Victorian Cottage Architecture

An American Catalog of Designs, 1891

George F. Barber

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780486140063
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

At the end of the nineteenth century, carpenter, architect, and publisher George Franklin Barber began publishing his residential designs in inexpensive, illustrated catalogs. Containing order forms and price lists for the drawings, the catalogs were not the first to sell private homes to the public on a widespread basis but were the first to give customers an opportunity to participate in custom-designing their own houses.
Reaching thousands of potential clients throughout the United States and abroad, Barber's catalogs featured homes cited today as "unique," "fascinating," and "distinctive." This excellent reproduction of his 1891 catalog, The Cottage Souvenir No. 2, includes all 120 designs for 68 homes, complete with elevations and floor plans. Included is an eclectic mix of plans for homes in the Colonial, Romanesque, and Queen Anne styles, as well as designs for verandas, summer pavilions, churches, and barns.
Invaluable to architectural historians, preservationists, and home restorers, this reprint of a rare catalog by one of America’s most successful domestic architects will also be of interest to anyone fascinated by Victorian-era architecture.

THE COTTAGE AND SOUVENIR

No.2.

A Repository of
Artistic Cottage Architecture
AND Miscellaneous Designs
OVER 50 DESIGNS
OF MODERN COTTAGES,
COSTING FROM $400 TO $8000

By
GEO. F. BARBER
ARCHITECT

COPYRIGHTED
DECEMBER, 1890, BY
GEO. F. BARBER,
ARCHITECT,
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE.

REMARKS

ON THE Principles of Design, Harmony of Form and Proportion in Architecture.

NATURE, in all her wondrous productions, has faithfully and accurately adhered to the Divine law of harmony, both in form and true proportions of parts. In no place should there be a closer adherence to the fundamental principles nature has laid down for us than in the design and construction of our houses.

A perfect house should look as if it had grown where nature intended it should, and in strict accordance with her perfect laws. It should be as finely and accurately finished in every part as a nicely proportioned and handsomely designed piece of furniture. It should not have that shabby and unfinished appearance so common with our present style of structures. It is just as easy and just as cheap for a builder to erect a well proportioned and handsomely designed house—if the plans call for it—as to construct one of faulty and ungainly appearance.

A man will look at an elegant house, or a drawing of it, and remark dubiously: “ I cannot possibly afford such a costly house as that. I must build on a cheaper plan.” He does not know that it is the style and proportions of a house that give it the appearance of costliness, while in reality it costs no more than the shabby, ill-proportioned structure he contemplates building.

A perfectly and handsomely designed house or cottage has the appearance of costing from one hundred to several thousand dollars more than it in reality costs, while a poorly formed cottage, where no taste has been displayed either in design or construction, shows exactly the reverse. It is plainly observable then, that a tasty, finely constructed building, though costing a trifle more than an ordinary, commonplace affair, is of far greater value to the owner, raising the price of his property, and causing it to sell more readily, also enhancing the value of property in the neighborhood.

In building, do not get the poorest mechanic (i. e. a poor workman) that you can find, simply because he will work cheap. It is poor economy, as poor workmanship is always expensive.

A house is something you will either enjoy or be disgusted with as long perhaps as you live. Then do not slight or leave out a single thing that is necessary to make a perfect home. Its proportions may be small, but with its outer and inner appointments in perfect harmony of style, it will be a palace of beauty and elegance.

Before you begin to build, be sure you have secured the very best plan and design that you can obtain for the price. Correspond with architects and designers until you have found just what you want. Do not be afraid of offending some one. When you have secured your plans and perfected your details, get the best mechanic you can find to do the work. Not the cheapest, but the best, as you would call in the best physician in case you were seriously ill, or the most trusty surgeon if dangerously wounded. Mechanics generally seem to forget that the chief object of a dwelling is the comfort and convenience of its occupants.

A few more words in regard to true proportion and harmony of form as applied to architecture.

We will give you an example.

In musi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• TOWARD THE GROWTH OF AN ARTISTIC TASTE
• THE COTTAGE AND SOUVENIR - No.2.
• PRICES
• Medieval Art through Eighteenth-Century Art
• Nineteenth-Century Art
• Pictorial Archive