Life, 1923-04-12 · page 8 of 40
Life — April 12, 1923 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous short story by George S. Chappell about an architect named William Barrows who becomes frustrated with a client couple (the Wyckoffs) who repeatedly reject his building designs as impractical. The narrative mocks architectural pretension—the Wyckoffs keep requesting impossible features like high ceilings in low spaces and elaborate cottage aesthetics. The accompanying floor plans illustrate the house design discussed in the story. The "revenge" appears to involve the architect eventually proving his design's merit, though the text cuts off before the resolution. The satire targets both difficult clients and architects' egos during this period.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
MET my friend William Bar- rows in the club yesterday. Will is an architect. I was immediately struck by a queer elation in his man- ner. To my surprise—for he is the dreamy, esthetic type—he hailed me boisterously. A wicked, almost insane look gleamed in his eyes. “How are you?” I asked, in my original way. “Great !” He screeched his answer so loudly that I drew him toward the library, which is occupied only by sound sleep- ers. In an unoccu- pied section he told me his strange story. “You look better than when I saw you six months ago,” I said. “Yes. Do you re- member how dis- gusted I was with architecture?” “Rather. You thought of taking up plumbing.” “Bootlegging,” he corrected. “But that is a thing of the past. I am happy, now,—j oyous! elate! I have just come from a most painful interview...” I looked my be- wilderment as he continued : “. . painful, that is, for my clients. I have solved the problem of how to handle them. It is absurdly simple. I merely take them at their word. Six months ago, you may recall, I was struggling with the - Freddie Wyckoffs.” LIFE ARCAITECTSS REVE NG E By George S. Chappell I nodded, remembering my friend’s hideous curses during our last interview. “You probably also remember how I told you then that they wanted all the usual impossible things, the high ceilings and the low silhouette—‘that cute cottage effect,’ Mrs. Wyckoff called it—” he laughed wildly—“the playroom on the third floor and the unbroken roof, the bay-windows and the simple fagade. . . .Oh, boy! .. . they've got ’em!” RESIDENCE FOR FREDERICK WYeKOFF, Esa, GEREA PLAN OF $coND FLOOR, His mirth was almost uncanny. “Well, I struggled along with them until just about that time I saw you. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown; I fought, bled and died with Lucy Wyckoff, trying to con- vince her of the impossibility of ideas. I figured and reasoned :: drew sketches and showed her h. rible examples and reduced her tears, and then one day a great blazing light burst upon me. I cided to give them exactly what tl:e) wanted. “Freddie and his wife had bee drawing countless diagrams of jist the arrangement they had in mind. I got them to submit a final set and went to work. In a week the plins were finished.” “Did they like them?” I asked. “Like them? They were delighted—and triumphant. ‘There!’ they said. ‘You sev it can be done.’ I made Freddie O. K. the drawings and then, shepherded by the Divine Hand, they went to Europe. My orders were to go ahead with construc- tion at once. . .you know Freddie doesn’t mind costs very much... .” “You don’t mean? “Yes,—” — shouted Barrow s—‘the house is built.” He rocked to and fro in a paroxysm of joy. “You ought to have seen thm when we came in sight of the house. They were too thunderstruck to iy a word. They simply looked at each other and I saw Freddie turn very white. Of course, what they had (Continued on page 30) comicbooks.com