PEACE IN THE HOME

Grey River Argus, 2 May 1938, Page 10

PEACE IN THE HOME

AN ARCHITECT’S VIEW. Blame for “blight of ornamentation” is cast upon machines by Dr. Walter Gropius in an article in “The American Architect.” “The human being, lost in the increasing chaos of mechanisation, became timid and uncertain how to give expression to his inward intentions; his imagination became stunted,” he wrote. “The horror vacui broke loose, filling any decent empty space on walls, floors, furniture, and lampshades, with unorganic emblems, symbols and ornaments, as supposed sedatives for the troubled soul. A revolution was due.

“Modern architecture represents the vital reaction to this chaotic confusion—a vigorous attempt to rid us of these hopeless narcotics- and to find again a true expression which may' mirror our very life of the machine age. The new vision in architecture presumes that man shopla be the focus; that he needs quietness and repose in the rush of our life; that his distracted nerves, so dangerously shattered by the intolerable noise of traffic and by the continuously' changing scene of life, must be balanced by the harmony of his dwelling.

“Quieting surroundings, simplicity, and harmony' of forms and colours, instead of a superabundance of bygone or meaningless forms and ornaments. prepare for his ‘creative pause.’ They will fit him to relax, to contemplate, to think precisely, and to produce new ideas. Our rhythm of life and our mentality differ entirely from those of a Rococo or Georgian period and this new environment should be the very medium of expression for tlie creative artist. His power of imagination, his vitality, have been absorbed so far by the creative effort towards a new understanding of space, by his research into the integral elements of our new conception of design. and bv the struggle of coming to terms with the machine.

“This revitalising process, corresponding to the shift towards a new social structure, must be settled before the refinement of the new form and of a new ornament of our own can originate. This ornament does not yet exist. Individual attempts at a modern ornamentation passed by quickly, as they' were only transitory fashions—not the result or a common social ideal within the community as a whole. The present “streamline” fashion, for instance—al thoughtless misuse of true dynamic forms of speedy bodies for bodies which are static, such as furniture 1 and the like—will be doomed to failure. of course, just as were all the other fashions.

"But the first symptoms of refinement in modern architecture are becoming apparent. A true modern architect—that is to say, an architect who tries to shape our new conception of life, who refuses to live by repeating the forms and ornaments of our ancestors—is constantly on the look-out for new means of enriching his design in order to enliven the starkness and rigor of the early examples of the architectonic revolulion. His increasing ability to introduce refined industrial processes of surface treatment into his compositions, by emphasising the contrast of their component parts with different materials all different textures, indicates the probable direction of further development towards ornamentation.”