“LET THERE BE SPACE"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 251, 22 October 1937, Page 4

“LET THERE BE SPACE"

THE NEW ARC HITECTLRAL PLEA “The first and most important fundamental is space,” said L. W. Thornton White, F.R.1.8.A., Professor of Architecture, at the University of Capetown, in a review of architecture through the ages. v “During every great architectural A period there has been a primary concentration on providing the variouf kinds of space required to meet th< needs of contemporary life, mostly open spaces, some enclosed. If you think of this idea of space for a moment, I think you will agree that fundamentally we do not want buildings at all; we need very much more urgently space for agriculture, space for industry, space for commerce, space for transport, space for recreation, space for sheer delight, for the delight of seeing natural phenomena, trees, veld, rivers, mountains, space for eating, for cooking, for bathing for sleeping, for lounging and writing and reading and all the other thin# we wish to do.

“This job of planning space is tli( really practical basis of good archi< tecture. It is much more important to you at the moment that this space in which you find yourselves should fulfil its purpose and should be well balanced in relation to the space of the entrance hall and with the courtyard parking and access spaces outside. I doubt whether any of you have really noticed the walls and floor and ceiling. You will all have noticed these four stupid columns they Y would never have been there had the building promoters or the architects, or both, realised that their first job was to provide space sufficiently elastic to meet the ever-changing conditions which are vital to a progressive University. The columns run up through three stories and support a peculiar roof culled from Renaissance France —another example of a preconceived and irrelevant idea forced into a building. How fortunate we are that France and not the Far East originated the romantic idea—or we

might all have been peering through a forest of bamboo poles. “Space for use, now and in the future, then, is the practical basis of our work, and that implies a careful study, first-hand, if possible, of how people actually use various spaces. The architect and the sociologist and the psychologist should be of considerable mutual help in this respect, for the architect, with his trained imagination, frequently visualises new distributions of space to enhance the ait of living. The French architect who thought of making the foyre space about equal to the auditorium space helped to give the theatre in France its richer social value. The careless architect who never thought beyond the technicalities of bricks and mortar, drains and the classical orders (and perhaps professional fees), helped to make the slums. At the very best he was trying to solve a problem with a knowledge of only half the conditions—the least important half. “The second fundamental concerns the enclosure of space. For this purpose we believe that an architect should endeavour to put aside all personal likes and dislikes, all conceited notions of consciously expressing self, and with consumate judgment select materials and methods of construction which will contribute to the most satisfactory solution of the enclosure problem—certainly not select materials and methods which, primarily, may give certain effects.”