Inn at Kriegshaben, near Augsburg. J. J. Stevenson. c. 1880. Drawing at left signed with initials lower left. Source: Stevenson’s House Architecture, I, 268. Click on image to enlarge it.
“Sometimes the builders made projections at the ground-level, as the little inn at Kriegshaben near Augsburg shows. In date and details it is late Classic, but there is a picturesqueness, I must even say dodginess, in the arrangement of the structure which ought to charm the heart of a modern Gothic architect, and to convince him that the characteristics, which he loves so much, are not peculiar to his favourite style.
These projections from the general wall surface of the houses give great interest and picturesqueness to the streets of Nuremberg and other German towns. They relieve the dull monotony, which is the chief characteristic of our modern towns, and they make the houses pleasanter to live in. Our modern building Acts forbid them, partly with a view to uniformity and regularity, which it seems their great object to encourage, partly because the encroachment they make on the street is supposed to be an evil, and partly perhaps because the framers of these Acts seem to have thought that the small amount of skill in building required for their construction was -beyond what modern builders could with safety be allowed to attempt; for they are forbidden by the London building Acts, even where the house is set back from the street and they do not project over the roadway” (I, 270-71).
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Bibliography
Stevenson, J. J. House Architecture. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1880.
Last modified 17 July 2017