Houses Today and Tomorrow
Design in Modern Life. Edited by John Gloag. (George Allen and TJnwin. 10s. 6d.)
SLOWLY the idea is dawning upon us that the way to save the country is by making the towns fit to live In. By the time the next ten years have passed (and littered the face of the land with another three million unpleasant little houses) quite a number of people will have come to realize the folly of indis- criminate building in the Garden City manner and even the limitations of Garden Cities themselves : the countryside will have been ruined and the towns but little improved.
In The Modern House Mr. Yorke is careful to point out in his opening sentence that he "does not pretend that the building of villas is a good or even a possible solution to the problem of housing the people," and continues that "many . . . who have studied the problem in its several aspects are now persuaded that it is impossible to achieve a satis- factory result by providing individual houses for everyone." The same point is made by Mr. Maxwell Fry, who contributes by far the most important sections to the second book- " Design in the Countryside and the Town" and "The Design of Dwellings." Referring to the Garden City type of house, he writes : "But even in the best of housing schemes the thing does not work, because the joys and beauties of the town are those of close congregation" ; and again, "Planning hi the country, if it is to mean anything, must first of all keep the land free for agriculture, and guide building into groups and towards the towns. . . . The present dispersal wastes all our powers and defeats us at every turn." It is, indeed, of vital importance that all who are in any way concerned with town-planning or country-saving should realize that the doctrines popularized by Ebenezer Howard at the end of the last century are utterly and dangerously out of date. Let them make themselves acquainted, before the damage is irreparable, with the conclusions of modem experts.
Mr. Yorke's book is by far the best on its subject that has yet appeared. It begins with a lucid analysis of the changes— sociological, technical and economic—which have led to the development of the " modern " type of house. It then deals with the house itself, element by element—Plan, Wall and Window, and Roof—giving the Why and the best Hows for each, and concludes with a very large number of examples from all over the world, illustrated by really good photo- graphs, plans and drawings of detail, and accompanied by brief, clear descriptions. It is hardly too much to say that it would be expensive folly for any layman to think of building a house today without first reading this book—or seeing that his architect had done so.
Design in Modern Life is based on a number of broadcast talks in which Mr. John Gloag, Mr. Edward Halliday and the present reviewer discussed with a number of experts in various subjects the trend of design as viewed by them. Here the talks are advisedly presented in the form of essays by seven of the experts, with a sane and lively introduction by Mr. Gloag. In addition to Mr. Maxwell Fry's two papers, Mr. Frank Pick writes on "The Meaning and Purpose of Design" and "Design in the Street," Mr. Robert Atkinson on " Public Buildings," Mr. Gordon Russell on "The Living- Room and Furniture Design," Mr. A. B. Read on "Illumin- ation," Miss Elizabeth Denby on "The Kitchen" and Mr. James Laver (wittily, if less " functionalistically " than the rest) on "Clothes."
If the would-be householder is strongly advised to read Mr. Yorke's book before building his house, he might do worse than look through the pages of Decorative Art, 1984, before furnishing it. As usual with this annual, the many pages of photographs are by far the most important part of it. An article on "Wise Economy in Building and Furnishing" by Mr. B. S. Townroe is not helped by the fact that any of the British houses illustrating it might, for any appreciation that they show of modern requirements, have been designed twenty or thirty years ago—except that in one or two cases the fenestration is moek-modern. An introduction is supplied by Mr. John de la Valette, who is
secretary to next year's Royal Academy Exhibition of Industrial Art. His views read queerly after those of the experts in the first two books—who are unanimous in emphagi7ing the importance of function and material in design. Mr. de la Valette prefers Art for Art's sake. He praises with a wealth of pretty verbiage a bed, its ornamentation apparently derived from the flourishes with which an expert calligrapher embellishes his work. This—in wrought iron ! "1 find it terribly plucky," he writes, "that anyone should have dared to produce. . . such utterly superfluous scrolls as those so delightfully applied to this wanton bed." It is to be hoped that none of our manufacturers (already sorely muddled, some of them, by this cranky modern idea of mixing up art and business) will allow Mr. de la Valette to confuse them still further with his whimsical notions.
G. M. BOUIEPHREY.
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