Ernest Flagg Quotes

61 Sourced Quotes

When one understands the principles of design, his taste will have something more solid as a basis than mere whim or fancy, which in the untutored is more likely to be bad than good. Acquainted with the rules of good design he will not accept articles made in defiance of them.

Ernest Flagg
Savings in labor: (a) By the lowness of the walls... (b) in the use of unskilled labor in building walls, by backing the face stones with concrete, and placing the face stones in the forms dry without the use of mortar, except for pointing... (c) in the simplification of woodwork, especially in the hanging of windows and doors, and in the setting of trim... (d) in the application of hardware, chiefly on account of the kind of hinges used... (e) in the standardization of parts and the use of similar members... (f) by cutting about one-half the labor in the installation of plumbing drainage... and (g) by the greater use of machine and shop work, which the exposed structural members permit of.

Ernest Flagg
We here have... an architectural discovery which may prove of inestimable value to future art.... Like fire, it is a good servant but a bad master. The danger is that it may lead to a cramped and mechanical design. One may easily become a slave to the module, and do things because of it which his taste or reason would not otherwise commend.... How can the danger be avoided and the benefits secured?

Ernest Flagg
When the true principles of design are forgotten; when, in art, the bizarre and novel is the aim rather than the beautiful; when complication and mystery take the place of what should be as simple and clear as the atmosphere, design runs amuck, and becomes so helplessly involved in difficulties that such manifestations as cubism, impressionism, futurism, and art nouveau shoe their ugly heads and pose as art.

Ernest Flagg
Many women do not like to sleep on the ground floor, being afraid to leave their windows open at night. With ridge-dormers standing open, the lower windows may be kept closed and locked, while the room will be perfectly ventilated without them.

Ernest Flagg
If the chief rules of good design were understood by the masses as they might be, nothing would do more to promote beauty, improve workmanship, add to the value of manufactures, and in many other ways further the general welfare and prosperity of the country. They are simple, easy to acquire, and should be taught with the alphabet.

Ernest Flagg
Imagination... implies originality. It results in a reflection... of the working mind of the designer.... Imagination may be called the dynamic force in art.... It is the quality which distinguishes the artistic from the photographic representation of nature.

Ernest Flagg
Unless he is prepared to try his new theories and processes on himself, as has been done here, there is little likelihood that he will ever see them applied, for he will find that, of all people, builders are most set in their ways and hardest to move from their accustomed ruts.

Ernest Flagg
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.

Ernest Flagg
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.

Ernest Flagg
Reason... to suppose any production, worthy to be called a work of art, can be made without its use is foolish.... By the use of reason many mistakes in design may be avoided and many counterfeits of art readily detected.... Beauty alone is an excellent reason for many things, but when a design is in direct conflict with common sense it cannot be a work of art.

Ernest Flagg
Why can there not be a new art founded on the only principle which can produce great art—the principle that art is the interpretation or extraction of the essence of beauty in nature, and all else is secondary?

Ernest Flagg
A master in art need not go into the highways and byways for affects; he knows the straight course and follows it.

Ernest Flagg
For more than two thousand years architectural design by the use of a modulus, except in the case of the classic orders, had been a lost art.

Ernest Flagg
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...

Ernest Flagg
Greek art was extremely simple and direct; both in design and construction the Greek mind abhorred complicaton.

Ernest Flagg
Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style.

Ernest Flagg
Dormers may easily lose, in winter, the credit they gained in summer.... If, however, they are properly made and securely closed in cold weather, this will not happen.

Ernest Flagg
In the human form, as nature tries to make it, every feature is useful and every feature is beautiful. Each member is perfectly adapted to the function it has to perform; nothing is superfluous, yet the whole and every part is supremely decorative.

Ernest Flagg
The Parthenon stands as a reproach to the rest of the world. May not this be because the rest of the world has forgotten, or never knew, the principles which made the Parthenon possible and of which harmony of proportion... was one?

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

Ernest Flagg
Ridge-dormers have many other advantages. In winter, when closed... it is nature's own method of lighting. Ridge-dormers greatly reduce the height of the building; because bringing into use space heretofore wasted, the eaves may be correspondingly lowered.

Ernest Flagg
Saving of time, trouble, and money in the preparation of plans by the module system, and the standardization of parts and methods.

Ernest Flagg
Clarity or Decision.... without it there is uncertainty, hesitation, obscurity, instability... incomparable with good art. The meaning and object of the design should be clear... it should be frank, as the French say.

Ernest Flagg
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.

Ernest Flagg
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.

Ernest Flagg
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...

Ernest Flagg
The ridge-dormers are placed in pairs, at the very apex of the roof. They are opened and closed only once a year—in the spring and fall respectively; and are so arranged that no rain can enter.... if the air in the room is warmer than the outer air, it must rise and escape through the ridge-dormers.... If, during a heated spell, the lower windows and and doors are carefully kept shut, the air inside may be maintained several degrees cooler than the outer air.... the coolest air of the twenty-four hours will find its way through them, taking the place of the warmer air which escapes.... cooler air can be trapped in the house and held there during the day.... hot air, being lighter, does not descend into cool air.

Ernest Flagg
Saving space: (a) By the utilization of the large volume of space contained in the slopes of roofs... (b) by the reduction of floor thickness... (c) by the utilization of space (as on shipboard) for lockers, cupboards, closets, etc... (d) by the use of thin partitions... and (e) by elimination of corridors... so that the least possible area may be required for communication.

Ernest Flagg
To the Greek harmony was of supreme importance, and if the triglyphs represented the harmonic scale... their meaning and use is abundantly explained.... The universal admiration which Greek proportions have always excited proves that the method of obtaining them was correct.

Ernest Flagg