7 NOVEMBER 1931, Page 3

An Architect's Slum Crusade We are glad to note that

Dr. Raymond Unwin pressed the question of slum clearance in his presidential address to the Royal Institute of British Architects. He did not hesitate, in that august assembly, to say that " every visit which lie paid to the East End raised in him the latent revolutionist." He might, indeed, have gone to Southwark or to Westminster, or many another district, and felt the same impatience at the inertia and indifference that delay the remedying of a gross and palpable evil. Dr. Unwin lamented the failure of the Town and Country Planning Bill to reach the Statute-book. But much Might and could be done without any fresh legislation, if only public opinion could be aroused. Dr. Unwin re- called the example set by Ruskin and his young Oxford disciples in roadmaking at Hinksey. A voluntary band of unemployed architects and builders might, as he suggested, start a new slum crusade.

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