ARCHITECT’S VISIT

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30233, 11 September 1963, Page 8

ARCHITECT’S VISIT

Mr A. van Eyck Of Amsterdam

The visit of Mr Aldo van Eyck to New Zealand this month, one of the truly international architects to visit this country, may influence architectural trends here for the next 50 years, according to the architectural magazine, “Home and Building.” Mr van Eyck, of Amsterdam, will arrive in Christchurch today and give a public lecture at the University of Canterbury tomorrow evening. He was invited to New Zealand by the Architectural Students’ Society of the University of Auckland. One of the foremost architects in the world, Mr van Eyck has been a leading advocate ih the “rebellion” aimed at bringing back “humanity” into modern architecture. In a series of articles and publications, and in the designing of flats, apartments, homes for the aged, houses and new estates, Mr van Eyck has demonstrated his belief that houses and cities are built for “people” and not for “populations” or “cipher units.” His work has refuted convincingly the arguments of the “monolithic school” of architecture. “The material slum has ■gone, but what has replaced it is mile upon mile of organised nowhere, with nobody feeling he is somebody living somewhere,” Mr van Eyck said.

“No microbes are left, yet each citizen is a disinfected pawn on a chessboard—with no chessman. . . .

“A city, if it is really a city, has a very compound rhythm based on'many trends of movement—human, mechanical and natural. The first is paradoxically suppressed; the second tyranioaUy emphasised, and the third inadequately expressed.”