Cheap, Quick, & Easy: Imitative Architectural Materials, 1870–1930 by Pamela H. Simpson

Abstract

Book Reviews Cheap, ~ick, &Easy IMITATIVE ARCHITECTURAL ~ATE~LS,I8]Q-I930 Parnela H. Si1npson Pamela H. Simpson. Cheap, Quick, & Easy: Imitative Architectural Materials, 1870-1930. Knoxville: The University ofTennessee Press, 1999. 232 pp., 75 fig., $39.00, ISBN 1572330376. This remarkable book takes note of everything architectural that is not what it seems. The epigraph that precedes the "Introduction " is from a 1960 essay by Ada Louise Huxtable that speaks of "the primary American desire to find ways of doing things that were 'cheap, quick, and easy' ... with the tastelessness of a new middle class society that accepted substitute gimcrackery for traditional materials and ideas." Huxtable gives Simpson her title; her subtitle explains the scope and extent of her inquiry. Simpson makes clear in the "Introduction " that her interest in imitative materials began when she looked around her and saw how much builders had used such materials as concrete block and sheet metal that have been disregarded or treated with contempt by writers on high architecture. To learn about the creation and distribution of these and similar materials she had to turn to trade journals and manufacturers' catalogues. The eighteen pages of her "Selected Bibliography" include twenty-two journals published for all or part of the period of this study. She read the whole of the runs of these and also consulted eighty trade or distributor's catalogues. From these and other reading she established the subjects of five chapter essays on the most important imitative materials: concrete block, ornamental N.B. Customarily the volume chosen each year for the SESAH outstanding book award is reviewed in ARRIS by a scholar chosen by the editors. This year's unusual ciTcumstance is that the Tecipient of this award is also editor of ARRJS. The editor being understandably reluctant to choose a reviewer, the Board ofthe Southeast Chapter, Society of Architectural Historians, has chosen the reviewer, received and edited the review, and directed that it be published in ARRIS, Volume 11. sheet metal, metal ceilings and walls, linoleum and related materials, and embossed wall and ceiling coverings , chiefly Lincrusta-Walton. In another chapter she reviews other imitative materials: compo, imitation plasters , artificial marbles (including scagliola and terrazzo), artificial stone, terra cotta, and marbling and graining techniques. 84 ARrus To discover the range of the subjects of this book read the index. There are twenty-five entries for the letter "A". They include Robert and James Adam, Henry Adams, Jane Addams, American cloth, Anaglypta, Armstrong Cork and Tile Co., art stone, Arts and Crafts Movement, asbestos, and asphalt tile. A two-page "Brief History of Concrete" in the first chapter is a model of concise and edifying exposition (with four footnotes citing three books and an article published from 1909 to 1968), and it sets the tone for the numerous discussions of less familiar materials that follow. What is Coade Stone? How is linoleum made? How ought metal ceiling to be installed? Simpson answers these questions and others like them. And ifyou do not knowwhatAnaglypta is, the "Glossary" will tell you. The last chapter of this book, "Substitute Gimcrackery : Aesthetic Debates and Social Implications," is the most complex. It opens with a review of the late nineteenth -century debates about imitation and originality in art and about art and the machine. Simpson summarizes the artuments ofA. W. N. Pugin, G. G. Scott, Charles Eastlake, William Morris and especiallyJohn Ruskin with great mastery. She reviews industrial design in England, in particular the work of Christopher Dresser, and design concerns in America. Gustav Stickley "published designs in his magazine for concrete block houses," and also published a history oflinoleum and advertisements for metal ceilings. F. L. Wright used block and sheet metal as materials for his designs. Ifsome critics despised and dismissed all imitation, others could find a place in art for the use of imitative materials. Thomas W. Hanchett, Sorting Out The New South City. Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975. Chapel Hill and London: The University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1998. 379 pp., $24.95 (paperback), ISBN 0807846775, $59.95 (hardback), ISBN 0807823767. Where is the South correctly situated in the chronicle ofAmerican urban history? Architectural historical treatments of Southern place evidence...