The Home of The Future: The New Architecture of the West: Small Homes for a Great Country

by Irving J. Gill

As printed in The Craftsman magazine for May, 1916

Architecture, Victor Hugo says, is the great book of the world, the principal expression of man in his different stages of development, the chief register of humanity. Every religious symbol, every human thought has its page and its monument in that immense book. Down to the time of Gutenberg, he points out, architecture was the principal, the universal writing. Whoever was born a poet then, became an architect. All arts obeyed and placed themselves under the discipline of architecture. They were the workmen of the great work. There was nothing which, in order to make something of itself, was not forced to frame itself in the shape of architectural hymn or prose. He has shown us that the great products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society, rather the offspring of a nation's effort than the inspired flash of a man of genius, the deposit left by a whole people, the heaps accumulated by centuries, the residue of successive evaporations of human society, in a word, a species of formation. Each wave of time contributes its alluvium, each race deposits its layer on the monument, each individual ings his stone.

No architect can read his inspired analysis of the place and the importance of architecture in preserving the records of the world's thought and action, without approaching his own part in this human record with a greater reverence and greater sense of responsibility. What rough or quarried stone will each of us contribute to the universal edifice, what idle or significant sentence will we write with ick and stone, wood, steel and concrete upon the sensitive page of the earth? In California we have great wide plains, arched by blue skies that are fresh chapters as yet unwritten. We have noble mountains, lovely little hills and canyons waiting to hold the record of this generation's history, ideals, imagination. sense of romance and honesty. What monument will we who build, erect to the honor or shame of our age?

The West has an opportunity unparalleled in the history of the world, for it is the newest white page turned for registration. The present builders have the advantage of all the wisdom and experience of the ages to aid them in poetically inscribing today's milestone in the progress of humanity. The West unfortunately has been and is building too hastily, carelessly and thoughtlessly. Houses are springing up faster than mushrooms, for mushrooms silently prepare for a year and more before they finally raise their house above the ground in proof of what they have been designing so long and secretly. People pour out here as on the crest of a flood and remain where chance deposits them when the rush of waters subsides, building temporary shacks wherein they live for a ief period while looking about for more permanent anchorage. The surface of the ground is barely scraped away, in some cases but a few inches deep, just enough to allow builders to find a level, and a house is tossed together with little thought of beauty, and no thought of permanence, haste being the chief characteristic. The family of health- or fortune-seekers who comes out here generally expects to camp in these poor shacks for but a short time and plans to sell the shiftless affair to some other impatient newcomer. Perhaps such temporary proceedings are necessary in the settling of a new land; fortunately such structures cannot endure, will never last long enough to be a monument for future generations to wonder at. Such structures cannot rightly be called homes, so do not justly deserve notice in a consideration of Western domestic architecture.

If we, the architects of the West, wish to do great and lasting work we must dare to be simple,must have the courage to fling aside every device that distracts the eye from structural beauty, must eak through convention and get down to fundamental truths. Through force of custom and education we, in whose hands much of the beauty of country and city is entrusted, have been compelled to study the style of other men, with the result that most of our modern work is an open imitation or veiled plagiarism of another's idea. To eak away from this degradation we must boldly throw aside every accepted structural belief and standard of beauty and get back to the source of all architectural strength--the straight line, the arch, the cube and the circle--and drink from these fountains of Art that gave life to the great men of old.

Every artist must sooner or later reckon directly, personally with these four principles--the mightiest of lines. The straight line borrowed from the horizon is a symbol of greatness, grandeur and nobility; the arch patterned from the dome of the sky represents exultation, reverence, aspiration; the circle is the sign of completeness, motion and progression, as may be seen when a stone touches water; the square is the symbol of power, justice, honesty and firmness. These are the bases, the units of architectural language, and without them there can be no direct or inspired architectural speech. We must not weaken our message of beauty and strength by the stutter and mumble of useless ornaments. If we have nothing worth while to say with our building then we should keep quiet. Why should we chatter idly and meaninglessly with foolish ornaments and useless lines?

Any deviation from simplicity results in a loss of dignity. Ornaments tend to cheapen rather than enrich, they acknowledge inefficiency and weakness. A house cluttered up by complex ornament means that the designer was aware that his work lacked purity of line and perfection of proportion, so he endeavored to cover its imperfection by adding on detail, hoping thus to distract the attention of the observer from the fundamental weakness of his design. If we omit everything useless from the structural point of view we will come to see the great beauty of straight lines, to see the charm that lies in perspective, the force in light and shade, the power in balanced masses. the fascination of color that plays upon a smooth wall left free to report the passing of a cloud or nearness of a flower, the furious rush of storms and the burning stillness of summer suns. We would also see the glaring defects of our own work if left in this bold, unornamented fashion, and therefore could swiftly correct it.

I believe if we continually think more of line, proportion, light and shade, we will reach greater skill in handling them, and a greater appreciation and understanding of their power and beauty. We should build our house simple, plain and substantial as a boulder, then leave the ornamentation of it to Nature, who will tone it with lichens, chisel it with storms, make it gracious and friendly with vines and flower shadows as she does the stone in the meadow. I believe also that houses should be built more substantially and should be made absolutely sanitary. If the cost of unimportant ornamentation were put into construction, then we would have a more lasting and a more dignified architecture.

In California we have long been experimenting with the idea of producing a perfectly sanitary, labor-saying house, one where the maximum of comfort may be had with the minimum of drudgery. In the recent houses that I have built the walls are finished flush with the casings and the line where the wall joins the flooring is slightly rounded, so that it forms one continuous piece with no place for dust to enter or to lodge, or crack for vermin of any kind to exist. There is no molding for pictures, plates or chairs, no baseboards, paneling or wainscoting to catch and hold the dust. The doors are single slabs of hand-polished mahogany swung on door invisible hinges or else made so that they slide the wall. In some of the houses all windows and door frames are of steel. They never wear out, warp or burn, a point of importance in fireproof construction. The drain boards are sunk in magnesite which is made in one piece with the walls and all cornices rounded, so not a particle of grease or dirt can lodge, or dampness collect and become unwholesome. The bathtubs are boxed and covered with magnesite up to the porcelain.

By this manner of building there is no chance anywhere in the house for dust to accumulate. This minimizes the labor of keeping the house clean and gives the room a sweet, pure, simple and dignified appearance. The money usually wasted in meaningless gables, swags, machine-made garlands, fretwork and "ginger ead" goes into labor-saving devices or into better grade of material. As much thought goes into the placing of the ice-box that can be filled from the outside without tracking through a clean kitchen, or the letter box that can be opened from within the house, or the proper disposal of the garbage can, or the convenient arrangement of kitchens so that meals may be prepared with the greatest economy of labor, as is often expended in the planning of the pergola or drawing rooms.

There is somethjing very restful and satisfying to my mind in the simple cube house with creamy walls, shear and plain, rising boldly into the sky, unrelieved by cornices or overhanging of roof, unornamented save for the vines that soften a line or creepers that wreathe a pillar or flowers that inlay color more sentiently than any tile could do. I like the bare honesty of these houses, the childlike frankness and chaste simplicity of them. It seemed too peculiar an innovation at first to make a house without a large overhang roof, for we have been so accustomed in California to think them a necessity, but now that the first shock is over people welcome the simplicity of the houses built without these heavy overhangs and see that they really have distinction.

In the West, home building has followed, in the main, two distinct lines--the Spanish Mission and the India bungalow. True, we find many small Swiss chalets clinging perilously to canyon walls, imposing Italian villas facing the sea and myriad nameless creations whose chief distinction lies in the obvious fact that they are original, different from any known type of architecture. It were much better for California if there were less complicated, meaningless originality and more frank following of established good types.

Because of the intense blue of sky and sea that continues for such long, un oken periods, the amethyst distant mountains that form an almost universal background for houses or cities, the golden own of summer fields, the varied green of pepper, eucalyptus and poplar trees that cut across it in such decorative forms and the profusion of gay flowers that grow so quickly and easily, houses of a ight romantic picturesqueness are perfectly suitable that would seem too dramatic in other parts of the country. They seem a pleasing part of the orange-belted flower fields and belong to the semi-tropical land. These same houses would certainly look artificial and amusingly uncomfortable and out of place in the East; but they essentially belong to the land of sunshine.

The contour, coloring and history of a country naturally influence its architecture. The old wooden Colonial houses of the East, shaded by noble elms, with their attendant lanes and roads outlined by stone walls, perfect pictures of home beauty; the stone houses of Pennsylvania, charming of color, stately, eloquent of substantial affluence and generous hospitality; and the adobe houses of the Arizona Indians formed of the earth into structures so like the surrounding ledges and buttes in shape that they can scarcely be told from them, triumphs of protective, harmonious building, are familiar types of buildings characteristic of their locality.

California is influenced, and rightly so, by the Spanish Missions as well as by the rich coloring and the form of the low hills and wide valleys. The Missions are a part of its history that should be preserved and in their long, low lines, graceful arcades, tile roofs, bell towers, arched doorways and walled gardens we find a most expressive medium of retaining tradition, history and romance. In coloring and general form they are exactly suited to the romantic requirements of the country. It is safe to say that more architectural crimes have been committed in their name than in any other unless it be the Grecian temples. The facade of the San Diego Mission is a wonderful thing, something that deserves to be a revered model, something to which local building might safely and advantageously have been keyed. Instead of this it has been abused and caricatured in the most shocking way. Its charming proportions and graceful outline have been distorted to adorn tall public buildings, low railway stations, ornate hotels, cramped stables and minute private houses in the most irreverent, inexcusable and pitiable way. The arched cloisters of the Missions have been seized upon and tortured until all semblance of their original beauty has been lost. Their meaning and definite purpose--that of supporting the roof or the second story and thus forming a retreat or quiet walk for the monks--has been almost forgotten.

The arch is one of our most imposing, most picturesque and graceful architectural features. Its power of creating beauty is unquestionable, but like any other great force, wrongly used, is equally destructive. Fire warms and cheers us and cooks our food, but if not carefully handled destroys everything it touches. The Missions have taught us also the beauty and usefulness of the court. Ramona's house, a landmark as familiar in the South as some of the Missions, was built around three sides of an open space, the other side being a high garden wall. This home plan gave privacy, protection and beauty. The court contains a pool and well in the center and an arbor for grapes along the garden wall; the archway that runs along the three sides formed by the house made the open-air living rooms. Here were arranged couches for sleeping, hammocks for the siesta, easy chairs and tables for dining. There was always a sheltered and a sunny side, always seclusion and an outlook into the garden. In California we have liberally borrowed this home plan, for it is hard to devise a better, cozier, more convenient or practical scheme for a home. In the seclusion of the outdoor living rooms and in their nearness to the garden, the arrangement is ideal.

Another thing that has influenced California architecture is the redwood that is so abundant and so different from anything in the East. In color it is a low-toned red that looks as though it were lighted by sun rays. It blends harmoniously with the clear atmosphere of the country, it is inexpensive, easily handled and outlasts almost any known wood, for it does not rot when standing in the ground nor when subject to continued dampness. Split into long, narrow shingles called shakes, or into long clapboards, it makes strikingly beautiful houses. Furniture of simple lines is also wade of it, and though it is frequently oiled or varnished or bitten by acids to a soft gray tone it is more often left in its own lusterless beauty. Redwood houses look as natural a part of the forest and canyon as a tawny mushroom or gray stone. Delightful little home-made cottages of redwood are to be found all through California. They cost their owners but a few hundred dollars. These camps or week-end houses are the very apple of the people's eye. Everybody has one and lives therein happier than any king, enjoying a simple, free, healthy life, eathing eucalyptus and pine-scented air, resting full length in flower-starred grass, bathing in the fern-bordered streams. As contrast to these myriads of comfortable, lovable little camp homes that can be built for three or four hundred dollars, and that look as picturesque and fascinating as any bird's nest, are beautiful palaces of concrete for people possessed of many acres, built with every modern convenience and every device for creating beauty, with fountains, swimming pools, sun parlors, outdoor dancing courts and lawn, pergolas, tea houses, art galleries and a thousand other wonderful things that contribute to elaborate and luxurious living.

New Ideas About Concrete Floors

by Irving J. Gill

As printed in Sunset Magazine for December, 1915

Why do most people hate concrete floors? Partly because we are all slaves to habit, partly because concrete floors are not what they really ought to be.

Twenty years ago I built for myself a concrete floor. I expected it to be cold, I expected it to be damp, I expected it to be all the uncomfortable things people said it would be. I found it warm and dry and all the comfortable things people had not said it would be. Best of all, I knew it would never harbor the vermin of sorts that infest old wooden flooring, mice that scamper at night, or the accidental cat.

The charges against the concrete floor are precisely those made years ago against the cement sidewalk. We had come from dirt paths where feet find comfort in the happy medium between dust and mud, and the board sidewalk with its awkward surprises of heel-trapping cracks, loose nails and oken boards, to the smooth, hard, level cement. At first the rut-lovers wailed. But who would now go back to uneven board walks or the pleasant uncertain earth paths? In foreign lands where the cement walk is unknown, who does not pray long and loud for its revelation to all the world?

Perhaps the earth floor is the ideal thing, but we have passed that stage, and in the evolution of house-building the wood floor is finding a rival. Wood floors above ground without a basement are unhealthful. There is always a musty odor from the poisonous fungus growing on the wood and on the ground. The ground underneath an old house is poisoned to such an extent that plants will not grow in it. The soil from under a cement sidewalk is very fertile.

Most concrete floors have not yet been developed beyond the sidewalk stage. If half the thought and time and money had been expended on perfecting the concrete floor that has been spent on developing wood from the rough board sidewalk to fine parquetry flooring, everybody would want the concrete.

To overcome the popular prejudice against concrete floors is the business of the architect. There are certain definite conditions to be observed in the laying of concrete floors. They are fundamental and in their strict observance lies the answer to the charge of the physical discomfort of concrete. After practical objections are overcome, attention may be given to esthetic considerations.

Concrete floors are usually laid free from the ground, with a dead air space underneath. In most of my houses the concrete floors are laid directly on the ground, doing away with air circulation under the floor and giving a more equable temperature. They are raised at least twenty-one inches above the surrounding ground, and particular attention paid to the preparation of the earth bed. After the foundation is laid the ground is puddled and tamped, puddled and tamped until very firm. Over the surface is spread from four to six inches of sand or sandy loam. Then the concrete is put on. If one part of the floor is below grade, the ground under it is carefully drained, after which the layer of sand prevents moisture from coming through.

The main body of rough concrete should he reinforced to one third of one per cent to prevent cracking, and scored to give a key to the top coat and prevent its loosening from the bottom. The finish coat should be reinforced with number eighteen gauge half-inch mesh galvanized wire to prevent cracking.

From four to six weeks should be allowed for cement floors to dry. During this time there is a continuous process of absorption and radiation of heat until a mean temperature has been reached after which the temperature of the floor is more equable than that of wood.

To cover a cement floor with wood is about as logical as to cover cement sidewalks with boards. Everybody who has lived on cement floors laid according to the given specifications has been wholly converted to them and would never again be bothered with the care and trials of wood floors. It is not, of course, expected that concrete floors should be left bare. They should be partly covered with rugs, the same as a polished wood floor. Incidental, when properly laid, waxed and polished, cement floors are ideal for dancing.

When troweled and finished almost to a gloss, cement floors do not mar or scratch. They should not be scored or marked off into squares or designs. The natural crazing of the top coat is far more pleasing. I have found no cement floor paint that produces a good effect. The hard monotonous flat colors are unpleasing, the paint soon wears off and shows the cement. Instead of using paint I mix color with the cement, usually tones of red and yellow, red and brown or yellow and own slightly mottled. Tempered by the gray of the cement these colors produce neutral tones that are a splendid background for rugs and furniture. When quite dry, the cement should be cleaned with a weak solution of ammonia and water, given two coats of Chinese nut oil to bring out the color, then finished with a filler and waxed like hardwood. Well done, the treatment gives an effect of old Spanish leather.

It is quite as impossible to tell how to lay and finish a cement floor to bring out all its potential beauty as it is to give exact rules for the painting of a picture. Specifications and instructions carry one just so far, but beyond that point each builder must study out the problem for himself. It takes the knack or the inspiration or the gift---whatever its name---that differentiates craftsmanship from mere mechanical perfection, that raises the artist above the artisan, to make a cement floor the thing of beauty it can and should be.

Before it has set, cement is a wonderfully plastic material, more wonderful than clay. It can be colored, modeled, shaded, surfaced, and then of itself hardens into an everlasting expression of the workman.

The protest against ordinary cement floors is the unconscious demand for the thing well done. At heart we are never satisfied with any work that is not done right, and cement floors will not come into their own until architect and workman study them as an art.

The cement floors in the home of Homer Laughlin in Los Angeles, forecast the possibilities of the future. Sprawling there, his soul in his work, with great sweeps of his trowel an artist wrought in that plastic, responsive material, blending the colors marvelously in the oad central spaces, coaxing them to a rare harmony of tone and exquisite finish, and around the outer edges he carved in low relief the lines of acanthus and other simple conventionalized leaf forms. In the entrance hall, with big free strokes he lined the feather-like fronds of a palm, using his color with consummate skill and an artist's feeling. The appeal of this most modern manifestation of ceramic art is far more subtle than that of the mosaics which were the acme of floor-making among the Greeks and Romans, and it has the singular advantage of being within reach of beauty lovers of moderate means.

Concrete floors are cheaper than wood for the first story, they are enduring, they require a minimum of care, they are comfortable and healthful when laid right, and they can be more beautiful than any other floor.

From The Western Architect

August, 1909

CONCRETE IN RESIDENCE DESIGN

An excellent example of the artistic treatment of concrete is found in the residence of Homer Laughlin of Los Angeles, illustrated, designed by Irving J. Gill of San Diego. There is incorporated in this house many unique and interesting features, simplicity being the keynote of the whole scheme. The one paramount idea kept constantly in mind from the commencement of the preliminary sketches to the completion of the last detail was to produce in the building and its environment a quiet, unobtrusive background for the rugs, furniture, paintings and garden.

Not a line was introduced nor a color applied that would seek to detract or in any way enter into competition with the four main decorative features of the building. The house is devoid of mouldings of any description either inside or out and as little woodwork as possible has been used in the work.

The frames for the openings and the doors and sash form the only combustible materials used in the construction. The detail of these frames are very interesting and serve to illustrate the extreme simplicity of the whole scheme which has been consistently followed to the last detail. The same section is used for the jambs, heads and sills of the windows and the heads and jambs of the doors. It is milled from a single 3-in. by 4-in. wood piece rebated for sash and doors and also rebated on the back so as to form a perfect lock into the concrete. These frames were placed with the form and secured in place by the cement as it was poured.

The floors throughout the entire house are cement, colored and waxed. Before the cement finish on the floors had set, a skillful modeler, Mr. Peano, whose home was published some months ago in The Western Architect, was employed to work a simple design in the surface in very low relief, so low that the wrought surface is not noticeable underfoot but is very effective as the design is clearly visible, due to the light and shade ought out by the polishing material. The coloring of the floors give them the appearance of dull copper making a delightful background for the rugs.

The plain surface of the walls are un broken, save by the quaint casements and French windows with the plaster rounding back against the frames making a very simple and pleasing effect without the necessity of the usual casings, stools and aprons. The walls and ceilings throughout the house are an undesirable buff tint background bordering on the gray selected for the background it makes for the numerous oil paintings with their gold frames.

The draperies are a very plain linen of the same prevailing tone, hanging sheer from their simple ass rods to within a few inches of the floor. These are but a few of the numerous simple treatments used throughout the house, the one desire being to secure a simple, practical home, requiring the least amount of labor and expense for maintenance and repairs.

A number of views, both interior and exterior would be required to give a comprehensive idea of what has been attempted and accomplished, but as the construction has just been completed it is impossible to secure photographs at this time that would do the building justice.

A letter to the editor of California Garden magazine. September 1911.

Regarding a proposed large lath house never constructed for the Panama-California Expo in Balboa Park. The lath house was proposed by Alfred D. Robinson, president of the Floral Association and president of the Civic Improvement League

Mr Gill sees Wonderful Possibilities in Exposition Lath House

Not only is the proposition feasible, but it contains wonderful possibilities. A mammoth lath house covering 30,000 square feet, beautifully laid out and worked out on practical lines, would be the grandest thing of its kind in the world. There is nothing like it and it would be wonderfully popular. It would serve to satisfy a longing for the beautiful, the quiet and the refined and at the same time furnish amusement and good clean enjoyment. If San Diego cannot get away from the commonplace and rise above the gaudy and racy midways of the past it will be a great disappointment. The glory of this lath house will be in its atmosphere of refinement, its coloring and its coziness, with clean, popular refined amusement, amid beautiful surroundings. It could be made the greatest attraction the fair would have. Mr. Robinson's dream should set others to thinking, until it evolves into something real and tangible.

-Irving J. Gill, Architect

To all who it may concern:

Be it known that I, Irving J. Gill, a citizen of the United States, residing at San Diego, in the county of San Diego and State of California, have invented a new and useful Means for Reinforcing Walls, of which the following is a specification.

In building structures heretofore made the margins of the window and door openings have not been sufficiently reinforced, so that the weight of the portion of the wall above the lintel tends to deflect the center of the lintel, and the weight of the portions of the wall transmitted through the jambs tends to raise the center of the sill. An object of this invention is to overcome the foregoing difficulties by my special construction for reinforcing the walls of building structures. The structure may be made by bending a reinforcing member into a frame having the shape and proportion of the desired opening, placing such bent-up frame either in its final position in the structure or placing said frame horizontally on a table, and then pouring concrete around the reinforcing frame so as to, more or less, embed said frame in the concrete and cause the frame to become an integral part of the wall. In the completed structure the frame becomes a form for the opening during the construction of the wall and likewise becomes a permanent reinforcing member for the margins of the opening. I may in some instances employ but one form of reinforcing member bent to form a reinforcing frame, and in other instances I may employ such reinforcing frame together with other forms of reinforcing members, such as rolled rods of any desired shape ordinarily employed as reinforcing members in reinforced concrete construction. These reinforcing rods may be plain, twisted or of any preferred or desired construction, and when said rods are used they may be suitably anchored to the reinforcing frame. Another object is the production of suitable bent and rolled forms of reinforcing members, adapted to secure the best results. Besides the forms of frames invented and employed by me in this instance, it is understood that I may employ the forms of metal window frames shown and described in my previous invention for building construction, filed July 11, 1912, Serial No. 708,911, or that I may employ any other suitable forms which I may invent in the future. I am aware that concrete has been poured around a wooden frame and also that metal has been used as a sheathing for wooden frames in fireproof building construction but I am not aware that a reinforcing member has been formed into a frame, and that said frame has then been incorporated into a wall as an integral part thereof in the process of making the wall so that the frame truly forms a tension member for the lintel, jambs and sill of an opening in the wall. Other objects and advantages may appear in the drawings filed herewith and in the subjoined detail description.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the invention. Figure 1 is an external elevation of a wall built in accordance with and embodying this invention. Fig. 2 is an enlarged fragmental detail of some of the reinforcing members shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a reduced plan section on line indicated by x2, Fig. 2. Fig. 4 is an enlarged fragmentary with the window sashes in place. Fig. 5 is an enlarged plan section on irregular line indicated by x2--x3, Fig.4. Fig. 6 is a perspective view of a fragment of one of the reinforcing frames in the preceding views. Fig. 7 is a fragmentary plan section analogous to Fig. 5, but including a different form of reinforcing frame. The wall 1 may be of any suitable material as brick, stone, concrete or the like and, if of concrete may be poured in place by the use of forms, not shown but well known in the art, or may be poured in a horizontal position and subsequently moved into vertical position as shown, for instance, in the patent to Aiken for method and apparatus for constructing concrete buildings, No. 1,023,349, patented April 16, 1912. The wall 1 is provided with reinforcing members of any suitable design, one of the reinforcing members being bent to form a door frame 2 for an opening as the doorway 3, and another of the reinforcing members being bent to form a window frame 4 for a window opening 5. The wall 1 may be further reinforced by reinforcing members in the form of rods 6, or the like, of any desired shape and arranged at intervals in the manner well-known in the art, though it may not be necessary to employ the rods 6 in small structures. The reinforcing frames 2, 4 entirely surround the openings 3, 5 respectively and comprise tension lintel members 7, tension The reinforcing frames 2, 4 may be bent from sheet or strip metal in the form shown in Figs. 1 to 6 inclusive, or in the forms shown in my hereinbefore mentioned invention, or may be bent in any other desired forms; or said frames may be formed from rolled members as in Fig. 7. In some instances, as in said former invention and as in Fig. 7, the reinforcing frames 2, 4 may each be formed of but one piece of material, and, in other instances, where the shape of the piece will not admit of its being bent at the corners of the opening, the lintel, jamb and all members 7, 8, 9 may be provided with mitered ends 10 as in Fig. 2 soldered or otherwise securely joined to one another. The reinforcing frames 2, 4 may be provided at intervals with perforations 11 as in Figs. 1 to 6 through which some of the constituents of the wall will pass so as to firmly anchor the frame in place, and the frame may be additionally anchored, if desired, by connecting the reinforcing rods 6 thereto in any suitable manner as for instance by providing the rods with hook ends 12 to hook over the edges of the perforations 11. In the form shown in Fig. 6 the reinforcing frame is bent to form a frame face 13 and anchor leg 14 at right angles to one another and is bent to form a slanting anchoring leg 15 connecting the outer ends of the frame face and leg 13, 14; altogether substantially forming a triangular member of great strength. The edges of the legs 14, 15 are joined in any suitable manner and, in this instance, the leg 14 is bent at its edges to form a channel 16 to receive the edge of the leg 15, and the joint may be further strengthened, if desired, by rivets or the like, not shown. In the form shown in Fig. 7 the reinforcing frame is provided with the frame face 13, as in the form shown in Fig. 6, and is provided at right angles thereto with an anchor arm 17 terminating in a flanged head 18, said leg being perforated to receive the hook ends 12 of the reinforcing rods 6. Each frame face 13 is offset to form a stop 19 which is provided with a narrow tongue 20 adapted to contact with the face of the sash 21, said tongue being spaced apart from the edges of the sash to form a channel or groove 22 so that, when water works in between the edges of the sash 21 and frame face 13, capillary at traction will be oken up at the channel in order that said water will not pass the step and will be excluded from the inside of the window. The channel 22 also prevents to a maximum degree the entrance of wind as it forms a chamber or reservoir in which the air circulates. The reinforcing frame bent from sheet metal as in Figs. 5 and 6 may be provided with a reinforcing strip 23 fastened by rivets 24 or the like along the inner side of the frame face 13 so that the fastenings 25 of the hinges 26 can be passed through the frame face and through said reinforcing strip. In practice reinforcing frames 2, 4 will be placed in those positions where door and window openings are desired and, if further reinforcement is desired, reinforcing rods 6 will be played at intervals and anchored to the reinforcing frames. This may all be accomplished in a vertical position in the manner generally employed in connection with pouring of the walls of large building structures, or may be done in a horizontal position in accordance with the method outlined in the hereinbefore mentioned patent to Aiken.

When the reinforcing members have all been thus placed in position, the concrete is then poured around the frames to more or less embed them in the concrete and cause them to become integral parts of the wall. I am aware that finishing strips of various kinds have been anchored in concrete and I do not oadly claim such construction but it is noted that I form reinforcing wall members into door and window frames and that I then incorporate said door and window frames into the walls of the building structure as integral parts thereof in the process of making the wall, so that the lintels, jambs and sills not only have compression members formed by concrete at the margins of the openings but also have tension members cooperating therewith and formed by the frames. I claim: A metal door and window frame comprising a reinforcing frame provided at intervals with perforations through which some of the constituents of the wall may pass so as to firmly anchor the frame in place and also affording seats for reinforcing rods, which may be hooked over the edges of the perforation; said reinforcing frames being bent to form a frame face and an anchor leg at right angles to one another and to form a slanting anchor leg connecting the outer ends of the frame face and leg all together, the edges of the legs being joined together, the frame face being offset to form a stop which is provided with a narrow tongue adapted to contact with the face of a sash, said tongue being spaced apart from the edges of the sash to form a channel or groove substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand at Los Angeles, California, the 25th day of September, 1913.