Modernism Without Tears
The House : A Machine for Living In. By Anthony Bertram. (Black. 5s.) " PROBABLY no saying of our day has been nliore generally misunderstood than Le Corbusier's definition of a house as " a machine for living in." It struck jarringly against the common conception of the home as a romantic shrine filled with a hundred ,and ; one bits and pieces, treasured for sentimental or for pseudo-aesthetic reasons.' Into: this atmosphere it brought the incongruous associations of the machine—hard, glittering and inhuman. To this day most people fail, to, recognise its essential truth. Citing the steel chair to prove the rightness of their interpretation, they would have it that the aim of the " modernist " is to have us all living in rooms like operating-theatres' (a rare jibe !). All who subscribe, to this puerility may be strongly recom mended a perusal of Mr. Bertram's book. It will be a pleasant task, for. the writing throughout is easy and, at times, amusing. , Should even, this be too much for them, the fourteen plates 'of line drawings (by. Mr. A. O. Wise, A.R.I.B.A.) will,- with the captions, give them a very fair outline of the argument—though they will, be the poorer in missing dozens, -of good things in the letterpress.
Mr. Bertram is one of the very few, writera in English who know what they are writing about on the subjeet-
of modern design. His aim here is to show how, except in the last hundred years, the course of domestic. architecture and equipment has been dictated primarily by what is now known as " functionalism " (though the early designers would have been 'as dumfounded at the application of that word to their work as they would have been to hear them- selves called " artists " ; it was to them simply a matter of common sense to think first of making a thing do its , job well). His method is roughly historical, though,. as he points out, with central heating and bathroom-design well- advanced in A.n. 400 and then practically -non-existent 'for 1500 years, no really tidy historical sequence is possible. One thing that emerges clearly from his study is the com- parative newness. of many habits and customs vthichs- are apt to think of as deeply-rooted in, our natures. " The Englishman's Home is his. Castle " may sound convincing as an excuse for some of the crenellated and half-timbered horrors that fringe our arterial roads ; but the truth is that, for quite a time, the home of most Englishmen was some- body else's castle—and in it he led a far more communal life than is implied, by a tenancy of any twentieth-century flat. Again, we are inclined to think of the fireside (against one 'wall) as having been. the focal point of the living-romn from time itinnemorial—and some concern is felt as to what shall take its place now that central heating threatens to Oust the open fire. But a far older position for the fire was hi the centre of the hall, with a fireside all round it, the si•noke finding its way out (or not) through a hole in the roof. It took 400 years for the obvious advantages of a chimney (invented or re-invented in the twelfth century) to break down conservatism and lure the hearth•-• to what seems to xis today its traditional place. Surely now that the electric Mire has freed us from the tyranny of the flue, the logical place for it is once more in the ,middle of the room, where its heat can radiate all round.
■ One of the merits of this book is that it does emphasise clearly a fact which is too little insisted upon or reeognised : that in the visual arts we are. today emerging—if, indeed, we are emerging—from an age of barbarism that has lasted for a century. It is humiliating for us to admit this, miffed up as we are with the knowledge of our immense advances GEOFFREY BOUMPUREY.
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