Ernest Flagg quotes

One of the best ways to economize in building is to economize on ugliness.... Nothing can be greater service in avoiding ugliness than a knowledge of the principles of design. (Ernest Flagg)
The best art, and the only art which will ever lead to great results, must have for its basis the interpretation of beauty in nature.
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
The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the veritable key to art...
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
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.
Ernest Flagg
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.
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
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
Instead of the dormers, skylights... are easier to make and operate, need no double sash, cost less, and some may prefer their appearance.
Ernest Flagg
As in poetry and music, even the unskilled ear may be offended by a mistake in measure, without discerning the cause, may not also a mistake in the harmony of dimensions unconsciously offend us in design? (Ernest Flagg)
There have always seemed to the writer sound reasons for using the module system in architectural design.
Ernest Flagg
With dignity and simplicity come repose... the natural state of one at home in his surroundings and sure of his ground. Repose is a distinguished characteristic of Greek 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
Beauty is largely dependent on fitness, and fitting methods are usually the most convenient and economical; therein, indeed, to a great extent, lies their very fitness.
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
4th. 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
The object of this work is to improve the design and construction of small houses while reducing their cost.
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
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.
Ernest Flagg
Certain combinations of dimensions produce harmonious results, but since the time of the ancient Greeks no system of design, consistently base on that knowledge, has been formulated. (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
Style... the very hall-mark of great art... there is little use in trying to define style.
Ernest Flagg
Refinement. While the possession of this quality is due, in the first instance, to education, it is also largely a matter of temperament.
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