Architects and the Public.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18307, 14 February 1925, Page 12

Architects and the Public.

It is to be hoped that the Institute of Architects will discover that "more "exacting public" for whom their President has just appealed in his annual address; but we do not know whore the discovery will be made. "Publication of the truth about "buildings" has never seemed less permissible than publication of the truth about pictures or books; but it has always been more difficult. Those who know a good picture when they see it are not very numerous; those who can appreciate merit in music or literature may be one in five hundred; but how many are there in the whole Dominion who can appreciate a good building? And then buildings are not good in and by themselves. If "Adonis" does not appeal to you in a railway carriage you can carry it off to your room or to a quiet spot outside, but you can't pick up a theatre or a bank building and carry it to a more congruous street. Buildings must be beautiful in relation to their setting, harmonious with other buildings and even with the earth and sky, and must in addition express something of time and place and nationality. That, in any case, is the ideal, and it is of course out of the question to expect one in a thousand to have eyes for it. And the problem is not merely local, not mere youth and rawness. America, for example, has far more impressive public buildings, (with some notablo exceptions on both sides) than England. A most distinguished English Professor of Architecture said in an essay the other day that Britain's railway termini, compared with the great halls of the American stations, "are "comic opera inside and out." And he had far more pungent things to say of the difference in the great banking and insurance buildings. The American people themselves are not a whit more aesthetic than the people of the British Isles. In the mass they are probably fifty per cent, less aesthetic—if it is of any use to compare one form of negation with another. But their railway magnates, their bankers and shipping and insurance kings, have the sense to make use of the most eminent men in the profession, while the average railway company of England is "con"tent to give the engineer an archi"tectural assistant or to keep in its "employ a tame architect." There is no hope in New Zealand of so changing the public taste that an offensive building would be universally condemned, but the appointment of a Professor of Architecture at Auckland, if the appointment is a good one, should have an appreciable effect on the profession itself. If the guardians of beauty can be guarded, then in time, bnt of course after a very long time, the victims of ugliness will know when they are victims, and will perhaps make a noise. But in the meantime we must be modest. "Good form" in buildings is quite beyond us. The most we can do, and it is also the best we can do, ia to remain constantly aware of our shortcomings, and give the few men who do know what is required the opportunity to supply it.