“ARCHITECT’S HAIR SHIRT”

Grey River Argus, 20 August 1937, Page 11

“ARCHITECT’S HAIR SHIRT”

THE LAYMAN CRITIC. Some bright and amusing comment was made by the Hon. Vincent Massey (High Commissioner for Canada) at a dinner of the Royal Institute of British Architects. “It is always a very genuine pleasure to me to imd myself in the company of architects,” he said. “It has been my good fortune all my life to be very closely associated with youi’ profession. I have been lucky in, finding myself very often a member of those interesting, if temperamental, bodies known as building committees, and some oj. the happiest hours which I have ever spent have been in the workshops of architect friends. I am not blind, of course, to the suffering which the client’s shortcomings impose on the architect. It is, however, some compensation to feel that the greatness of your profession may be due in part to the chastening you thus receive. The client can probably oe regarded quite fairly as the architect’s hair shirt. (Laughter.) “1 hope you realise the danger of permitting a layman to speak on an occasion like this. You must know that every layman knows all about architecture. It is, of course, the one inescapable art. Those who have no taste for music can avoid concerts, those who dislike pictures can remain outside art galleries—architecture we cannot avoid. Few of us can be producers, but we are all consumers. Perhaps this is why you are never quite immune from the ardent layman who may wish to embark on a talk about such esoteric matters as the principle of fenestration or the use of the ogee arch. “On returning to England a few months ago, after an absence of some years, I have been enormously struck by what is happening in the real of actively represented here this evening. If I am permitted to say something about it, it would be in words of very sincere admiration. I should like to say many things about the contemporary building I have seen in all parts of the British Isles. That which I have seen shows that the architect reveals in a very distinguished way that spirit of true renaissance which every department of life has revealed in the last few years in the United Kingdom. It would be impertinence to embark on such a venture, and 1 am warned by the moral of the story which was told of Sydney Smith, who one day discovered his little granddaughter stroking the back of a turtle. ‘Why do you do that?’ he asked. ‘Grandfather, I do that to please the turtle.’ ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you might just as well stroke the dome of St. Paul’s to please the Dean and. Chapter;’ (Laughter) i It would be un-

becoming for me to attempt metaphorically to stroke the dome of St. Paul’s by offering' any words of eulogy, and if I did I am afraid that you, as the Dean and Chapter, would remain quite unmoved. “You are building brilliantly on a very great tradition which you skilfully adapt to new purposes and new needs when occasion demands such changes. I came across in my commonplace book a remark of Inigo Jones, which is probably well known to you: ‘Architecture should be solid, masculine and unaffected.’ These three adjectives are probably true of all that is best in English architecture, particularly the ‘unaffected. Perhaps there is something else —■ moderation. Modernism can never be very extreme or traditionalism very pedantic in a country so happily given to moderation as this.”