Art In A Crisis

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 94, 14 January 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

Art In A Crisis

4 ( T IIAT is to happen to the trenches in the parks?” asks Mr. % W / Richard Slidell, F.1.L.A., the well-known landscape arclii%/u / tect, in the ''Municipal Journal.” “The question has recently V v been on the lips of many people. Responsible civic author! ties and their technical advisers, ami all private citizens interested in the amenities of the community, are making it their concern. This business of national defence has created a problem that is both old and new.” “The idea that national defence makes an effect on the jiernianeiit landscape is no historical novelty. Every type of military crisis through which the nation has passed has already left some mark," Mr. Sudell goes on, to say. “There are plenty of decorative castles which are now an inherent part of the British countryside. I call them decorative since they have long outgrown their original purpose, and their characteristic beauty is now onr chief reason for retaining them. “Then, again, we have the Martello Towers so familiar to us all, which are in reality relics of the Napoleonic wars, but which we have somehow come to regard as decorative features of our coastal landscapes. “These and many other common features of the modern British countryside remain to us as permanent records of national defence works. There is evedy reason to suppose that what fe do in response to the demand for A.R.P. schemes will in turn become a permanent inheritance to generations to come. “The Government has. in fact, already announced that the trenches dug in public parks are to be retained, made good, and covered over to keep them serviceable, according to circumstances, so that they are available al short notice as public refuges.

“It should be obvious that what is to be done with them immediately is not just a matter to be summarily dealt with on a utilitarian basis. If

the trenches remain, they must be made to fit into the landscape and not to disfigure it. "It should be possible for any future generations to view our work with delight, and to feel a pride in the fact that we could find did not think first of beauty, through forced to face war. “The .first practical suggestion is naturally that made by the Govern inent, in recommending that the trenches be suitably covered over, so that they remain useful, without being either dangerous to the public or a nuis ante to the park superintendents. On a flat site, the new contour of tin ground could remain more or less flat, as the roofing of the trenches would bring their level practically up to the level of the piles of excavated soil. “In some places it would be possible, and doubtless acceptable for the whole of them to be treated as a formal paved garden, with the paved walk.' laid on the solid foundation, and soil beds filled with dwarf plants maili above the actual trenches. These flower beds would partake of the nature of beds on an ordinary roof garden, and would be constructed on somewhat similar principles.” After making other suggestions. Mr. Sudell writes in conclusion:— “I think that now, while the utilitarian aspect of the case is still undei consideration, is the time when qualified landscape architects should be consulted, and when the architects themselves should make it their business to adapt all that is best in modern landscape design to fit in with this new problem.

“Local authorities have the safety of citizens in their keeping, but they have also the aesthetic, one might say the spiritual, welfare of the community in their hands, and it is of vital importance that nothing shall be done, in the zeal of the moment, that we shall afterwards regret.

“The need for trenches is a disaster —but there are always two ways to meet disaster, one by accepting it as such, and the other by turning disaster into a new beginning. Let us see that this matter of the trenches is turned to good account, so that it becomes a new beginning in park beautification."