XVI. Social Functions and Their Influence on Planning

The suitability of a house to the entertainment of guests according to traditional methods seems to be the ruling idea in modern planning, and the comfort of the family is often sacrificed to this idea. While I quite recognise the importance of this consideration in planning, for the average house at any rate, the primary consideration should be the suitability of the plan to meet the requirement of the daily routine of its occupants, and its adaptability to social functions must be considered as a secondary matter.

The three traditional forms of social functions to be considered are, firstly, the afternoon “At home,” secondly, the dinner party, and, thirdly, the dance.

The first is a one-room function, demanding for its proper performance, according to conventional usage, a good-sized drawing-room; the second is a two-room function, requiring a good-sized dining-room and drawing-room; and the third, while it also requires two rooms at least for its proper performance, also demands that one of these shall be of considerable size.

The difficulties of meeting the problem of making the house fulfil these functions is not so great as at first appears, because the restricted income which necessitates the small house also prevents the entertainment of visitors on an extensive scale. While the drawing-room in its embryonic condition as a recess in the hall may accommodate a few visitors to afternoon tea, the hall might be used for this function on special occasions. While the dining recess would only accommodate a few guests on a special occasion the hall would become a dining-hall with the table in its centre. The ladies withdrawing to the bower, and the men to the study, to meet again in the hall after the table and its contents have been removed.

For the dance, the hall, with its gallery for the musicians, is specially adapted—the supper being served in one of its recesses. It will thus be seen that the type of plan suggested by the daily requirements of the family is not ill-adapted for occasional festivities, and the possession of one large central apartment will more than compensate for any failure to meet the arbitrary conditions of conventional usage.

In less formal gatherings, such as family re-unions at Christmas for instance, the central hall with its great open fireplace will meet the occasion much better than the house designed as a row of boxes connected by a passage. In the average house the accommodation required for the resident governess, or for that singular anomaly, the paying guest, known in circles less polite as the lodger, or for the occasional visitor staying in the house, will not suggest any further modification of the plan than the inclusion of a bed-sitting-room.

It is only in the larger houses where entertainment is practised on a large scale that it necessarily modifies the plan. The central hall becomes then the focus of a series of comm.on rooms—the guests may be accommodated in separate suites containing bedrooms, sitting-rooms, bath-

In some cases, the family may give up the whole house to the guests, and so there may also be a private family suite.