Ernest Flagg Quotes

There have always seemed to the writer sound reasons for using the module system in architectural design.

Economy in building consists in the aggregate of a great number of savings, which when considered separately may seem trivial, but when combined are important. The list of those here provided for... may be divided into classes as follows:

While it is not hard to suggest improvements on common methods of design and construction, it is very hard to introduce them.

Disadvantages... can be entirely removed by... the ridge-dormer. By its use space in the roof, otherwise of little value, becomes the most desirable. Instead of being gloomy, stuffy and hot, the dormers render it perfectly ventilated, light at all times, and cool in hot weather. In frame buildings, it is not so easy, because there must be tie beams... to withstand the thrust of the roof. ...Where low stone walls are used... the strength of the walls is sufficient to withstand the thrust...

One of the most ancient and inexpensive ways of obtaining shelter, was to utilize the space under sloping roof rafters. Indian wigwams have no other kind. Where civilization is slightly more advanced, low stone walls are built upon which the feet of the rafters rest.

It was only within comparatively recent times that several refinements in Greek architecture... such as the slight entasis of the columns, the greater size of the corner columns, and the convex curve of the stylobate were discovered.

A Greek architect of the great epoch would no more have thought of omitting the mark of the harmonic scale of proportion, on which the design was based, than would the composer of music think of omitting the harmonic scale of his composition.

New York ought to have such an avenue like the Champs Elysées of Paris, Unter den Linden of Berlin, or the Ring Strasse of Vienna, but more ample than any of them; for here, of all places, owing to the shape of the island, there is the most need of such a thing.

When the necessity for shelter is great and the means for obtaining it scant, flimsy and makeshift methods of building find ready acceptance; and once introduced are hard to eradicate. Such habits, formed here in early times, still influence construction; as abundantly proved by our inordinate fire loss...

Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones... it is possible to use forms without the usual waste of lumber... when waste is avoided, forms greatly reduce the cost of stonework... much can be saved in the construction of foundations by methods described...

These houses are intended to have stone walls. ...The fact that a stone house is better in many ways than a wooden one, and also more economical in the long run has, for the most part, been overlooked... The conditions are... ripe for a change from wood to stone or other incombustible material, but it will doubtless come about slowly.

It is hard to change long-established building habits; such habits sometimes endure for ages in certain localities with little or no change. It is, however, easy for new communities to acquire bad building habits.

It is clearly apparent that in building the best results should accrue in proportion as every element in the structure is fitted both to the function it has to perform and the materials of which it is made. It follows from this that disguise and complication are hindrances, both to good construction and good design, and as complication and disguise are expensive and wasteful, that the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines.

The chief difficulty in designing small houses is to avoid an excessive appearance of height. ...the ridge-dormer or its equivalent, the ridge skylight, would open a whole new field of opportunity...

When, in architecture, one uses a fixed unit and combinations of it, to produce harmony, the effect should be most striking and apparent... as it is in music by the measured beat and in poetry by the cadence and rhythm.