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Show architect to give his client something dated ahead; for he is entrusted by his client with his interests in matters in which, more frequently than not, the client is ignorant. A commission therefore becomes a trust to the architect. Any architect is bound to educate his client to the extent of his true skill and capacity in what he as a professional adviser believes to be fun- damentally right. In this there is plenty of leeway for abuse of the client: temptations to sacrifice him in the interest of personal idiosyncrasies, to work along lines instinctively his preference, and therefore easy to him. But in any trust there is chance of failure. This educational relationship between client and architect is more or less to be expected, and of value artistically for the reason that, while the architect is educating the client, the client is educating him. A d n a certain determining factor in this quality of style is this matter grow- ing out of this relation of architect and client to the work in hand, as well as the more definite elements of construction. This quality of style is a subtle thing, and should remain SO, and not to be defined in itself so much as to be regarded as a result of artistic integrity, S TYLE, then, if the conditions are consistently and artistically cared for little by little will care for itself. As for working ina nominated style beyond a natural predilection for certain forms, it is unthinkable by the author of any true creative effort. Given similar conditions, similar tools, similar people, I believe that architects will, with a proper regard for the organic nature of the thing produced, arrive at various results sufficiently harmonious with each other and with great individuality. One might swoop all the Gothic architecture of the world together in a single nation, and mingle it with buildings treated horizontally as they were treated vertically or treated diagonally, buildings and towers with flat roofs, long, low buildings with square openings, mingled with tall buildings with pointed ones, in the bewildering variety of that marvelous architectural mani- festation, and harmony in the general ensemble inevitably result: the common chord in all being sufficient to bring them unconsciously into harmonious relation, 1 T is this ideal of an organic working out with normal means to a consistent end that is the salvation of the architect entrusted with liberty. He is really more severely dis- ciplined by this ideal than his brothers of the styles, and less likely to falsify h;m ;oc*.- So to the schools looking askance at the mixed material entrusted to the,, ~.--+B', thinking to save the nation a terrible infliction of the wayward dreams of mere idiosyncra- sies by teaching""""the safe course of a good copv,""""we owe thanks for a consermtiw attitdP .-..-- - .---. - _"""""""" _.-- ~, but censure for failure to give to miterial needed by the nation, constructive ideals that would from within discipline sufficiently, at the same time leaving a chance to work out a real thing in touch with reality with such souls as they have. In other words, they are to be blamed for not inculcating in students the concmtion of arrhitwt~~r~ =Q =n n*n-n:- -.._--- - ----^----I-L1 c.0 all """"LgauL cnyLc>- sion of the nature of a p;oblem, for not teachin;%& to look to this nature for the eler |