REBUILDING OF SLUMS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1932, Page 7

REBUILDING OF SLUMS

ARCHITESTS AND NEW CRUSADE. J Dr. Raymond Unwin, in his address as President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, said that he confessed that every visit paid to the East End of London roused in him the latent revolutionist. The.time was surely ripe to tackle our slum problem on an adequate scale, to replan and rebuild out East Ends, for nothing less would be adequate. Brains and hands in excess of »ny requirements for the task were available, and their unemployed owners were receiving sums that would made a handsome contribution to the cost.. Were we, as a people,, really so devoid of resources and the power to organise, that year after year must go by with this, vitally urgent task staring us in the face on the one hand, and on the other an array of available workers eating out their hearts, and consuming their maintenance in useless idleness? “Should other and more orthodox means fail,” he declared,. “we may yet be called on to provide a leader, who, taking a lesson from Ruskin and his Oxford roadmakers, will gather round him a. volunteer band of unemploved architects and operatives, and will’ lead them in a new crusade to clear and rebuild the slums. “From town after town,” ■ said Dr. Unwin, “comes the > testimony that when people are removed from slum dwellings, into new cottages, the great majority respond quickly to the better conditions and dirty and squalid dwellings give place to clean and tidy homes.’ “Considering how widespread is the knowledge of such improvement, it is difficult to explain why slum or semislum conditions are still so -widely tolerated to-day.”