BOOKS
Never Say Wen
BY KENNETH J. ROBINSON
PWIS MuMroIw has a Message for Mankind. L./To put it in a nutshell (which he would probably describe as a Post-Paleolithic symbol of Matriarchal Enclosure) he believes that, what with one thing and another, things are pretty bad these days in our towns and cities ('The poorest Stone Age Savage never lived in such a destitute and demoralised community'). What is more, he feels that unless things get better, there is a danger that they will get worse. (He offers a straight choice between the development of `deepest humanity' and 'a progressive loss of feel- ing. emotion, creative audacity and—finally- consciousness.') Certainly his study of history has led him to deduce that things will inevitably be different in future (`The city has undergone many changes during the last five thousand years; and further changes are doubtless in store'). And it is history he looks to in search of handy tips for cheering life up a little. In the first chapter of his book he invites us `to peer over the edge of the historic horizon' and to find in the cave 'the first hint of civic life, probably well before any per- manent village settlement can even be suspected.' And so, in chapter 2, to the cave. But not, apparently, to bed. It seems that paleolithic man —like the twentieth-century American in Mum- ford's City Development—was too tired, jaded and anxious to care much for That Sort of Thing. But how, do you suppose, did this valuable slice of prehistory come to the author's notice? The answer is given in a bold confession in his new book*: 'We must,' he says, 'supplement the work of the archwologist.' That is something he does unashamedly, not only on the subject of what a young man ought to know about the slap-and- ticklish problem of neolithic man (he calls it the sexual revolution and speaks wistfully of the times when 'the daily round was centred in food and sex'), but also on such subtle matters as the development of womb-like containers—vases, jars, houses, ditches and villages—at this period when life was 'under woman's dominance.' He is also very much carried away by his own notions of the early teaming-up of hunters and settlers and the later `fusion' of secular and religious forces, both of which led to the `definite emergent' of the city.
It is clear that Mumford (the Prophet of Doom who is always turning up at American town-planning conferences to say 'you've got it all wrong, boys') has a sneaking regard for the jolly gatherings at the dawn of civilisation. Here, he says, was `an association dedicated to a life more abundant : not merely an increase of food, but an increase of social enjoyment through the fuller use of syrnbolised fantasy and art, with a shared vision of a better life more meaningful as well as zesthetically enchanting.' It sounds promising, and it comes as a shock to find, after several hundred cliché-packed pages sprinkled with * THE CITY IN HISTORY. By Lewis Mumford. (Seeker and Warburg, 70s.) refreshing naivete; and carefree tautology, that unless we do something about it 'the sterile gods of power . . . will remake man in their own faceless image and bring human history to an end.'
What, you will be asking, seems to be the trouble? Lewis Mumford, like one or two other people on this planet, thinks it is a pity that ever since men rose above the primitive level they have had a horrid tendency to fight or exploit one another. He is very disturbed because this tendency has resulted in the development of nuclear weapons, overcrowded cities and sprawling suburbs—and he writes about each of these evils with equal anger, after first ploughing through earlier centuries (for 400 pages) `to get a sufficient perspective upon the immediate tasks of the moment.'
Some people may find Mumford's survey of five thousand years a useful way of limbering up before considering the follies of the twentieth century. Others will think it no more useful than it appears to be to the author, whose suggested cures for current ills have more in common with the hearty rhetoric of the lay preacher than the careful deductions of the social historian. In fact, Mumford's approach to his subject often re- sembles that of the Bible-puncher. When he came to London recently to accept the Royal Gold Medal for services to architecture (twenty books and umpteen utterances) he thumped out his message about the plight of the world, the daily shrinkage of the human figure and the increasing emptiness of the human content of elegant architecture—and then, surprisingly, invited his wilting audience to `have faith and be of good cheer.' The human race, he told them, always behaved best when the odds were against it. 'At the last moment,' he said, 'we will wake up to take control over the forces that are threaten- ing our lives.'
Presumably this statement was based on in- formation the author received after his book had gone to press. Certainly in the book he gives the impression that the odds have always been against the human race, which has never behaved very well. And when he comes to examine the inhabitants of the twentieth-century city and suburb he becomes almost hysterical in his con- tempt for their way of life. He says of the city that 'in this disordered environment only machines retain some of the attributes of life, while human beings are progressively reduced to a bundle of reflexes, without self-starting impulses or autonomous goals.' And his chapters on the history of the suburb, which are as fascinating as those on the nineteenth-century American city, are followed by a ferocious indict- ment of the suburb as a retreat not only from dirt and squalor, but also from reality and culture. Even the strongest opponent of the suburb as it has been built in the last few years would feel that Mumford underestimates its worth and the worth of its residents. However much we may hate suburbia, however much we
may criticise it for being formless and without small-town characteristics, it did—and still does —get children into gardens and their parents away from what Mumford calls 'the befouled and poisonous air and demoralised social life' of the city. It seems a little hard to sneer at the housewife for accepting what must surely be most ingenious 'electric or electronic devices that take the place of flesh and blood companions: her real companions, her friends, her mentors, her lovers. . .
This book gives the impression, which I know to be a wrong one, that Mumford Is developing a distaste for places and people. He seems so anxious to state his down-with-everything thesis that he neglects the opportunity of describing and illustrating examples of town planning which correct all the faults he condemns. In a turgidly and inadequately captioned set of pictures, which include Coventry's shopping centre, Span housing and Harlow New Town. he becomes almost enthusiastic. But could he not have related these captions to his main text, or elaborated on them in his gloomy concluding chapters? And why is there no glimpse in this mighty work of the new capital city, Brasilia; the best of Britain's pedestrian shopping centres at Stevenage; the remarkable new town of Cumbernauld, in Scot- land, where all the inhabitants will live within comfortable, Mumfordable distances from work, recreation and shopping? What about the fabulous housing of the London County Council at Roehampton and the landscape-hugging rural cottages in Norfolk by Tayler and Green? With- out these and other schemes which have been under way for some time, Mumford's tome is already several years out of date. It is true that Britain gets a pat on the back for the now-out- dated New Town policy (the Mark II New Towns will be more like Mumford's idea of urban bliss) and a bigger pat for the earlier work of Ebenezer Howard in the garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn—both tremendous influences on our New Towns and other housing development. But pes- simism will keep breaking in. This is a pity, because a book of this kind—designed, presum- ably, to be read by the unconverted—could ,spread the word about good planning more effec- tively if it showed and described more good examples. It would be helpful, too, if Mumford would complain less about the misplanning of towns under a democracy and discuss the means by which government authorities could control not only their own developments, but also those of speculative builders.
It is a pity that a book by the one man in the planning world whose name has reached many influential laymen should be both difficult to read and unhelpful. It is possible, of course, that an occasional library browser will take the book home after it has fallen open, to his delight, at one of the author's extraordinarily simple passages (e.g. Mumford on mediaeval buildings: 'The pres- ence of encircling moats and canals, as well as walls, did not make the attackers' task any easier'). But when he gets it home the reader will come across something like this: 'Just as our expanding technological universe pushes our daily existence ever farther from its human centre, so the expanding urban universe carries its separate fragments over the whole metropolitan landscape ever farther from the city, leaving the individual more dissociated, lonely and helpless than he probably ever was before.'
This, of course, would leave the individual more ready than ever before to push his human centre smartly across the metropolitan landscape and associate it with a helpful—and not neces- sarily lonely—pint.
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