The American Architect
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL CXXIVWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1923NUMBER 2432
LOCKS and KEYS—PART I
M
ARK TWAIN humorously stated that china door knobs were mute evidence of a higher civilization. “It is true they cease to function as door knobs early in life; hut
they then afford consolation to the setting hen.”
And in this irony of the American Humorist was contained obvious criticism of the builders’ hardware of the period, for, from an artistic standpoint, a glance at the builders’ hardware of the early eighties shows that it was the crudest element which entered into the art of building. The builder of a fine house had to deny himself any pretense of art. His only refuge was to stick closely to simplicity in order to escape criticism. Very gen
erally in well built houses, escutcheons, door knobs and hinge plates showed plane surfaces of metal. The epitome of elegance was to silver them, when they were applied to the mahogany doors of the period. In the less conspicuous rooms of the house, knobs were of brass, or, more often, of white or mottled porcelain.
The effect was banal and inartistic, but, as Mark Twain inferred, “respectable.”
The first definite promise of better things in builders’ hardware was given shortly before the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, in 1876, for we find the following in “Locks and Builders’ Hardware”—a handbook for architects—by Henry
Some historical reference to hardware and its development in the United States By ... Harry L. Harris
(Copyright, 1923, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.)
LOCKSMITHS AT WORK
Reproduced from a French woodcut. Interesting because it shows the absence of machinery of any sort at the beginning of
the Seventeenth Century
The ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW
VOL CXXIVWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1923NUMBER 2432
LOCKS and KEYS—PART I
M
ARK TWAIN humorously stated that china door knobs were mute evidence of a higher civilization. “It is true they cease to function as door knobs early in life; hut
they then afford consolation to the setting hen.”
And in this irony of the American Humorist was contained obvious criticism of the builders’ hardware of the period, for, from an artistic standpoint, a glance at the builders’ hardware of the early eighties shows that it was the crudest element which entered into the art of building. The builder of a fine house had to deny himself any pretense of art. His only refuge was to stick closely to simplicity in order to escape criticism. Very gen
erally in well built houses, escutcheons, door knobs and hinge plates showed plane surfaces of metal. The epitome of elegance was to silver them, when they were applied to the mahogany doors of the period. In the less conspicuous rooms of the house, knobs were of brass, or, more often, of white or mottled porcelain.
The effect was banal and inartistic, but, as Mark Twain inferred, “respectable.”
The first definite promise of better things in builders’ hardware was given shortly before the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, in 1876, for we find the following in “Locks and Builders’ Hardware”—a handbook for architects—by Henry
Some historical reference to hardware and its development in the United States By ... Harry L. Harris
(Copyright, 1923, The Architectural & Building Press, Inc.)
LOCKSMITHS AT WORK
Reproduced from a French woodcut. Interesting because it shows the absence of machinery of any sort at the beginning of
the Seventeenth Century