ARCHITECTURE IN FICTION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 11 September 1937, Page 3

ARCHITECTURE IN FICTION

A REALM UK MAKE-REI.IEVE j The use of aicliileellire as an adjunct : In fiction is brightly treated by W arren | Hunting Smith in a new hook “Archij Lecture in English Fiction.” "11l summarising a binary trend, one naturally ! pauses lo ask what good it has done,” Ik; writes. “In this ease appraisal is tinj uspually complicated, because two arts I arc involved, and we must consider ( lie I effect of architectural setting, not only j upon the literaluro which contains it, hut I upon architecture as well. Its ultimate value depends, of course, upon the inlluenee thiough both these mediums upon human life. "Its effect upon architecture will probably he deplored hv architects, because literature has certainly played havoc with architecture, and (hero seems to he no certain hope that it will cease to do so. The human race is incurably tainted with make-believe, a weakness which fiction encourages, and which the architectural selling of fiction has communicated to architecture itself. Children read about the enchanted castles of fairy tales, and wish that they themselves could live in such castles; adults read about interesting buildings in romantic novels, and procoed to copy those buildings in their own constructions. Literature lias made people demand that architecture, satisfy their emotional and imaginative yearnings, and these yearnings are often aroused by the architectural setting of fiction. "The enchanted castle symbolises what is most significant in the literary use of architecture. When we open a novel, we step into another person’s life—and into another person's house. In realistic fiction, the house and the life are usually like those that we already know, hut in romantic novels they are more glamorous. When literature is an escape from the monotony of everyday life, it is often an escape from everyday architecture as well. We cross the drawbridge of the enchanted castle, and, for the time being hid farewell to the cramped living rooms and dining rooms of ordinary existence.”