"NEW ARCHITECTURE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 11

"NEW ARCHITECTURE."

SIMPLICITY AND DIRECTNESS. MODERN DESIGNER'S FUNCTION. Sydney Anchor, who was awarded a (ravelling scholarship by the Board of Architects of New South Wales some years ago, has written a far-ranging thesis on the evolution of modern architecture. "A building based on (he principles of the New Architecture, whether it is an office, a place of entertainment, a school, or a dwelling, can bo likened to an organism," he. states. "Each component part must bear a direct relation to every other part of the whole, and, like a living organism, there must be a harmonious working together of all the separate parts.

''Very few of the conventional or pseudo-modern buildings of to-day succeed in this respect, but the large majority of buildings of the new movement that do, have about them an atmosphere that is immediately pleasing, a general atmosphere that invites enjoyment without effort. Such buildings may be said to have satisfied without cither trying to amuse, or startle one. If a study were made of the qualities which went to their making, 1 believe that these qualities would be found summarised in simplicity and directness and appropriateness. Such satisfactory buildings are without affectation and self-consciousness.

"But these cll'cets are not obtained through haphazard effort or the absence of scholarly erudition. Inevitably they are the result of the training and culture of the designer concerned, and his attitude. Their apparent simplicity is misleading, for this is arrived at though the power of restraint. It is far easier to arrive at an effect through elaboration than to present the logical minimum in a manner to satisfy.

"Equally, logical fresh design is not achieved through the elimination of ornament, which many people believe to have been the essence, of this new movement.* Nothing is gained by simplifying classic forms in order to conform to the new demand. This method only makes a vicious circle of evolution. It is the function of the modern designer to be able to visualise any object in direct relation io a whole building and all its complexities."