion" said
New York architect TO an acquaintance.
Yesterday an English woman came to
me to advise her about plans for new
residence in the south of England. She
had obtained plans from her English arch
itect, who had already designed four sue
cessive and successful houses for ner, but,
she said, while they are very good and
while Mr.. - is quite gentleman, don't
you know, not at all like English archi-
tects, you know, still am sure an Amer
lean can put all of the rooms on the south
without having the house SO really quite
dreadfully long and with really no end of
passages
Her confidence in my ability to juggle
five out of two and two is what you might
call the moral result of commercial expan-
sion. The actual commercial expansion
itself was shown by her desire to have all
her doors. hardware and plumbing fixtures
American.
"In hardware and plumbing fixtures there
ucts and the English. On the mechanical
side, In the way Of doing things as we'll
in the more complicated things we do.
we are far in advance. But If you are con-
tent with simple things, thoroughly made,
the English are the best. Our locks are
more ingenious, they are harder TO open
without the key, and easter to open WITH
the key, and are much lighter in construc-
ton than the English.
ION the other hand, their locks have more
hand work in them, and when il comes
al work, instead of using some stock pat
tern, turned out by the hundred, they are
more likely to make up special designs for
each particular house and have the work
done largely by hand. 1t means much
greater expense but that is not all, for
when any one here is ready to stand the ex-
pense the lack of practice and custom of
doing special work makes 1t hard TO find
the proper men to carry out ones designs.
We are, however, doing more special work
than formerly, and it is to be hoped that
it will not be long before ii is generally
on design and workmanship than in silver
plating and gold plating on ready-made
stock pattern hardware.
LAS in hardware, so In plumbing fixtures.
Our valves and taps and flushing devices
and complicated showers and whatnot are,
in England; but until recently If one want
ed a porcelain tub, not porcelain glaze on
fire clay steel backing, he had to
send to England for ii. He would get a
great clumsy affair with no pretense of
finish to it, but it would be solid porcelain
and would not craZe-that is, develop a lot
of fine cracks-as the American porcelain
tub does on account of the difference in ma
terial of the surface and the body. We
make them nearly as good as the English
now, but porcelain tubs are expensive, and
the American enameled tub, which is
much cheaper and answers all conditions
about well, and consequently is being
used more and more in England. My client
will probably save more than my fees on
that one item alone.
she insisted by the way, on parallel
tubs. You would never guess what she
meant unless you had been in England and
seen that most of the tubs that were not
round were coffin shaped. When have you
seen such tub in this country"