ARCHITECTURE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 January 1925, Page 14

ARCHITECTURE.

“FREE AND SPONTANEOUS.’-’ VIEWS OF MR. RAMSAY MACDONALD. Proposing the toats of “Architecture” at the sixth annual dinner of the Architecture Club in London recently, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, as the chief guest, delivered a speech which must range almost as a classic. i“The first, architect,” said Mr. MacDonald, “the pioneer of this club, was the Simian gentleman, who, in paying attention to & Simian lady oil a somewhat warm day, broke off a boughwhich was selected, not only because it was convenient in order to protect her beloved head from the scorching rays of the sun, but because s be thought it was the best looking and most attractive bough on the tree. That was' the beginning of architecture; the spiritual , and historical father of -our chairman, the raw material from which . the knights who huijfc Wembley have been made. . „ , ,* “Not only is architecture the first or all the arts'; it is the most omnipresent of all the arts. If ,1 want to buy.:a good picture I find that a rich American lias stood ill front of me and I cannot have it- It may be a jyealthy _per-> son wbo is not American will buy it m,front of me and transfer it to his harem, which he c.alls his private picture gallery. It is a most extraordinary thing that private enterprise in the collection of arf seems to have a predominating idea similar to that of the Mohammedan, )vjip discovers a beautiful lady and immediately appropriates her and locks her up. “These arts, these other arts, are purely individualistic. My heart is in the arts that are social. I gm sorry that ev,en in the choice of my house I haveV no free will. Every decent respectable, God-fearing man declines to buy ready-made clothes. Is it not, therefore, a much greater sin to live in a ready-made house, for the house is clothing raised in all its moral virtues to the Nth power of effectiveness._ If I | cannot, tape advantage of free will in my pictures, or in my rooms, or in my door, or in my house, there is one, thing I can do ; I can enjoy the streets of the town in which I live. That is where archtitecture comes in as the great social art, I believe that in some way or other I am responsible for the National Gallery, and" I am very proud of it.

“But a thing we are very apt to forget is this, that for every hundred people who take delight in the National Gallery a million people see the public buildings that are on our streets, and that upon a pure mathematical basis it is far more important that a Government should See that its public buildings are beautiful than that it should see that there is a choice collection of old and new masters properly and adequately housed for people to see because they ate citizens of a country that has an appreciation' of art.”