FIELD OF ARCHITECTURE

Evening Star, Issue 22414, 11 August 1936, Page 2

FIELD OF ARCHITECTURE

LEAD TO TRUE EXISTENCE A BREAKING DOWN OF COMPLACENCY “ One day, the ghostly parasitic colour screens of impossible, obsolete, moral, and social principles of ancestor worship in design will be dissolved. Until then, architecture cannot hope to achieve again its essential intention as an art.”— Wells Coates in ‘ Unit One.’ Traditional architecture requires no introduction. It contrives to announce itself In no uncertain manner. It is the “ escape-me-never ” ot the sidewalks. By its smug complacency, its self-righte-ous middle-classness, the thoughtless are lulled into a false sense of security. They are lulled into a dangerous satisfied awareness of sameness. The mind is stultified, and principles of living remain obsolete. But, as in all things exhibiting any degree of permanence, traditional architecture has its basic justification, buried beneath the dust of centuries. For 100 years and more before the beginning of the nineteenth century it was, in fact, a true design for living. Reason, order, good sense, and good taste—nothing violent, nothing unwise—were the qualities most respected in those calm davs. Architecture reflected the individual’s desires, and as such created a true stage for his brief time of living. Almost without warning there burst the social revolution in France and the industrial revolution in England, and man’s activities were directed into a thousand unexplored channels. Power came to the aid of industry, and power and industry combined to provide man with immense forces. Like a child_ with a now toy he was, and is yet, blinded by the novelty. Proportion and balance, relation and measure are forgotten, and in the mad scramble of the machine age the art of living—the harmonious adjustment of mental outlook to developments in every sphere of life —is lost. .... The architect has it in lus power to point the individual back to a true existence. By his ability to create environment, to form a background, logically achieved from the knowledge and uso of the latest developments in science, engineering, and medicine, he quietly moulds the individual’s actions. This is the justification of all true contemporary architecture,. This is the essence of the_ ideal home. These potentialities were not consciously appreciated until after the Great ‘War. What genius was lost m those years it is impossible to estimate. but in compliance with the universal law of compensation those who remained were supplied with a tremendous impetus. There came a burning desire for sunlight, clean air, and clear thought and out of chaos arose reason. Art and science, architecture and engineering were united, find rational twentieth-century architecture was horn. The ideal home became a possibility. , , , Its advent is foreshadowed most clearly in the latest developments oversea in planning. Freer planning for freer living is the slogan. Upon examination the domestic plan easily classifies itself into rooms of two distinct purposes—-those essential to the pleasures ot living, such as living rooms, music rooms, libraries, playrooms, terraces, and roof gardens, and those essential to the needs of living, consisting of meal rooms, cooking rooms, boiler rooms, and workrooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, and dressing rooms. Although all the house is for living in, the living room as we know it is the centre of living, and as such has been subject to most scrutiny and criticism, and consequently to more alteration and development, than any other unit in the contemporary home. Owing in general to economic conditions and to the consequent reduction in the number of servants, the block area of the home has been reduced considerably. In ortjer that this may not deaden the individual’s sense of space and freedom, the living room in most open plans now embraces the drawing room (hardy relic of Victorianism), the dining room, the parlour, and the workroom. It provides a room of fine proportions, with tremendous possibilities for design and planning. The identities of the separate units comprising this integrated area are retained, but in a less conscious manner. Their presence is suggested, but not stated.

A plan is seldom, if ever, the simple rectangle, and by its very diversity it produces the pleasure of the unexpected, the relief from the boredom of sameness. Curtains, columns, screen of glass, wood, and metal. These are used to differentiate the one unit from the others. By the placing of screens or the drawing of curtains the area fulfills its various aims, and so is evolved the multi-purpose living room. As the living room is the centre of living for the house, so the seating defines the social centre or centres of the room, and as such is its most significant attribute. Upon its positioning depends all the other attributes of lighting, heating, circulation, and aspect, and, indeed, the ultimate success or otherwise of the project. Through the knowledge and practice of throe dimensional planning further spaciousness is achieved within prescribed economic limits. The jigsaw of rooms interlocking on a horizontal plane, known inexactly as the plan, is the most familiar feature of the standard dwelling. The same process is now extended to the vertical plane, and the resultant three dimensional block is composed of units interlocking in botli of these two directions. That is to say, living rooms, and, in fact, all those rooms designed for the pleasures of living, may have increased ceiling heights, the extra being taken out of those areas, such as bedrooms, corridors, and bathrooms, where height may be foregone without detriment to the scheme. In such manner contemporary design becomes so complex that the normal linear representation of plan on paper is insufficient to represent the idea, and in some of the most recent plans a fundamentally different method—a method of indicating the plan in the solid, has been evolved. Colour, form, and ornament, basics giving life to the inanimate, creating harmony and rhythm, inducing sadness and gaiety are the external evidence of the maturer plan. So colour brings truth to form, and in this fusion detail is no longer necessary. Colour, form becomes ornament. One negroid r-mlaces a thousand fancies, and •hieved the sophistication of limplicity. .1 home is not a static entity. Continued achievement in the realms of science will always place it beyond reach. Electricity, wireless, air-conditioning, and refrigeration in the past, and television and “ robotism ’ in the future create a continued evolution in the development of the ideal home. When this is appreciated, when mental inertia is overcome, when a true adjustment is made to changing conditions, the ideal home will bo near.