TOO BUSY FOR “GOOD TASTE”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 26 November 1936, Page 8

TOO BUSY FOR “GOOD TASTE”

MODERN FOLK AND THEIR HOUSES An editorial article on “Contemporary Design” in the British “Architects’ Journal” has some thoughtstarters for plenty of New Zealanders. “Democracy now makes it difficult to decide what is a person of quality, but of the patrons of architecture and design there will not be found many who have deliberately studied to achieve good taste,” the writer states. “They are, perhaps, too busy; so busy that men and women of culture and intelligence in all other respects will be found living ‘ without any financial necessity in surroundings composed of the prosperous ill-assort-ments of twenty different decorative schemes and furniture manufacturers. And they will never really have looked at any one of them. “This state of affairs is deplorable, and it is altogether too easy a solution to seize upon architects as the criminals. A better education for the next generation, and a general public determination to take an interest in, and to encourage, good design, are more difficult to bring about. “Poverty of composition and imagination in decorative design can easily seem a failing. Put in another way, however, the matter appears in rather a different light. “There will be few architects who do not feel that the increasing simplicity in the surroundings of living has results in more gain than loss. Simplicity has brought with it restfulness; the fewer elements in modern living rooms have made each more important and more noticed. The colour and texture of all plain surfaces now excite far more attention, and in consequence have immensely improved. And once the public has become accustomed to and able to x-ecog-nise good colour and texture in surfaces, they will be half-way to good taste in decorative pattei-n and composition.

“The stands and products at the present Building Exhibition show the existence of such an appreciation, and at the same time emphasise that the return to simplicity has still a long way to go before its good influence is exhausted.

“Exhibits which combine the modern needs of ‘labour saving’ and roominess in little space with an excellent appreciation of form and colour are still surrounded by products featui'ing every influence and method known in the history of British building—but with each become, by being aimed at the limited purse and knowledge of the public, a flimsy caricature of its prototype. Until the general taste in building rejects such caricatures, and becomes equal to the public judgment of the design of cai’s and aeroplanes, simplicity had better continue.”