SINCERITY IN ARCHITECTURE.

Progress, Volume XVIII, Issue 1, 1 September 1922, Page 19

SINCERITY IN ARCHITECTURE.

A LAYMAN CRITICISES.

Strong arguments for sincerity in architecture were advanced by Mr. W. S. LaTrobe, M.A., in a lecture delivered before the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects. While admitting that the profession could do little until the spirit moved the people, he argued that it could prepare the way, it could protest against the mean ideals of commercialism, and wage war against the prostitution of art in the attempt to glorify ignoble purposes.

Having spoken of his difficulty as a layman in choosing a subject, he defined sincerity as shamelessness. It meant, to begin with, frank, honest, straightforward workmanship, but it meant more; it meant simplicity and honesty in design, it meant sound materials, suitably employed, and, above all, making the building exactly suit its purposes, entirely harmonise with its setting, and express the genius and character of the people who used it. The Egyptian tomb, the Greek temple, the Florentine palace, the French town house, the English country house—these were types of sincere archi(tecture. He quoted Pfrofesser Lethaby’s dictum that “Art is best thought of as sound ordinary work,” and Frank Pick’s conclusion that “few things matter in modern life that are not connected with sport and amusement —for it is only in these things that camouflage and insincerity do not ‘go down’ with the public. In the instruments of sport and pleasure the public will have sound work, for these things do matter.”

“The motor-car, the aeroplane, the yacht, the tennis racket, the cricket ball, the golf club, the fishing rod, the rowing skiff,” said Mr. LaTrobe, “all these, by that evolutionary process which operates with such certainty where a wide demand exists for the utmost perfection of use and action under the stringent conditions imposed by natural laws, have become beautiful in proportion almost as their fitness for use has increased. These are the things that matter. Even in male attire the same principle operates. How much more beauty is there in the garb of the cricketer, or even the Rugby footballer, than in the ordinary dittos of commerce? These are things that matter. ‘Do pots matter?’ asks Frank Pick. ‘Not a bit, we break them and buy others.’ ‘Do buildings matter?’ Not a bit, else why stick a fancy front on an otherwise plain building to deceive the street. Too few of us are sufficiently interested in these things for them to matter.

“Speaking of a proposal to ‘restore’ the Pathenon, Theodore A. Cook remarks: ‘lt can never be “restored,” nor can our day repeat it, for its secret is the golden spell of old Aegean sunsets on forgotten seas.’ Who is to wake in us a sense of the

poignant beauty of our own seas and skies, and shame of the scars and blotches by which we have replaced the sombre glories of bush-clad hills. As a people we have had, hitherto, neither the leisure to realise, nor the means to repair, the mischief we have wrought, still less to add to Nature’s glories a jewel of our own fashioning, worthy of its setting. Nor can I see any prospect of such a city beautiful until we begin to feel a vital interest in buildings, until they begin to typtify our life and aims, until, in fact, buildings really do matter.

“It is easy to make general assertions, easy 4 -. theorise, easy to collate a few expressions of opinion, easy to assume convenient axioms and erect thereon a structure by cheap logic. But it is necessary to get down to brass tacks if we are to convince the average citizen that there is anything in our theory. It is up to us to marshall facts in support of our theory. To begin with, if buildings mattered, would we litter up our streets with telegraph, telephone, tram and electric lighting cables, wires, poles, cross arms, and all the other hideous paraphernalia of ‘services’ so-called? Would we allow discordant cacography to shout at us from every flaring shop-front? Would we shut the light and air out of our offices in order to expose screaming placards to compete for the attention of the customer? If buildings mattered, would we throw together an incongruous collection of misfits, put up without regard for each other or for their purposes, and call it a street?

“If buildings mattered, would we jam country cottages together in a town street, so that my diningroom window looked into your bathroom window five feet away ? Would we build all our houses and shops with woolly fronts and bare backs? Would we always neglect the points of the compass and ‘face’ the street If buildings mattered, would our banks, insurance, and shipping companies build imitation Florentine palaces for office accommodation, just to show their wealth and demonstrate their stability?

“If churches mattered, as much as billiard tables would we cast them in plastic imitation of a mediaeval cathedral. In olden times successive bishops spent their lives in the design and erection

of one cathedral, and strove by their own labour to make it worthy to be called the House of God. Today, Midas supplies the sinews of war, and the design is handed over to architects, who treat it as a side line to the more profitable business of building slaughter-houses and freezing chambers. It is clear that you cannot expect in these circumstances to get sincere architecture. On the other hand the slaughter-houses and freezing chambers, by the constraint. imposed by the conditions of their use, by the fact that they do matter, are usually sound enough ordinary work, and though their purpose is ugly and mean, do really possess more inherent dignity as buildings than the office building with five floors to the order, and two of them hidden behind the entablature. A hospital, a school, a factory, designed with meticulous care to serve its purpose in the best possible way, is sound ordinary work, and—like the motor car or the golf club—is worthy, though not fine art.

“There seem to be but few indications, in this country at any rate, of nobler conceptions regarding uses becoming the conditions constraining buildings that really matter, and little sign of “a more subtle and wonderful variety of the pieces in everyday use.” Perhaps, however, we may draw some few conclusions as to the possible character of such a development from the things that do matter at the present time. In olden times, generally speaking, the things that mattered—tools, weapons, clothes, writings, buildings, etc. —were all subjects of decoration, of added ornament—guns with inlaid stocks, sword hilts with jewels scientific instruments with curiously worked stands and lugs and hinges and legs—the play of more or less unrestrained fancy enlivens most of the mediaeval and all barbaric work. What of our own weapons and instruments, and sports equipment, and dress? Wherever use constrains its construction, material, and form, you will find little or no evidence of fancy or of added ornament. What beauty it has is intrinsic, and grows directly out of its use and purpose. Similarly with our buildings—where the building really matters—there is little if any added decoration. They stand for what they are—and depend for any beauty they may possess on their scale and proportion and balance and perfect fitness for their use.

“Take our dress, again; we are gradually losing picturesque and inconvenient varieties of garments, and substituting simplicity and uniformity—a world-wide simplicity and uniformity. Added ornaments tend to disappear—at any rate from male attire. Beauty of line, of form, of proportion and colour rather than grotesque or intricate patterning, .characterise the things that matter to-day. Zealander in particular is not exuberant —he is restrained and silent, and we may confidently expect that when the time comes, his architecture will be simple and severe in type, Doric rather than Corinthian in spirit.”

“Meantime there are those amongst us to whom buildings do matter, to whom it appears that there are ideals more worthy than the commercial ideal, which can only provide us with a few buildings that matter, the rest being indifferent so they hinder not the pursuit of the almighty dollar. The profession can do little until the spirit moves the people, but it can prepare the way, it can protest against the mean ideals of materialism, it can endeavour to educate the public taste, it can wage war against the prostitution of art in the attempt to glorify ignoble purposes, it can in some degree in sist on sound ordinary work, it can perhaps encourage the people to be neat and tidy in and about their homes, their gardens, their streets and shops and offices, and try to get rid of some of the filthy litter that for example prevents one from getting a decent photograph of any building in the main streets of Wellington.”