A BOOS ABOUT TOWN-PLANNING.t THIS "work—Civic Art — is a marvel of
illogical arrange- ment and uncertain aim. This is the more annoying in that Mr. Mawson is qualified by his long experience as a land- * The title of the chief of the Palmores negroea.
Civic Art. By Thomas 11. Mawson, Hon. A.R.I.D.A. London ; B. T. Batsford. La2 10s, not.]
scope gardener to tell us a great deal that is worth knowing. But, alas! the reader is compelled to disinter really valuable information from beneath a landslip of irrelevant matter and line writing. As for the fine writing, here is a specimen Of young men we are told that, by virtue of their youth and given favourable circumstances, they "could catch and express in design, with rhythmic precision, the echo of a town's living soul and fathom its depths from out its glim- mering piles and, misty mounds, presenting externally a transcendent and truthful image and giving even to the commonplace an indefinable charm "! Surely if the practice of givic art necessitates the experiment of catching an echo with rhythmic precision, and fathoming its depths from out glimmering piles, a chapter should have been devoted to the process. In Mr. Mawson's own schemes for town-improve- ment the average of merit is high, and it is to be hoped that many which as yet are unrealized will eventually be carried out. Mr. Mawson evidently entrusts architectural matters very largely to the draughtsman whom he employs, and in ninny of the designs Mr. Robert Atkinson's well-known and dis- tinctive style makes its full effect. Mr. Mallows is also not unrepresented, and there are a large number of drawings by Mr. Prentice Mawson which imitate Mr: Atkinson's manner- isms very closely.
Nothing but praide, however, can be accorded to the bold- ness with which Mr. Thomas Mawson meets—and sometimes solves—the complicated problems of town-planning. His remarkable skill in a professional capacity must deepen the regret of his admirers that his book should have so little to recommend it.
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