Ernest Flagg

Beauty is largely dependent on fitness, and fitting methods are usually the most convenient and economical; therein, indeed, to a great extent, lies their very fitness.

The most economical way of obtaining good results is to apply the great, fundamental principles of art; and depend on them for beauty, rather than upon the use of either applied ornament or more expensive materials... much better results …

Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones... it is possible to use forms without the usual waste of lumber... when waste is avoided, forms greatly reduce the cost of stonework... much can be saved in the construction of …

These houses are intended to have stone walls. ...The fact that a stone house is better in many ways than a wooden one, and also more economical in the long run has, for the most part, been overlooked... The conditions are... ripe for a …

Unless he is prepared to try his new theories and processes on himself, as has been done here, there is little likelihood that he will ever see them applied, for he will find that, of all people, builders are most set in their ways and …

While it is not hard to suggest improvements on common methods of design and construction, it is very hard to introduce them.

When the necessity for shelter is great and the means for obtaining it scant, flimsy and makeshift methods of building find ready acceptance; and once introduced are hard to eradicate. Such habits, formed here in early times, still …

It is hard to change long-established building habits; such habits sometimes endure for ages in certain localities with little or no change. It is, however, easy for new communities to acquire bad building habits.

the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines

disguise and complication are hindrances

in building the best results should accrue in proportion as every element in the structure is fitted both to the function it has to perform and the materials of which it is made.

In the human form, as nature tries to make it, every feature is useful and every feature is beautiful. Each member is perfectly adapted to the function it has to perform; nothing is superfluous, yet the whole and every part is supremely …

The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the …

The object of this work is to improve the design and construction of small houses while reducing their cost.

New York ought to have such an avenue like the Champs Elysées of Paris, Unter den Linden of Berlin, or the Ring Strasse of Vienna, but more ample than any of them; for here, of all places, owing to the shape of the island, there is the …